Rest Harrow | Page 3

with all his senses, listening with every pore of his skin. "Yes," he said, slowly. "Yes, I do; I'm not likely to forget her. She was my dearest friend, and is so still, I hope."
The solemnity of his intended message clouded Mr. Chevenix's candid brow. "She's still at Wanless, you know."
Senhouse set a watch upon himself. "No doubt she is," he said. "She's well?"
The other probed him. "She's never made it up with her people. I think she feels it nowadays."
Senhouse asked sharply, "Where's Ingram?"
"Ingram," said Chevenix, "is just off for a trip. He's to be abroad for a year. India."
Senhouse shivered. "Alone?"
"Well, without her, anyhow. He always was a casual beggar, was Nevile." He could see now that he was making a hit. "Got old Senhouse where he lives," he told himself, and then continued. "Fact is, I've been out with him as far as Brindisi. He asked me to. I had nothing to do. But I want to see Sancie Percival again. I was awfully fond of her--of the whole lot of them." He reflected, as .a man might deliberate upon familiar things, and discover them to be wonders. "What a family they were, by Jove! Five--of-- the--loveliest girls a man could meet with. Melusine, what a girl she was! Married Tubby Scales--fat chap with a cigar. Vicky, now. How about Vicky? She was my chum, you know. She's married, too. Chap called Sinclair--in the Guides. But Sancie beat them all in her quiet way. A still water-- what?"
Senhouse, his chin clasped in his bony hands, contemplated the sea. His face was drawn and stern. There was a queer twitching of the cheek-bones. "Got him, by Jove!" said Mr. Chevenix to himself, and pushed on. "I say, I wish you'd go and see her," he said.
Senhouse got up and leaned over the bulwarks. He was plainly disturbed. Chevenix waited for him nervously, but got nothing.
Then he said, "The fact is, Senhouse, I think that you should go. You were the best friend she ever had." Senhouse turned him then a tragic face.
"No, I wasn't," he said. "I think I was the worst."
Chevenix blinked. "I know what you mean. If it hadn't been for you and your confounded theories, you imply that she--"
"I don't know--" Senhouse began. "God only knows what she might have done. She was not of our sort, you know. I always said that she was unhuman."
"That's the last thing she was," said Chevenix, neatly. Senhouse scorned him.
"You don't know anything about it," he said. "What are the doings of this silly world, of our makeshift appearances, to the essentials? Antics-- filling up time! You speak as if she gave Ingram everything, and lost it. She did, but he never knew it--so never had it. Ingram had what he was fitted to receive. Her impulse, her impulsion were divine. She has lost nothing--and he has gained nothing."
"If you talk philosophy I'm done," cried Mr. Chevenix. "Well, I say to you, my boy, Go and see her. She's so far human that she's got a tongue, and likes to wag it, I suppose. I don't say that there's trouble, and I don't say there's not. But there are the makings of it. She's alone, and may be moped. I don't know. You'd better judge for yourself."
Senhouse, trembling from his recent fire, turned away his face. "I don't know that I dare. If she's unhappy, I shall be in the worst place I ever was in my life. I don't know what I shall do."
"That's the first time you ever said that, I'll go bail," Chevenix interrupted him. But Senhouse did not hear him.
"I did everything I could at the time. I nearly made her quarrel with me-- I dared do that. I went up to Wanless and saw Ingram. I hated the fellow, I disapproved of him, feared him. He was the last man in the world I could have tackled with a view to redemption. He was almost hopelessly bad, according to my view of things. Fed by slaves from the cradle, hag-ridden by his vices; a purple young bully, a product of filthy sloth, scabbed with privilege. I saw just how things were. She pitied him, and thought it was her business to save him. She did nobly. She gave herself for pity; and if she mistook that for love, the splendid generosity of her is enough to take the breath away. The world ought to have gone down on its knees to her--but it picked up its skirts for fear she might touch them. What a country! What a race! Well, feeling towards her as I did, and loathing him, I urged him to marry her--to make her his property for life. Dead against my conviction, mind you, but what else could I do?