The Romance of His Life Part 9

"I see now," he said, in his thin quavering voice, "that I only died for my country. I did not live for her. I took things more or less as I found them. I was blind, blind, blind."

She would fain have lied to him, but her voice failed her.

He looked piercingly at her.

"Did the others--all those who never fought--there were so many who did not fight--and those who fought and came back--did they live for her, did they try to make a different England, to make her free and happy--after the war?"

"Some did," said Serena, "but only a minority."

She saw his eyes fix suddenly. His face became transfigured.

"She's coming up the path," he said, in an awed whisper. "Catherine is coming."

Serena followed his rapt gaze and saw her daughter coming towards them in a white gown, her hat hanging by a ribbon in her hand, the suns.h.i.+ne upon her amber hair.

"Catherine," said the old man, "Catherine, you have come to me at last.

You said we should sit here together when I was old. You've come at last."

And he, who for fifty years had not walked a step, without help, raised himself to his full height, and went to meet her with outstretched arms.

They caught him before he fell, and one on each side of him supported him back to the bench.

He sank down upon it, blue to the lips. Serena laid the trembling white head upon her daughter's breast. The bewildered young girl put her arms gently round him in silence.

John Damer sighed once in supreme content, and then--breathed no more.

The Ghost of a Chance

"Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, Ever they pa.s.s me--I watch, I wait-- Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; She cometh never, or comes too late."

_Sir Alfred Lyall._

"The thing I don't understand about you," I said, "is why you have never married. Your love affairs seem to consist in ruining other people's. I was on the verge of getting married myself years ago when you lounged in and spoilt my chance. But when you had done for me you did not come forward yourself, you backed out. I believe, if the truth were known, you have backed out over and over again."

Sinclair did not answer. He frowned and looked sulkily at me with l.u.s.treless eyes. He was out of health, and out of spirits, and ill at ease.

The large, luxurious room, with its dim oriental carpets and its shaded lights, and its wonderful array of Indian pictures and its two exquisite rose-red lacquer cabinets, had a great charm for me who lived in small lodgings in the city near my work. But it seemed to hold little pleasure for him. I sometimes doubted whether anything held much pleasure for him. He had just returned from China. The great packing cases piled one above another in the hall were no doubt full of marvellous acquisitions, china, embroideries, rugs. But he did not seem to care to unpack them.

"Did I really spoil your marriage?" he said listlessly. He looked old and haggard and leaden-coloured, and it was difficult to believe he was the magnificent personage who had diverted Mildred's eyes from me ten years before.

"Don't pretend you didn't know it at the time," I retorted.

His behaviour had been outrageous, and I, with my snub nose and crab-like gait, had been cast aside. I could not blame her. He was like a prince in a fairy tale. I never blamed her. She knows that now; in short, she knows everything.

"No, my pepper pot, I won't pretend I didn't know it. But I thought--I had a strong impression--I was mistaken, of course, but I thought that--"

"That what?"

His face altered.

"That it was _she_," he said below his breath.

I stared at him uncomprehending.

"She looked like it," he went on more to himself than to me. "She had a sweet face. I thought it _might_ be she. But it was not."

Silence fell on us.

At last I said:

"Perhaps you will be interested to hear that she and I have made it up."

"I am," he said, and his dull eyes lightened, "if you are sure she is the right woman; really sure, I mean."

"I've known that for eleven years," I said, "but the difficulty has been to get the same idea firmly into her head. At any rate, it's in now.

I've tattooed it on every square inch of her mind, so to speak. If I had been let alone she would have been my downtrodden, ill-used wife, and I should have been squandering her money for the last ten years. I shall have to hammer her twice a day and get heavily into debt to make up for lost time. Why don't you marry yourself, Sinclair? That is what you want, though you don't know it; what I want, what we all want, someone to bully, something weaker than ourselves to trample on."

"Don't I know it!" he said. "I know it well enough. But how am I to find her?"

"Marry Lady Valenes. I'm sure you've made trouble and scandal enough in that quarter. Now old Valenes is dead you ought to marry her; and she's more beautiful than ever. I saw her at the opera last night."

Sinclair stared straight in front of him with his long hands on his knees. His face, thickened and coa.r.s.ened, fell easily into lines of fatigue and ill temper.

"What is the use of Lady Valenes to me?" he said savagely. "What is the use of any woman in the world, except the right one?"

"Well, you acted as if she was the right one when her poor jealous old husband was alive. It's just like you to think she won't do now he is dead and she is free."

He was silent again.

I was somewhat mollified by the remembrance that I had got Mildred, the most elusive and difficult of women, firmly under my thumb at last, and I said:

"The truth is, you don't know what love is, you haven't got it in you to care a pin about anyone except yourself, or you would have married years ago. Who do you think you're in love with now?"

"The same woman," he said wearily, "always the same."

"Then marry her and have done with it, and turn this wretched museum into a home."

"I can't find her."

"What is her name?"

"I don't know."

"Just seen her once, I suppose," I retorted. "A perfect profile sailing past in a carriage under a lace parasol. And you think that's love.