The Country House | Page 9

tragic. That comfortable
ease of spirit which is the breath of life was taken away; he could think
of nothing but her. Was she one of those women who feed on men's

admiration, and give them no return? Was she only waiting to make her
conquest more secure? These riddles he asked of her face a hundred
times, lying awake in the dark. To George Pendyce, a man of the world,
unaccustomed to privation, whose simple creed was "Live and enjoy,"
there was something terrible about a longing which never left him for a
moment, which he could not help any more than he could help eating,
the end of which he could not see. He had known her when she lived at
the Firs, he had known her in the hunting-field, but his passion was
only of last summer's date. It had sprung suddenly out of a flirtation
started at a dance.
A man about town does not psychologise himself; he accepts his
condition with touching simplicity. He is hungry; he must be fed. He is
thirsty; he must drink. Why he is hungry, when he became hungry,
these inquiries are beside the mark. No ethical aspect of the matter
troubled him; the attainment of a married woman, not living with her
husband, did not impinge upon his creed. What would come after,
though full of unpleasant possibilities, he left to the future. His real
disquiet, far nearer, far more primitive and simple, was the feeling of
drifting helplessly in a current so strong that he could not keep his feet.
"Ah yes; a bad case. Dreadful thing for the Sweetenhams! That young
fellow's been obliged to give up the Army. Can't think what old
Sweetenham was about. He must have known his son was hit. I should
say Bethany himself was the only one in the dark. There's no doubt
Lady Rose was to blame!" Mr. Pendyce was speaking.
Mrs. Bellew smiled.
"My sympathies are all with Lady Rose. What do you say, George?"
George frowned.
"I always thought," he said, "that Bethany was an ass."
"George," said Mr. Pendyce, "is immoral. All young men are immoral.
I notice it more and more. You've given up your hunting, I hear."

Mrs. Bellew sighed.
"One can't hunt on next to nothing!"
"Ah, you live in London. London spoils everybody. People don't take
the interest in hunting and farming they used to. I can't get George here
at all. Not that I'm a believer in apron-strings. Young men will be
young men!"
Thus summing up the laws of Nature, the Squire resumed his knife and
fork.
But neither Mrs. Bellew nor George followed his example; the one sat
with her eyes fixed on her plate and a faint smile playing on her lips,
the other sat without a smile, and his eyes, in which there was such a
deep resentful longing, looked from his father to Mrs. Bellew, and from
Mrs. Bellew to his mother. And as though down that vista of faces and
fruits and flowers a secret current had been set flowing, Mrs. Pendyce
nodded gently to her son.

CHAPTER II
THE COVERT SHOOT
At the head of the breakfast-table sat Mr. Pendyce, eating methodically.
He was somewhat silent, as became a man who has just read family
prayers; but about that silence, and the pile of half- opened letters on
his right, was a hint of autocracy.
"Be informal--do what you like, dress as you like, sit where you like,
eat what you like, drink tea or coffee, but----" Each glance of his eyes,
each sentence of his sparing, semi-genial talk, seemed to repeat that
"but."
At the foot of the breakfast-table sat Mrs. Pendyce behind a silver urn
which emitted a gentle steam. Her hands worked without ceasing
amongst cups, and while they worked her lips worked too in spasmodic

utterances that never had any reference to herself. Pushed a little to her
left and entirely neglected, lay a piece of dry toast on a small white
plate. Twice she took it up, buttered a bit of it, and put it down again.
Once she rested, and her eyes, which fell on Mrs. Bellow, seemed to
say: "How very charming you look, my dear!" Then, taking up the
sugar-tongs, she began again.
On the long sideboard covered with a white cloth reposed a number of
edibles only to be found amongst that portion of the community which
breeds creatures for its own devouring. At one end of this row of viands
was a large game pie with a triangular gap in the pastry; at the other, on
two oval dishes, lay four cold partridges in various stages of
decomposition. Behind them a silver basket of openwork design was
occupied by three bunches of black, one bunch of white