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“I–I am sorry,” she said, inadequately.

“You are the more gracious.” And his face sank down into his hands, and Claire was forgotten, for he was remembering Alison Pleydell and that ancient bankruptcy of his heart in youth, and this preposterous old John Bulmer (he reflected) was simply revelling in pity for himself.

A hand, feather-soft, fell upon, his shoulder, “And who was your Ysoude, Jean Bulmer?”

“A woman who died twenty years ago,–a woman dead before you were born, my dear.”

Claire gave a little stifled moan, “Oh–oh, I loathe her!” she cried.

But when he raised his head Claire was gone.

XII

He sat long in the twilight, now; rising insensibly about him. The garden had become a grave, yet not unfriendly, place; the white straining Nereids were taking on a tinge of violet, the verdure was of a deeper hue, that was all; and the fountain plashed unhurriedly, as though measuring a reasonable interval (he whimsically imagined) between the asking of a riddle and its solution given gratis by the asker.

He loved the woman; granted: but did not love rise the higher above a corner-stone of delusion? And this he could never afford. He considered Claire to be not extravagantly clever, he could have improved upon her ears (to cite one instance), which were rather clumsily modelled; her finger-tips were a thought too thick, a shade too practical, and in fine she was no more the most beautiful woman in the world than she was the tallest: and yet he loved her as certainly he had loved none of his recent mistresses. Even so, here was no infatuation, no roseate and kindly haze surrounding a goddess, such as that which had by ordinary accompanied Alison Pleydell….

“I am grown older, perhaps. Perhaps it is merely that I am fashioned of baser stuff than—say, Achille Cazaio or de Soyecourt. Or perhaps it is that this overmastering, all-engulfing love is a mere figment of the poet, an age-long superstition as zealously preserved as that of the inscrutability of women, by men who don’t believe a syllable of the nonsense they are transmitting. Ysoude is dead; and I love my young French wife as thoroughly as Palomides did, with as great a passion as was possible to either of us oldsters. Well! all life is a compromise; I compromise with tradition by loving her unselfishly, by loving her with the very best that remains in John Bulmer.

“And yet, I wish–

“True, I may be hanged at noon to-morrow, which would somewhat disconcert my plan. I shall not bother about that. Always there remains the chance that, somehow, Gaston may arrive in time: otherwise–why, otherwise I shall be hanged, and as to what will happen afterward I decline to enter into any discussion even with myself. I have my belief, but it is bolstered by no iota of knowledge. Faith, let us live this life as a gentleman should, and keep our hands and our consciences as clean as may be possible, and for the outcome trust to God’s common-sense. There are people who must divert Him vastly by their frantic efforts to keep out of hell. For my own part, I would not think of wearing a pelisse in the Desert of Sahara merely because I happened to be sailing for Greenland during the ensuing week. I shall trust to His common-sense.

“And yet, I wish–

“I wish Reinault would hurry with the supper-trays. I am growing very hungry.”

XIII

That night he was roused by a tapping at his door. “Jean Bulmer, Jean Bulmer! I have bribed Reinault. I have the keys. Come, and I will set you free.”

“Free to do what?” said John Bulmer.

“To escape–to flee to your foggy England,” said the voice without,–“and to your hideous Englishwomen.”

“Do you go with me?” said John Bulmer.

“I do not.” This was spoken from the turrets of decision.

“In that event,” said John Bulmer, “I shall return to my dreams, which I infinitely prefer to the realities of a hollow existence. And, besides, now one thinks of it, I have given my parole.”