CHAPTER IV

In those last few days he deliberately kept his thoughts away from Muriel. Not that he was distressed by any bitterness; perhaps a little bitterness, a resentment of her injustice, would have comforted him. The inexplicable reasons of her action he ceased to ponder, and the consequences, he felt, were not his. Vernley had wanted to talk. Curiously, he now saw, Vernley revolted far more than he against the accomplished fact of her marriage. Why did she marry him? Was she in her right senses? Was she a nervous wreck? Could she possibly love this man? How could she treat her lover so callously?--all these aspects of the enigma worried Vernley in succession, and ceaselessly he battered himself, mothwise, against the undiminished, glaring fact of Muriel's marriage to a stranger. All this had not helped John, and he had tried to make Vernley see it, but the latter fretted ceaselessly against the finality of her folly.

"I don't understand women--I don't really. If ever a girl was madly in love, she was with you. She grew up with the idea of marrying you--and suddenly she turns round and bolts without reason."

And John felt also that Vernley could not understand his attitude. Vernley did not realise that henceforth he had ceased to feel anything, that he was just numb to life. Muriel had written after that dreadful interview. She made no excuses, gave no explanations, only she wanted him to know that always he had been first in her thoughts. He laughed when he read the letter, and in a vindictive moment felt he would like to ask her one question. "Who is first now?" For he knew that would distress her intensely. She could not possibly love this man, he was sure of that. She had mistaken motherliness and the protective instinct for the deeper emotions of love, and in a temporary aberration had seen in self-sacrifice something greater than a love which had encountered no real obstacles.

Had he but known, as he thought this, she was sitting in Mrs. Graham's flat seeking confirmation of her act. Mrs. Graham listened to her sympathetically, but gave her no comfort, for she affected no compromise with the hard fact that Muriel had not married the man she loved.

"Am I to blame, Mrs. Graham?--oh yes, I am, I am, but he must know I am not callous--that I still--"

Mrs. Graham smiled gently, and took the nervously clasped hands in hers.

"Muriel--in all you've said when you have said 'him', you have meant John. Need we disguise that? You can no more explain than I can. We women will never know why we throw away our lives."

At that the young wife broke down and wept in the other woman's arms.

"What can I do, what can I do?" she implored.

"Nothing," said Mrs. Graham. "My dear child you are not the first or the last sacrifice to impulse. You are not going to suffer long; your husband needs you so greatly and I think we women, if we realize it early enough, are only lastingly in love when we are happy in self-sacrifice."

She felt Muriel quiver in her arms and held her a while. Half an hour later, composed again, she went, but not before she had talked of her husband, of his cheerfulness, his eagerness to follow all she did. He had planned their whole life together, and she was not to realise she had a blind husband.

It was well she had not stayed to tea, for scarcely an hour had elapsed when the bell rang. Instinctively Mrs. Graham knew it was John. That he would come, she had never doubted. His confidence in her had touched her from that moment of boyish ardour in which he had acted as self-appointed cavalier on their first meeting at "The Croft."

When he entered she saw that he had changed. He had put on a mask, of that she was sure.

"Muriel has just gone," she said straightly, looking at him.

"Oh!" he replied, but with no surprise or embarrassment.

They sat down to tea. He talked of the Marshs, of their garden, of how Mrs. Marsh bore her loss. Mrs. Graham watched and let him talk of anything but the subject on which he really wished to talk. Then quickly, as he leaned over to take a piece of bread. "How is Muriel?" he asked, without a tremour in his voice.

"She has been here and talked to me, John. It's no use our putting masks on. You know she loves you still."

He sat silent for a few moments, then twisted his handkerchief in his hands, and looked down into his teacup.

"I never thought otherwise," he said at last. And then, dispassionately, he told her his plans. He was going away, he was going to keep away. He would never forget, of course, but she might, and that would be half the battle. If they met later and she showed that he had ceased to be first in her love, then he would not find it so hard. To go away, to stay away, only that offered hope for them both.

Mrs. Graham smiled in his face as she said--

"That is a desperate remedy," and although nothing had betrayed him in his voice, his eyes were full of dumb pain. "But John dear, perhaps you will be unable to stay away--had you thought of that?"

He laughed now, bitterly, she thought.

"Then I must make it impossible for me to return--but no woman can mean all that to a man," he added fiercely. "After all, love is the whole of a woman's life, it's only part of a man's--he has other interests."

"You don't mean that John, dear," said Mrs. Graham quietly.

"I do."

"You don't!" she reiterated, looking at him steadily. For a moment he returned her look boldly, while her hands closed over his on the table; suddenly his eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head over her hands. Neither of them spoke for what seemed a long time. She saw he could not endure this strain, and came abruptly to earth.

"More tea, John?" she asked, withdrawing her hands, and smiling at him, as though they had been foolish.

For the next hour they were very practical. He explained his plans. The prospect of his work filled him with lively anticipation.

"You know, I feel as if I were going home--as if I had a home," he said, "and if I hear Turkish spoken, although I have forgotten it all, I'm sure I shall lapse into those Amasia days again. I had a great friend there, a fellow called Ali--a Turk. I often wonder what's happened to him--whether he's been smashed up in it all. It's a silly world. Here I am, his official enemy--and we were sworn brothers. Look, I've still got his talisman here."

He opened his shirt and pulled out the moonstone with the word "Kismet" inscribed upon it.

"What a beautiful thing!" cried Mrs. Graham.

"Would you like it?" he asked, impulsively.

"No, John--you must not part with it, after all these years--and he gave it to you to keep."

"But it's only silly sentiment, Mrs. Graham."

"Sentiment is not always silly, John--'Kismet' who knows?"

He laughed out gaily, and she was glad to hear him laugh so. There was the ring of youth in it still.

"Very well then--I'll wear it because of you," he said.

"And Ali?" she added.

"And Ali," he echoed lightly. "But you shall have one gift for remembrance."

"I would like something, certainly."

"I shall not give it you except in an eventuality."

She laughed at him.

"Dear me, how formal and serious we are!"

"It's a statue--my nickname too--'Narcissus listening to Echo.' You know it? Dear old Marsh gave it to me in one of his whimsical moods. It's damaged, but it's very lovely and I have a sentimental attachment to it for his sake. I want you to keep it safely for me--and if I never come to reclaim it," he said quietly, "I want it to become yours."

She regarded him a moment, and saw that he was very serious, full of the drama of youth.

"John dear, you're talking like a novelette; 'if you never come back'--that's always what the rejected hero says in the last chapter but one. You're not made of that kind of stuff. But I'll keep it gladly--and perhaps, when you come to claim it, I shall not be willing to part with it."

He rose to go, but she saw that he had still something more to say.

"Well?" she asked him, as he stood, hat in hand, after making arrangements for her to receive the statue.

"You are wonderful, Mrs. Graham," he said, frankly. "You seem to read my thoughts."

"Oh, no, but I see you have some. Tell me, John."

He hesitated briefly, but her eyes helped him.

"There are some letters--Muriel's. I have them all--she wrote great letters from the Front. They're all numbered in a despatch box. Will you keep the box for me--and--" he hesitated again, but she waited, uttering no word, "if I don't reclaim the statue--send them to her?"

He saw that she assented, and after that he dare not trust himself longer. Almost abruptly he said good-bye and went.

BOOK VI

EAST AGAIN