Part 28 (2/2)

Chatteris impressed Melville with an air of being on the defensive. He murmured in a meditative undertone, ”I wouldn't 'ave no truck with 'im not after that.”

”I will admit by every standard,” he said aloud, ”that I have been flappy and feeble and wrong. Very. In these things there is a prescribed and definite course. To hesitate, to have two points of view, is condemned by all right-thinking people.... Still--one has the two points of view.... You have come up from Sandgate?”

”Yes.”

”Did you see Miss Glendower?”

”Yes.”

”Talked to her?... I suppose-- What do you think of her?”

His cigar glowed into an expectant brightness while Melville hesitated at his answer, and showed his eyes thoughtful upon Melville's face.

”I've never thought her--” Melville sought more diplomatic phrasing.

”I've never found her exceptionally attractive before. Handsome, you know, but not--winning. But this time, she seemed ... rather splendid.”

”She is,” said Chatteris, ”she is.”

He sat forward and began flicking imaginary ash from the end of his cigar.

”She _is_ splendid,” he admitted. ”You--only begin to imagine. You don't, my dear man, know that girl. She is not--quite--in your line.

She is, I a.s.sure you, the straightest and cleanest and clearest human being I have ever met. She believes so firmly, she does right so simply, there is a sort of queenly benevolence, a sort of integrity of benevolence----”

He left the sentence unfinished, as if unfinished it completely expressed his thought.

”She wants you to go back to her,” said Melville bluntly.

”I know,” said Chatteris and flicked again at that ghostly ash. ”She has written that.... That's just where her complete magnificence comes in. She doesn't fence and fool about, as the she-women do. She doesn't squawk and say, 'You've insulted me and everything's at an end;' and she doesn't squawk and say, 'For G.o.d's sake come back to me!' _She_ doesn't say, she 'won't 'ave no truck with me not after this.' She writes--straight. I don't believe, Melville, I half knew her until all this business came up. She comes out.... Before that it was, as you said, and I quite perceive--I perceived all along--a little too--statistical.”

He became meditative, and his cigar glow waned and presently vanished altogether.

”You are going back?”

”By Jove! _Yes._”

Melville stirred slightly and then they both sat rigidly quiet for a s.p.a.ce. Then abruptly Chatteris flung away his extinct cigar. He seemed to fling many other things away with that dim gesture. ”Of course,” he said, ”I shall go back.

”It is not my fault,” he insisted, ”that this trouble, this separation, has ever arisen. I was moody, I was preoccupied, I know--things had got into my head. But if I'd been left alone....

”I have been forced into this position,” he summarised.

”You understand,” said Melville, ”that--though I think matters are indefined and distressing just now--I don't attach blame--anywhere.”

”You're open-minded,” said Chatteris. ”That's just your way. And I can imagine how all this upset and discomfort distresses you. You're awfully good to keep so open-minded and not to consider me an utter outcast, an ill-regulated disturber of the order of the world.”

”It's a distressing state of affairs,” said Melville. ”But perhaps I understand the forces pulling at you--better than you imagine.”

”They're very simple, I suppose.”

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