The Flight From The Enchanter Part 17

HUNTER woke up and looked at his watch. It was only three. He had slept for an hour. Now he knew that he would not sleep again. He tossed about in an agony of discomfort. It was as if the room were disintegrating round him. He expected to feel things falling on his face. Then something did run across his cheek. He sat up, brus.h.i.+ng it away with horror. It must have been a spider. He sat for a while with his hands round his knees. These three o'clock awakenings when one starts up, imagining that one has a mortal sickness; and indeed this is true. Life is that sickness, and at that cold hour one can realize it.

For Hunter this was the third night of sleeplessness. A hundred times during every night he heard the footsteps coming from upstairs towards his sister's door. He knew that this was imagination and that Rosa's door was locked. But he could not prevent himself now from getting up yet again and going to stand on the landing. He wanted very much to go and wake Rosa, but he knew that she would only send him away angrily. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done. Rosa had not explained Stefan's presence in the house. She had only said to Hunter, 'Put up with him. He'll soon go away.' But Hunter strongly suspected that Stefan had no intention of going away. He could see that Rosa was afraid; and like a child that sees its mother upset, he felt the foundations of the world rocking. Especially, he felt that he ought somehow to deal with the situation. The notion that Rosa was expecting something from him had increased since the previous afternoon, when she had suddenly asked him to go with her to the house in Pimlico. There had been nothing to see there but an empty room; which was what they had expected. But Hunter was both moved that Rosa should have depended on him, and terrified at the sense of responsibility which this dependence was beginning to awaken.

Since the arrival of Stefan, Rosa had given in her notice at the factory and had stopped working at once. It was as if she were clearing the decks for some terrible struggle. Only, Hunter thought, the protagonist might turn out to be not her but himself. He had a sense of being hemmed in by evil. This feeling, as he stood now in the darkness of the landing, listening for noises, became overwhelming. He went back into his own room and put the light on. He lit a cigarette. He wondered whether Rosa was asleep. What she now did with her days he did not know. She left the house early and returned late. He knew that she had called in vain on Mrs Wingfield, and that she had made an equally vain attempt to see Annette, who had been discovered to be staying in a hotel at Maidenhead. Annette had left the hotel just before Rosa arrived. Rosa had told him these facts, but without revealing her state of mind.

If only I could sleep, thought Hunter. Then in the morning I might know what to do. His bed, crumpled and undone, was the very image of sleeplessness. Hunter was beginning to know the real torture of insomnia - the terrible continuation of one day into another. I shall become ill, he told himself with relief. But then the twisting and turning of indecision began again. Ill or not, he must act. The centre of Hunter's anguish was the knowledge that he, and he alone, was in possession of the weapon which could destroy his sister's tormentor. Hunter had cherished, with anxious care but without much further reflection, the information which he had gained on the day of his visit to John Rainborough's office. The Lusiewicz brothers were born east of the Line. They were in England illegally. Rainborough had said that if this became officially known they would be deported. So, Hunter told himself, he had after all got the whip band. But what was he to do with it? To hold a weapon is one thing and to strike is another.

Hunter was not a man much addicted to harming his fellows. The harm which Hunter had done in his life had usually been done accidentally in the course of seeking easy and un.o.btrusive ways forward for himself. He was an animal whose protection was not teeth but flight and camouflage. However just the cause, he shrank from the dealing of blows. He shrank in this case particularly because of the extreme obscurity of the situation: he was, as usual, in the dark about what exactly Rosa wanted, and whether she might not be right in thinking that Stefan would soon go away. Hunter also disliked the idea of harming anyone, however detestable, in this particular way. He would, he thought, have been more ready to act if there had been some definite crime which he could bring home to Stefan, and from which the punishment would follow automatically. But, on the one hand, what Stefan's crime consisted in was very unclear - Hunter shrank from considering how far his sister might not have brought all her troubles on herself - and on the other hand what Stefan would be punished for if Hunter moved would be the fact of having been born east of a certain arbitrary line. As Hunter very much disapproved of a world in which people were penalized for accidental facts of birth, he especially bated the notion of using such a weapon against even his worst enemy. There was, further, the practical difficulty of invoking this cruel power against Stefan without hurting a lot of innocent people as well. Hunter was alive to all this. A tender conscience was among his a.s.sets. Strong nerves unfortunately were not.

Neither had Hunter forgotten the card which Calvin Blick was holding in his hand. After the debacle of the shareholders' meeting, Hunter had written to Calvin saying that he hoped that Calvin did not imagine that he had intended this, and that he would be glad to see Calvin any time to discuss what should be done, as he did not regard the question of the Artemis as closed. Hunter did not like remembering this letter, which he had written in a moment of panic, and which smelt both of servility and of disloyalty to Rosa. However, Calvin had not replied, so that here too Hunter was in the dark. This anxiety was strangely joined in his mind to the distress caused him by Stefan's presence in the house. It was as if these two menaces were echoes of each other - and although Hunter knew that he could not by destroying one destroy the other, yet the two conjoined to make him feel the urgency of his sister's peril; and in the background of it all stood the figure of Mischa Fox. It's all out of proportion, said Hunter to himself. The shapes that surrounded him, he told himself again and again, were grotesque shadows of realities; and he could perhaps have convinced himself of this if it had not been for the spectacle of Rosa's fear.

Hunter had been sitting on the edge of his bed with the light on for nearly an hour. Tears of misery and frustration were coursing gently down his cheeks and falling off on to his pyjamas. He got up at last and drank some water and put his face into the wash-basin. Then he said to himself, I can't stand this any longer. He went out again on to the landing. There was no sound from Rosa's room. He began to mount the stairs. The light from his bedroom showed him the stairway and his own enormous shadow sliding on ahead of him until it reached as far as Stefan's door. Silent and barefoot he followed it. At the door Hunter stopped. His terror made him unable to breathe quietly. He gave a sort of choking sound which he felt must be ringing audibly through the house. Then he tried the handle. The door was unlocked. In a moment there opened before him the dark void of the room. He stood upon the threshold, knowing that he must be clearly visible in silhouette from within, and as he stood there trembling he felt himself to be more victim than actor. He wondered if the Pole was awake. He had come to wake him - yet he was silencing his movements in a sweat of terror in case he should wake him inadvertently or find him already wakeful. The darkness and stillness of the room continued unbroken. The idea came into Hunter's head that perhaps Stefan had gone. He fumbled in the pocket of his pyjamas for a box of matches. He dropped two on the floor before he managed to make one strike. He moved the flaring flame away from his dazzled eyes and looked towards the bed. Before the tiny light went out he saw that Stefan was sitting up and looking at him.

If Hunter had seen a corpse quicken he would not have been more scared. He almost turned and bolted. A very dim illumination came as far as the doorway from his own door on the floor below. But in Stefan's room the darkness was like velvet. Hunter took a step back and struck another match. From the way in which he immediately found Stefan's eyes fixed on his own he felt sure that the Pole could see in the dark. The match went out. He sank on one knee.

'Listen - ' said Hunter. His voice, coming out of hours and hours of silence and darkness, seemed to him like a voice heard at the bottom of a well. As he spoke he knew that he had committed himself to action, and the fear that had been fluttering about him nestled down in his heart.

'Listen,' he said, 'I want to talk to you, Stefan.' He spoke very quietly, hardly above a whisper. He needed desperately to hear Stefan's voice, to be persuaded that it was not a demon but a human being that lay before him; and as he unexpectedly uttered the Pole's Christian name he felt it as an appeal to the community of human beings with each other.

'What you want, coming here at night?' said Stefan. He also spoke softly - and as Hunter heard the hatred in his voice he thought: he believes I came to kill him. At this thought Hunter almost groaned aloud; and what he felt most immediately was the danger to himself.

'I mean you no harm,' said Hunter. This was a lie, but as he saw himself in the role of a murderer he had suddenly to say it.

'But you must leave this house,' he said. At this he struck another match. He needed to see Stefan's face.

The Pole was sitting bolt upright now and had cleared the bedclothes aside as one who prepares to defend himself. His long neck and white chest were bare, and there was no fear in his expression, only extreme venom.

'Why?' said Stefan.

'Because my sister wishes it,' said Hunter. The match went out.

'If your sister wish it she say it,' said Stefan. 'Is between me and her. You little boy keep out or you get hurt.'

Hunter felt a tide of incoherence rising within him - and at that moment the thing he feared most was not the violence of Stefan but the proximity of tears. He moved closer to the bed and pinched his fingers savagely upon his thigh to stop the tears.

'She does wish it and she has said it,' said Hunter. His voice was beginning to tremble. 'You get out of this house or you're the one who'll get hurt.' His face was screwed up in the darkness in an agony of self-control.

There was a sharp hissing sound and a sudden light. Stefan had struck a match. It flared between them for a moment revealing Hunter's burning cheeks and eyes and the intent white face of the Pole.

'I am master in this house,' said Stefan. He said it in a slow almost contemptuous way which made Hunter breathless with anger.

'We - we - we'll see,' said Hunter, stammering with fury and confusion. 'I've given you a chance. You drive me to it. I can have you turned out, turned out of England if I want to. I know where you were born. It was east of that line. You know what that means, don't you? It's not legal for you to be here. If I tell, you'll be deported tomorrow. I give you warning. If you don't leave this house, I'll have you turned out of England.' At last hatred and anger had made him brave. He was leaning over the Pole and spitting the words into his ear.

There was a silence. As he waited for the reaction, Hunter's courage began to wilt. Then Stefan struck a match and lifted it between them like a torch with a gesture which was almost leisurely. His eyes pierced Hunter as if they were trying to brand him before the light was gone again.

'Listen you now,' said Stefan, and then his voice continued in the dark. 'I tell you something true. If you make such trouble for me I kill you.' He spoke slowly and there was something cold and objective about his tone which made it impressive. 'I not say this for threat. I tell you it as fact. If you do this thing I hate you so I kill you. I not want to perhaps, but I cannot stop myself. It will be so. I swear it by Holy Mother of G.o.d.'

Hunter rocked to and fro in the dark. He was very close to Stefan now. As he felt the reality of the threat spreading through his blood he shook in a crisis of helplessness and despair. 'No,' he said, 'no! You must leave this house! You must leave this house!' He rocked about and his breath came in a low humming moan.

Stefan struck another match. In the golden light their faces stared, close together, Stefan's tense with hatred and Hunter's crumpled with misery.

'I say I am the master here!' Stefan said. He whispered the words, but they echoed like thunder inside Hunter's head. Then, before the match was extinguished, Stefan's hand shot out and grasped a lock of Hunter's yellow hair. He drew Hunter's head back until the eyes were ready to spin from their sockets. For an instant he held him so. Then with a quick movement he brought the lighted match close to Hunter's face and set fire to the lock of hair.

The hair sizzled and flamed up. With a scream Hunter leapt to his feet. He beat his head with his hands. A sharp pain was searing his forehead. A terrible smell was in his nostrils. It was dark now, and Stefan was laughing. Hunter blundered towards the door. He almost fell out of the room and down the stairs towards the light, holding his head in his hands.

On the lower landing Rosa appeared in her nightdress. 'For G.o.d's sake, Hunter!' she cried. 'What is it?'

Hunter kept his forehead covered and pushed past her. 'It's nothing,' he said, 'I just hurt my head. It's nothing.' He went on down and into the kitchen. Rosa followed him in and shut the door behind her.

Hunter was fumbling awkwardly in a drawer. After a moment or two he let everything drop and turned round and buried his face in Rosa's shoulder.

Twenty-Two.

ALTHOUGH Rosa did not know about Hunter's secret weapon, she had no difficulty in reconstructing in outline the events of the previous night, It was now 9 a.m. and she was drinking coffee and observing her brother, who was sitting with a white bandage tilted over one eye like a drunken maharajah and looking more wretched than Rosa had ever seen him look.

'Eat something, Hunter,' said Rosa. But Hunter just shook his head miserably.

Stefan, who had not yet carried out his threat of retiring from work, had disappeared at an early hour to the factory. As Rosa looked at her brother, she felt tempted to rush upstairs, throw Stefan's goods into the street, and barricade the door. But she knew that at the moment she was simply not able to do it. Hunter hung limply upon her spirit. He filled her with feelings of softness and despair. She needed some stronger ally before she could bring herself to be completely ruthless.

She had thought of going to Peter Saward for help. But what could Peter do? He, too, affected her with something of the same soft protective and yet helpless feeling that she had in relation to her brother. Saward had for her the dear authority of a father, and yet, too, something of a father's remoteness. In Rosa's mind he represented the sweetness of sanity and work, the gentleness of those whose ambitions are innocent, and the vulnerability of those who are incapable of contempt. He would be unable to conceive of such a character as Stefan Lusiewicz: more important, he would be unable to understand that part of Rosa herself which answered to Stefan; and Rosa had indeed very little wish, in this matter, to instruct him. She decided that only darkness could cast out darkness.

Her argument, if it was one, was designed merely to reach a conclusion which she had already reached on other grounds. Stefan had come from a place far outside the world of rules and reciprocal concerns and considerations in which Rosa mostly lived. Stefan did not belong to human society. This was why Hunter was powerless against him. The children of society could only be seared by such a contact. Nor could Rosa herself summon up the kind of strength required to do battle with such a being. Only some spirit which came out of the same region beyond the docility of the social world could do this work for her. Rosa knew that she must go and see Mischa Fox.

Rosa was not surprised at the inevitability of this conclusion. Like all emotional rationalists she had in her nature a certain streak of superst.i.tious fatalism. At certain moments she was prepared to let go and allow herself to be carried by a stronger force; and if she later demanded of herself an account of these surrenders there was usually a selection of labels ready made to bring the violence of the spirit under some clinical and domestic heading. In this case, however, the demon of unreason did not come to Rosa wearing a psychological disguise but bearing the name of a friend. Where Mischa was concerned, Rosa was prepared to believe anything. When she felt that she had to go to Mischa she was quite ready to acknowledge herself to be under a spell. It was as if the climax was come of perhaps years of preparation: and suddenly all the force of those years was to be felt in the pull which drew her in spite of herself towards him. She knew that even if at that moment Mischa were oblivious of her existence, yet he was drawing her all the same. She was reminded of stories of love philtres which will draw the loved one over mountains and across the seas. She rose from the breakfast table.

'Hunter, stop looking so wretched!' said Rosa crossly. 'Shall I give you some brandy?'

'I don't want any brandy,' said Hunter without looking up.

Rosa shook him gently by the shoulder and then went to put her coat on. She opened the front door. The morning blew in upon her, rather warm and perfumed with earth and trees. Rosa suddenly began to feel strong. She drew the door slowly to behind her and began to walk along the pavement. She turned the corner into the suns.h.i.+ne. As she walked, she saw something out of the corner of her eye which seemed for a moment like her own shadow. Then looking down she saw that it was Nina the dressmaker who was running along between her and the railings, a pace or two behind, not quite decided how to attract her attention. Rosa looked at her with surprise. She usually saw Nina indoors and was struck now by the oddness of her colouring, the gold of her dyed hair and the profound darkness of her eyes. Dusky roses were upon her cheeks, but across the crown of her head there was a black line where the new hair was growing at the base of the golden poll. Nina is neglecting her appearance, thought Rosa. She smiled down.

'Miss Keepe,' said Nina, still dodging along by the railings, 'might I speak to you? Have you a moment?'

'I'm going somewhere just now,' said Rosa, 'but do walk along with me if you like.' They waited at a kerb and crossed a road.

'By the way,' said Rosa, 'I wonder if you've seen Miss c.o.c.keyne lately?'

'I haven't seen her for a long time,' said Nina. 'I hope she is well?'

'So do I!' said Rosa, turning to bow to Mrs Carrington-Morris, who was pa.s.sing at a slow pace in a Rolls Royce. Rosa was beginning to feel astonis.h.i.+ngly cheerful. I am driven to it! she kept saying to herself, I am driven to it! And this, instead of being a cry of despair, turned out to be a song of hope and delight. She wanted to laugh out loud. They were descending towards Kensington High Street.

'She is still with you in London?' asked Nina.

'Who? Oh, Miss c.o.c.keyne, yes,' said Rosa. At that moment she caught sight of Miss Foy with a shopping basket on the other side of the road. 'Excuse me for a moment,' said Rosa, and dashed across.

Miss Foy's hair was standing on end rather more than usual and a smile was creased across the wrinkles of her face.

'How is Mrs Wingfield?' asked Rosa.

'Perfectly well, Miss Rosa, perfectly well,' said Miss Foy, 'but perverse, you know, difficult and perverse. Just keep on calling, you know. She likes you to call. Yesterday you didn't call and she was quite disappointed. She kept asking, hasn't that girl come yet?'

'Would she have seen me yesterday?' asked Rosa.

'Seen you? Oh, dear me, no!' said Miss Foy. 'But she wanted you to call. She will see you, Miss Rosa, just be patient. She's an old woman.'

Nina had followed Rosa across the road. 'May I introduce,' said Rosa,' Miss - er - Nina, Miss Foy.' Rosa could not always remember Nina's surname at short notice.

'We met at your house once. I remember this young lady,' said Miss Foy kindly.

'Oh, did you?' said Rosa. 'Good! Well, now I must be getting along.'

She strode on down the hill, followed by Nina. Now they were almost at the High Street. Everything will be all right, thought Rosa, everything will be all right. She had a vision of herself, Hunter, and the Artemis all somehow encircled by a beneficent power. Without thinking what she was doing, she began to run. Nina ran behind her.

'I'm so sorry!' said Rosa. 'I just forgot for a moment.' They had arrived at the High Street. It took them some time to get across the road.

'How are you getting on, Nina?' asked Rosa, when they were on the other side. She struck down a side street in the direction of Mischa Fox's house. She felt almost ready, with power and impatience, to fly through the air.

'I have some problems,' said Nina. Rosa was now walking so fast that Nina had become quite breathless with the task of keeping up with her.

'Life is a series of problems!' said Rosa merrily. Proceeding slowly towards them along the pavement, she saw the lady with the hearing-aid who had been able to make so little of the events of the shareholders' meeting. Rosa saluted her with an elaborate series of flourishes of the hand, beginning some ten yards off and continuing until they pa.s.sed each other. The lady with the hearing-aid, who had not recognized Rosa, turned round in puzzlement and then went on, shaking her head.

Rosa laughed. 'She doesn't know who I am!' she said to Nina. They negotiated another busy road.

'The traffic in London just seems to get worse and worse, doesn't it?' said Rosa.

'Yes,' said Nina.

Now they were almost at Mischa Fox's house.

'How are you getting on, Nina?' asked Rosa. 'Oh yes, I asked you that, didn't I. I do hope these problems aren't really bad ones. If I can ever be of any a.s.sistance - '

'Ah, yes!' said Nina breathlessly from behind Rosa's elbow. 'I would like to ask your advice!'

'Never be afraid to ask advice,' said Rosa. 'People try to be far too independent of each other. I'm just going in now to ask Mr Fox's advice.' They stopped on the pavement.

'Mr Fox - ?' said Nina. For the last ten minutes Nina had been seeing nothing but the sleeve of Rosa's coat. Now she looked up and saw Mischa Fox's house towering above her, window upon window.

'Some other time - ' said Nina. 'I'll call again.' She turned about and bolted away down the street.

Rosa looked after her in surprise. Then she turned and looked at the door of the house. She forgot Nina completely. She mounted the steps.

Now that Rosa was face to face with the door of Mischa's house, she felt her exultation beginning to fade away. What remained behind was an iron resolution and a longing to see Mischa so strong that she felt she would have been able to walk through a wall. She rang the bell. In a moment or two a servant appeared. He threw the door wide open and Rosa stepped into the hall. The servant asked for her name and her business. Rosa had the feeling that she was both recognized and expected. Yes, it turned out that Mr Fox was at home and would see her at once. It was only then that it occurred to Rosa how very improbable it was that either of these things should have been the case.

As she followed the servant she had to hold her two hands to her breast to stop her heart from starting through her flesh. They walked from room to room. In one of the first rooms, which seemed to be a kind of small drawing-room, Calvin Blick was reclining upon a settee reading a book. He nodded amiably to Rosa as she pa.s.sed through, as if her appearance were the most ordinary thing in the world. At last they reached a door at which the servant knocked cautiously. Then he opened it for Rosa to go in. She entered. The door closed behind her.

She was in a big room with windows on two sides. She looked about in confusion, a little dazzled by the extra light Then she saw that Mischa was standing quite near her, leaning against a bookcase. Rosa leaned back against the door. Now that she was in Mischa's presence, she felt a slow but steady relaxing of tension. She felt no need to say anything, no need even to look at him. She glanced about the room and then walked over to one of the windows. As she turned, she heard a strange sound. It was Mischa laughing. Then Rosa began to laugh too, a profound laugh of relief and pleasure. Suddenly she was unable to control the muscles of her face; she covered it for a moment in case it should tell of too great a joy. They walked towards each other and when they were a few feet apart they paused.

Rosa stopped laughing - but the great rift which their laughter had made remained open, and through it they looked at each other. What have I been doing all these years? Rosa wondered. She took another step and felt that her knees would give way. She saw Mischa's face as if it were suddenly stripped; and she was sure that no one had seen this unprotected face of Mischa since the last time, many years ago, when she had seen it herself. She took a final step, and he caught her arm. Locked together, they turned about and fell to their knees and then sank slowly sideways on to the floor. For a moment her eyelid fluttered under his mouth like a bird. Then they were exchanging long kisses like people after an exceedingly long thirst who drink at last.

Mischa pulled her up to a sitting position. He sat beside her cross-legged. He looked small and gay, like a tailor in a fairy-story. 'Well, Rosa?' he cried.

Rosa drew her hand across her brow. 'I'm lost,' she said, 'lost in a forest.'

'Just go on a little way,' said Mischa, 'and soon you'll hear the clop-clop of the axe. Then go on a little way farther and you'll come to the woodcutter's cottage.'

'No,' she said, 'to the enchanter's house.'

Rosa looked at him. It was like looking into a mirror. It was as if her own spirit had imprinted itself upon him as they embraced and now looked back at her wide-eyed.

'How strange,' said Rosa, 'I never noticed before that we resembled each other.'

'It is an illusion of lovers,' said Mischa. He rose and helped her to her feet.

'Mischa,' said Rosa, 'I need your help.' They sat down close to each other in chairs. Rosa then noticed with surprise that she was in the room in which the party had been held. The furniture was the same, only the tapestries bad been taken away. She looked at the place where the bowl of fish had been and as she did so a seam of memories was uncovered in her mind, deeply buried memories of the grief which she had made for Mischa many years ago, and the grief which he had made for her.

'Never mind it, Rosa,' said Mischa. He was reading he face.

'Look here,' said Rosa, 'let's be business-like.'

Mischa laughed again. 'How like you that sounds!' He took her hand.

'It's very unpleasant,' said Rosa. She had given some thought to the question of how much of the Lusiewicz story she should at this stage reveal to Mischa. She had decided beforehand to tell him the absolute minimum. Now, moved by his presence and startled by her own joy, she wondered for a moment whether she should not tell him everything. But caution returned to her like the renewed pressure of a cold hand, and she did not change her plan. She did, however, introduce one unpremeditated modification into her tale; she spoke only of Stefan. She did not mention the existence of Jan. In the story as she told it there was only one Lusiewicz. It was quickly told. Mischa watched her closely as she spoke, and Rosa wondered how much he was able to guess of the many things which she was leaving unmentioned. He asked no questions, and all he said when she had finished was,' Hmmm. May I use any methods I please?'

Rosa inclined her head. She felt as if she were selling herself into captivity. But to be at his mercy was at that moment her most profound desire. If there had been a fire between them she would have leapt into it.

'Thank you,' said Rosa. It was like the end of a very long discussion.

'There is something I would like to talk to you about, since you're here,' said Mischa, 'I see you so rarely.'

Rosa was aware of a change of atmosphere, a deep s.h.i.+ft of situation. This too reminded her strangely of the past, and of times when week after week and month after month it was as if Mischa were dragging her by the wrist through h.e.l.l. There was a demon in Mischa which she had never been able to know and which had never allowed them to be at peace. Always at the last moment and without apparent reason there would come the twist, the a.s.sertion of power, the hint of a complexity that was beyond her, the sense of being, after all that had pa.s.sed between them, a p.a.w.n in Mischa's game - and with that twist the structure of tenderness and of delight, ever so little s.h.i.+fted, would suddenly seem to her an altogether different thing. It was this demon which, in the past time, had defeated her, and from which she had in the end had the strength to flee. Now, with a s.h.i.+ver, she heard its voice again in Mischa's apparently innocent remark. She felt, all the same, that she knew what was coming. But his next words surprised her.

'It's about Peter Saward.'

Twenty-Three.

ANNETTE had stayed in five different hotels in the last seven days and her powers of endurance were almost at an end. During the first two or three days she had telephoned Mischa Fox's house at intervals of a few hours, for on reflection she had decided not to believe what Calvin had told her about Mischa's absence. But on each occasion she had been politely told that Mr Fox was not at home. She had also sent three letters to Mischa, and a reply-paid telegram, but without any result. Then a hopeless apathy came upon her, and she sat in her hotel room all day in a stupor. She left each hotel only because she feared that the management might conclude that she was ill or mad, and either question her or try to communicate with her parents. She knew in her heart that Mischa did not want to see her; and she told herself that if this was so she did not want to live.