Part 13 (1/2)

Whereupon he would simply shake his head, and she would steam forwards--

”Then who are you?”

Whereupon he would say, as calmly as he could--

”I'm Priam Farll. I'll tell you precisely how it all happened.”

Thus the talk might happen. Thus it would happen, immediately he began.

But, as at the Dean's door in Dean's Yard, so now, he could not begin.

He could not utter the necessary words aloud. Spoken aloud, they would sound ridiculous, incredible, insane--and not even Mrs. Challice could reasonably be expected to grasp their import, much less believe them.

”_There's been a mistake about the so-called death of Priam Farll._”

”_Yes, a hundred and forty thousand pounds._”

No, he could enunciate neither the one sentence nor the other. There are some truths so bizarre that they make you feel self-conscious and guilty before you have begun to state them; you state them apologetically; you blush; you stammer; you have all the air of one who does not expect belief; you look a fool; you feel a fool; and you bring disaster on yourself.

He perceived with the most painful clearness that he could never, never impart to her the terrific secret, the awful truth. Great as she was, the truth was greater, and she would never be able to swallow it.

”What time is it?” she asked suddenly.

”Oh, you mustn't think about time,” he said, with hasty concern.

_Results of Rain_

When the lunch was completely finished and the grill-room had so far emptied that it was inhabited by no one except themselves and several waiters who were trying to force them to depart by means of thought transference and uneasy, hovering round their table, Priam Farll began to worry his brains in order to find some sane way of spending the afternoon in her society. He wanted to keep her, but he did not know how to keep her. He was quite at a loss. Strange that a man great enough and brilliant enough to get buried in Westminster Abbey had not sufficient of the small change of cleverness to retain the company of a Mrs. Alice Challice! Yet so it was. Happily he was buoyed up by the thought that she understood.

”I must be moving off home,” she said, putting her gloves on slowly; and sighed.

”Let me see,” he stammered. ”I think you said Werter Road, Putney?”

”Yes. No. 29.”

”Perhaps you'll let me call on you,” he ventured.

”Oh, do!” she encouraged him.

Nothing could have been more correct, and nothing more ba.n.a.l, than this part of their conversation. He certainly would call. He would travel down to the idyllic Putney to-morrow. He could not lose such a friend, such a balm, such a soft cus.h.i.+on, such a comprehending intelligence. He would bit by bit become intimate with her, and perhaps ultimately he might arrive at the stage of being able to tell her who he was with some chance of being believed. Anyhow, when he did call--and he insisted to himself that it should be extremely soon--he would try another plan with her; he would carefully decide beforehand just what to say and how to say it. This decision reconciled him somewhat to a temporary parting from her.

So he paid the bill, under her sagacious, protesting eyes, and he managed to conceal from those eyes the precise amount of the tip; and then, at the cloak-room, he furtively gave sixpence to a fat and wealthy man who had been watching over his hat and stick. (Highly curious, how those common-sense orbs of hers made all such operations seem excessively silly!) And at last they wandered, in silence, through the corridors and antechambers that led to the courtyard entrance. And through the gla.s.s portals Priam Farll had a momentary glimpse of the reflection of light on a cabman's wet macintosh. It was raining. It was raining very heavily indeed. All was dry under the gla.s.s-roofed colonnades of the courtyard, but the rain rattled like kettledrums on that gla.s.s, and the centre of the courtyard was a pond in which a few hansoms were splas.h.i.+ng about. Everything--the horses' coats, the cabmen's hats and capes, and the cabmen's red faces, shone and streamed in the torrential summer rain. It is said that geography makes history.

In England, and especially in London, weather makes a good deal of history. Impossible to brave that rain, except under the severest pressure of necessity! They were in shelter, and in shelter they must remain.

He was glad, absurdly and splendidly glad.

”It can't last long,” she said, looking up at the black sky, which showed an edge towards the east.