Part 22 (2/2)

”Married!” I stopped and stared at her with a puzzled expression. ”Don't you think the marriage ceremony is rather barbarous?”

She did not reply; we walked on immersed in our own thoughts. At times I detected in the pa.s.sers-by a gleam of sparrow-egg blue.

My house agent was a large, confused individual who habitually wore a s.h.i.+ning top hat on the back of his head and twisted a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He was very fat, with one of those creased faces that seem to fall into folds like a heavy crimson curtain. His brooding, congested eye fell upon me as we entered, and an expression of alarm became visible in its depths. He pushed his chair back and retreated to a corner of the room.

”Dr. Harden!” he exclaimed fearfully, ”you oughtn't to come here like that, you really oughtn't.”

”Don't be an a.s.s, Franklyn,” I said firmly. ”You are bound to catch the germ sooner or later. It will impress you immensely.”

”It's all over London,” he whimpered. ”It's too much; it will hit us hard. It's too much.”

”Listen to me,” I said. ”I have come here to see you about business. Now sit down in your chair; I won't touch you. I want you to get me a bungalow by the sea with a garden as soon as possible. I am going to sell my house.”

”Sell your house!” He became calmer. ”That is very extraordinary, Dr.

Harden.”

”I am going out of London.”

He was astonished.

”But your house--in Harley Street--so central....” he stammered. ”I don't understand. Are you giving up your practice?”

”Of course.”

”At your age, Dr. Harden?”

”What has age got to do with it? There is no such thing as age.”

He stared. Then his eyes turned to Alice.

”No such thing as age?” he murmured helplessly. ”But surely you are not going to sell; you have the best house in Harley Street. Its commanding position ... in the centre of that famous locality....”

”Do you think that any really sane man would live in the centre of Harley Street,” I asked calmly. ”Is he likely to find any peace in that furnace of crude worldly ambitions? But all that is already a thing of the past. In a few weeks, Franklyn, Harley Street will be deserted.”

”Deserted?” His eyes rolled.

”Deserted,” I said sternly. ”In its upper rooms there may remain a few Immortals, but the streets will be silent. The great business of sickness, which occupies the attention of a third of the world and furnishes the main topic of conversation in every home, will be gone.

Sell my house, Franklyn, and find me a bungalow on the South Coast facing the sea.”

I turned away and went towards the door, Alice followed me. The house agent sat in helpless amazement. He filled me with a sense of nausea. He seemed so gross, so mindless.

”A bungalow,” he whispered.

”Yes. Let us have long, low, simple rooms and a garden where we may grow enough to live on. The age of material complexity and noise is at an end. We need peace.”

Strolling along at a slow pace, we went down Oxford Street towards the Marble Arch. It was dusk. The newsboys were howling at every corner and everyone had a paper. Little groups of people stood on the pavements discussing the news. In the roadway the stream of traffic was incessant.

The huge motor-buses thundered and swayed along, with their loads of pale humanity feverishly clinging to them. The public-houses were crowded. The slight tension that the threat of the Blue Disease produced in people filled the bars with men and women, seeking the relaxation of alcohol. There was in the air that liveliness, that tendency to collect into small crowds, that is evident whenever the common safety of the great herd is threatened. In the Park a crowd surrounded the platform of an agitator. In a voice like that of a delirious man, he implored the crowd to go down on its knees and repent ... the end of the world was at hand ... the Blue Disease was the pouring out of one of the vials of wrath ... repent!... repent!... His voice rang in our ears and drove us away. We crossed the damp gra.s.s. I stumbled over a sleeping man. There was something familiar in his appearance and I stooped down and turned him over. It was Mr. Herbert Wain. He seemed to be fast asleep.... We walked to King's Cross, and I put Alice without regret in the train for Cambridge.

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