THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
DODO THE SECOND
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
MRS. AMES
PAUL
THE ANGEL OF PAIN
THE CHALLONERS
A REAPING
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
THE RELENTLESS CITY
SHEAVES
LONDON : HODDER AND STOUGHTON
DODO
THE SECOND
BY
E. F. BENSON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
College
Library
PR,
CHAPTER I.
NADINE WALDENECH'S sitting-room in her mother's
cottage at Meering in North Wales was a great square
chamber on the ground floor with many windows. The
cottage, considered as a cottage, was quite a large one,
for it held some eighteen people, but Dodo was firm
on this subject of its not being in any sense a house,
because if undesirable guests proposed themselves,
no one believed you if you said your house was full,
whereas it was clearly credible that a cottage might
be so crammed that people really were sticking out of
the windows. In the days when the commodious
cottage was built, this sitting-room of Nadine's had
been the smoking-room, but since now-a-days every-
body smoked in every room in the house, Nadine said
that it was misleading, if not positively untrue, to call
any room the smoking-room, and she wanted this
particular room very much. It opened out of her
bedroom on one side, which was convenient, and out of
the drawing-room on the other. This, too, had its
advantages, for it was thus an easy meeting-place for
those who wished to drop in for a little more conversa-
tion after bed-time had been officially proclaimed.
The official proclamation of bed-time, it may be re-
marked, was designed to get rid of bores, who, there-
upon, if they had any sense of propriety, would pro-
s ceed to immure themselves in their appointed resting-
places. Just now Esther Sturgis shared Nadine's
bedroom as people stuck out of most of the windows of
the cottage.
1115767
6 DODO THE SECOND
The sitting-room at this period was completely
black with regard to the colour of the carpet and the
walls, and the ceiling, and to be alone in it was like
being in a family vault, but practically speaking this
never happened. This funereal colouring was Nadine's
latest plan, and since it was her latest, it was necessarily
a very recent one. She had observed that when
it was all white people looked slightly discoloured,
like London snow, whereas against a black background,
they seemed to be of gem-like brilliance. But since
she always looked brilliant herself even against yellow,
the new colour was prompted by wholly altruistic
motives. She liked her friends to look brilliant too,
and she would have preferred even a brilliant enemy
to a discoloured one. During this last week there had
been a good many friends in her room, and bed-time
having been already officially proclaimed, there were
a certain number here now and she expected more.
A peculiarly frank intimacy reigned among them, and
collectively they were known as the clan.
Up one side of the room ran an enormous low settee,
cohered and piled with large black cushions so that
you could fall down on to it instead of taking the
trouble to seat yourself. At present it was occupied
by only three people, she herself lying on the right of
it. She had already taken off her dinner-dress, which
she said made her feel burdened with respectability,
and had on a remarkable dressing-gown of Oriental silk,
which looked like a cheerful family of intoxicated
rainbows. It left her arms bare to the elbows, but
came down to her feet, so that only the tips of her pink
satin shoes peeped out. In the middle of the settee
was lying Esther Sturgis, and along the foot of it Bertie
Arbuthnot the younger, who was twenty-one years
old, and about the same number of feet in height. In
consequence his head dangled over one end of it like
a tired and sunburned flower, and his large feet pro-
jected over the other. He and his hostess were both
DODO THE SECOND 7
smoking cigarettes as if against time, the ash of which
they flicked on to the floor, relighting fresh ones from
a silver box like a small portmanteau that lay to hand.
They neither of them had any clear idea as to what hap-
pened to the smoked-out ends, but something must have.
Esther Sturgis on the other hand was occasionally
sipping camomile tea. What she did not sip she
spilt.
" Heredity is such nonsense," said Nadine crisply,
speaking with that precision that the English-born
never quite attain. Look at me for instance, and how
nice I am, and then consider Mamma and Daddy."
Esther emotionally spilt a larger quantity of camo-
mile tea than usual. It was difficult to drink lying
down.
" You shan't say a word against Aunt Dodo," she
said.
" My dear, I do not propose to. Mamma is the
biggest duck that ever happened. But I don't inherit.
She had such a lot of hearts it sounds like Bridge and
here am I without any. First of all she married poor
step-papa is it a step-papa if he is already dead
before you have begun ? Anyhow, I mean the Lord
Chesterford whom she married before she married
Daddy. That is one heart, but I think that was only
a little one, the three, perhaps. Then she married
Daddy, which is another heart."
' The Knave," said Esther.
" Yes. Poor Daddy. She ran away with him, you
know, venire d terre, while she was engaged to the
other Lord Chesterford who succeeded step-papa."
" Oh, Jack the Ripper," said Esther.
Bertie raised his head a little.
" Who ? " he asked.
" Jack Chesterford, because he is such a ripper,"
said Nadine. " And he is coming here to-morrow.
Isn't it a thrill ? Mamma hasn't seen him except
once in a taxi, since she didn't see him one day
8 DODO THE SECOND
when he called, and found she had run away with
Daddy."
" Did he rip anybody ? " asked Bertie, who was
famed for going on asking questions, until he com-
pletely understood.
" No, donkey. You are thinking of some criminal.
Mamma was engaged to him, and she thought she
couldn't so she ripped let her rip, is it not ? and got
married to Daddy instead. Daddy was quite mad about
darling Mamma, but recovered very soon. He made
a very bad recovery. Don't interrupt Berts. I was
talking about heredity. Well, there's Mamma and
Daddy, well, we all know what Daddy is, and let me
tell you he is the best of the family, which is poor. He
is a gentleman after all, whatever he has done. And
he's done a lot. Indeed he has never had an idle
moment, except when he was busy ! "
Esther gave a great sigh : she always sighed when
she appreciated, and appreciation was the work of her
life. She never got over the wonderfulness of Nadine
and was in a perpetual state of deep breathing. She
admired Bertie too, and they often used to talk about
getting engaged to each other some day, in a mild
and sexless fashion. But they were neither of them
in any hurry.
" Aren't your other people gentlemen ? " he asked.
" I thought in Austria you were always all right if
you quartered yourself into sixteen parts."
Nadine threw an almost unsmoked cigarette on to
the floor with a little show of impatience.
"Of course one has the ordinary number of great
great grandparents," she said, " or you wouldn't be here
at all, and you quarter anything you choose. Two of
my great-grandfathers were hung and drawn, apart
from their quarterings. But really I don't think you
understand what I mean by gentlemen. I mean
people who have brains, and who have tastes, and who
have fine perceptions. English people think they
DODO THE SECOND 9
know the difference between the bourgeoisie and the
aristocrats. How wrong they are ! As if living in a
castle like poor Esther's parents had anything to do
with it ! Look at some of your marquises Esther
darling, I don't mean Lord Ayr What cads !
Your barons ! What Aunt Sallys, always making
the float-face, don't you call it, the betise, the stupidity.
Is that the aristocracy ? Great solemn Aunt Sallys
and the rest brewers ! Show me an idea, show me
a brain, show me somebody with the distinction that
thought and taste alone bring ! I do not want a
mere busy prating monkey thinking it is a man. But
I want people : somebody with a man or woman inside
it. Ah give me a grocer. That will do ! "
Bertie put down his head again.
" Let us be calm," he said. " I'll find you a grocer
to-morrow. There is sure to be one in the village."
Nadine laughed. She had a curiously unmelodious
but wonderfully infectious laugh. People hearing it
laughed too : they caught it. But there was no sound
of silvery bells. She gave a sort of hiccup and then
gurgled.
" I get too excited over such things," she said. " And
when I get excited I forget my English and talk exe-
crably. I will be calm again. I do not mean that a
man is not a gentleman because he is stupid, but
I do mean that quarterings cannot make him one.
The whole idea is so obsolete, so Victorian, like the old
mahogary sideboards. Who cares about a grand-
father ? What does a grandfather matter any more ?
They used to say ' Move with The Times.' Now
we move instead with the ' Daily Mail.' I am half
foreign and yet I am much more English than you all.
The world goes spinning on. If we do not wish to
become obsolete we spin too. I hate the common
people, but I do not hate them because they have no
grandfathers, but just because they are common. I
hate quantities of your de Veres for the same reason.
io DODO THE SECOND
Their grandfathers make them no less common. But
also I hate your sweet people, with blue eyes, of whom
there are far too many. Put them in bottles like
lollipops and let them stick together with their own
sugar. Mon Dieu, what a world of abhorences ! "
There was a short silence. Bertie broke it.
" How old are you ? " he asked.
" Going in twenty-two. I am as old as there is any
need to be. There is only one person in the house
younger than me, and that is darling Mamma. She
is twenty."
Esther gave another huge sigh. She appreciated
Nadine very much, but she was not sure that she did
not appreciate Aunt Dodo more. It may be remarked
that there was no sort of consanguinity between them :
the relationship was one of mere affection. She had
a mother already, so Dodo must be the next nearest
relative. Frankly, she would have liked to change
the relationship between the two. And yet you could
say things to an aunt who wasn't an aunt more freely
than to a woman who actually happened to be your
mother. Apart from natural love, Esther did not care
for her mother. She would not, that is to say, have
cared for her if she had been somebody else's mother,
and, indeed, there was very little reason to do so. She
had a Roman nose and talked about the Norman
Conquest, which in the view of her family, was a very
upstart affair. She had not a kind heart, but she had
an immense coronet in her own right, and had married
another. Indeed she had married another twice : there
was a positive triple crown on her head like the Pope ;
In other respects also she was like a pope, and was
infallible with almost indecent frequency. Nadine
loved to refer to her as Holy Mother. She felt herself
perfectly capable of managing everybody's affairs, and
instead of being as broad as she was long, was as
narrow as she was tall, and resembled an elderly
guardsman.
DODO THE SECOND n
Her degenerate daughter finished her sigh.
" Go on about your horrible family," she said to
Nadine. " I think it's so illustrious of you to see them
as they are."
The door opened, and Tommy Freshfield entered
with a large black cigar in his mouth. He was rather
short, and had the misfortune to look extremely dis-
sipated, whereas he was hopelessly almost pathetically
incapable of anything approaching dissipation. He
put down his bedroom candle, stepped over Bertie
and lay down on the couch next Esther Sturgis.
" Have you been comforting Hughie ? " she asked.
" Yes, until he went to play billiards with the bish-
dean. Portmanteau word. He used to be a bishop but
subsequently became a dean. I think Aunt Dodo
believes he is a bishop still. Lots of bishops do it now
he told me ; it is the same as putting a carriage-horse
out to grass : there is no work, but less corn. Hughie's
coming up here when he's finished his game."
The appreciative Esther sat up.
" It's too wonderful of him," she said. " Nadine,
Hugh is coming up here soon. Do be nice to
him."
Nadine sat up also.
" Of course," she said. " Hughie has such tact,
and I love him for it. Berts has none : he would sulk
if I had just refused to marry him, and very likely
would not speak to me till next day."
" You haven't had the chance to refuse me yet,"
remarked Berts.
" That is mere scoring for the sake of scoring,
Berts, darling," said she. " But Hugh "
" O Nadine, I wish you would marry him," said
Esther. " It would make you so gorgeously complete
and golden. Did you refuse him absolutely ? Or
would you rather not talk about it ? "
Nadine turned a little sideways on the couch.
" No, we will not talk of it," she said. " What else
12 DODO THE SECOND
were we saying ? Ah, my family ! Yes, it is a wonder
that I am not a horror. Daddy is the pick of the bunch,
but such a bunch, mon Dieu! such wild flowers, and
poor Daddy always gets a little drunk in the evening
now ; and to-night he was so more than a little. But
he is such an original ! Fancy his coming to stay
with Mamma here only a year after she divorced him.
I think it is too sweet of her to let him come, and too
sweet of him to suggest it. She is so remembering,
too : she ordered him his particular brandy, without
which he is never comfortable, and it is most expensive
as well as being strong. Well, that's Daddy : then
there are my uncles : such histories. Uncle Josef
murdered a groom (there is no doubt whatever about
it) who tried to blackmail him. I think he was quite
right ; and I daresay the groom was quite right, but
it is a horrible thing to blackmail : it is a cleaner thing
to kill. Then there is Uncle Anthony who ought to
have been divorced like Daddy, but he was so mean
and careful and sly that they could not catch him.
There was never anything careful about Daddy."
She was ticking off these agreeable relations on her
white fingers.
" Then Grandpapa Waldenech committed suicide,"
she said, " and Grandpapa Vane fell into a cauldron
at his own iron-works and was utterly burnt. So
ridiculous : they could not even bury him, there was
nothing left, except the thick smoke, and they had
to open the windows. Then the Aunts. There was Aunt
Lispeth, who kept nothing but white rats in her house
in Vienna, hundreds and hundreds there were, the
place crawled with them. Daddy could not go near
it : he was afraid of their not being real, whereas I
was afraid because they were real. Then there is
Aunt Eleanor, who stole many of Daddy's gold snuff
boxes and said the Emperor had given them her. Of
course it was a long time before she was ever suspected,
for she was always going to church when she was not
DODO THE SECOND 13
stealing ; she made quite a collection. Aunt Julia is
more modern : she only cares about the music of
Strauss and appendicitis."
Berts gave a sympathetic wriggle.
" I had appendicitis twice," he said, " which was
enough, and I went to 'Electra' once which was too
much. How often did Aunt Julia have appendicitis ? "
" She never had it," said Nadine. " That is why she
is so devoted to it, an ideal she never attains. It is
about the only thing she has never had, and the others
fatigue her. But she always goes to the opera when-
ever there is Strauss, because she cannot sleep after-
wards, and so lies awake and thinks about appendicitis.
I go to the opera, too, whenever there is not Strauss,
in order to think about Hugh."
" And then you refuse him ? "
" Yes, but we will not talk of it. There is nothing
to explain. He is like that delicious ginger-beer I
drank at dinner in stone bottles. You can't explain !
It is ginger-beer. So is Hugh."
" I had a bottle of it, too," said Bertie. " More
than one, I think. I hate wine. Wine is only fit
for old women who want bucking up. There's
an old man in the village at home who's ninety-five,
and he never touched wine all his life."
" That proves nothing," said Nadine. " If he had
drunk wine he might have been a hundred by now.
But I like wine : perhaps I shall take after Daddy."
A long ash off Tommy Freshfield's cigar here fell
into Esther's camomile tea. It fizzed agreeably as it
was quenched, and she looked enquiringly into the
glass.
" Oh, that's really dear of you, Tommy," she said.
*' I can't drink any more. John always insists upon
my taking a glass of it to go to bed with."
' Your brother John is a prig, perhaps the biggest,"
said Nadine.
Esther reached out across Tommy, who did not offer
14 DODO THE SECOND
his assistance, and put down her glass on the small
table at the end of the settee.
" I hope there's no doubt of that," she said. " John
would be very much upset if he thought he wasn't
considered a prig. He is a snob, too, which is so fright-
fully Victorian, and thinks about lineage. Of course
he takes after mother. I found him reading Debrett
once."
" What is that ? " asked Nadine.
" Oh, a red book about peers and baronets," said
Esther rather vaguely. " You can look yourself up,
and learn all about yourself, and see who you are."
" Poor John," said Nadine. " He had his camomile
tea brought into the drawing-room to-night while he
was talking to the bishop about Gothic architecture
and the morals of great cities. He was asking if
confirmation was found to have a great hold on the
masses. The bishop didn't seem to have the slightest
idea."
" John would make that all right," said his sister.
" He would tell him. Nadine, why does darling Aunt
Dodo so often have a bishop staying with her ? "
Nadine sighed.
" Nobody really understands Mamma, except me,"
she said. " I thought perhaps you did, Esther, but
it is clear you don't. She is religious, that's why.
Just as artistic people like artists in their house, so
religious people like bishops. I don't say that bishops
are better than other people, any more than R.A.'s
are finer artists, but they are recognised professionals.
It is so ' you may think I am laughing or mocking.
But I am not. Give me more pillow, and Berts, take
your face a little further from my feet. Or I shall
kick it if I get excited again without intending to, but
it will hurt you just the same."
Bertie followed this counsel of commonsense.
" That seems a simple explanation," he said.
Esther frowned ; she was not quite so well satisfied.
DODO THE SECOND 15
" But is darling Aunt Dodo quite as religious when a
bishop doesn't happen to be here ? " she asked. " I
mean, does she always have family prayers ? "
" No, not always, nor do you go to your slums if
there is anything very amusing elsewhere."
" But what have they got to do with religion ? "
asked Bertie.
" Haven't they something to do with it ? I thought
they had. I know Esther looks good when she has
been to the slums, though, of course, it's quite delicious
of her to go. Still if it makes you feel good, it isn't
wholly unselfish. There is nothing so pleasant as
feeling good. I felt good the day before yesterday.
But after all there are exactly as many ways of being
religious as there are people in the world. No two
mean quite the same. I feel religious if I drive home
just at dawn after a ball when all the streets are clean
and empty and pearl-coloured. Darling Daddy feels
religious when he doesn't eat meat on Thursday or
Friday, whichever it is, and he has his immediate
reward because he has the most delicious things instead,
truffles stuffed with mushrooms or mushrooms stuffed
with truffles. Also he drinks a good deal of wine that
day, because you may drink what you like, and he
likes tremendously. He has a particular chef for the
days of meagre, who has to sit and th'ink for six days,
like the creation, and then work instead."
Nadine gurgled again.
" I suppose I shock you all," she said, " but English
people are so unexpected about getting shocked that
it is no use being careful. But they never get shocked
at what they do themselves. Whatever they do
themselves they know must be all right, and they take
hands and sing Rule Britannia. They are the enfants
terrible of Europe. They put their big stupid feet into
everything, and when they have spoiled it all, so that
nobody cares for it any longer, they ask why people
are vexed with them ! And then they go and play
16 DODO THE SECOND
golf ! I am getting very English myself. Except
when I talk fast you would not know I was not English."
Esther, since her camomile tea was quite spoiled
took a cigarette instead, which she liked better.
" Well, darling, you know every now and then you
are a shade foreign," she said. " Especially when
you talk about nationalities. As a nation I believe
you positively loathe us. But that doesn't matter.
It's he and she who matter, not they."
Berts had sat up at the mention of golf and was
talking to Tommy.
" Yes, I won at the seventeenth," he said. " I took
it in three. Two smacks and one put."
" Gosh," said Tommy.
" I wish I hadn't mentioned that damned game,"
said Nadine very distinctly. " You will talk about
golf now till morning."
" Yes, but you needn't. Go on about your Daddy,"
said Esther.
" Certainly he is more interesting than golf, and gets
into just as many holes. He is a creature of Nature.
He falls in love every year, when the hounds of
spring "
Esther and Tommy interrupted loudly.
" Are on winter's traces, the Mother of months "
" O ripping ! " said Berts, wriggling.
" Yes. How chic to have written that and to have
lived at Putney," said Nadine. " Mamma once took
me to see Mr. Swinburne, and told me to kiss his hand
as soon as ever I got into the room. So when we got
in, there was one little old man there, and I kissed his
hand, but it was not Mr. Swinburne at all, but somebody
who had come to see him just like Mamma and me."
Again the door opened, and a woman entered, big,
beautiful, vital. There was no mistaking her. The
others had not been lacking in vitality before, but she
brought in with her a far more abundant measure.
She was forty-five perhaps, but clearly her age was
DODO THE SECOND 17
the last thing to be thought about with regard to her.
You could as well wonder what was the age of a sunlit
wave breaking on the shore, or of a wind that blew
from the sea. Everybody sat up at once.
" Mamma, darling, come here," said Nadine, " and
talk to us."
Princess Waldenech looked round her largely and
brilliantly.
I thought I should find you all here," she said.
" Nadine dear, of course you know best, but is it
usual for girls to have two young gentlemen lying
about with them on one sofa ? I suppose it must be,
since you all do it. Berts, is that you Berts ? Really
one can hardly see for the smoke. But after all this
used to be the smoking-room, and I suppose it has
formed the habit. Berts, you fiend, you made me laugh
at dinner just when Bishop Spenser was telling me
about the crisis of faith he went through when he was
a young man so that he nearly became a Buddhist
instead of a bishop. Or do Buddhists have bishops
too ? Wasn't it dreadful ? He's a dear, and he gives
all his money away to endow other bishops, both black
and white, like chess. Of course he isn't a bishop
any more, but only a dean, but he keeps his title, like
me. Hugh is playing billiards with him now, and told
me in a whisper that he marked three for every cannon
he made. Of course Hughie couldn't tell him it only
counted two. It would have seemed unkind. Hugh
has such tact."
" What I was saying," said Nadine. " Mamma, he
proposed to me again this evening, and I said no, as
usual. Is he depressed ? "
" No, dear, not in the least, except about the cannons.
Probably you will say yes, sometime. And I want a
cigarette and something to drink, and to be amused
for exactly half-an-hour, when I shall take myself to
pieces and go to bed. I hate going to bed, and it adds
to the depression to know that I shall have to get up
B
i8 DODO THE SECOND
again. If only I could be a Christian Scientist I
should know that there is no such thing as a bed, and
that therefore you can't go there. On the other hand
that would be fatiguing, I suppose."
Tommy gave her a cigarette, and Nadine fetched her
mother her bedroom bottle of water, out of which she
drank freely, having refused camomile tea with cigar
ash in it.
" Too delicious ! " she said. " Nadine, darling,
do marry Hugh before you are twenty- two. Nowa-
days if girls don't marry before that they take a flat
or something and read at the British Museum till they
are thirty and have got spectacles, without even
getting compromised ."
" Compromised ? Of course not," cried Nadine.
" You can't get compromised now. There is no such
thing as compromise. We die in the ditch sooner,
like poor Lord Halsbury. Being compromised was
purely a Victorian sort of decoration, like like crino-
lines. Oh, do tell us about those delicious Victorian
days of 1890 when you were a girl and people thought
you fast and were shocked."
" My dear, you wouldn't believe it," said Dodo,
" you would think I was describing what happened hi
Noah's Ark. Berts and Tommy, for instance, would
never have been allowed to come and lie about like this."
" Oh, why not ? " asked Esther.
" Because you and Nadine are girls and they are
boys. That sounds simple nonsense, doesn't it ?
Also because to a certain extent boys and girls then did
as older people told them to, and other people would
have told them to go away. You see we used to listen
to older people because they were older, now you don't
listen to them for indentically the same reason. We
thought they were bores and obeyed them ; you are
perfectly sweet to them, but they have learned never
to tell you to do anything. You would never do what
I told you, dear, unless you wanted to."
DODO THE SECOND 19
" No, Mamma, I suppose not. But I always do
what you tell me, as it is, because you always tell me
to do exactly what I want to."
Dodo laughed.
" Yes, that is just what education means now. And
how nicely we get along. Nobody is shocked now in
consequence, which is much better for them. You
can die of shock, so doctors say, without any other
injury at all. So it is clearly wise not to be shocked.
I was shocked once, when I was eight years old, because
I was taken to the dentist without being told. I was
told that I was to go for an ordinary walk with my
sister Maud. And then, before I knew where I was
there was my mouth open as far as my uvula, and a
dreadful man with a mirror and a pincer was looking
at my teeth. I lost my trust in human honour, which
I have since then regained. I think Maud was more
shocked than me. I think it conduced to her death.
You don't remember Auntie Maud, Nadine, do you ?
You were so little and she was so unrememberable.
Yes : a quantity of worsted work. But that's why I
always want the Bishop to come whenever he can."
" I don't see why even now," said Nadine.
" Darling, aren't you rather slow ? Bishop Spenser
you know, who was Auntie Maud's husband. Surely
you've heard me call him Algie. Who ever called a
Bishop by his Christian name unless he was a relative ?
Maud loved him when he was a curate. She fluffed
herself up in him, just as she used to do in her worsted,
and nobody ever saw her any more. But I loved
Maud, and I don't think she ever knew it. Some
people don't know you love them unless you tell them
so, and it is so silly to tell your sister that you love her.
I never say I love you, either, and I don't say I love
Esther, and that silly Berts, and serious Tommy.
But what's the use of you all unless you know it ?
Nadine, ring the bell, please. It all looks as if we
were going to talk, and I had no dinner to speak of,
20 DODO THE SECOND
because I was being anxious about Daddy. I thought
he was going to talk Hungarian ; he looked as if he
was, and so I got anxious, because he only talks Hun-
garian when he is what people call very much on.
Certainly he wasn't ' off ' to-night ; he is off to-morrow.
And so I want food. If I am being anxious I want
food immediately afterwards, as soon as the anxiety
is removed. At least I suppose Daddy has gone to
bed. You haven't got him here have you ? Fancy
me being as old as any two of you. You are all so
delightful, that you mustn't put me on the shelf yet.
But just think ! I was nice the other day to Berts'
sister, and she told her mother she had got a new friend,
who was quite old. ' Not so old as Grannie,' she
said, ' but quite old ! ' And all the time I thought we
were being girls together. At least I thought I was :
I thought she was rather middle-aged. How is your
mother, Berts ? She doesn't approve of me, but I
hope she is quite well."
Bertie also was a nephew by affection.
" Aunt Dodo," he said, " I think mother is too
silly for anything."
" I knew something was coming," said Dodo.
" Well, it is. She said she thought you were heart-
less."
" Silly ass," said Esther. " Go on, Berts."
Berts felt goaded.
" Of course mother is a silly ass," he said. "' It's
no use telling me that. Your mother is a silly ass, too,
with her coronets and all that sort of fudge. But
altogether there is very little to be said for people over
forty, except Aunt Dodo."
" Beloved Berts," remarked Dodo. " Go on about
Edith."
" But it is so. They're all antiques except you, bat-
tered antiques. Let's talk about mothers generally.
Look at Esther's mother. She doesn't want me to many
Esther because my father is only an ordinary Mister.
DODO THE SECOND 21
There's a reason ! And I don't want to marry Esther
because her father is a marquis. There's something
comic about marquises. And after all my mother
has done more than Esther's, who never did anything
except cut William the Conqueror when he came over
and tell him he was of very poor new family. But
my mother wrote the ' Dodo Symphony ' for instance.
She's something : she was Edith Staines, and when
she has her songs sung at the Queen's Hall, she goes
and conducts them "
" Bertie, in a short skirt and boots with enormous
nails," said Esther. " And very likely an immense
tiara."
" And why not ? She may be a silly ass in some
things, but she's done something."
Bertie uncoiled all his yards of height and stood up.
" You began," he said. " I'm only answering
you back. Lady Ayr has never done anything at
all except talk about her family. She doesn't think
about anything but family ; she's the most antiquated
and absurd type of snob there is. And your ridiculous
brother John is exactly the same. You're the most
awful family, and make one long for grocers, like
Nadine."
" Darling, what do you want a grocer for ? " asked
Dodo.
But Berts had not finished yet.
" And as for your brother Seymour, all that can be
said about him is that he is a perfect lady," he said,
" but he ought to have been drowned when he was a
girl, like a kitten."
Esther shouted with laughter.
" Oh, Berts, I wish you would be roused oftener,"
she said, " I absolutely adore you when you are roused.
But you aren't quite right about Seymour. He isn't a
lady any more than he's a gentleman : he's he's just
a phenomenon. And after all he has got a real brain."
" Well, it takes all sorts to make a world," said Dodo,
22 DODO THE SECOND
" and Esther dear, I'm often extremely grateful to
Seymour. He will always come to dinner at the very
last moment "
" That's because nobody else ever asks him," said
Bertie, still fizzing and spouting a little. " That's one
of the objections to marrying you, Esther : you will
always be letting him come to dinner."
" Be quiet, Berts. As I say, he never minds how
late he is asked, and he invariably makes himself charm-
ing to the oldest and plainest woman present. Here, for
instance, he would be making himself pleasant to me."
" Poor chap ! " said Berts, lighting another cigarette,
and lying down again.
A tray with some cold ham, a plate of strawberries,
and a small jug of iced lemonade which had been
ordered by Nadine for her mother was here brought in
by a perfectly impassive footman, and placed on the
settee between her and Nadine. No servant in Dodo's
house ever felt the smallest surprise at anything which
was demanded of him, and if Nadine had at this
moment asked him to wash her face, he would probably
have merely said : " Hot or cold water, your Highness ?"
Nadine had not contributed anything to the discus-
sion on Seymour, because she was almost inconveniently
aware that she did not know what she thought about
him. Certainly he had brains, and for brains she had
an enormous respect.
" Seeing things to eat always makes me feel hungry,"
said Nadine, absently taking strawberries, " just as the
sight of a bed makes me very wide-awake. It is called
suggestion, and acts exactly in the way you least expect.
Really the chief use of going to bed is that you are
alone and have time to think."
" And that is so exhausting that I instantly go to
sleep," remarked Tommy.
" You improve at thinking, if you practise, Tommy,"
said Nadine. " People imagine that because they have
a brain they can think. It isn't so : you have to learn
DODO THE SECOND 23
to think. You have a tongue, but you must learn to
talk ; you have arms, and yet you must learn how to
play your foolish golf."
" You don't learn it, darling," said Dodo.
" Mamma, you are eating ham and have not been
attending. Really it is so. Most people can't think :
if they try to think, they can only think about some-
thing else. Esther, for instance "
" It's quite true," said Esther. " I felt full of ideas
this morning, and so I went away all alone along the
beach to think them out. But I couldn't. There were
my ideas all right, and that was all. I couldn't think
about them. There they were, ideas ; just that, framed
and glazed."
Tommy rose.
" I'm worse than that, " he said. " I never have
any ideas. In some ways it's an advantage, because if
we all had ideas, I suppose we should want to express
them. As it is, I am at leisure to listen."
Dodo took a long draught of lemonade.
" I have one idea," she said, " and that is that it's
bed-time. I shall go and exhaust myself with thought.
The process of exhaustion does not take long. Besides,
if I sit up much later than twelve, my maid always
pulls my hair, and whips my head with the brush
instead of treating me kindly."
" I should dismiss her," said Nadine.
" I couldn't dear. She's so imbecile that she would
never get another situation. Ah, there's Hugh ! Hugh,
did poor Algie Balearic-isles beat you ? "
A very large young man had just appeared in the
doorway. He held in his hand a sandwich out of
which he had just taken an enormous semi-circular
bite. The rest of it was in his mouth, and he spoke
with the mumbling utterance necessary to those who
converse when their mouths are full. People ate when
they were hungry at Dodo's cottage, wh'.ch might
occur at any time.
24 DODO THE SECOND
" Oh, is that where he comes from ? " he asked.
" No, my dear, that is where he went to, though of
course since he is here now he did come from them in a
sense. Dear me, if he had been Bishop there about
seventy years earlier he might have confirmed Chopin.
How thrilling ! Fancy confirming Chopin ! "
" Yes, the Isles won," said Hugh, his voice clearing
as he swallowed. " Oh, Aunt Dodo " this again was
a relationship founded only on affection " he said your
price was beyond rubies, but you're his deceased wife's
sister, aren't you ? What a lot of people there seems
to be here. I came to talk to Nadine. Oh, there she
is. Or would it be better taste if I didn't ? I shall go
to bed instead."
" Then what you call taste is what I call peevishness,"
said Nadine succinctly.
" I don't understand. What is better peevishness,
then ? "
" You take me at the foot of the letter," said she.
' You see what I mean ? "
" Yes. I see that you mean ' literally.' But in any
case there are too many people, chiefly upside down
from where I am. That's Esther, isn't it, and Berts ? "
Esther scrambled off the settee, and went to the door
of the room where she and Nadine slept.
" Why, of course, if you want to talk to Nadine I
will go," she said. " Nadine, if you and Hughie dis-
agree on any point, tap at the door, and I will come
and be referee."
Bertie gave a long sigh, but did not move.
" I shall lie here," he said, " like the frog-footman,
on and off for days and days."
" Well, lie off now," said Hugh.
" Very good. But I don't want to go to bed.
Mayn't I brush your hair for you, instead of your
spanking maid, Aunt Dodo ? "
" No, my dear. You had better brush your own.
It needs it. Good night, you dears."
DODO THE SECOND 25
Hugh Graves went across to the windows as soon as
they had gone, and threw several of them open.
" The room smells of stale smoke and epigrams," he
said in explanation.
" That's not very polite, Hugh," said she, " since I
have been talking most and not smoking least. But
I suppose you will answer that you didn't come here to
be polite."
In a moment, even as the physical atmosphere of the
room altered, so also did the spiritual. It seemed to
Nadine that she and Hugh took hands and dived
through the surface foam and brightnesses in which
they had been playing into some place which they had
made for themselves, which was dim and subaqueous.
The foam and brightness was all perfectly sincere, for
she was never other than sincere, but it had no more
than the sincerity of soap bubbles.
" No. I didn't come here to be polite," said Hugh,
" though I didn't come here to be rude. I came to
ask you a couple of questions."
Nadine had not moved from the settee, but she
collected a load of cushions behind her, so that she was
propped up by them. Her arms were clasped behind
her head, and the folds of her rainbow dressing-gown
fell back from them, leaving them bare nearly to the
shoulder. The shaded light above her fell on to her
hair, burnishing its gold, and her face below it was dim
and suggested rather than outlined. The most accom-
plished of coquettes would, after thought, have chosen
exactly that attitude and lighting, if she wanted to
appear to the greatest advantage to a man who loved
her, but Nadine had done it without motive. It may
have been that it was an instinct with her to appear
to the utmost advantage, but she would have done
the same, without thought, if she was talking to
a middle-aged dentist. Hugh had seated himself
at some little distance from her, and the same light
threw his face into strong line and vivid colour.
26 DODO THE SECOND
He had still something of the softness of youth
about him, but none of youth's indeterminateness,
and he looked older than his twenty-five years.
When he was moving, he moved with a boy's
quickness ; when he sat still he sat with the steadi-
ness of strong maturity.
" You needn't ask them," she said. " I can answer
you without that. The answer to them both is that I
don't know."
" How do you know the questions yet ? " said he.
" I do. You want to know whether my answer to
you this evening is final. You want also to know why
I don't say yes."
His eyes admitted the correctness of this : he need
not have spoken.
" After all, there was not much divination wanted,"
he said. " I am as obvious as usual. And you under-
stand me as well as usual."
She shook her head at this, not denying it, but only
deprecating it.
" I always understand you too well," she said. " If
only I didn't understand you, just as I don't under-
stand Seymour ! You have suggested a reason why I
don't say yes. I think it is correct. Ah, don't quote
silly proverbs about love being complete understanding.
Most of the proverbs are silly, for Solomon was so old
when he wrote them "
His mouth uncurled from its gravity.
" That wasn't one of Solomon's," he said.
" Then it might have been. In any case exactly the
opposite is true. If love is anything at all, and it
quite certainly is, it is not understanding. It is the
opposite, the not-understanding "
" Mis-understanding ? "
" No. The not-understanding, the mysterious, the
unaccountable "
Nadine gathered her legs up under her and sat
clasping them round the knees, and her utterance grew
DODO THE SECOND 27
most rapid. Her face, young and undeveloped, and
white and exquisite, was full of eager animation.
" That is what I feel, anyhow," she said. " Of
course I can't say ' this is love ' and ' this is not love,'
and label other people's emotions. There is one way of
love and another way of love, and another and another.
There are as many modes of love, I suppose, as there
are people who are capable of it. But don't tell me
everybody is capable of it. At least, tell me so if you
like, but allow me to disagree. For myself, all I am
certain of is that I look for something which you don't
give me. Perhaps I am incapable of love. And if I was
sure of that, Hughie, I would marry you. Do you see ? "
She, as was always the case with her, made him
forget himself. When he was with her, she absorbed
his consciousness : his only desire was to follow her,
not caring where she led. This desire to apprehend
her corrugated his forehead into the soft wrinkles of
youth, and narrowed his eyes.
' Tell me why that is not a bad reason," he said.
" Because I should know that I could never give any-
body the highest," she said, " and then, oh, so willingly
would I give you all the second-best. Look what
quantities of people marry quite rightly without love.
I don't refer to the obvious reason of marrying for
position or wealth, but to the people who marry from
admiration or from fear. Mamma, for instance ; she
married Daddy because she was afraid of him. Then
she learned he was a an amorous turnip-ghost with
a brandy bottle, and so divorced him. She was not
afraid any longer."
" I am neither," said he.
Nadine gave a little sigh, and he saw his stupidity.
" No ; you never suggested that I was," he said.
" Well, you've given me one reason. And another is,
isn't it, that I don't understand you ? "
Somehow to Nadine this was unexpected, but almost
instantly she recognised the truth of it.
28 DODO THE SECOND
" That is true," she said. " I want to be the inferior,
mentally, spiritually, of the man I marry. I want to
grovel, and, oh, Hughie, I can't grovel to you ! I am
just the opposite of those terrible people who want a
vote, and say they are the equal of men. No woman
who is a man's equal ought to many him. How could
a woman stand loving a man unless he was her
superior? The superior women may be old maids,
like Pallas Athene. If only it was you who were the
incomprehensible, like the Athanasian Creed ! I wish
it was that way round."
" Oh, you do wish that ? " he asked.
" Yes, of course, my dear."
" Then you have answered the other question. Your
answer to me to-day is not final. I'll puzzle you yet."
" You speak of it all as if it was a conjuring trick,"
she said. " Don't make conjuring tricks. Don't let me
see announced your approaching engagement to some-
body else. That would not puzzle me at all. I shall
simply see that it was meant to do so. Conjuring tricks
don't mystify you : you know you have been cheated
and don't care."
" No, I shan't make conjuring tricks," he said.
Nadine unclasped her knees, and got up, and began
walking to and fro across the big room.
" Hugh, I wish I was altogether different," she said.
" I wish I was like one of those simple girls whom you
never by any chance meet outside the covers of six-
shilling novels. They are quite human, only no human
girl was ever like them. They like music and food and
sentiment, and sea-bathing, and playing foolish games,
just as we all do. But there is nobody behind them :
they are tastes without character. If only one's
character was nothing more than the sum total of one's
tastes, how extraordinarily simple it would all be. We
should spend our lives in making ourselves pleasant
and enjoying ourselves. But there is something that
sits behind all our tastes, and though those tastes
DODO THE SECOND 29
express it, they do not express it all, nor do they express
its essence. I am something beyond and back of the
things I like, and the people I like. Something inside
me says ' I want : I want.' I daresay it wants the
moon, and has as much chance of getting it as I have
of reaching up into the sky and pulling it down. And I
want it because I can't get it, and because I can't
understand it, and because it shines ! Oh, because it
shines ! Hughie, I want the moon, and what will the
moon be like ? Will it be hard and cold or soft and
warm? I don't care. I shall slip it between my
breasts and hold it close."
She paused a moment opposite him.
" Am I talking damned rot ? " she asked. " I dare-
say I am. I am a rotter then, because all I say is me.
Another thing, too : morally, I am not in the least
worthy of you. I don't know anyone who is. I don't
really ; and I'm not flattering you, because I don't rate
the moral qualities very high. They are compatible
with such low organisations. Earwigs, I read the
other day, are excellent mothers. How that seems to
alter one's conception of the beauty of the maternal
instinct. But it does not alter my conception of ear-
wigs in the least, and I shall continue to kill any
excellent mothers that I find in my room."
Hugh laughed suddenly and uproariously, and then
became perfectly grave again.
" Your moral organisation is probably extremely
low," he said. " But I settled long ago to overlook
that."
" Ah, there we are again," said Nadine. " You de-
liberately propose to misconceive me, with the kindest
intentions I know, but with how wrong a principle.
You shut your eyes to me, as if as if I was a smut !
You settle to overlook the fact that I have no real
moral perception. Could you settle to overlook the
fact if I had no nose and only one tooth ? I assure
you the lack of a moral nature is a more serious defect.
30 DODO THE SECOND
But, poor devil that I am, how was I to get one ? We
were talking about heredity before you came in "
Nadine paused for a moment.
" As a matter of fact," she said, " I was telling them
that there was no truth in heredity. I will now support
the other side of the question. How was I, considering
my family, to have moral perceptions ? "
" Are you being quite consistent ? " asked Hugh.
" Why should I be consistent ? Who is consistent
except those simple people of whom you buy so many
for six shillings, and they are consistently tiresome.
How, I said, was I to have got moral perception ?
There is Daddy ! If I was a doctor I would certify
anyone to be insane who said Daddy was a moral
organism. There is darling Mamma ! I would horse-
whip anyone who said the same of her, for his gross
stupidity and insolence. The result is me ; I am more
pagan than Heliogabalus. I do not think that anything
is right or that anything is wrong. I want the moon,
but I am afraid you are not the man in it."
" And now you are flippant."
" Flippant, serious, moral, immoral," cried Nadine.
" Do not label me like luggage. You will tell me my
destination next ; shall we call it Abraham's bosom ?
Dear Hugh, you enrage me sometimes. Chiefly you
enrage me because you have such an angelic temper
yourself. I am not sure than an angelic temper is an
advantage : it is always set fair, and there are no
surprises. Ah, how it all leads round to that ; there
are no surprises ; I understand you too well. I am
very sorry. Do me the justice to believe that. Really,
I think that I am as sorry that I can't marry you, as
you are."
Hugh got up.
" I don't think I do quite believe that," he said.
" And now as regards the immediate future. I think I
shall go away to-morrow."
This time he succeeded in surprising her.
DODO THE SECOND 31
" Himmel, but why ? " she said.
" If you understood me as well as you say, you
would know," he said. " I don't find my own heart a
satisfactory diet. Of course, if I thought you would
miss me "
Nadine was quite silent for a moment.
" You shall go if you like, of course," she said.
" But you do me the most frightful injustice ; you
understand nothing about me if you think I should not
miss you. You cannot be so dull as not to know that
I should miss you more than if everybody else went,
literally everybody, leaving me alone. But go if you
wish."
She walked across to the window, which Hugh had
thrown open, and leaned out. A moon rode high in
mid-sky, and to the west a quarter of a mile away and
far below the sea glimmered like a shield of dim silver.
Below the window the ground sloped sharply away
down to the grey tumbled sand dunes that fringed the
coast, and all lay blurred and melted under the un-
certain light. And when she turned round again Hugh
saw that her eyes were blurred and melted also.
" Do exactly as you please, Hughie," she said.
He laughed.
" Would you be surprised if I did not go ? " he
asked.
She came towards him with both hands out.
" Ah, that is dear of you," she said. " Look out of
the window with me a moment : how dim and mys-
terious. There is my moon which I want so much,
too. I will build altars and burn incense to any god
who will give it me. If only I knew what it was ! My
moon, I mean; not anybody's moon. Now, perhaps,
as it is nearly two o'clock, we had better go to bed,
Hughie. And I am so sorry that things are as they
are."
CHAPTER II.
IT had been said by Edith Arbuthnot, perhaps un-
kindly, but with sufficient humour to neutralize the
acidity, that there was always somebody awake day
and night in Dodo's house tending the flame of egoistic
introspection. Edith did not generally use long words,
but chose them carefully when she indulged in poly-
syllables. She had not been so careful in the choice of
her confidant, for she had fired this withering criticism
at her son Berts, who, in the true spirit of an affec-
tionate nephew, instantly repeated it to Dodo, who had
roared with laughter and sent Edith an enormous tele-
gram (costing nine shillings and a halfpenny, including
sixpence for a paid reply in case Edith wanted to con-
tinue the discussion) describing a terrible accident that
had just happened to herself.
" A most extraordinary and tragic affair " (this was all
written out in full) " has just occurred at Meering in
the house of Princess Waldenech. The unfortunate
lady has just died of a sudden, though not unexpected
attack of spontaneous egoism. Loud screams were
heard from her room, and Mr. Bertie Arbuthnot, son
of the celebrated Edith Arbuthnot, the musical com-
poser, rushed in to find the princess enveloped in
sheets of blue flame. The efforts made to quench her
were of no avail, and in a few moments all that was
left of her was a small handful of ashes, which, curiously
enough, as they cooled, assumed the shape of the word
' Me.' Fear is felt that this outbreak may prove to be
contagious, and all those who have been in contact with
the combusted princess are busy disinfecting themselves
32
DODO THE SECOND 33
by talking about each other. It is believed that Mrs.
Arbuthnot has begun to write a funeral march for her
friend, for whom she felt an adoring affection amount-
ing almost to worship, in the unusual key of ten sharps
and eleven flats. It is in brisk waltz time, and all the
performers will blow their own trumpets. She is send-
ing copies to nearly all the crowned heads of Europe."
Thus ran the telegram. Edith's reply was equally
characteristic. " Dodo, I love you."
The truth in Edith's criticism was certainly exempli-
fied on the night of which we are speaking, for Hugh did
not leave Nadine's room, where she had been engaged
on the self-analysis given in the last chapter till two
o'clock, and at that precise moment Dodo, who had
gone to bed more than an hour before, woke up and
began thinking about herself with uncommon intensity.
And indeed, there was sufficient to think about in the
circumstances with which she had at this moment
allowed herself to be surrounded. For the last two
days the husband whom she had divorced with such
extreme facility had been staying with her, and to-
morrow, directly on his departure, Jack Chesterford,
to whom she had been engaged when she ran away
with the husband she had just divorced, was arriving.
All her life Dodo had liked drama, as long as it occurred
outside the walls of English theatres, but better than
the theatres even of Paris were the dramas which came
into real life, especially when you could not possibly
tell (even though you were acting yourself) what was
going to happen next. Best of all, she liked acting
herself, having a part to play, without the slightest
idea what she or anybody else was going to do or say.
Dodo's zest for life did not decrease with years, nor
did her interest in it in the least diminish as the time
of her youth began to recede into horizons far behind
her. For all the time other horizons were getting
closer to her, and she could imagine herself being quite
old " as old as Grannie," in fact without any of the
c
34 DODO THE SECOND
tragic envy of past years that so often makes worm-
wood of the present. She had indeed settled the mode
of her procedure for those years, which were still far
enough off, and was quite determined to have a mob
cap with a blue riband in it, and tortoiseshell-rimmed
spectacles. Also she would read Thomas a Kempis a
great deal she had read a little already, and was now
deliberately keeping the rest till she was seventy and
walk about her garden with a tall cane and pick
lavender. She had, moreover, promised herself to
make no attempts at sprightliness or to have her hair
dyed, since one of the few classes of women to whom
she really objected were those whom she called grizzly
kittens, who dabbed at you with their rheumatic old
paws, and pretended that they had no need of spec-
tacles, when it was quite clear they could not read the
very largest print. But she fully intended to remain
exceedingly happy when those years came, for happi-
ness, so it seemed to her, was a gift that came from
within and could not be taken from you by any amount
of external calamities or accumulation of decades.
Certainly in the years that had passed she had had
her share of annoyances, and in support of her theory
with regard to happiness it must be confessed that
they had not deprived her of one atom of it. Her
late husband's conduct, for instance, had for years
been of the most disagreeable kind, and she had borne
with it not in the least like a fearful lamb, but more
like a cheerful lion. It had not in the least discouraged
her with life in general, but only disgusted her with
him. For the last two years before she got her divorce,
he had been, as she expressed it, " too Bacchic for
anything," and she had sent Nadine away from their
homes in Austria, to live with a variety of old friends
in England. Eventually Dodo had decided that she
would waste no more time with her husband, and got her
freedom, coupled with an extremely handsome allow-
ance. She continued to call herself Princess Waldenech
DODO THE SECOND 35
because it was still rather pleasant being a princess,
and Waldenech told her that, as far as he was concerned,
she might call herself Dowager-Empress Waldenech, or
anything else she chose.
So for a year now she had been in England, and
had stepped back, or rather jumped back into the old
relations with almost all that numerous body of people
who twenty years ago had helped to make life so en-
chanting. And with the same swiftness and sureness
she had established herself in the hearts of the younger
generation that had grown up since, so that the sons
and daughters of her old friends became her nephews
and nieces in affection. Nadine, with the beauty, the
high spirits and power of enjoyment that was hers by
birthright, had, so it seemed to her mother, succeeded to
a place that was very like what her own had been rather
more than twenty years ago. Of course, there was a
tremendous difference in their modes, for the manners
and outlook of one generation are as divergent from
those of the last, as are the clothes they wear, but the
same passionate love of life, the same curiosity and
vividness inspired her daughter's friends, even as they
had inspired her own. And since she herself had lost
not one atom of her own vitality, it was not strange
that the years between them and her were easily
bridged over.
There were one or two voices that were silent in the
chorus of welcome with which Dodo's reappearance had
been hailed. One of these was Edith Arbuthnot, who,
though she did not desire to put any restrictions on
Berts' intimacy (which was lucky, since Berts was a
young gentleman hideously gifted with the power of
getting his way), loudly proclaimed that she could
never be friends with Dodo again. But the answer she
had sent to Dodo's remarkable telegram about com-
busted egoism a few days before seemed to indicate
that she had surrendered, and though she had subse-
quently announced that Dodo was heartless, might be
36 DODO THE SECOND
regarded as a convert, especially since Jack had at
last yielded too, and had invited himself down here.
Another fortress hitherto impregnable was Mrs. Vivian,
for whom Dodo in days gone by had felt as solid an
affection as she was capable of. Consequently she
regretted that Mrs. Vivian was invariably unable to
come and dine, and never manifested the slightest
desire that Dodo should come to see her. Dodo's regret
was slightly tempered by the fact that Mrs. Vivian had
an ear-trumpet in these days, which she presented to
people whose conversation she desired to hear rather
in the manner that elephants at the Zoo hold out their
trunks for chance refreshments. Somehow that seemed
to make her matter less, and Dodo had not at present
made any determined effort to beleaguer her. But she
intended when she went back to town in July to capture
what was now pratically the only remaining strong-
hold of the disaffected.
When Dodo drowsily awoke that night, just at the
time that Hugh and Nadine had finished their talk, it
was the thought of Jack that first stirred in her mind.
Instantly she was perfectly wide awake. During this
last year, though he was great friends with Nadine, he
had absolutely avoided coming into contact with her-
self. He never went to a house where Dodo was
expected, and once, finding she was staying for a
Saturday till Monday with the Granthams, had left
within ten minutes of his arrival there. Miss Grantham
had conceived this misbegotten plan of bringing them
unexpectedly face to face, with the only result that the
party numbered thirteen, and her father was very
uncomfortable for weeks afterwards. Once again they
had been caught in a block in taxi-cabs exactly opposite
each other. Dodo, taking the bull by the horns, had
leaned impulsively towards him with both hands out-
stretched and cried, " Ah, Jack, are we never to meet
again ? " On which the bull, so to speak, paid his fare,
and continued his journey on foot. Dodo had been
DODO THE SECOND 37
considerably disappointed by this rebuff : it had seemed
to her that no man should have resisted her direct
appeal. On the other hand, Jack, on seeing her, had
nailed to his face so curiously icy a mask that his
appearance became quite ludicrous. Also he knocked
his hat against the roof of the closed half of his cab,
and it fell into the road in the middle of an unusually
deep puddle. She noticed that he was not bald yet,
which was a great relief, since she detested the sight of
craniums.
And now Jack had yielded, had walked out of his
citadel without any further assault being delivered, and
was to arrive to-day. At the thought, when she woke
in this stillness of earliest morning, Dodo's brain started
into fullest activity, and, as always, as much interested
in the motives that inspired actions as in the actions
themselves, she set herself to ponder on the nature of
the impulse which had caused so complete a volte-face.
But the action itself interested and charmed her also :
all this year she had wanted to see Jack again. He
had understood her better than anyone, and in spite
of the vile way in which she had used him, she had
more nearly loved him than either of the men she had
married. Her first husband had never been more to
her than " an old darling," and often something not
nearly that. Of Waldenech she had simply been
afraid : under the fascination of fear she had done
what he told her. But Jack .
Dodo felt for the switch of her electric light ; the
darkness was too close to her eyes, and she wanted to
focus them on something. Clearly there were several
possibilities, any of which would account for this change
in Jack. He might perhaps merely wish to resume
ordinary and friendly relations with her. But that did
not seem a likely explanation, since, if that was all,
he would more naturally have waited till she returned
to town again after this sojourn in the country. There
must have been in his mind a cause more potent than
3 8 DODO THE SECOND
that. Naturally, the more potent cause occurred to
her, and she sat up in bed. ... " It is too ludicrous,"
she said to herself : " it cannot possibly be that." And
yet he had remained unmarried all these years, with
how many charming girls about who would have been
perfectly willing to share his wealth and title, not to
speak of himself.
Dodo got out of bed altogether, and went across the
room to where a big looking-glass set in the door of
her wardrobe reflected her entire figure. She wished
to be quite honest in her inspection of herself, to see
there not what she wanted to see, but what there was
to be seen. The room was brightly lit, and through
her thin silk nightdress she could see the lines of her
figure moulded in the soft swelling curves of her
matured womanhood. Yet something of the slimness
and firm elasticity of youth still dwelt there, even as
youth still shone in the smooth, unwrinkled oval of her
face and sparkled in the depths of her dark eyes.
Right down to her waist hung the thick coils of her
black hair, still untroubled by grey, and slim and
shapely were her ankles, and soft and rosy from the
warmth of her bed her exquisite feet. And at the
sight of herself her mouth uncurled itself into a smile :
the honesty of her scrutiny had produced no dis-
couraging revelations. Then, frankly laughing at her-
self, she turned away again and wholly unconsciously
and instinctively took half a dozen dance-steps across
the Persian rugs that were laid down over the polished
floor. She could no more help that impulse of her
bubbling vitality than she could help the fact that she
#as five feet eight in height.
The coolness and refreshment of the two hours before
dawn streamed in through her open window, and she
put on the dressing-gown with its cascades of lace and
blue ribands that lay on the chair by her dressing
table. Supposing it was the case that Jack was coming
for her, that he wanted her now as in the old days
DODO THE SECOND 39
when she had thrown his devotion back at him like a
pail of dirty water, what answer would she make him ?
Really she hardly knew. Neither of her marriages
had been a conspicuous success, but for neither of her
husbands had she felt anything of that quality of
emotion which she had felt for the man she had treated
so infamously. She gave a great sigh and began
ticking off certain events on her fingers.
" First of all I refused him before I married poor
darling Chesterford the first," she said to herself.
" Secondly, having married Chesterford the first, I asked
Jack to run away with me. But that was in a moment
of great exasperation : it might have happened to
anybody. Thirdly, as soon as Chesterford I. was
taken I got engaged to Jack, which I ought to have
done originally ; and, fourthly, I jilted him and married
Waldenech."
Dodo had arrived at her little finger, and held her
other hand poised over it.
" What the devil is fifthly to be ? " she said aloud.
She got out of her chair again.
" It is very odd, but I simply can't make up my
mind," she thought, " and I usually can make it up
without the slightest trouble ; indeed, it is usually
already made up, just as one used to find eggs ready
boiled in that absurd machine that always stood by
Chesterford at breakfast. I hate boiled eggs. But I
wonder if I owe it to Jack to marry him if he wants
me to ? Supposing he says I have spoiled his life, and
he wants me to unspoil it now ? Is it my duty apart
from whatever my inclination may be, and I wish I
knew what that was ? "
Dodo felt herself quite unable to make up her mind
on this somewhat important point. She felt herself
already embarked on an argument with Jack, as she
had been so often embarked in the old days, and on
how pleasant and summery a sea ! She would certainly
tell him that nobody ought to let his life be spoiled
40 DODO THE SECOND
by anybody else, and she would point to herself as a
triumphant instance of how she had refused to let her
joy of life get ever so slightly tarnished by the really
trying experiences in her partnership with Waldenech.
Here was she positively as good as new. And then,
unfortunately, it occurred to her that Jack might say,
" But then you didn't love him." And the ingenious
Dodo felt herself unable to frame any reply to this
very bald suggestion. It really seemed unanswerable.
There was a further reason which might account for
Jack's coming. Nadine. Dodo knew that the two
were great friends ; she had even heard it suggested
that Jack had serious thoughts with regard to her.
Very likely that was only invented by some friend who
was curious to know how she herself would take the
suggestion ; but clearly this was not an improbable,
far less an impossible contingency. But that Nadine
had serious thoughts with regard to Jack was less
likely. Dodo felt that her daughter took after herself
in emotional matters, and was probably not at that
age seriously thinking about anybody. Yet, after all,
she herself had married at that age (though without
serious thought), and the experiment, which seemed so
sensible and promising, had been a distinct disappoint-
ment. Ought she to warn Nadine against marrying
without love ? Or would that look as if, for other
reasons, she did not wish her to marry Jack ? That
would be an odious interpretation to put on it, and the
worst of it was that she was not perfectly certain
that there was not some sort of foundation for it.
Something within her ever so faintly resented the idea
of Jack's marrying Nadine.
Dodo's thought paused and was poised over this for
a little, and she made an eager and conscious effort to
root out from her mind this feeling, of which she was
genuinely ashamed. Then suddenly all her medi-
tations were banished, for from outside there came
the first faint chirrupings of a waking bird. Deep
DODO THE SECOND 41
down in her, below the trivialities and surface com-
plications of life, below all her warm-heartedness
and her egoism, there lay a strain of natural, untainted
simpKcity, and these first flutings of birds in the bushes
roused it. She went to the window and drew up the blind.
The dusk still hovered over the sea and low-lying
land, and in the sky, already turning dove-coloured, a
late star lingered, remotely burning. The bird that
had called her to look at the dawn had ceased again,
and a pause holy and sweet and magical brooded over
the virginal meeting of night and day. But far off to
the right the hill-tops had got the earliest news of
what was coming, and were flecked with pale Orient
reflections and hints of gold and scarlet and faint
crimson. But here below the dusk lay thick still, like
clear, dark water.
Just below her window lay the lawn, garlanded
round with sleeping and dew-drenched flower-beds,
and the incense of their fragrant buds and folded
petals still slept in the censer, till in the east should
rise the gold-haired priest, and swing it, tossing high
to heaven the sweetness of its burning. And then
from out of the bushes beyond there scudded a thrush,
perhaps the same which had called Dodo to the window.
He scurried over the shimmering lawn with innumerable
footfalls, and came so close underneath her window
that she could see his eyes shining. Then he swelled
his throat, and sang one soft phrase of morning, paused
as if listening, and then repeated it. All the magic of
youth and joy of life were there : there was also in
Dodo's heart the indefinable yearning for days that
were dead, the sense of the fathomless well of time
into which for ever dropped beauty and youth and the
soft, sweet days. But that lasted but a moment, for
as long as the thrush paused. Another voice, and yet
another, sounded from the bushes ; there were other
thrushes there, and hi the ivy of the house arose the
cheerful jangling of sparrows. Fresh feathered forms
42 DODO THE SECOND
ran out on to the lawn, and the air was shrill
with their pipings. Every moment the sky grew
brighter with the imminent day, the last star faded in
the glow of pink translucent alabaster, and in the green-
crowned elms the breeze of morning awoke and stirred
the tree-tops. Then it came lower, and began to
move in the flower-beds, and the wine of the dew was
spilled from the chalices of new-blown roses, and the
tall lilies quivered. There was wafted up to her the
indescribable odour of moist earth and opening flowers,
and on the moment the first yellow ray of sunlight shot
over the garden.
Dodo stood there dim-eyed, unspeakably and mys-
teriously moved. She thought of other dawns she had
seen, when coming back perhaps from a ball where
she had been the central and most brilliant figure all
night long ; she thought of other troubled dawns
when she had woke from some unquiet dream and yet
dreaded the day. But here was a perfect dawn, and
it seemed to symbolize to her the beginning of the
life that lay in front of her. She looked forward to it
with eager anticipation, she gave it a rapturous welcome.
She was in love with life still, she longed to see what
delicious things it held in store for her. She felt sure
that God was going to be tremendously kind to her.
And in turn (for she had a certain sense of fairness)
she felt most whole-heartedly grateful and determined
to deserve these favours. There were things in her
life she was very sorry for : such omissions and com-
missions should not occur again. She felt that the
sight of this delicious dawn had been a sort of revelation
to her. And with a great sigh of content she went
back to bed, and without delay fell fast asleep, and
did not awake till her maid came in at eight o'clock
with a little tray of tea that smelt too good for any-
thing, and a whole sheaf of attractive-looking letters,
large stiff square ones, which certainly contained cards
that bade her to delightful entertainments.
DODO THE SECOND 43
She always breakfasted in her room, and when she
came downstairs about half-past ten, and looked into
the dining-room, she found to her surprise that
Waldenech was there, eating sausages one after the
other. This was a very strange proceeding for him,
since in general he adopted slightly snark-like hours and
did not breakfast till at least lunch time. The years,
or at any rate his habits and method of spending them,
had not been so kind to him as to Dodo, and though
they had not robbed him of that look of distinction
which was always his, they had conferred upon him the
look of being considerably the worse for wear. He
seemed as much older than his years as Dodo appeared
younger than hers, and she was no longer in the least
afraid of him. Indeed, it struck her that morning as
she came in, with a sense of wonder, that she had ever
found him formidable.
" Good-morning, my dear," she said, " but how very
surprising. Has everybody else finished and gone out ?
Waldenech, I am so glad you suggested coming here,
and I hope you haven't regretted it."
" I have not enjoyed any days so much since you
left me," he said.
" How dear of you to say that ! Everyone thought
it so extraordinary that you should want to come here,
or that I should let you, but I am delighted you did."
He left his place and came to sit hi a chair next
her. The remains of Nadine's breakfast were on a
plate opposite : half a poached egg, some melon rind,
marmalade, and a cigarette end. He pushed these
rather discouraging relics away.
" It is not extraordinary that I should want to come
here," he said, " for the simple reason that you are
the one woman I ever really cared about. I always
cared for you "
' There are others who think you occasionally cared
for them," remarked Dodo
" That may be so. Why should one not care also for
44 DODO THE SECOND
others? Now I should like to stop on. May I
do so ? "
" No, my dear, I am afraid that you certainly may
not," she said. " Jack comes to-day, and the situation
would not be quite comfortable, not to say decent."
" Do you think that matters ? " he asked.
" It certainly is going to matter. You haven't
really got a European mind, Waldenech. Your mind
is probably Thibetan. Is it Thibet where you do
exactly as you feel inclined ? The place where there
are llamas."
" I do as I feel inclined wherever I am," said he.
" I am here.'*
Dodo remembered, again with wonder, the awful
mastery that that sort of sentence as delivered by him
used to have for her. Now it had none of any kind :
his personality had simply ceased to be dominant with
regard to her.
" But then you won't be here," said she. *' You will
go by that very excellent train that never stops at all :
I have reserved a carriage for you."
He lit a cigarette.
" I must have been insane to behave to you as I
did," he said. " It was most intensely foolish from a
purely selfish point of view."
She patted his hand which lay on the table-cloth.
" Certainly it was," she said, " if you wanted to keep
me. I told you so more than once. I told you that
there were limits, but you appeared to believe there
were not. That was quite like you, my dear. You
always thought yourself a Czar of Czars. I do not
think we need go into past histories."
He got up.
" Dodo, would you ever under any circumstances
come back to me ? " he said. " There is Nadine, you
know. It gives her a better chance "
Dodo interrupted him.
" You are not sincere when you say that. It isn't
DODO THE SECOND 45
of Nadine that you think. As for your question, I
have never heard of any circumstances which would
induce me to do as you suggest. Of course, we cannot
say that they don't exist, but I have never come across
them. Don't let us think of it, Waldenech : it is quite
impossible. If you were dying, I would come, but
under the distinct understanding that I should go
away again in case you got better, which I am sure I
hope you would. I don't bear you the slightest ill-will.
You didn't spoil my life at all, though it is true you
often made me both angry and miserable. As regards
Nadine, she has an excellent chance, as you call it,
under the present arrangements. All my friends have
come back to me except Mrs. Vivian."
" Mrs. Vivian ? " said he. " Oh yes, an English
type, earnest widow."
" With an ear-trumpet now," continued Dodo, " and
I shall get her some day. And Jack comes this after-
noon. Voila, the round table again ! I take up the
old life again, with the younger generation added, and
not a penny the worse."
" You are a good many pennies the better," said he
in self- justification. " As regards Lord Chesterford :
why is he coming here ? "
" I suppose because, like you, he wants to see me,
or Nadine, or both of us."
" Do you suppose he wants to marry you ? " he
asked. " Will you marry him ? "
Dodo got up, revelling in her sense of liberty. It
was enormous to feel free in the presence of him who
had bound her so long.
" Waldenech, you don't seem to realize that certain
questions from you to me are impertinent," she
said. " What I do now is none of your business.
You have as much right to ask Mrs. Vivian whether
she is thinking of marrying again. Realize, as I do,
that you and I are apart. I have not the slightest idea
if Jack wants to marry me now, as a matter of fact, and
46 DODO THE SECOND
I have really no idea if I would many him in case he
did. It is more than twenty years since I spoke to
him oh, I spoke to him out of a taxi-cab the other
day, but he did not answer and I have no idea what
he is like. In twenty years one may become an
entirely different person. However, that is all my
business, and no one else's ; perhaps, least of all, yours.
Now, if you have finished, let us take a stroll in the
garden before your carriage comes round."
" I ask, then, a favour of you," he said.
" And what is that ? "
" That you be yourself just for this stroll : that you
be as you used to be when we met that summer at
Zermatt."
Dodo was rather touched : she was also relieved
that the favour was one so easy to grant. She took his
arm as they left the dining-room and came out into
the brilliant sunshine, and was her unembarrassed self.
" That is dear of you to remember Zermatt," she
said. " Oh, Waldenech, think of those great mountains
still standing there in their silly rows with their noses
in the air. How frightfully fatiguing ! And they all
used to look as if they were cuts with each other, and
there they'll be a thousand years hence, not having
changed in the least. But I'm not sure we don't have
the better time scampering about for a few more years
shall roll, instead of thousands, and running in and out
like mice, though we get uglier and older every day.
Look, there is poor John Sturgis coming towards us :
let us quickly go in the opposite direction. Ah, he has
seen us ! Dear John, Nadine was looking for you, I
believe. I think she expected you to read something
to her after breakfast about Goths or Goethe. Or
was it Bishop Algie you were talking to last night
about cathedrals and Gothic architecture ? One or
the other, I am sure. He said he so much enjoyed
his talk with you."
Waldenech felt that Dodo was behaving exactly as
DODO THE SECOND 47
she used to behave at Zermatt. Somehow in his
sluggish and alcoholic soul there rose vibrations like
those he had felt then.
" Talk to him or me, it doesn't matter," he said in
German to her, " but talk like that. That is what I
want. The babbling ridicules you."
Dodo gave him one glance of extraordinary meaning.
This little muttered speech strangely reminded her of
the paean hi the thrush's song at dawn. It recalled a
poignancy of emotion that belonged to days long past,
but the same poignancy of feeling was hers still. She
could easily feel and habitually felt, in spite of her
forty and more years, the mere out-bubbling of life
that expressed itself in out-bubbling speech. She also
rather welcomed the presence of a third party : it
was easier for her to babble to anybody rather than to
Waldenech. She buttonholed the perfectly willing
John.
" Bishop Algie is such a dear, isn't he ? " she said.
" He is accustomed not to talk at all, and so talking
is a treat to him, and he loved you. He is taking a
cinematograph show all about the Acts of the Apostles
round the country next autumn to collect funds for
Maud's orphanage. The orphanage is already built,
but there are no orphans. I think the money he collects
is to get orphans to go there scholarships I suppose.
He made all his friends group themselves for scenes in
the Acts, and he is usually St. Paul, unless there is a
better part of some kind. He did a delicious ship-
wreck, where they are tying up the boat with rug-
straps and ropes. He had it taken in the bay here,
and it was extremely rough, which made it all the
more realistic, because dear Algy is a very bad sailor,
and while he was being exceedingly unwell over the
side, his halo fell off and sank."
" We did not talk about the Acts of the Apostles
last night," said John firmly ; " we talked about
Gothic architecture, and Piccadilly, and Wagner."
48 DODO THE SECOND
" But how entrancing," said Dodo. " I particularly
love Siegfried, because it is like a pantomime. Do
you remember when the dragon comes out of his cave
looking exactly like Paddington Station, with a red
light on one side and a green one on the other, and a
quantity of steam, and whistlings and some rails ?
Then afterwards a curious frosty female appears
suddenly in the bole of a tree, and tells Wotan that
his spear ought to be looked to before he fights.
Waldenech, we went together to Bayreuth, and you
snored, but luckily on the right note, and everybody
thought it was Fafner. John, I was sitting in my
window at dawn this morning, and all the birds in the
world began to sing. It made me feel so common.
Nobody ought to see the dawn except the birds, and I
suppose the worms for the sake of the birds."
Waldenech turned to her, and again spoke in German.
" You are still yourself," he said. " After all these
years you are still yourself."
Dodo's German was far more expressive than his,
it was also ludicrously ungrammatical, and immensely
rapid.
" There are no years," she said. " Years are only
an expression used by people who think about what is
young and what is old. Everyone has his essential age,
and remains that age always. This man is about
sixty, the age of his mother."
John Sturgis smiled in a kind and superior manner.
" Perhaps I had better tell you that I know German
perfectly," he said. " Also French and Italian, in
case you want to say things that I shan't understand."
Dodo stared for a moment, then pealed with laughter.
" Darling John," she said, " I think that is too
nice of you. If you were nasty you would have let
me go on talking. Isn't my German execrable ? How
clever of you to understand it ! But you are old,
aren't you ? Of course it is not your fault, nor is it
your misfortune, since all ages are equally agreeable.
DODO THE SECOND 49
We grow up into our ages if we are born old, and we
grow out of them, like missing a train, if our essential
age is young. When you are eighty, you will still be
sixty, which will be delightful for you. I make plans
for what I shall be when I am old, but I wonder if
I shall be able to carry them out. When I am old, I
shall be what I shall be, I suppose. The inevitable
doesn't take much notice of our plans. It sits there
like the princess on the top of the glass hill, while we all
try, without the slightest success, to get at it. Ah,
my dear Waldenech, there is the motor come round for
you. You will have to start, because I have at last
trained my chauffeur to give no one any time to wait at
the station, and you must not jilt the compartment I
have engaged you to. It would travel to London all
alone : so bad for a young compartment."
He made no further attempt to induce her to let
him stop, and Dodo with a certain relief of mind saw
him drive off, and blew a large quantity of kisses after
him.
" Waldenech was such a wonderful creature about the
year you were born, John," she said, " but you are too
old to remember that. Now I must be Martha, and see
the cook, and all the people who make lif e possible. Then
I shall become Mary again, and have a delicious bathe
before lunch. Certainly the good part is much the
pleasantest, as is the case always at private theatricals.
I think we must act this evening : we have not had
charades or anything for nearly two days."
John, like most prigs, was of a gregarious disposition,
and liked his own superiority of intellect, of which
he was so perfectly conscious, to be made manifest
to others, and literally, he could not imagine that
Dodo should seem to prefer burying herself in
household affairs when he was clearly at leisure to
converse with her. He did not feel himself quite in
tune with the younger members of the party, and
sometimes wondered why he had come here. That
D
50 DODO THE SECOND
wonder was shared by others. His tediousness in
ordinary intercourse was the tediousness of his genus,
for he always wanted to improve the minds of his
circle. Unfortunately he mistook quantity of informa-
tion for quality of mind, and thought that large numbers
of facts, even such low facts as dates, had in r them-
selves something to do with culture. But since, ztt the
present moment, Dodo showed not the smallest desire
to profit by his leisure, he wandered off to the tennis
courts, where he had reason to believe he should
find companions. His faith was justified, for there
was a rather typical party assembled. Berts and Hugh
were playing a single, while Esther was admiringly
fielding tennis-balls for them. They were both excellent
performers, equally matched and immeasurably active.
At the moment Esther standing, as before Ahasuerus,
with balls ready to give to Berts, had got in his way
and he had claimed a let.
" Thanks, Esther," he said, as he took a couple
of balls from her, " but would you get a little further
back ? You are continually getting in my way."
" Oh Berts, I'm so sorry," she said. " You are
playing so well ! "
" I know. Esther was in the light, Hugh."
" Oh, rather; let, of course," said Hugh.
Nadine took no active share. She was lying on the
grass at the side of the court with Tommy, and was
reading " Pride and Prejudice " aloud. When Esther
had a few moments to spare she came to listen. John
joined the reading party, and wore an appreciative
smile.
Nadine came to the end of a chapter.
" Yes, Art, oh great Art," she said, shutting the
book, " but I am not enchained. It corresponds to
Madame Bovary, or the Dutch pictures. It is beauti-
fully done ; none but an artist could have done it.
But I find a great deal of it dull."
John's smile became indulgent.
DODO THE SECOND 51
" Ah, yes," he said, " but what you call dull, I
expect I should call subtle. Surely, Nadine, you see
how marvellous it all is."
Esther groaned.
" John, you make me feel sick," she began.
" Balls, please," said Hugh in an ill-used voice.
Esther sprang up.
"Yes, Hugh, I'll get them," she said. "Aren't
those two marvellous ? " she added to Nadine.
" John is more marvellous," said Nadine. " John,
I wish you would get drunk or cheat at cards. It
would do you a world of good to lose a little of your
self-respect. You respect yourself far too much. No-
body is so respectable as you think yourself. We were
talking of you last night : I wish you had been there
to hear, but you had gone to bed with your camomile
tea. Perhaps you think camomile tea subtle also,
whereas I should only find it dull."
" I think you are quibbling with words," he said.
" But I too wish I had heard you talking last night.
I always welcome criticism so long as it is sincere."
" It was quite sincere," said Nadine. " You may
rest assured. It was unanimous, too, we were all
agreed."
John found this not in the least disconcerting.
" I am not so sure that it matters then," he said.
" When several people are talking about one thing
you tell me you were talking about me they ought to
differ. If they all agree, it shows they only see one
side of what they are discussing."
Nadine sat up, while Tommy buried his dissipated face
in his hands.
" We only saw one side of you," she said, " and
that was the obvious one. But it is the only one
that you ever show ; indeed, I don't believe there is
another. And since you like criticism you shall know.
We all thought you were a prig. Esther said you
would be distressed if we thought differently. She
52 DODO THE SECOND
said you like being a prig. Do tell me : is it pleasant ?
Or I expect what I call prig, you call cultured. Are
you cultured ? "
Tommy sat up.
" Come and listen, Esther," he shouted. " Those
glorious athletes can pick up the balls themselves for a
minute."
Esther emerged from a laurel bush triumphant with
a strayed reveller.
" Oh, is Nadine telling John what she thinks ? " she
asked.
" Nadine is ! " said Tommy.
Nadine meantime collected her thoughts. When she
talked she ascertained for herself beforehand what she
was going to say. In that respect she was unlike her
mother, who ascertained what she thought when she
found herself saying it. But the result in both cases
had the spontaneous ring.
" John, somehow or other you are a dear," she said,
"though we find you detestable. You think, anyhow.
That gives you the badge. Anybody who thinks "
Hugh, like Mr. Longfellow with his arrow, flung his
racquet into the air, without looking where it went.
He had a moment previously sent a fast drive into the
corner of the court, which raised whitewash in a cloud,
and won him the set.
" Nadine, are you administering the oath of the
clan ? " he said. " You haven't consulted either Berts
or me."
Nadine looked pained.
" Did you really think I was admitting poor John
without consulting you ? " she said. " Though he
complies with the regulations."
Hugh, streaming with the response that a healthy
skin gives to heat, threw himself down on the grass.
" I vote against John," he said. " I would sooner
vote for Seymour. And I won't vote for him. Also,
it is surely time to go and bathe."
DODO THE SECOND 53
" I don't know what you are all talking about," said
John. " I daresay it doesn't matter. But what is the
clan ? "
Hugh sat up.
" The clan is nearly prigs," he said, " but not quite.
But you are quite. We are saved because we do
laugh at ourselves "
" And you are not saved because you don't," added
Nadine.
" And is the whole object of the clan to think ? "
asked John.
" No, that is the subject. Also you speak as if we
all had said ' Let there be a clan, and it was so,' '
said Nadine. " You mustn't think that. There was a
clan, and we discovered it, like Newton and the orange."
" Apple, surely," said John.
Nadine looked brilliantly round.
" I knew he would say that," she said. " You see
you correct what I say, whereas a clansman would be
content to understand what I mean."
" Bishop Algie is clan, by the way," said Hugh. " I
went down to bathe before breakfast, and found him
kneeling down on the beach saying his prayers. That
is tremendously clannish."
" I don't see why," said John.
Esther sighed.
" No, of course you wouldn't see," she said.
" Try him with another," said Nadine.
Esther considered.
" Attend, John," she said. " When the last Stevenson
letters came out Berts bought them and looked at one
page. Then he took a taxi to Paddington and took a
return ticket to Bristol."
" Swindon," said Berts.
" The station is immaterial, so long as it was far
away. I daresay Swindon is quite as far as Bristol."
John smiled.
" There you are quite wrong," he said. " Swindon
54 DODO THE SECOND
comes before Bath, and Bristol after Bath. No doubt
it does not matter, though it is as well to be accurate."
Esther looked at him with painful anxiety.
" But don't you see why Berts went to Swindon or
Bristol ? " she said. " Poor dear, you do see now.
That is hopeless. You ought to have felt. To reason
out what should have been a flash is worse than not
to have understood at all."
John, again like all other prigs, was patient with
those not so gifted as himself.
" I daresay you will explain to me what it all amounts
to," he said. " All I am certain of is that Berts wanted
to read Stevenson's letters and so got into a train,
where he would be undisturbed. Wouldn't it have
answered the same purpose if he had taken a room at
the Paddington Hotel ? "
Nadine turned to Berts.
" Oh, Berts, that would have been rather lovely," she
said.
" Not at all," said he. "I wanted the sense of
travel."
John got up.
" Or, I should have recommended the Under-
ground," he said. " You could have gone round and
round until you had finished. It would have been
much cheaper."
Nadine waved impotent arms of despair.
" Now you have spoiled it," she said. " There was
a possibility in the Paddington Hotel, which sounds so
remote. But the Underground ! You might as well
say, why do I bathe, I who cannot swim ? I can get
clean in a bath, though I only get dirty in the sea,
and if I want the salt I can put Tiddle-de-wink salt,
or whatever the name is, in my bath "
" Tidman," said John.
" I am sure you are right, though who cares. I am
knocked down by cold waves, I am cut by stones on
my soles, I am pinched by crabs and homards, at
DODO THE SECOND 55
least I think I am, the wind gnaws at my bones, and
my hair is as salt as almonds. Between my toes is
sand, and bits of seaweed make me a plaster, and my
stockings fall into rock-pools ; but do I go with rapture
to have a bath in the bathroom ? I hate washing.
There is nothing so sordid as to wash my face, except
to brush my teeth. But to bathe in the sea makes me
think : it gives me romance. Poor John, you never
get romance. You amass information, and make a
Blue Book. But we all, we see blue mountains,
which we never reach. If we reached them they would
probably turn out to be green. As it is, they are
always blue, because they are beyond. It is suggestion
that we seek, not attainment. To attain is dull, to aspire
is the sugar and salt of life. Don't you see ? To
realize an ideal is to lose an ideal. It is like a man
growing rich : he never sees his sovereigns : when he
has gained them he flings them forth again into some-
thing further. If he left them in a box, the real
sovereigns, under his bed, what chance would there be
for him to grow rich ? But out they go, he never uses
them, except that he makes them breed. It is the
same with the riches of the mind. An idea or an ideal
is yours. Do you keep it ? Personally you do. But
we, no. We invest it again. It is to our credit, at
this bank of the mind. We do not hoard it, or spend
it piecemeal. We put it into something else and never
let it remain at home. But when I shall be a million-
aire of the mind, what, what then ? Yes, that makes
me pause. Perhaps it will all be converted, as they
convert bonds, is it not, and I shall put it all into love*
Who knows ? La-la."
Nadine paused a moment, but nobody spoke. Hugh
was watching her with the absorption that was always
his when she was there. But after a moment she
spoke again.
" We talk what you call rot," she said. " But it is
not rot. The people who always talk sense arrive at
56 DODO THE SECOND
less. There are sparks that fly, as when you strike
one flint with another. Your English philosophers
who are they Mr. Chesterton I suppose, is he not a
philosopher, or some Machiavelli or other ? they sit
down soberly to think, and when they have thought
they wrap up their thought in paradox, as you wrap
up a pill for your dog, so that he swallows it without
thinking, and his inside becomes bitter and aches.
That is not the way. You must start with pure
enjoyment, and when a thought comes you must fling
it into the air. It may hit a bird, or turn into a rain-
bow, or fall on your head ; but what matter ? You
others sit and think, and when you have thought of
something you put it in a beastly book, and have
finished with it. You prigs turn the world topsy-
turvy that way. You do not start with joy, and you
finish in a slough of despondent information. Ah, yes :
the child who picks up a match and rubs it against
something, and finds it catches fire, realizes the romance
of the match more than Mr. Bryant and May and
Boots, is it, who made the match. Matches are made
on earth, but the child who knows nothing about them
and strikes one is the person who is in heaven. You
are not content with the wonder and romance of the
world, you prefer to explain the rainbow away instead
of looking at it. It is a sort of murder to explain things
away : you kill their souls, and demonstrate that they
are only hydrogen."
She looked up at Hugh.
" We talked about it last night," she said. " We
settled that it was a great misfortune to understand
too well "
A footman arrived at this moment with a telegram,
which he handed to Berts, who opened it. He gave a
shout of laughter and passed it to Nadine.
" What shall I say ? " he asked.
" But of course yes," she said. " It is quite un-
necessary to ask Mamma."
DODO THE SECOND 57
Berts scribbled a couple of words on the reply-paid
form.
" It's only my mother," he said in general explana-
tion. " She wants to come over for a day or two, and
see Aunt Dodo again, but she doesn't feel sure if Aunt
Dodo wants to see her. Are you sure there's a room,
Nadine ? "
" There always is some kind of room," said Nadine.
" She can sleep in three-quarters of my bed, if not."
" I'm so glad she is tired of being a silly ass, as we
settled she was last night," said Berts. " Perhaps I
ought to ask Aunt Dodo, Nadine."
" Pish-posh," said Nadine.
John got up, and prig-like he had the last word.
" I see all about the clan," he said. " You have a
quantity of vague enthusiasm, and a lack of informa-
tion. You float about like jelly-fish without any sense
of direction, and think each other very wonderful."
Nadine giggled.
" I do see what he means," she said candidly.
" I am glad of that," said John.
CHAPTER III
THIS sojourn at Meering in the month of June, when
London and its diversions were at their mid-most, was
Nadine's plan. Whatever Nadine was or was not, she
was not a poseuse, and her contention that it was a
waste of time to spend all day in talking to a hundred
people who did not really matter, and in dancing all
night with fifty of them, was absolutely genuine.
" As long as anything amuses you," she had said, " it
is not waste of time, but when you begin to wonder if
it really amuses you, it shows that it does not. Darling
Mamma, may I go down to Meering for a week or ten
days ? I do not want anyone to come, but if anybody
likes to come we might have a little cheerful party.
Besides it is Coronation next week, and great corvee I
I think it is likely that Esther would wish to escape
and perhaps one or two others, and it would be en-
chanting at Meering now. It would be a rest cure : a
very curious sort of rest, since we shall probably never
cease bathing and talking and reading. But anyhow
we shall not be tired over things that bore us. That
is the true fatigue. You are never tired as long as
you are interested, but I am not interested in the
Coronation. I don't see how anybody possibly can be,
except the King and Queen."
Nadine's solitary week had proved in quality to be
populous, and in quantity to exceed the ten days, and
it was already beginning to be doubtful if July would
see any of them settled in London again. Dodo's
house in Portman Square had been maintained in a
state of habitableness with a kitchen-maid to cook,
and a housemaid to sweep, and a footman to wait, and
58
DODO THE SECOND 59
a chauffeur to drive, and an odd man to do whatever
the other servants didn't, and occasionally one or two
of the party made a brief excursion there for a couple
of nights, if any peculiar attraction beckoned. The
whole party had gone up for a Shakespeare ball at
the Albert Hall, but had returned next day, and Dodo
had hurried to St. Paul's Cathedral to attend a thanks-
giving service, especially since she, on leaving London,
had taken a season ticket, being convinced she would
be continuously employed in rushing up and down.
Subsequently she had defrauded the railway company
by lending it, though strictly non-transferable, to any
member of the party who wished to make the journey,
with the result that Bertie had been asked by a
truculent inspector whether he was really Princess
Waldenech. His passionate denial of any such identity
had led to a lesser frequency of these excursions.
Nadine with the same sincerity had mapped out for
herself a course of study at Meering, and she read
Plato every afternoon in the original Greek, with an
admirable translation at hand, from three o'clock till
five. During these hours she was inaccessible, and
when she emerged rather flushed sometimes from the
difficulty of comprehending what some of the dialogues
were about, she was slightly Socratic at tea, and tried
to prove, as Dodo said, that the muse of Mr Harry
Lauder was the same as the muse of Sir George
Alexander, and that she ought to be rude to Hugh if
she loved him. She was extremely clear-headed in her
reasoning, and referred them to the Symposium and the
dialogue on Lysis to prove her point. But as nobody
thought of contradicting her, since the Socratic mood
soon wore off, they did not attempt to find out the
Hellenic equivalents for those amazing doctrines.
She was markedly Socratic this afternoon, when the
whole party were having tea on the lawn. Esther and
Bertie had been down to bathe after lunch, and since
everybody was going to bathe again after tea, they
60 DODO THE SECOND
had left their clothes behind different rocky screens
above the probable high-water level on the beach, and
were clad hi bathing-dress, moderately dried in the
sun, with dressing-gowns above. Berts had nothing in
the shape of what is called foot-gear on his feet, since
it was simpler to walk up barefoot, and he was wriggling
his toes, one after the other, in order to divest them
of an excess of sand.
" But pain and pleasure are so closely conjoined,"
said Nadine, in answer to an exclamation of his con-
cerning stepping in a gorse-bush. " It hurts you to
have a prickle in your foot, but the pleasure of taking
it out compensates for the pain."
" That's cribbed from Socrates," said Hugh. " He
said that when they took off his chains just before they
hemlocked him. You didn't think of that, Nadine."
" I didn't claim to, but it is quite true. There is
actual pleasure in the cessation of pain. If you are
unhappy and the cause of your unhappiness is removed,
your happiness is largely derived from the fact that
you were unhappy. For instance, did you ever have a
fish-bone stick in your throat, Hugh ? "
" As a matter of fact never," said Hugh. " But as
I am meant to say ' Yes,' I will."
" And did you cough ? "
' Violently," said Hugh.
" Upon which the fish-bone returned to your
mouth ? "
" No," said Hugh. " I swallowed it. It never
returned at all."
" It does not matter which way it went," said
Nadine, " but your feeling of pleasure at its going was
derived from the pain which its sticking gave you."
" Is that all," said Hugh.
" Does it not seem to you to be proved ? "
" Oh, yes. It was proved long ago. But it's a
pedantic point. The sort of point John would have
made."
DODO THE SECOND 61
He absently whistled the first two lines of " Am
Stillen Herde," and Nadine was diverted from her
Platonisms.
" Ah, that is so much finer than the finished ' Preis-
lied,' " she said. " He curled and oiled his verses like
an Assyrian bull. He and Sachs had cobbled at it too
much : they had brushed and combed it. It had lost
something of springtime and sea-breeze. A finished
work of art has necessarily less quality of suggestive-
ness. Look at the Leonardo drawings ! Is the Gio-
conda ever quite as suggestive ? I am rather glad it
was stolen.* I think Leonardo is greater without it."
John drew in his breath in a pained manner.
" Monna Lisa was the whole wonder of the world,"
he said. " I had sooner the thief had taken away the
moon. Do you remember perhaps you didn't notice
it the painting of the circle of rock in which she
sat ? "
" You are going to quote Pater," said Nadine.
" Pray do not : it is a deplorable passage, and though
it has lost nothing by repetition, for there was nothing
to lose, it shows an awful ignorance of the spirit of the
Renaissance. The eyelids are not a little weary :
they are a little out of drawing only."
Esther looked across at Berts.
" Berts is either out of drawing," she said, " or
else his dressing-gown is. I think both are : he is a
little too long, and also the dressing-gown is too short.
It ought to proceed as far as the ankles, but Berts'
dressing-gown got a little weary at his knees."
" I barked my knees on those foul rocks," said Berts,
examining those injured joints.
" Barking them is worse than biting them," said
Nadine.
" I never bite my knees," said he. " It is a greedy
habit. Worse than doing it to your nails."
* Nadine forgot that La Giconda was not stolen until August of
this year.
62 DODO THE SECOND
" If you are not careful you will talk nonsense," said
Nadine.
" I don't agree. If you are not careful you can't
talk nonsense. If you want to talk nonsense, you've
not got to be not careful "
" There are too many ' nots,' " remarked Nadine.
" I will make it easier. If you are careless some
sort of idea creeps into what you say, and it ceases to
be nonsense. There are lots of ideas creeping about
like microbes, any of which spoil it. Hardly anybody
can be really meaningless for five minutes. That is
why the Mad tea-party is a supreme work of art :
you can't attach the slightest sense to anything that
is said in it."
" The question is what you mean by nonsense," said
Nadine. " Is it what Mr. Bernard Shaw writes in his
plays, or what Mrs. Humphry Ward writes in her
books ? They neither mean anything but they are
not at all alike. In fact they are as completely opposed
to each other as sense is to nonsense."
Berts threw himself back on the turf.
" True," he said, " but they are neither of them
nonsense. The lame and the halt and the blind ideas
creep into both. They both talk sense mortally
wounded."
Esther gave her appreciative sigh.
" Oh, Berts, how true," she said. " I went to a
play by Mrs. Humphry Ward the other day, or else I
read a book by Bernard Shaw, I forget which, and all
the time I kept trying to see what the sense of it had
been before it had its throat cut. But no one ever
tried to see what Alice in Wonderland meant, or what
Aunt Dodo means."
" Mamma is wonderful," said Nadine. " She lives
up to what she says, too. Her whole life has been
complete nonsense. I do hope Uncle Jack will per-
suade her to do the most ridiculous thing of all, and
marry him."
DODO THE SECOND 63
" Is that why he is coming ? " asked Esther.
" Oh, I hope so. It would be the greatest and most
absurd romance of the century."
Hugh was eating sugar meditatively out of the
sugar basin.
" I don't see that you have any qualifications for
laying down the law about nonsense, Nadine," he said.
" You are constantly reading Plato, and making argu-
ments, which are meant to be consecutive."
" I do that to relax my mind," said Nadine. " Berts
is quite right. Nonsense is not the absence of sense,
but the negative of sense, just as sugar is the negative
of salt. To get non-salt with your egg, you must eat
sugar with it, not only abstain from salt."
" You will get a remarkably nasty taste," remarked
John.
" Dear John, nobody ever wronged you so much as
to suggest that you would like nonsense. When was
Leonardo born ? And how old was he when he died ?
And how many golden crowns did Francis of France
give him for the Gioconda ? Your mind is full of
interesting facts, and so is your mouth. That is why
you are so tedious. You are like the sand they used
to put on letters, which instantly made them dry."
Berts got up.
" We will go and bathe again," he said, " and John
shall remain on the beach and look older than the rocks
he sits among. The rocks by the way are old red
sandstone. They will blossom as the rose when Granite
John sits among them. His is the head on which all
the beginnings of the world have come, and he is never
weary. Dear me, if I was not a teetotaller I should
imagine I was drunk. I think it is the sea. What a
heavenly time, the man who stole the Gioconda must
have had. He just took it away. I can imagine him
going to the Abbey at the Coronation, and taking
away the King's crown without anybody seeing. There
is genius, and it is also nonsense. It is pure nonsense
64 DODO THE SECOND
to imagine going to the Louvre and taking La Gioconda
away."
" I wonder what he has done with it," said Nadine.
" I think he must be a jig-saw puzzle maniac, and
have felt compelled to cut it up. Probably the Louvre
will receive little bits of it by registered post. The nose
will come, and then some rocks, and then a rather
weary eyelid. I think John stole it : he was absorbed
in jig-saw puzzles all morning. Now that seems to
me nonsense."
" Wrong again," said Berts. " When the puzzle is
put together it is sense. If people cut up the picture
and then threw the bits away, it might be nonsense.
But they keep the pieces and they become the picture
again."
" The process of cutting up is nonsense," said
Nadine.
" Yes, and the process of putting it together is non-
sense," said Esther.
" And the two make sense," said Berts. " Let's go
and bathe. Nadine, take down some proper book, and
read to us hi the intervals."
" Pride and Prej ? " said Nadine.
" Oh, do you think so ? Not marine in spirit. Why
not ' Poems and Ballads ' ? "
" John will be shocked," said Nadine.
" Not at all. He will be older than red sandstone.
I know Aunt Dodo has a copy. I think Mr. Swinburne
gave it her," said Esther.
" She may value it," said Nadine. " And it may
fall into the sea."
" Not if you are careful. Besides, that would be
rather suitable. Swinburne loved the sea, and also
understood it. I think his spirit would like it if a copy
was drowned."
" But Mamma's spirit wouldn't," said Nadine.
On the moment of her mentioned name Dodo
DODO THE SECOND 65
appeared at the long window of the drawing-room that
opened on to the lawn. Simultaneously there was
heard the buzz of a motor-car stopping at the front
door just round the corner. .
" Oh, all you darlings," said Dodo, in the style of
the * Omnia opera,' " are you going to bathe, or have
you bathed ? Berts, dear, we know that above the
knee comes the thigh, without your showing us. Surely
there are bigger dressing-gowns somewhere ? Of course
it does not matter : don't bother, and you've got
beautiful legs, Berts."
" Aren't they lovely ? " said Esther. " They ought
to be cast in plaster of Paris."
" But if you have bathed why not dress ? " said
Dodo, " and if you haven't why undress at
present ? "
" Oh, but it's both," said Berts, " and so is Esther .
We have bathed, and are going to do it again, as soon
as we've eaten enough tea."
Dodo looked appreciatively round.
*' You refreshing children ! " she said. " If I bathed
directly after tea I should turn blue and green like a
bruise. I have wasted all afternoon in looking at a
box of novels from Melland's. I don't know what has
happened to the novelists : their only object seems to be
to tell you about utterly dull and sordid people. There
is no longer any vitality hi them ; they are like leaders
in the papers, full of reliable information. One instance
shocked me ; the heroine in No. n Lambeth Walk
went to Birmingham by a train that left Euston at
2.30 p.m. and her ticket cost nine shillings and twopence
halfpenny. An awful misgiving seized me that it was
all true and I rang for an A.B.C. and looked out Bir-
mingham. It was so ; there was a train at that hour
and the ticket cost exactly that."
" How wretched ! " said Nadine in a pained voice.
" Darling, don't take it too much to heart. And
one of those novels was about Home Rule and another
66 DODO THE SECOND
about Soap, and another about Tariff Reform, and a
fourth about Christianity, which was absolutely con-
vincing. But one doesn't go to a novel in order to
learn Christianity, or soap-making. One reads novels
in order to be entertained and escape from real life into
the society of imaginary and fiery people. No good
novel ever resembles real life. Another one "
Dodo stopped suddenly, as a man came out of the
drawing-room window. Then she held both her hands
out.
" Ah, Jack," she said. " Welcome, welcome ! "
A very kind face, grizzled as to the hair and mous-
tache looked down on her from its great height, a face
that was wonderfully patient and reasonable and
trustworthy. Jack Chesterford wore his years well, but
he wore them all , he did not look to be on the summer
side of forty-five. He was spare still ; life had not
made him the unwilling recipient of the most volumin-
ous and ironic of its burdens, obesity, but his move-
ments were rather slow and deliberate, as if he was
tired of the senseless repetition of the days. But there
seemed to be no irritation mingled with his fatigue ;
he but yawned and smiled, and turned over fresh
pages.
But at the moment, as he stood there with both of
Dodo's hands in his, there was no appearance of weari-
ness, and indeed it would have been a man of dough
who remained uninspired by the extraordinary per-
fection and cordiality of her greeting. It was almost
as if she welcomed a lover : it was quite as if she wel-
comed the best of friends long absent. That she had
thought out the manner of her salutation, said nothing
against its genuineness, but she could have welcomed
him quite as genuinely in other modes. She had
thought indeed of putting pathos, penitence and
shamefacedness into her greeting ; she could with real
emotion to endorse it have just raised her eyes to his,
DODO THE SECOND 67
and let them fall again, as if conscious of the need of
forgiveness. Or, (with perhaps a little less genuineness)
she could have adopted the matronly and " too late "
attitude, but this would have been less genuine because
she did not feel at all matronly, or think that it was
in the least "too late." But warm and unmixed
cordiality with no consciousness of things behind, was
perhaps the most genuine and least complicated of
all welcomes, and she gave it.
She did not hold his hands more than a second or
two, for Nadine and others claimed them. But after a
few minutes he and Dodo were alone again together,
for Jack declined the invitation to join the bathers, on
the plea of senility and feeling cold like David. Then
when the noise of their laughter and talk had faded
seawards, he dropped the trivialities that till now had
engaged them, and turned to her.
" I have been a long time coming, Dodo," he said.
" Indeed, I meant never to come at all. But I could
not help it. I do not think I need explain either why
I stopped away, or why I have come now."
Apart from the perfectly authentic pleasure that
Dodo felt in seeing her old friend again, there went
through her a thrill of delight at Jack's implication of
what she was to him. She loved to have that power
over a man ; she loved to know how potent over him
still was the spell she wielded. In days gone by she
had not behaved well to him ; it would be truer to ac-
knowledge that she had behaved just as outrageously
as was possible for anybody not a pure-bred fiend.
But he had come back. It was unnecessary to explain
why.
And then suddenly with the rush of old memories
revived, memories of his unfailing loyalty to her, his
generosity, his unwearying loving-kindness, her eyes
grew dim, and her hands caught his again.
" Jack, dear," she said, " I want to say one thing.
I am sorry for all I did, for my my treachery, my
68 DODO THE SECOND
my damnedness. I was frightened : I have no other
excuse. And, my dear, I have been punished. But
I tell you that what hurts most is your coming here.
Your forgiveness."
She had not meant to say any of this, it all belonged
to one of the welcomes of him which she had rejected.
But the impulse was not to be resisted.
" It is so," she said, with mouth that quivered.
" Wipe it all out, Dodo," he said. " We start again
to-day."
Dodo's power of ^rallying from perfectly sincere
attacks of emotion jKS^absolutely amazing and quite
unimpaired. Only [for five seconds more did her
gravity linger.
" Dear old Jack," she said. " It is good to see you.
Oh, Jack, the grey hairs. What a lot, but they become
you, and you look just as kind and big as ever. I used
to think it would be so dreadful when we were all over
forty, but I like it quite immensely, and the young
generation are such ducks, and I am not the least
envious of them. But aren't some of them weird ?
I wonder if we were as weird : I was always weirdish,
I suppose, and I am too old to change now. But I've
still got one defect, though you would hardly believe it.
I can't get enough into the day, and I haven't learned
how to be in two places at once. But I have just had
three telephone lines put into my house in town.
Even that isn't absolutely satisfactory, because the idea
was to talk to three people at once, and I quite forgot
that I hadn't three ears. I really ought to have been
one of the young women in the Central Exchange, who
sniff and give you the wrong number. You must feel
really in the swim, if you are the go-between of every-
body who wants to talk to everybody else, but I should
want to talk to them all. Have you had tea ? Yes ?
Then let us go down to the sea because I must
have a bathe before dinner. Oh, by the way Edith
is coming to-night. I have not seen her yet. You
DODO THE SECOND 69
and she were the remnant of the old guard who
wouldn't surrender, Jack, but went on sullenly
firing your muskets at me. I forgot Mrs. Vivian,
but her ear-trumpet seems to make her matter
less."
They went together across the lawn, which that
morning had been so sweetly bird-haunted, and down
the steep hill-side that led across the dunes to the
sea. Here a mile of sands was framed between two
bold headlands that plunged steeply into the sea, and
Jack and Dodo walked along the firm shining beach
towards the huge boulders which had in some remote
cataclysm been toppled down from the cliff, and
formed the rocks than which John was so much
older. Like brown amphibious sheep with fleeces of
seaweed they lay grazing on the sands, and dotted
about in the water, and from the end of them a
long reef of cruel-toothed rocks jutted out a couple
of hundred yards into the sea, while higher up on
the beach were more monstrous fragments, as big as
cottages behind which the processes of dressing and
undressing of bathers could discreetly and invisibly
proceed. Dodo had forgotten about this and talking
rapidly was just about to proceed round one of them
when an agonised trio of male voices warned her what
sight would meet her outraged eyes. The tide was
nearly at its lowest and but a little way out at the
side of the reef these rocks ended altogether, giving
place to the wrinkled sand, and in among them were
delectable rock-pools with torpid strawberry-looking
anemones, and sideways-scuttling crabs with a perfect
passion for self-effacement in the sand, who, if efface-
ment was impossible, turned themselves into wide-
pincered grotesques, and tried to make themselves look
tall. Bertie and Esther who were already prepared for
the bathe were pursuing marine excavations in one of
these, and Dodo ecstatically pulled off her shoes and
70 DODO THE SECOND
stockings, one of which fell into the rock-pool in
question.
" Oh, Jack, if you won't bathe you might at least
paddle," she said. " Berts, do you see that very red-
faced anemone ? Isn't it like Nadine's maid ? Esther,
do take care. There's an enormous crab crept under
the seaweed by your foot. Don't let it pinch you,
darling. Isn't cancer the Latin for crab ? It might
give you cancer if it pinched you. Here are the rest
of them, I must go and put on my bathing-dress. It's
in the tent. I put up a tent for these children, Jack,
at great expense, and they none of thern ever use it.
Nadine, you are going to read to us all in the water. Do
wait till I come. What book is it ? * Poems and
Ballads ' ? and so suspiciously like the copy Mr.
'Swinburne gave me. Don't drop it into the water
more often than is necessary. You shall read us
* Dolores our lady of pain,' as we step on sharp rocks
and are pinched by crabs. How Mr. Swinburne would
have liked to know that we read his poems as we
bathed. And there's that other delicious one ' Swallow
my sister, oh, sister swallow.' It sounds at first as if
her sister was a pill, and she had to swallow her. Jack
dear, you make me talk nonsense somehow. Come up
with me as far as the tent, and while I get ready you
shall converse politely from outside. It is so dull
undressing without anybody to talk to."
Jack, though cordially invited to take part in the
usual Symposium in Nadine's room that night at bed-
time, preferred to go to his own, though he had no
intention of going to bed. He wanted to think, to
ascertain how he felt. He imagined that this would
be a complicated process ; instead he found it extra-
ordinarily simple. That there were plenty of things to
, think about was perfectly true, but they all faced one
\ way, so to speak, one dominant emotion inspired them
"^all. He was as much in love with. Dodo as ever. He
DODO THE SECOND 71
did not, because he could not, consider how cruelly
she had wronged him : all that she had done was but
a rush-light in the midday sun of what she was. He
was amazed at his stupidity in letting a day, not to
speak of a year, elapse without seeing her, since she
& was free again ; it had been a wanton waste of twelve
golden months to do so. Often during these last two
years, he had almost fancied himself in love with
Nadine ; now he saw so clearly why. It was because
in face and corporal presence no less than in mind she
reminded him so often of what Dodo had been like. She
reproduced something of Dodo's inimitable charm.
But now that he saw the two together, how utterly
had the image of Nadine faded from his heart ! In his
affection, in his appreciation of her beauty and vitality
she was still exactly where she was, but out of the book
of love her name had been quite blotted out. Blotted
out too, were the fires of his anger and the scars of a
bleeding heart, and years of indignant suffering. But
he had never let them take entire possession of him :
in his immense soul there had ever been alight the
still secret flame that no winds or tempests could
make to flicker. And to-day, at the sight of her,
that flame had shot up again, a beacon that reached
to heaven.
Hard work had helped him all these years to keep
his nature unsoured. His great estates were managed
with a care and consideration for those who lived on
his land unequalled in England, and politically he had
made for himself a name universally respected for the
absolute integrity of which it was the guarantee. But
all that, so it seemed to him now had been his em-
ployment not his life. His life, all these years, had lain
like some enchanted and sleeping entity, waiting for
the spell that would awaken it again. Now the spell
had been spoken.
For a moment his thought paused, wondering at
itself. It seemed incredible that he should be so
72 DODO THE SECOND
weak, so wax-like. Yet that seemed to matter not at
all. He might be weak or wax-like, or anything else
that a man should not be, but the point was that he
was alive again.
For a little he let himself drift back on to the surface
of things. He had passed a perfectly amazing evening.
Edith Arbuthnot had arrived, bringing with her a
violinist, a viola-player and a 'cellist, but neither maid
nor luggage. Her luggage, except her golf-clubs, and
a chest containing music (as she was only coming for a
few days) was certainly lost, but she was not sure
whether her maid had ever meant to come, for she
could not remember seeing her at the station. So the
violinist had her maid's room and the viola-player
and 'cellist, young and guttural Germans, had quarters
found for them in the village, since Dodo's cottage
was completely crammed. But they had given posi-
tively the first performance of Edith's new quartette
and at the end the violinist had ceremoniously crowned
her with a wreath of laurels which he had picked from
the shrubbery before dinner. Then they went into wild
ecstacies of homage, and drank more beer than would
have been thought possible, while Edith talked German
even more remarkably than Dodo, and much louder.
With her laurel wreath tilted rakishly over one ear, a
mug of beer in her hand, and wearing an exceedingly
smart dinner-gown belonging to Dodo, and rather
large walking-boots of her own, since nobody else's
shoes would fit her, she presented so astounding a
spectacle, that Jack had unexpectedly been seized
with a fury of inextinguishable laughter, and had to
go outside followed by Dodo who patted him on the
back. When they returned, Edith was lecturing about
the music they had just heard. Apparently it was
impossible to grasp it all at one hearing, whle it was
obviously essential that they must all grasp it without
delay. In consequence it was performed all over
again, while she conducted with her wreath on. There
w
*
so
DODO THE SECOND 73
as more homage and more beer. Then they had had
charades by Dodo and Edith, and Edith sang a long
song of her own composition with an immense trill on
the last note but one, which was " Shake " ; and her
band played a quantity of Siegfried music, while Dodo
with a long white beard made of cotton-wool was
Wotan, and Edith truculently broke her walking-stick,
and that was " Spear," and they did whatever they
could remember out of " Macbeth," which wasn't
much, but which was Shakespeare.
It was all intensely silly, but Jack knew that he had
not laughed so much during all those years which to
night had rolled away. . . .
Then he left the surface and dived down into his
heart again. . . . There was no question of forgiving
Dodo for the way in which she had treated him, the
idea of forgiveness was as foreign to the whole question
as it would have been to forgive the barometer for
going down and presaging rain. It couldn't help it ;
it was made like that. But in stormy weather and fine,
in tempest and in the clear shining after rain, he loved
Dodo . What his chances were he could not at present con-
sider, for his whole soul was absorbed in the one emotion.
Jack, for all his grizzled hah- and his serious political
years, had a great deal about him that was still boyish,
and with the inconsistency of youth having settled that
it was impossible to think about his chance, proceeded
very earnestly to do so. The chance seemed a con-
spicuously outside one. Dodo had had more than one
opportunity of marrying him before, and had felt
herself unable to take advantage of it : it was very
little likely that she should find him desirable now.
Twice already she had embarked on the unaccountable
sea ; both times her boat had foundered. Once the
sea was made, in her estimate, of cotton-wool, the
second time, in anybody's estimate, of amorous brandy.
It was not to be expected that she would experiment
again with so unexpected a Proteus.
74 DODO THE SECOND
Meantime a Parliament of the younger generation in
Nadine's room was talking with the frankness that
characterised them about exactly the same subject
as Jack was revolving alone, for Dodo had gone away
with Edith in order to epitomise the last twenty years,
and begin again with a fresh twenty to-morrow.
" It is quite certain that it is Mamma he wants
to marry and not me," said Nadine. " I thought
it was going to be me. I feel a little hurt, like
when one isn't asked to a party to which one doesn't
want to go."
" You don't want to go to any parties," said Hugh
rather acidly, " but I believe you love being asked to
them."
Nadine turned quickly round to him.
" That is awfully unfair, Hughie," she said in a low
voice, *' if you mean what I suppose you do. Do you
mean that ? "
" What I mean is quite obvious," he said.
Nadine got up from the window-seat where she was
sitting with him.
" I think we had all better go to bed," she said.
" Hugh is being odious."
"If you meant what you said," he remarked, " the
odiousness is with you. It is bad taste to tell me that
you feel hurt that the Ripper doesn't want you to
marry him."
Nadine was silent a moment. Then she held out
her hand to him.
" Yes, you are quite right, Hugh," she said. " It
was bad taste. I am sorry. Is that enough ? "
He nodded, and dropped her hand again.
" The fact is we are all rather cross," said Esther.
" We haven't had a look in to-night. We haven't
been a bit wonderful."
" Mother is quite overwhelming," said Berts. " She
and Aunt Dodo between them make one feel exactly
a hundred and two years' old ; as old as John. Here
DODO THE SECOND 75
we all sit, we old people, Nadine and Esther and Hugh
and I, and we are really much more serious than
they."
" Your mother is serious enough about her music,"
said Nadine. " And Jack is serious about Mamma.
The fact is that they are serious about serious
things."
" Do you really think of Mother as a serious person
with her large boots and her laurel-crown ? " asked
Berts.
" Certainly ; all that is nothing to her. She doesn't
heed it, while we who think we are musical can see
nothing else. I couldn't bear her quartette either,
and I know how good it was. I really believe
that we are rotten before we are ripe. I except
Hugh."
Nadine got up, and began walking up and down the
room as she did when her alert analytical brain was in
grips with a problem.
"Look at Jack the Ripper," she said. "Why,
he's living in high romance ; he's like a very nice grey-
headed boy of twenty. Fancy keeping fresh all that
time ! Hugh and he are fresh. Berts is a stale old
man, who can't make up his mind whether he wants
to marry Esther or not. I am even worse. I am
interested in Plato, and in all the novels about social
reform and dull people who live in sordid respect-
ability, which Mamma finds so utterly tedious."
Nadine threw her arms wide.
" I can't surrender myself to anybody or anything,"
she said. " I can be cool and judge, but I can't get
away from my mind. It sits up in a corner like a great
governess. Whereas Mamma takes up her mind like
one of those flat pebbles on the shore and plays ducks
and drakes with it, throws it into the sea, and then
really enjoys herself, lets herself feel. If for a moment
I attempt to feel, my mind gives me a poke and says
' Attend to your lessons, Miss Nadine ! ' The great
76 DODO THE SECOND
Judy ! If only I could treat her like one, and take
her out and throw brick-bats at her. But I can't ;
I am terrified of her ; also I find her quite immensely
interesting. She looks at me over the top of her gold-
rimmed spectacles, and though she is very hard and
angular yet somehow I adore her. I loathe her you
know, and want to escape, but I do like earning her
approbation. Silly old Judy ! "
Berts gave a heavy sigh.
" What an extraordinary lot of words to tell us that
you are an intellectual egoist," he said. " And you
needn't have told us at all. We all knew it."
Nadine gave her hiccup-laugh.
" I am like the starling," she said. " I can't get
out. I want to get out and go walking with Hugh.
And he can't get in. For what a pack of miseries
was le bon Dieu responsible when he thought of the
world."
" I should have been exceedingly annoyed if He had
not thought of me," said Berts.
Nadine paused opposite the window-seat, where
Hugh was sitting silent.
" Oh, Hugh," she said, speaking very low. " There
is a real me somewhere, I believe. But I cannot find
it. I am like the poor thing in the fairy-tale, that lost
its shadow. Indeed I am in the more desperate plight,
I have got my shadow, but I have lost my substance,
though not in riotous living."
" For God's sake find it," he said, " and then give it
me to keep safe."
She looked at him with her dim smile that always
seemed to him to mean the whole world.
" When I find it, you shall have it," she said.
" And last night it was the moon you wanted," said
he, " not yourself."
Nadine shrugged her shoulders.
" What would you have ? " she said. " That was
but another point of view. Do not ask me to see things
DODO THE SECOND 77
always from the same standpoint. And now, since
my Mamma and Berts have made us all feel old, let
us put on our night-caps and rub some cold cream on
our venerable faces and go to bed. Perhaps to-morrow
we shall feel younger."
CHAPTER IV
SEYMOUR STURGIS (who, Berts thought, ought to have
been drowned when he was a girl), was employed one
morning in July in dusting his jade. He lived in a
small flat just off Langham Place, with a large capable
middle-aged Frenchwoman, who worshipped the ground
on which he so delicately trod with the cloth-topped
boots which she made so resplendent. She cooked
for him in the inimitable manner of her race, she kept
his flat speckless and shining, she valetted him, she did
everything in fact except dust the jade. Highly as
Seymour thought of Antoinette he could not let her do
that. He always alluded to her as " my maid," and
used to take her with him, as valet, to country houses.
It must, however, be added that he did this largely to
annoy, and be largely succeeded.
The room which was adorned by his collection of
jade, seemed somehow strangely unlike a man's room.
A French writing table stood in the window with a
writing-case and blotting book stamped with his ini-
tials in gilt ; by the pen-tray was a smelling-bottle
with a gold screw-top to it. Thin lace blinds hung
across the windows, and the carpet was of thick, fawn-
coloured fabric with remarkably good Persian rugs
laid down over it. On the chimney-piece was a Louis
Seize garniture of clock and candlesticks, and a quan-
tity of invitation cards were stuck into the mirror
behind. There were half a dozen French chairs, a
sofa, a baby-grand, a small table or two, and a book-
case of volumes all in morocco dress-clothes. On the
walls there were a few prints, and in glazed cabinets
78
DODO THE SECOND 79
against the wall was the jade. Nothing, except perhaps
the smelling-bottle suggested a mistress rather than a
master, but the whole effect was feminine. Seymour
rather liked that ; he had very little liking for his own
sex. They seemed to him both clumsy and stupid,
and his worst enemies (of whom he had plenty) could
not accuse him of being either the one or the other.
On their side they disliked him because he was not like
a man ; he disliked them because they were.
But while he detested his own sex, he did not regard
the other with the ordinary feeling of a man. He liked
their dresses, their perfumes, their hair, their femininity
more than he liked them. He was quite as charming
to plain old ladies, even as Dodo had said, as he was
to girls, and he was perfectly happy, when staying in
the country, to go a motor drive with aunts and grand-
mothers. He had a perfectly marvellous digestion ;
ate a huge lunch, sat still in the motor all afternoon,
and had quantities of buttered buns for tea. He
dressed rather too carefully to be really well-dressed,
and always wore a tie and socks of the same colour,
which repeated in a more vivid shade the tone of his
clothes. He had a ruby ring, a sapphire ring, and an
emerald ring ; they were worn singly and matched his
clothes. He spoke French quite perfectly.
All these depressing traits naturally enraged such
men as came in contact with him, but though they
abhorred him they could not openly laugh at him, for
he had a tongue, when he chose, of quite unparalleled
acidity, and was markedly capable of using it when
required and taking care of himself afterwards. In
matters of art, he had a taste that was faultless, and
his taste was founded on real knowledge and technique,
so that really great singers delighted to perform to his
accompaniment, and in matters of jewellery he designed
for Grinelle. In fact, from the point of view of his own
sex, he was detestable rather than ridiculous, while
considerable numbers of the other sex did their very
8o DODO THE SECOND
best to spoil him, for none could want a more amusing
companion, and his good looks were quite undeniable.
But somewhere in his nature there was a certain grit
which quite refused to be ground into the pulp of a
spoiled young man. In his slender frame, too, there
were nerves of steel, and, most amazing of all, when
not better employed in designing for Grinelle, or engaged
on bloodless flirtations, he was a first-class golfer.
But he preferred to go for a drive in the afternoon, and
smoke a succession of rose-scented cigarettes, which
could scarcely be considered tobacco at all. He was
fond of food, and drank a good many glasses of port
rather petulantly, after dinner, as if they were medicine.
This morning he was particularly anxious that his
jade should show to advantage, for Nadine was coming
to lunch with him, to ask his advice about something
which she thought was old Venetian-point lace. He
had taken particular pains also about the lunch ;
everything was to be en casserole ; there were eggs in
spinach, and quails, and a marvellous casseroled cherry
tart. He could not bear that anything about him,
whether designed for the inside or the outside, should
be other tbin exquisite, and he would have been just
as sedulous a Martha if that strange barbarian called
Berts was coming, Only he would have given Berts
an immense beef steak as well (which Berts detested),
to show that he knew that it was manly to eat lumps
of meat.
The bell of his flat rang, announcing Nadine. He
did not like the shrill treble bells, and had got one that
made a low bubbling note like the laugh of Sir Charles
Wyndham, and Nadine came in.
" Enchanted ! " he said. " How is Philistia ? "
" Not being the least glad of you," she said. " I
wish I could make people detest me, as Bert detests
you. It shows force of character. Oh, Seymour, what
jade ! It is almost shameless ! Isn't it shameless
jade I mean ? Is any one else coming to lunch ? "
DODO THE SECOND 81
" Of course not. I don't dilute you with other
people, I prefer Nadine neat. Now let's have the crisis
at once. Bring out the lace."
Nadine produced a small parcel and unfolded it.
" Pretty," said he.
Then he looked at it more closely, and tossed it
aside. " I hoped it was more like Venetian point than
that," he said. " It's all quite wrong ; the thread's
wrong ; the stitch is wrong ; it smells wrong. Don't
tell me you've bought it."
" No, I shan't tell you," she said.
He took it up again and pondered.
" You got it at Ducane's," he said. " I remember
seeing it. Well, take it back to Ducane, and tell him
if he sold it as Venetian, that he must give you back
your money. My dear, it is no wonder these dealers
get rich, if they can palm off things like that. C'est
fini. Ah, but that is an exquisite aquamarine you are
wearing. Those little diamond points round it throw
the light into it. Why, I believe I designed the mount
myself ! How odd people usually are about jewellery.
They think great buns of diamonds are sufficient to
make an adornment. You might as well send up an
ox's hind leg on the table. What makes the difference
is the manner of its presentation. ... Or it is like
that lady who employs herself in writing passionate
love-novels. She says on page one that he was madly
in love with her, on page two that she was madly in
love with him, on page three that they were madly in
love with each other, and then come some asterisks.
(How much more artistic by the way if they printed
the asterisks and left out the rest ! Then we should
know what it really was like.) You can appreciate
nothing until it is framed or cooked ; then you can see
the details. The poor lady presents us with chunks of
meat and informs us that they are voluptuous men
and women. I will write a novel some day, from the
detached standpoint, observing and noting. Then I
82 DODO THE SECOND
shall go away abroad. It is only bachelors who can
write about love. Do you like my tie ? "
Seymour had a trick of putting expression into what
he said by means of his hands. He waved and dabbed
with them ; they fondled each other, and then started
apart as if they had quarrelled. Sometimes one finger
pointed, sometimes another, and they were all beauti-
fully manicured. Antoinette did that, and as she
scraped and filed and polished he talked his admirable
French to her, and asked after the old home in Nor-
mandy, where she learned to make wonderful soup
out of carrots and turnips and shin bones of beef. At
the moment she came in to announce the readiness of
lunch.
" Oh, is it lunch already ? " said Nadine. " Can't
we have it after half an hour ? I should like to see the
jade."
" Oh, quite impossible," said he. " She has taken
such pains. It would distress her. For me, I should
prefer not to lunch yet, but she is the artist now. There
are fragile things, Nadine, eggs in spinach. You must
come at once."
" How greedy you are," she said.
" For you that is a foolish thing to say. I am simply
thinking of Antoinette's pride. It is as if I blew a soap
bubble, all iridescent, and you said you would come
to look at it in ten minutes. You shall tell me news ;
if you talk you can always eat. What has happened
in Philistia ? "
Nadine frowned.
" You think of us all as Philistines," she said, " be-
cause we like simple pleasures, and because we are
enthusiastic."
" Ah, you mistake ! " he said. " You couple two
reasons which have nothing to do with each other.
To be enthusiastic is the best possible condition, but
you must be enthusiastic over what is worth enthusiasm.
Is it so lovely really, that Aunt Dodo has settled to
DODO THE SECOND 83
marry the Ripper ? Surely that is a rechauffee. You
wrote me the silliest letter about it. Of course it does
not matter at all. Much more important is that you
look perfectly exquisite. Antoinette, the spinach is
sans pareil ; give me some more spinach. But it is
slightly bourgeois in Jack the R. to have been faithful
for so many years. It shows a want of imagination,
also, I think, a want of vitality, only to care for one
woman."
" That is one more than you ever cared for,"
remarked Nadine.
" I know. I said it was bourgeois to care for one.
It is not the least bourgeois to care for none. But to
care for one is rather like a troubadour. I am not
in the least like a troubadour, thank God. But I think
I shall get married soon. It gives one more liberty ;
people don't feel curious about one any more. English
people are so odd ; they think you must lead a life
& deux, and if you don't lead the ordinary double life
with a wife, they think you lead it with somebody
else, and they get curious. I am not in the least curious
about other people ; they can lead as many lives as a
piano has strings for all I care, and thump all the
strings together, or play delicate arpeggios on them.
Nadine, that hat-pin of yours is simply too divine. I
will eat it pin and all if it is not Faberge."
Nadine laughed.
" I can't imagine you married," she said. " You
would make a very odd husband."
" I would make a very odd anything," said he. " I
don't find any recognised niche that really fits me,
whereas almost everybody has some sort of niche.
Indeed, in the course of hundreds of years the manner
of people's lives, which is what I mean by niches, has
been evolved to suit the sort of types which nature
produces. They live in rows and respect each other.
But why it should be considered respectable to marry
and have hosts of horrible children I cannot imagine.
84 DODO THE SECOND
But it is, and I bow to the united strength of middle-
class opinion. But neither you nor I are really made
to live in rows. We are Bedouins by nature, and like
to see a different sunrise every day. There shall be
another tent for Antoinette."
That admirable lady was just bringing them their
coffee, and he spoke to her in French.
" Antoinette, we start for the desert of Sahara
to-morrow," he said. " We shall live in tents."
Antoinette's plump face wrinkled itself up into
enchanted smiles.
" Bien, m'sieur," she said. " A quelle heure ? "
Nadine crunched up her coffee sugar between her
white teeth.
" You are as little fitted to cross the desert of Sahara
as anyone I ever met," she said.
" I should not cross it ; I should "
" You would be miserable without your jade or your
brocade and the sand would get into your hair, and
you would have no bath," she said. " But everyone
who thinks has a Bedouin mind ; it always wants to
go on and find new horizons and get nearer to blue
mountains."
" The matter with you is that you want and you
don't know what you want," said he.
Nadine nodded at him. Sometimes when she was
with him she felt as if she was talking to a shrewd
middle-aged man, sometimes to a rather affected girl.
Then occasionally, and this had been in evidence to-day,
she felt as if she was talking to some curious mixture of
the two, who had a girl's intuition and a man's judg-
ment. Fond as she was of the friends whom she had
so easily gathered round her, gleeful as was the nonsense
they talked, serious as was her study of Plato, she felt
sometimes that all those sunny hours concerned but the
surface of her, that, as she had said before, the indi-
vidual, the character that sat behind was not realty
concerned in them. And Seymour, when he made
DODO THE SECOND 85
mixture of his two types, had the effect of making her
very conscious of the character that sat behind her
tastes. He had described it just now in a sentence ;
it wanted, but knew not what.
" And I want it so frightfully," she said. " It is a
pity I don't know what it is. Because then I should
probably get it. One gets what one wants if one wants
enough."
" A convenient theory," he said, " and if you don't
get it, you account for it by saying you didn't want it
enough. I don't think it's true. In any case the
converse isn't, one gets a quantity of things which
one doesn't want in the least, whereas you ought not
to get, on the same theory, the things you passionately
desire not to have."
Nadine finished her sugar and lit a cigarette.
" Oh, don't upset every theory," she said. " I am
really rather serious about it."
He regarded her with his head on one side for a
moment.
" What has happened is that somebody has asked
you to do something, and you have refused. You are
salving your conscience by saying that he doesn't
want it enough, or you would not have refused."
She laughed.
" You are really rather uncanny sometimes," she
said.
" Only a guess," he said.
" Guess again then ; define," she said.
" The obvious suggestion is that Hugh has proposed
to you again."
" You would have been burned as a witch two
hundred years ago," said she. " I should have con-
tributed faggots. Oh, Seymour, that was really why
I came to see you. I didn't care two straws about the
foolish lace. They all tell me I had better marry Hugh,
and I wanted to find somebody to agree with me. I
hoped perhaps you might. He is such a dear you know,
86 DODO THE SECOND
and I should always have my own way ; I could always
convince him I was right."
" Most girls would consider that an advantage."
" In that case I am not like most girls ; I often wish
. I was. He always thinks that all I do is admirable ;
it is such a pity. I wrote an article a month or two
ago about Tolstoi, and read it to him, and he thought it
quite wonderful. Well, it wasn't. It was silly rot ;
I wrote it, and so of course I know. It came out in a
magazine."
" I read it," remarked Seymour in a strictly neutral
voice.
" Well, wasn't it very poor stuff ? " asked Nadine.
" To be quite accurate," said Seymour. " I only
read some of it. I thought it very poor indeed. It
was ignorant and affected."
Nadine gave him an approving smile.
" There you are, then ! And with Hugh it would
be the same in everything else. He would always
think what I did was quite wonderful. They say love
is blind, don't they ? So much the worse for love.
It seems to me a very poor sort of thing if, in order
to love anybody, you must lose, with regard to her,
any power of mind and judgment that you may happen
to possess. I don't want to be loved like that. I
want people to sing my praises with understanding,
and sit on my defects also with discretion. If I was
perfectly blind too, I suppose it would be quite ideal
to many him. But I'm not, and I'm not even sure
that I wish 1 was. Again, if Hugh was perfectly
critical about me, it would be quite ideal. It seems
to me you must have the same quality of love on both
sides, or, at any rate, the same quality of affection.
People make charming marriages without any love
at all, if they have affection and esteem and respect
for each other."
They had gone back to the drawing-room, and Sey-
mour was handing pieces of his most precious jade to
DODO THE SECOND 87
Nadine, who looked at them absently, and then gave
them back to him, with the same incuriousness as
people give tickets to be punched by the collector.
This Seymour bore with equanimity, for Nadine was
interesting on her own account, and he did not care
whether she looked at his jade or not. But at this
moment he screamed loudly, for she put a little round
medallion of exquisitely carved yellow jade up to her
mouth, as if to bite it.
" Oh, Seymour, I'm so sorry," she said. " I wasn't
attending to your jade, which is quite lovely, and
subconsciously this piece appeared like a biscuit. Tell
me, do you like jade better than anything else ? It
is part of a larger question, which is ' Do you like
things better than people ? ' Personally, I like people
so far more than everything else in the world, but I
don't like any particular person nearly as much. I
like them in groups, I suppose. If I married at all,
I should probably be a polyandrist. Certainly, if I
could marry four or five people at once, I should marry
them all. But I don't want to marry any one of
them."
Seymour put the priceless biscuit back into its
cabinet.
" Who," he asked, " are this quartet of fortunate
swains ? "
" Well, Hugh, of course, would be one," said she,
" and I think Berts would be another. And if it won't
be a shock to you, you would be the third, and Jack
the R. would be the fourth. I should then have a
variety of interests : there would be the world, and the
flesh, and the devil, and a saint."
" St. Seymour," said he, as if trying how it sounded,
like a Liberal peer selecting his title.
" I am afraid you are cast for the devil," said Nadine,
candidly. " Berts is the world because he thinks he
is cynical. And Jack is the flesh "
" Because he is so thin ? "
88 DODO THE SECOND
" Partly. But also because he is so rich."
Seymour turned the key on his jade. This interested
him much more. But he had to make further inquiries.
" If every girl wanted four husbands," he said, " there
wouldn't be enough men to go round."
" Round what ? " asked Nadine, still entirely
absorbed in what she was thinking.
" Round the marriageable females. Or does your
plan include poly-womany, or whatever the word is,
for men ? "
" But, of course. There are such lots of bachelors
who would marry if they could have two or three
wives, just as there are such lots of girls who would
marry if they could have two or three husbands. All
those laws about one man one wife were made by
ordinary people for ordinary people. And ordinary
people are in the majority. There ought to be a small
county set apart for ridiculous people, with a rabbit-
fence all round it, and anyone who could be certified
to be ridiculous in his tastes should be allowed to go
and live there unmolested. That would be much
better than your plan of going to the Sahara with
Antoinette. You would have to get five householders
to certify you as ridiculous, in order to obtain admis-
sion. Then you would do what you chose within the
rabbit fence, but when you wanted to be what they
call sensible again you would come out, and be bound
to behave like anybody else, as long as you were out,
under penalty of not being admitted again."
Seymour considered this.
" There's a lot in it," he said, " and there would be
a lot of people in the rabbit fence. I should go there
to-morrow, and never come out at all. But a smaller
county would be no use. I should start with Kent,
not Rutlandshire, and be prepared to migrate to
Yorkshire. I accept the position of one of your
husbands."
" That is sweet of you. I think "
DODO THE SECOND 89
He interrupted.
" I shall have some more wives," he said. " I
should like a lunch wife and a dinner wife. I want
to see a certain kind of person from about midday
till tea-time."
". Is that a hint that it is time for me to go," asked
Nadine.
" Nearly. Don't interrupt. But then, if one is
not in love with anybody at all, as you are not, and
as I am not, you want a perfectly different kind of
person in the evening. To be allowed only one wife
has evolved a very tiresome type of woman ; a woman
who is like a general servant, and can, so to speak, wait
at table, cook a little, and make beds. People look for
somebody who, on the whole, suits them. It is like
buying a reach-me-down suit, which I have never
done. It probably fits pretty well. But if it is to be
worn every day until you die, it must fit absolutely.
If it doesn't, there are fifty other suits that would
do as well."
" Translate," said Nadine.
" Surely there is no need. What I mean is that
occasionally two people are ideally fitted. But the
fit only occurs intermittently : it is not common.
Short of that, as long as people don't blow their noses
wrong, or walk badly, or admire Carlo Dolci, or fail
to admire Bach, so long, in fact, as they do not have
impossible tastes, any phalanx of a thousand men
can marry a similar phalanx of a thousand women,
and be as happy, the one with the other, as with any
other permutation or combination of the thousand.
There is a possible high, big, tremulous, romantic
attachment possible, and it occasionally occurs. Short
of that, with the limitation about Carlo Dolci and Bach,
anybody would be as happy with anybody else, as
anybody would be with anybody. We are all on a
level, except the highest of all, and the lowest of all.
Life, not death, is the leveller ! "
90 DODO THE SECOND
" Still life is as bad as still death," said she.
Seymour groaned and waved his hands.
" You deserve a good scolding, Nadine, for saying
a foolish thing like that," he said. " You are not
with your Philistines now. There is not Esther here
to tell you how marvellous you are, nor Berts to wave
his great legs and say you are like the moon coming
out of the clouds over the sea. I am not in the least
impressed by a little juggling with words such as they
think clever. It isn't clever ; it is a sort of parrot
talk. You open your mouth and say something that
sounds paradoxical, and they all hunt about to find
some sense in it, and think they do."
Seymour got up and began walking up and down
the room with his little short-stepped waggling walk.
" It is the most amazing thing to me," he said, " that
you, who have got brains, should be content to score
absurd little successes with your dreadful clan, who
have the most ordinary intelligences. I love your
Philistines, but I cannot bear that they should think
they are clever. They are stupid, and though stupid
people are excellent in their way, they become trying
when they think they are wise. You are not made
wise by bathing all day in the silly salt sea, and reading
a book "
" How did you know ? " asked Nadine.
*' I didn't ; it is merely the sort of thing I imagine
you do at Meering. Aunt Dodo is different ; there
is no rot about Aunt Dodo, nor is there about
Hugh. But Esther, my poor sister, and the beautiful
Berts ! "
Nadine took up the cudgels for the clan.
" Ah, you are quite wrong," she said. " You do us
no justice at all. We are eager, we are really ; we
want to learn, we think it waste of time to spend all
day and night at parties and balls. We are critical,
and want to know how and why. Seymour, I wish we
saw more of you. Whenever I am with you, I feel like
DODO THE SECOND 91
a pencil being sharpened. I can make fine marks
afterwards."
" Keep them for the clan," he said. " No, I can't
stand the clan, nor could they possibly stand me.
When Esther squirms and says ' O, Nadine, how
wonderful you are,' I want to be sick, and when I wave
my hands and talk in a high voice, as I frequently do,
I can see Berts turning pale with the desire to kill me.
Poor Berts ! Once I took his arm, and he shuddered
at my baleful touch. I must remember to do it again.
Really, I don't think I can be one of your husbands if
Berts is to be another."
" Very well ; I'll leave out Berts," said she.
" This is almost equivalent to a proposal," said
Seymour, in some alarm.
She laughed.
" I won't press it," she said. " And now I must
go. Thanks for sharpening me, my dear, though you
have done it rather roughly. I am going down to
Meering again to-morrow ; London is a mere rabble
of colonels and colonials. Come down if you feel
inclined."
" God forbid ! " said Seymour, piously.
Nadine had spent sometime with him, but long
after she had gone something of her seemed to linger
in his room. Some subtle aroma of her, too fine to be
purely physical, still haunted the room, and the sound
of her detached crisp speech echoed in the chambers
of his brain. He had never known a girl so variable
in her moods ; on one day she would talk nothing but
the most arrant nonsense, on another, as to-day, there
mingled with it something extraordinarily tender and
wistful ; on a third day she would be an impetuous
scholar, on the fourth she threw herself heart and soul
(if she had a heart) into the gay froth of this London
life. Indeed " moods " seemed to be too superficial
a word to describe her aspects ; it was as if three or
four different personalities were lodged in that slim
92 DODO THE SECOND
body and directed affairs from the cool brain in that
small, poised head. It would be scarcely necessary
to marry other wives, according to their scheme, if
Nadine was one of them, for it was impossible to tell
even from minute to minute with which of her you were
about to converse, or which of her was coming down
to dinner. But all these personalities had the same
vivid quality, the same exuberance of vitality, and in
whatever character she appeared she was like some
swiftly-acting tonic, that braced you up and, unlike
mere alcoholic stimulant, was not followed by a re-
action. She often irritated him, but she never resented
the expression of his impatience, and above all things,
she was never dull. And for once Seymour left incom-
plete the dusting of the precious jade, and tried to
imagine what it would be like to have Nadine always
here. He did not succeed in imagining it with any
great vividness, but it must be remembered that this
was the first time he had ever tried to imagine anything
of the kind.
Edith had left Meering with Dodo two days before,
and was going to spend a week with her in town, since
she was rather tired of her own house. But she had
seen out of the railway carriage window on the north
coast of Wales, so attractive-looking a golf-links, that
she had got out with Berts at the next station, to have
a day or two golfing. The obdurate guard had refused
to take their labelled luggage out, and it was whirled
on to London to be sent back by Dodo on arrival.
But Edith declared that it gave her a sense of freedom
to have no luggage, and she spent two charming days
there, and had arrived in London only this afternoon.
She had gone straight to Dodo's house, and had found
Jack with her, and there learned the news of their
engagement, which had taken place only the day
before. Upon which she sprang up and remorselessly
kissed both Dodo and Jack.
DODO THE SECOND 93
" I can't help it if you don't like it," she said, " but
that's what I feel like. Of course it ought to have
happened more than twenty years ago, and it would
have saved you both a great deal of bother. Dodo,
I haven't been so pleased since my mass was performed
at the Queen's Hall. You must get married at once,
and have some children. It will be like living
your life all over again without any of those fatal
mistakes, Dodo. Jack I shall call you Jack now
Jack, you have been more wonderfully faithful than
anybody I ever heard of. You have seen all along
what Dodo was, without being put off by what she
did "
Dodo screamed with laughter.
" Are these meant to be congratulations ? " she said.
" It is the very oddest way to congratulate a man on
his engagement, by telling him that he is wise to
overlook his future wife's past. It is also so pleasant
for me."
Edith was still shaking hands with them both, as
if to see whether their hands were fixtures or would
come off if violently agitated.
" You know what I mean," she said. " It is useless
my pretending to approve of most things you have
done ; it is useless for Jack also. But he marries the
essential you, not a parcel of actions."
Jack kept saying " Thanks awfully " at intervals
like a minute gun, and trying to get his hand away.
Eventually Edith released it.
" I am delighted with you both," she said. " And
to think that only a fortnight ago I was still not on
speaking terms with you, Dodo. And Jack wasn't
either. I love having rows with people if I know things
are going to come straight afterwards, because then
I love them more than ever. And I knew that
some time I should have to make it up with you, Dodo,
though if I was Jack I don't think I could have for-
given well, you don't wish me to go on about that.
94 DODO THE SECOND
Anyhow, you are ducks, and now I shall leave the
young couple alone, and have a wash and brush-up.
I have been playing golf quite superbly."
Edith banged the door behind her, and they heard
her shrilly whistling as she went down the passages.
Then Dodo turned to Jack.
" Jack, dear, I thought I should burst when Edith
kissed you," she said. " You half shut your eyes and
screwed up your face like a dog that is just going to be
whipped. But I love Edith. Now come and sit here
and talk. I have hardly seen you since well, since
we settled that we should see a good deal more of each
other in the future I want you to tell me, oh, such
lots of things. How often a month on the average
have you thought about me during all these years ?
Jack, dear, I want to be wanted, so much."
" You have always been wanted by me," he said.
"It is more a question of how many minutes in the
month I haven't thought about you. They are more
easily counted."
He sat down on the sofa by her, as her hand
indicated.
" Dodo," he said, " I don't make demands of you,
except that you should be yourself. But I do want
that. We are all made differently ; if we were not, the
world would be a very stupidly simple affair. And
you must know that in one respect anyhow I am appal-
lingly simple. I have never cared for any woman
except you. That is the fact. Let us have it out
between us just once. I have never worn my heart
on my sleeve, for any woman to pluck at, and carry
away a mouthful of it. There are no bits missing, I
assure you. It is all there, and it is all yours. It is
in no way the worse for wear, because it has had no
wear. I feel as if "
Jack paused a moment ; he knew the meaning of his
thought, but found it not so easy to make expression
of it.
DODO THE SECOND 95
" I feel as if I had been sitting all my life at a window
in my heart," he said, " looking out, and waiting for
you to come by. But you had to come by alone.
You came by once with my cousin. You came by a
second time with Waldenech. You were bored the
first time, you were frightened the second time. But
you were not alone. I believe you are alone now ; I
believe you look up to my window. Ah, how stupid
all language is ! As if you looked up to it ! "
Dodo was really moved, and when she spoke her
voice was unsteady.
" I do look up to it, Jack," she said. " Oh, my dear,
how the world would laugh at the idea of a woman
already twice married, having romance still in front
of her. But there is romance, Jack. You see you
see you have run through my life just as a string runs
through a necklace of pearls or beads ; beads perhaps
is better yet I don't know. Chesterford gave me
pearls, all the pearls. A necklace of pearls before
swine shall we say ? I was swine, if you understand.
But you always ran through it all, which sounds as if
I meant you were a spendthrift, but you know what
I do mean. Really I wonder if anybody ever made a
worse mess of her life than I have done, and found it
so beautifully cleaned up in the middle. But there
you were I ought to have married you originally ;
I ought to have married you unoriginally. But I never
trusted my heart. You might easily tell me that I
hadn't got one, but I had. I daresay it was a very
little one, so little that I thought it didn't matter. I
suppose I was like the man who swore something or
other on the crucifix, and when he broke his oath he
said the crucifix was such a small one."
She paused again.
" Jack, are you sure ? " she asked. " I want you
to have the best life that you can have. Are you sure
you give yourself the best chance with me ? My dear,
there will be no syllable of reproach on my lips, or in
96 DODO THE SECOND
my mind, if you reconsider. You ought to marry a
younger woman than me. You will be still a man at
sixty, I shall be just a thing at fifty-eight."
Dodo took a long breath and stood up.
" Marry Nadine," she said. " She is so like what I
was ; you said it yourself. And she hasn't been
battered like me. I think she would many you. I
know how fond she is of you, anyhow, and the rest
will follow. I can't bear to think of you pushing my
bath-chair. God knows, I have spoiled many of your
years. But, God knows, I don't want to spoil more of
them. She will give you all that I could have given
you twenty years ago. Ah, my dear, the years !
How cruel they are ! How they take away from us
all that we want most ! You love children for instance,
Jack. Perhaps I shall not be able to give you children.
Nadine is twenty-one. That is a long time ago. You
should consider. I said ' yes ' to you yesterday, but
perhaps I had not thought about it sufficiently. I
have thought since. Before you came down to Meering
I was awake so long one night, wondering why you
came. I was quite prepared that it should be Nadine
you wanted. And, oh, how gladly I would give Nadine
to you, instead of giving myself ! I should see ; I
should understand ; at first I thought that I should
not like it, that I should be jealous, to put it quite
frankly, of Nadine. But somehow now that I know
that your first desire was for me, I am jealous no longer,
Take Nadine, Jack ! I want you to take Nadine. It
will be better. We know each other well enough to
trust each other, and now that I tell you that there will
be nothing but rejoicing left in my heart if you want
Nadine, you must believe that I tell you the entire
truth. I know very well about Nadine. She will not
marry Hugh. She wants somebody who has a bigger
mind. She wants also to put Hugh out of the question.
She does not mean to marry him, and she would like
it to be made impossible. Woo Nadine, dear Jack,
DODO THE SECOND 97
and win her. She will give you all I could once have
given you, all that I ought to have given you."
At that moment Dodo was making the great renuncia-
tion of her life. She had been completely stirred out
of herself and she pleaded against her own cause. She
was quite sincere, and she wanted Jack's happiness
more than her own. She believed even while she
renounced all claim on him, that her best chance of
happiness was with him, for it had taken her no time
at all to make up her mind when he proposed to her
yesterday. And she had not exaggerated when just
now she told him that he ran through her life like a
string that keeps the beads of time in place. She had
never felt for another man what she had felt for him,
and her declaration of his freedom was a real renuncia-
tion, made impulsively but most generously and com-
pletely. She entirely meant it, and she did not pause
to consider that the offer was one of which no man
could conceivably take advantage. And Jack felt
and knew her sincerity.
" You are absolutely free my dear," she said. " Ab-
solutely ! And I will come to your wedding, and
dance at it if you like, for joy that you are happy."
He got up too.
" There will be no wedding unless you come to it,"
he said. " Dance at it, Dodo, but many me. Nobody
else will do."
Dodo looked him full in the face.
" Edith was quite right to remind you of of what
I have done," she said.
" And I am quite right to forget it," said he.
She shook her head, smiling a little tremulously.
" Oh, Jack," she said in a sigh.
He took her close to him.
" My beloved," he said, and kissed her.
CHAPTER V
DODO'S wedding, which took place at the end of July
in Westminster Abbey, was a very remarkable and
characteristic affair. In the first place she arrived so
late that people began to wonder whether she was going
to throw Jack over again, this time at the very last
moment. Jack himself did not share these misgivings
and stood at the west door rather hot and shy but quite
serene, waiting till his bride should come. Eventually
Nadine who was to have come with her mother appeared
in a taxi going miles above the legal limit, with the
information that Dodo was in floods of tears because
she had been so horrible to Jack before, and wanted
to be so nice now. She said she would stop crying as
soon as she possibly could, but would Nadine ask Jack
to be a dear and put off the wedding till to-morrow,
since her tears had made her a perfect fright. On
which the bridegroom took a card and wrote on it " I
won't put off the wedding, and if you don't come at
once, I shall go away. Do be quick ; there are millions
and millions of people all staring."
" Oh, Uncle Jack, what a brute you are," said
Nadine, as she read it, " I don't think I can take it."
" You can and will," said he. " You will also take
your mother by the hand and bring her here. Bring
her, do you understand, whether she is crying or not.
Tell her that in twenty minutes from now I shall go."
Somehow Dodo's marriage had seized the popular
imagination, and the Abbey was crammed, so also for
half a mile were the pavements. The traffic by the
Abbey had been diverted, and all round the windows
were clustered with sightseers. The choir was reserved
98
DODO THE SECOND 99
for the more intimate friends, and Bishop Algy who
was to perform the ceremony was endorsed by a flock
of eminent clergy. The news that Dodo was in tears,
but that Nadine had been sent by the bridegroom to
fetch her, travelled swiftly up the Abbey, and a perfect
babel of conversation broke out, almost drowning the
rather Debussy-like wedding march which Edith had
composed for the occasion. She had also written an
anthem " Thy wife-shall be as the fruitful vine " and
composed a highly originaJ-4^vjnn- tune, and two chants
for the psaln^s^vritten for full orchestra with percussion
and an eighti-part choir. She had wanted to conduct
the whole herself, and expressed her, perfect willingness
to wea/ a surplice \ and her music Doctor's hood, and
keep on her cap or not exactly as the Dean preferred.
But the Dean preferred that she should take no part
whatever beyond contributing the whole of the music,
which annoyed her Vejj^ much, and several incisive
letters passed between them in which the topics of
conventionalism, /Pharisees and cant were freely intro-
duced. Edith had to give way, but consoled herself
by arranging that the whole of the " Marriage Suite "
should be shortly after performed at the Queen's Hall,
where no Dean or other unenlightened people could
prevent her conducting in any costume she chose.
But temporarily she had been extremely upset by this
ridiculous bigotry.
Dodo had arrived before the twenty minutes were
over, and she came up the choir on Jack's arm, looking
quite superb and singing Edith's hymn tune very loud
and occasionally incorrectly. She had just come
opposite Edith, who had, in default of conducting,
secured a singularly prominent position, when she
sang a long bell-like B flat, and Edith had said " B
natural, Dodo," in a curdling sibilant whisper. There
were of course no bridesmaids, but Dodo's train was
carried by pages, both of whom she kissed when they
arrived at the end of their long march up the choir.
ioo DODO THE SECOND
Mrs. Vivian, who on Dodo's engagement had finally
capitulated, was next Edith, and Dodo said " Vivy,
dear " into her ear-trumpet, as she passed up the aisle.
Miss Grantham alone among the older friends was
absent ; she had said from the beginning that it was
dreadfully common of Dodo to many Jack, as it was
a " lived happily ever afterwards " kind of ending to
Dodo's unique experiences. She knew that they would
both become stout and serene and commonplace,
instead of being wild and unhappy and interesting,
and to mark her disapproval, made an appointment
with her dentist at the hour at which the voice would
be breathing over Eden in the exceedingly up-to-date
music which Edith had composed. But so far from
her dentist finding change and decay in all around he
saw, he dismissed her five minutes after she had sat
down, and seized by a sudden ungovernable fit of
curiosity she drove straight off to the Abbey to find
that Dodo had not arrived, and it seemed possible that
there was a thrill coming, and everything might not
end happily. But when it became known that Dodo
was only late for tearful reasons, she left again in
disgust, and ran into Dodo at the west door, and said
" I am disappointed, Dodo."
Dodo sang Edith's psalm with equal fervour, but
thought it would be egoistic to join in the anthem,
since it was about herself. But she whispered to Jack,
" Jack dear ; it's much the most delicious marriage I
ever had. Hush, you must be grave because dear
Algy is going to address us. I hope he will give us a
nice long sermon."
The register was signed by almost everybody in the
world, and there were so many royalties that it looked
at first as if everybody was going to leave out their
surnames. But the time of ambassadors and peers
came at last, and then it looked as if the fashion was to
discard Christian names. " In fact," said Dodo, " I
suppose if you were much more royal than anybody
DODO THE SECOND 101
else, you would lose your Christian name as well, your
Royal Highness, and simply answer to ' Hie ! or to any
loud cry ' Oh, are we all ready again ? We've got to
go first, Jack. Darling, I hope you won't shy at the
cinematographs. I hear the porch is full of them,
like Gatling guns, and to-night you and I will be in all
the music-halls of London. Where are my ducks of
pages ? That's right ; one on each side. Now give
me your arm, Jack. Here we go ! Listen to Edith's
wedding march ! I wonder if it's safe to play as loud
as that in anything so old as the Abbey. I should
really be rather afraid of its falling down if Algy hadn't
told me not to be afraid with any amazement."
It took the procession a considerable time to get down
the choir, since Dodo had to kiss her bouquet (not
having a hand to spare) to such an extraordinary num-
ber of people. But in course of time they got out,
faced the battery of cameras and cinematograph
machines, and got into their car. Jack effaced himself
in a corner, but Dodo bowed and smiled with wonderful
assiduity to the crowds.
" They have come to see us," she explained. " So
it is essential that we should look pleased to see them.
I should so like to be the Queen, say on Saturdays only,
like the train you always want to go by on other days
in the week. Darling, can't you smile at them ? Or
put out your tongue, and make a face. They would
enjoy it hugely."
Eventually, as they got further away from the Abbey,
it became clear to Dodo that the people in the street
were concerned with their own businesses, and not hers
and she leaned back in the carriage.
" Oh, Jack," she said. " It is you and I at last.
But I can't help talking nonsense, dear. I only do it
because I'm so happy. I am indeed. And you ? "
" It is morning with me," he said.
102 DODO THE SECOND
regretted that they would not see themselves in the
cinematograph to make sure that she had smiled and
that Jack's hair was -tidy, and went down to Winston,
Jack's country place, where so many years ago Dodo
had arrived before, as the bride of his cousin. He had
wondered whether, for her sake, another place would
not be more suitable as a honeymoon resort, but she
thought the plan quite ideal.
" It will be like the renewal of one's youth," she said,
" and I am going to be so happy there now. Jack, we
were neither of us happy when you used to come to stay
there before, and to go back like this will wipe out all
that is painful in those old memories, and keep all that
isn't. Is it much changed ? I should so like my old
sitting-room again -if you haven't made it something
else."
" It is exactly as you left it," said he. " I couldn't
alter anything."
Dodo slipped her hand into his.
" Did you try to, Jack ? " she asked.
" Yes. I meant to alter it entirely ; I meant to put
away all that could remind me of you. In fact I went
down there on purpose to do it. But when I saw it, I
couldn't. I sat down there, and "
" Cried ? " said Dodo softly and sympathetically.
" No, I didn't cry. I smoked a cigarette and looked
round in a stupid manner. Then I took out of its frame
a big photograph of myself that I had given you in order
to tear it up. But I put it back in its frame again, and
put the frame exactly where it was before. "
Dodo gave a little moan.
" Oh, Jack, how you must have hated me ! " she'said.
" I hated what you had done : I hated that "you
could do it. But the other, never. And, Dodo, let
us never talk about all those things again ; don't let us
even think of them. It is finished, and what is real is
just beginning."
" It was real all along," she said, " and I knew it was
DODO THE SECOND 103
real all along you and me that is to say but I chose
to tell myself that it wasn't. I have been like the
people who when they hear the scream of somebody
being murdered, say it is only the cat. I have been
a little brute all my life, and in ah 1 probability it is more
than half over for me already, in fact it certainly is
unless I am going to live to be ninety. I'm not sure that
I want to, and yet I don't want to die one bit."
" I should be very much annoyed if you ventured to
do anything of the sort," remarked Jack.
" Yes, and that is so wonderful of you. You ought
to have wished me dead a hundred times. What's the
phrase ? Yes, she would be better dead. Just now I
want to be better without being dead. I often think
we all have a sort of half-time in our lives, like people
in football matches, when they stop playing and eat
lemons. The lemons, you understand, are rather sour
reflections that we are no better than we might be, but
a great deal worse. And somehow that gives us a
sort of fresh start, and we begin playing again."
They arrived at Winston late in the afternoon ; the
village had turned out to greet them, flags and arches
made rainbow of the grey street with its thatched
houses and air of protected stability, and from the
church tower the bells pealed welcome. Dodo, always
impressionable and impulsive, was tremendously moved
and with eyes brimming over, leaned out of one side of
the carriage and then the other to acknowledge these
salutations.
" Oh Jack, isn't it dear of them ? " she said. " Of
course I know it's all for you really, but you've endowed
me with everything, and so this is mine too. Look at
that little duck whom that nice-faced woman is holding
up, waving a flag ! Oh, it looked at me and then burst
into tears ! What a silly little idiot ! Hark to the
bells ! Do you remember the poem by Browning,
' The air broke into a mist with bells ' ? This is
a positive London fog of bells ; can't you taste it ?
104 DODO THE SECOND
Is it the foghorns, in that case that make the fogs ?
And here we are at the lodge, and there's the lake,
and the house ! Ah, what a gracious thing a summer
evening is. But how fragile, Jack, and how soon over."
That wistful underlying tenderness in her nature,
almost melancholy, but wholly womanly, rose for the
moment to the surface. It was not the less sincere
because it was seldom in evidence. It was as truly part
of her (and a growing part of her) as her brilliant en-
joyment and insouciance. And the expression of it
gleamed darkly in her soft brown eyes, as she leaned
back in the carriage and took his hand.
" I will try to make you happy," she said.
He bent over her.
" Don't try to do anything, Dodo," he said. " Just
just be."
For a moment a queer little qualm came over her.
Had she followed her immediate impulse, she would
have said :
" I don't know how to love like that. I have to try :
I want to learn."
But that would have done no good, and in her most
introspective moments Dodo was always practical.
The qualm lasted but a moment, as the door was opened,
when they drew up. But it lasted long enough to cause
her to wonder whether it would be the past that would
be entered again instead of the future, entered, too, not
by another door, but by the same.
On the doorstep she paused.
" Lift me over the threshold, Jack," she said, " it is
such bad luck for a bride to stumble when she enters
her home."
" My dear, what nonsense."
" Very likely, but let's be nonsensical. Let us
propitiate all the gods and demons. Lift me, Jack."
He yielded to her whim.
" That is dear of you," she said. " That was a
perfect entry. Aren't I silly ? But no Austrian would
DODO THE SECOND 105
ever dream of letting his wife walk over the threshold
for the first time. And and that's all about Austria,"
she added rather hastily.
Dodo looked swiftly round the old, remembered hall.
Opposite was the big open fireplace, round which they
so often had sat, preferring its wide-flaring homely
comfort to the more formal drawing-rooms. To-day,
no fire burned there, for it was midsummer weather,
but as in old times a big yellow collie sprawled in front
of it, grandson perhaps, so short are the generations of
dogs, to the yellow collies of the time when she was here
last. He, too, gave good omen, for he rose and stretched
and waved a banner of a tail, and came stately towards
them with a thrusting nose of welcome. The same
pictures hung on the walls ; high up there ran round
the palisade of stags' heads, and Dodo (with a conscious
sense of most creditable memory) recognised the butler
as having been her first husband's valet. She also
remembered his name.
" Why, Vincent," she said, holding out her hand.
" It is nice to see another old face. And you don't look
one day older, any more than his lordship does. Tea :
yes, let us have tea at once, Jack. I am so hungry :
happiness is frightfully exhausting, and I don't mind
how exhausted I am."
Suddenly Dodo caught sight of the portrait of herself
which had been painted when this house was for the
first time her home.
" Oh, Jack, look at that little brute smiling there ! "
she said. " I was rather pretty though, but I don't
think I like myself at all. Dear me, I hope I'm not
just the same now, with all the prettiness and youth
removed. I don't think I am quite, and oh, Jack,
there's the picture of poor dear old Chesterford. Ah,
that hurts me ; it gives me a bitter little heartache.
Would you mind Jack, if "
Jack felt horribly annoyed with himself for not having
seen to this.
106 DODO THE SECOND
" My dear," he said, " it was awfully thoughtless of
me. Of course, it shall go. It was stupid, but Dodo,
I was so happy all this last month, that I have thought
of nothing except myself."
Dodo turned away from the picture to him.
" And all the time I thought you were thinking about
me ! " she said. " Jack, what a deceiver ! "
He shook his head.
" No : it is that you don't understand. You are me."
" Am I ? I should be a much nicer fellow if I was.
Jack, don't have that picture moved. It only hurt for
a moment : it was a ghost that startled me merely
because I did not expect it. It is a dear ghost : it is not
jealous, it will not spoil things or come between us.
It it wants us to be happy, for he told me, you know,
it was the last thing he said that I was to marry you.
It is a long time ago, oh, how long ago, though I say it
to my shame. Besides, if you are to pull down or put
away all that reminds me of that dreadful young
woman " Dodo put out her tongue and made a face
at her own picture " you will have to pull down the
house and drink up the lake and cut down the trees.
Ah, how lovely the garden looks ! I was never here
in the summer before : we only came for the shooting
and hunting and the garden invariably consisted of
rows of blackened salvias and decaying dahlias. But
it is summer now, Jack."
There was no mistaking the figurative sense in
which she meant him to understand the word " sum-
mer." It had been winter, winter of discontent so
the glance she gave him inevitably implied when she
was here before, and she rejoiced in and admired this
excellent glory of summer time. And yet but a moment
before the picture in the hall had " hurt " her, until she
remembered that even on his death-bed her first hus-
band had bidden her marry the man who had brought
her back here to-day. She had neglected to do as she
was told for about a quarter of a century and had
DODO THE SECOND 107
married somebody else instead, and yet this amazing
variety of topics that concerned her heart, any one of
which you would have expected was of sufficient im-
port to fill her mind to the exclusion of all else, but
bowled across it, as the shadows of clouds bowl across
the fields on a day of spring winds, leaving the untar-
nished sunshine after their passage. It was not because
she was heartless that she touched on this series of
somewhat tremendous things ; it was rather that her
vitality instantly reasserted itself : it was undeterred,
impervious to discouraging or disturbing reflections.
Dodo ate what may be termed a good tea, and smoked
several cigarettes. Then noticing that a small golf
links had been laid out in the fields below the garden, she
rushed indoors to change her dress, and played a game
with her husband.
" It won't be much fun for you, darling," she said,
" because my golf is a species of landscape gardening,
and I dig immense hollows with my club and alter the lie
of the country generally. Also I sometimes cheat, if
nobody is looking, so admire the beauties of nature if
you hear me say that I have a bad he, because if you
looked you would see me pushing the ball into a pleas-
anter place, and that would give you a low opinion of
me. But a little exercise would be so good for us both
after being married ; the Abbey was terribly stuffy."
The fifth hole brought them near the little memorial
chapel in the park, where her first husband was buried.
" Darling, that puts you five up," she said, " and
would you mind waiting here a minute, while I go in
alone ? I don't want even you with me ; I want to go
alone and kneel for a minute by his grave, and say my
prayers, and tell him I have come back again with you.
Will you wait for a minute, Jack ? I shan't be long."
Dodo wasn't long ; she said her prayers with re-
markable celerity, and came out again wiping her eyes.
" Oh, Jack," she said, " what a beautiful monu-
ment ; it wasn't finished, you know, when I went away,
io8 DODO THE SECOND
and I hadn't seen it. And it's so touching to have
just those three words, * Lead kindly Light ' ; the
dear old boy was so fond of that hymn. It's all so
lovely and peaceful, and if ever there was a saint in the
nineteenth century, it was he. Somehow I felt as if
he knew about us and approved, and I remember he
had ' Lead kindly Light ' on the very last Sunday
evening of all. I am so glad I went in."
Dodo gave a little sigh.
" Where are we ? " she said. " Am I one hole up
or two ? Two, isn't it ? Do let it be two ! And
what a lovely piece of marble. It looks like the most
wonderful cold cream turned to stone. It must be
Carrara. Oh, Jack, what a beautiful drive ! It went
much faster than the legal limit."
The flames of the summer sunset were beginning to
fade in the sky when they got back to the house, and
it was near dinner-time. Dodo's spirits and appetite
were both of the most excellent order, and all the
memories that this house brought back to her, so far
from causing any aching resuscitation of past years,
were, owing to the incomparable alchemy of her mind,
but transformed into a soft and suitable background
for the present. Afterwards, they sat on the terrace
in the warm dusk.
" I must telegraph to Nadine to-morrow," she said,
" and tell her how happy I am. Jack, sometimes
Nadine seems to me exactly what I should expect a
very attractive aunt to be. Do you know what I
mean ? I feel she could have warned me of all the
mistakes I have made in my life, before they happened,
if she had been born. And she approves of you and
me ; isn't it lucky ? I wonder why I feel so young
on the very day on which I should most naturally be
thinking what a lot of life has passed. Jack, I don't
want any more events. Some people reckon life by
events, and that is so unreasonable. Events are thrust
upon you, what counts is what you feel."
DODO THE SECOND 109
He moved his chair a little nearer to hers.
" I am satisfied with what I feel," he said. " And
though I have felt it for very many years, it has never
lost its freshness. I have always wanted, and now I
have got."
Suddenly Dodo's mood changed.
" Oh, you take a great risk," she said. " Who is to
assure you that I shan't disappoint you, disappoint
you horribly ? I can't assure you of that, Jack. It
is easy to understand other people, but the silly proverb
that tells you to know yourself, makes a far more diffi-
cult demand. If I disappoint you, what are we to
do?"
" You can't disappoint me if you are yourself," he
said.
" You say that ! To me, too, who have outraged
every sort of decency with regard to you ? "
He was silent a moment.
" Yes, I say that to you," he said.
Dodo gave a little bubbling laugh.
" You are not very polite," she said. " I say that
I have outraged every sort of decency, and you don't
even contradict me."
" No. What you say is is perfectly true. But the
comment of you and me sitting here on our bridal
night, is sufficient, is it not ? Dodo, there is no use
in your calling yourself names. Leave it all alone ;
we are here, you and I. And it is getting late, my
darling."
The same night Lady Ayr was giving one of her
awful dinner-parties. Her family, John, Esther, and
Seymour were always bidden to them, and went into
dinner in exactly their proper places as sons and
daughters of a marquis. Before now it had happened
that Seymour had to take Esther in to dinner, and
it was so to-night. But in the general way they saw
so little of each other, that they did not very much
no DODO THE SECOND
object. They usually quarrelled before long, but
made their differences up again by their unanimity
of opinion about their mother. That had already
happened this evening.
" Mother is bursting with curiosity about Aunt
Dodo's wedding," said Esther. " She wasn't asked.
I told her it was a very pretty wedding."
" I went," said Seymour, " and I am going to write
an account of it for The Lady. If you will tell me
how you were dressed, I will put it in, that is, supposing
you were decently dressed. Mother asked me about it,
too, and I think I said the bridesmaids looked lovely."
" But there weren't any," said Esther.
" Of course there weren't, but it enraged her. By
the way, there is some awful stained glass put up in
the staircase since I was here last. A ruby crown has
apparently had twins, one of which is a sapphire crown
and the other a diamond crown. I shouldn't mind
that sort of thing happening, if it wasn't so badly
done. I shall try to break it by accident after dinner.
Did you design it ? My dear, I forgot we had
finished quarrelling. Let us talk about something
else. Nadine came to see me the other day, and if
you will not tell anybody, I think it quite likely that
I shall marry her. She likes jade. And she looks
quite pretty to-night, doesn't she ? "
Esther had already alluded to Nadine, who was
sitting opposite as the dream of dreams, and further
appreciation was unnecessary.
" You don't happen to have asked her yet ? " she
said, with marked neutrality.
" No, one doesn't ask that sort of thing until one
knows the answer," said he. " That is, unless you
are one of the ridiculous people who ask for informa-
tion. I hate the information I get by asking, unless
I know it already."
" And then you don't get it."
"No. Esther, that is a charming emerald you
DODO THE SECOND in
are wearing, but it is atrociously set. If you will
send it round to-morrow, I will draw a decent setting
for it. Do look at Mother. She has got the family
lace on, which is made of string. I think it is Saxon.
Oh, of course, the coronets are about her. How
foolish of me not to have guessed."
"It is more foolish of you to think that Nadine
would look at you," said Esther.
" I didn't ask her to look at me, and I shan't ask
her to look at me. I shall recommend her not to
look at me. But I shall marry her or Antoinette. I
don't see why you are so stuffy about it. Or, perhaps,
you would prefer Antoinette for a sister-in-law."
" If she is to be your wife, dear, I think I should,"
said Esther.
Seymour laid his hand on hers. His smelt vaguely of
wall-flowers.
" How disagreeable you are," he said, " I don't
think I shall say anything about your dress in The
Lady. I shall simply say that Lady Esther Sturgis
was there looking very plain and tired. I shall describe
my own dress instead. I had on an emerald pin,
properly set, instead of its being set like that sort
of cheese-cake you are wearing. No, it's not exactly
a cheese-cake ; it is as if you had spilt some creme-
de-menthe, and put a little palisade of broken glass
round it to prevent it spreading. What a disgusting
dinner we are having, aren't we ? I never know
what to do before I dine with Mother, whether to eat
so much lunch that I don't want any dinner, or to eat
none at all, so that I can manage to swallow this sort
of garbage. To-night I am rather hungry ; won't
you come away early with me and have some supper
at home ? Perhaps Nadine will come too."
" If Nadine will come, I will," said Esther. " I
suppose we can chaperone each other."
" Certainly, if it amuses you. Shall \ve ask anybody
else ? I see hardly anybody here whom I know by
H2 DODO THE SECOND
sight. I think they must all be earls and countesses.
It's funny how few of one's own class are worth speaking
to. Look at Mamma ! I know I keep telling you to
look at Mamma, but she is so remarkable. She said
' sir ' just now to the man next her. He must be a
Saxon king. I wish she was responsible for the wine
instead of father ; teetotalers usually give one ex-
cellent wine, because they don't imagine they know
anything about it, and tell the wine merchants just
to send round some champagne and hock. So, of course
they send the most expensive."
" I think we ought to talk to our neighbours," said
Esther. " Mamma is making faces."
" That is because she has eaten some of this entree,
I expect. I make no face because I haven't. But I
can't talk to my neighbour. I tried, but she is un-
speakable to. I wish my nose would bleed, because
then I should go away."
One of the frequent pauses that occurred at Lady
Ayr's dinners was taking place at the moment, and
Seymour's rather shrill voice was widely audible.
A buzz of vacant conversation succeeded, and he
continued.
" That was heard," he said, " and really I didn't
mean it to be heard. I am sorry. I shall make myself
agreeable. But tell Nadine we shall go away soon after
dinner. If you will be ready, I shall not go up into
the drawing-room at all."
Seymour turned brightly to the woman seated on his
right.
" Have you been to ' The Follies ' ? " he asked.
" I hope you haven't, because then we can't talk
about them, since I haven't either. There are enough
follies going about, without going to them."
" How amusin' you are," said his neighbour.
Seymour felt exasperated.
" I know I am," he said. " Do be amusing too ;
then we shall be delighted with each other."
DODO THE SECOND 113
" But I don't know who you are," said his neighbour.
" Well, that is the case with me," said he. " But
my mother "
His neighbour's face instantly changed from a chilly
neutrality to a welcoming warmth.
" Oh, are you Lord Seymour ? " she asked.
" I should find it very uncomfortable to be anybody
else," said he. "I should not know what to do."
" Then do tell me, because, of course, you know
all about these things. Are we all going to wear slabs
of jade next year ? And did you see me at Princess
Waldenech's wedding this morning ? And who mani-
cures you ? I hear you have got a marvellous person."
Seymour really wished to atone for the unfortunate
remark that had broken the silence, and exerted himself.
" But, of course," he said, " it is Antoinette. She
cooks for me and calls me ; she dusts my rooms, and
brushes my boots. She stirs the soup with one hand
and manicures me with the other. Fancy not knowing
Antoinette ! She is fifty-two ; by the time you are
fifty-two you ought to be known anywhere. If she
marries I shall die ; if I marry, she will still li ve, I hope.
Now, do tell me; do you recommend me to marry?"
" Doesn't it depend upon whom you marry ? "
" Not much, do you think ? But perhaps you are
married, and so know. Are you married ? And would
you mind telling me who you are, as I have told you ? "
" You never told me ; I guessed. Guess who I am."
Seymour looked at her attentively. She was a
woman of about fifty with a shrewd face, like a hand-
some monkey, and his millinerish eyes saw that she
was dressed without the slightest regard to expense.
" I haven't the slightest idea," he said. " But
please don't tell me, if you have any private reason for
not wishing it to be known. I can readily understand
you would not like people to be able to say that you
were seen dining with Mamma. Of course you are not
English."
H
H4 DODO THE SECOND
" Why do you think that ? "
" Because you talk it so well. English people
always talk it abominably. But "
He looked at her again, and a vague resemblance both
in speech and in the shape of her head struck him.
" I will guess," he said, " you are a relation of
Nadine's."
"Quite right; goon."
Seymour was suddenly agitated, and upset a glass
of champagne that had just been filled. He took not
the slightest notice of this.
" Is it too much to hope that you are the aunt who
who had so many snuff-boxes," he asked. " I mean
the one to whom the Emperor gave all those lovely
snuff-boxes ? Or is it too good to be true ? "
" Just good enough," she said.
" How wildly exciting ! Will you come back to
my flat as soon as we can escape from this purgatory,
and Antoinette shall manicure you. Do tell me about
the snuff-boxes ; I am sure they were beauties, or
you would not I mean the Emperor would not have
given you them."
" Of course not. But I am afraid I can't come to
your flat to-night, as I am going to a dance. Ask me
another day. I hear you have got some lovely jade,
and are going to make it the fashion. Then I suppose
you will sell it."
Seymour determined to insure his jade before
Countess Eleanor entered his rooms, for fear of its
subsequently appearing that the Austrian Emperor
had followed up his present of snuff-boxes with a
present of jade. But he let no suspicion mar the
cordiality of his tone.
" Yes, that's the idea," he said. " You see no
younger son can possibly live in the way he has been
brought up unless he does something honest and
commercial like that, or cheats at Bridge. But that
is so difficult, I am told. You have to learn Bridge first,
DODO THE SECOND 115
and then go to a conjuror, during which time you
probably forget Bridge again. But otherwise you
can't live at all unless you marry, and the only thing
left to do is to take to drink and die."
" My brother took to it and lives," said she.
" I know, but you are a very remarkable family."
A footman had wiped up the greater part of the
champagne that ^ Seymour had spilt and now stood
waiting till he could speak to him.
" Her ladyship told me to tell you that you seemed
to have had enough champagne, my lord," he said.
Seymour paused a moment, and his face turned white
with indignation.
" Tell her ladyship she is quite right," he said, " and
that the first sip I took of it was more than enough."
" Very good, my lord."
" And tell her that the fish was stale," said Seymour
shrilly.
" Yes, my lord."
" And tell her " began Seymour again.
Countess Eleanor interrupted him.
" You have sent enough pleasant messages for one
time," she said. " You can talk to your mother after-
wards ; at present talk to me. Did you go to the
wedding this morning ? "
" Yes."
Seymour rather frequently allowed himself to be
ruffled, but he always calmed down again quickly.
" It is so like Mamma to send a servant in the middle
of dinner to say I am drunk," he said, " but she will
be sorry now. Look, she is receiving my message, and
is turning purple. That is satisfactory. She looks
unusually plain when she is purple. Yes ; I am
describing the wedding for a lady's paper. I shall
get four guineas for it."
"You do not look as if that would do you much good."
" If you take four guineas often enough they they
purify the blood," said he., " though certainly the
n6 DODO THE SECOND
dose is homoeopathic. It is called the gold cure.
About the wedding. I thought it was very vulgar.
And it was frightfully bourgeois in spirit. It is very
early Victorian to marry a man who has waited for
you since about 1820."
" But they will be very happy."
" So are the bourgeoisie who change hats. At least,
I should have to be frightfully happy to think of
putting on anybody else's hat. I recommend you not
to eat that savoury unless you have a bad cold that
prevents your tasting anything. Shall I send another
message to Mamma about it ? "
" Ah, my dear young man," said Countess Eleanor,
" we are all common when we fall in love. You will
find yourself being common too, some day. And the
people who are least bourgeois become the most com-
mon of all. Nadine for instance ; there is no one less
bourgeois than Nadine, but if she ever falls in love
she will be so common that she will be perfectly sublime.
She will be the embodiment of humanity. But she is
not in love with that great boy next her, who is so
clearly in love with her. Dear me, what beautiful
Sevres dessert plates. I once collected Sevres as well
as snuff-boxes."
" Did you did you get together a fine collection ? "
asked Seymour.
" Pretty well. It is easier to get snuff-boxes. My
brother has some that used to be mine. Ah, they
are all getting up. Let me come to see your jade
some other day."
Nadine and Esther escaped very soon after dinner
from this dreadful party, and went to Seymour's flat,
where he had preceded them, and was busy cooking
with Antoinette in the kitchen when they arrived.
He opened the door for them himself with his shirt
sleeves rolled up above his elbows, shewing an ex-
tremely white and delicate skin. Round one wrist
he wore a. gold bangle.
DODO THE SECOND 117
" I've left the kitchen door open," he said, " so that
the whole flat shall smell as strong as possible of cooking.
There is nothing so delicious when you are hungry.
We will open the windows afterwards. You and
Esther must amuse yourselves for ten minutes, and
then supper will be ready."
" Oh, may I come and cook too, Seymour ? " asked
Nadine.
" Certainly not. Antoinette is the only woman in
the world who knows how to cook. You would make
everything messy. Go and rock the cradle or rule
the world, or whatever you consider to be a woman's
sphere, until we are ready."
Seymour disappeared again into the kitchen from
which came rich cracklings and odours of frying, and
Nadine turned to Esther with a sigh.
" My dear, I have got remorse and world yearnings
to-night," she said. " I attribute it to your mother's
awful party. But I daresay we shall all be better
soon. You know, if I had asked Hugh to let me come
and cook, he would have given me a golden spoon to
stir with, and eaten till he burst because I cooked it.
And I don't care ! He was so dear and so utterly
impossible this evening. I told him I wasn't going
to the dance at the Embassy, and he said he should
go in case I changed my mind. And if it had been
Hugh cooking in there, I should have gone and cooked
too, even if he hadn't wanted me to. It's no use,
Esther ; I can't marry Hugh. There's the end of it.
Up till to-night I have always wondered if I could.
Now I know I can't. I think I shan't see so much of
him. I shall miss him don't think I shan't miss him
but I want to be fair to him. As it is now, whenever
I am nice to him, which I always am, he thinks it
means that I am beginning to love him. Whereas it
doesn't mean anything whatever. I wish people
hadn't got into the habit of marrying each other, but
bought their babies at a shop instead. And kissing is
n8 DODO THE SECOND
so disgusting. The only person I ever like kissing is
Mamma, because her skin is so delicious and smells
very faintly of raspberries. Hugh smells of cigarettes
and soap "
" Darling Nadine, you haven't been kissing Hugh,
have you ? " asked Esther.
" Yes, I kissed him this evening, when he was putting
my cloak on, but there were ninety-five footmen there
so it wasn't compromising ; we were heavily chaper-
oned. And I would just as soon have kissed any of
the other ninety-five. But he wanted me to, and so
I did, and then suddenly I saw how unfair it was of
me. It didn't mean anything : I kissed him just as
I kiss my dog, because he is such a duck. Also because
he wanted me to, which Tobias never does : he always
cleans his face on the rug after I have kissed him, and
sneezes."
" Did he ask you to ? " said Esther. " Not Toby,
Hugh."
" No ; but I can see by a man's face when he wants.
I saw one of the footmen wanted, too, and perhaps I
ought to have kissed him as well, to show Hugh it did
not mean anything."
Nadine sat down and spread her hands wide with a
surprisingly dramatic gesture of innocence and despair.
" It isn't my fault," she said. " I am I. Son io.
Je suis moi. Ich bin Ich. I would translate it into all
the languages of the world, like the Bible, if that would
make Hugh understand. People can't be different from
what they are. It's a grand mistake to suppose other-
wise. They can act and talk in accordance with what
they are, or they can act and talk otherwise, but they,
the personalities, are unchangeable except by miracles.
I could act contrary to my own self and marry Hugh,
but it would be no particle of good. I want him to
understand that I can't love him, and I am too fond of
him to marry him without. I wish to heaven he
would marry somebody else."
DODO THE SECOND 119
" He won't do that," said Esther.
" I am afraid not. I think it is rather selfish. It
is putting it all on me. I shall have to marry some-
body else, I suppose, and that will be very unselfish of
me, because I don't want to marry. Of course, one
has to ; I don't want to grow old, but I shall have to
grow old. They are both laws of nature, and perhaps
neither the one nor the other is so disagreeable really."
Esther gave her long appreciative sigh.
" It would be too wonderful of you to marry some-
body else in order to make it clear to Hugh that you
couldn't marry him," she said. " It would be the
most illustrious thing to do, and would show that you
are devoted to Hugh. But do you really think that
people don't change, Nadine ? "
" Not unless a moral earthquake happens, and earth-
quakes are not to be expected. Only an upheaval of
that kind makes any difference in the essential things.
Their tastes change, as their noses and hair change,
but the thing that sits behind, like some beastly idol
in a temple, never moves, and looks on at all that changes
round it with the same wooden eyes. Oh, dear, I am
so tired of myself, and I can't get out of sight of myself."
Nadine looked at herself in a Louis Seize mirror that
hung above the fireplace, and pointed a contemplative
finger at the reflection of her pale loveliness.
" I wish I was anything in the world except that
thing," she said. " I am genuine when I say that ; but,
having said that, there is nothing else about me but
what is intolerable. But I am aware that I don't
really care about anybody in the world. The only
thing that can be said for me is that I detest myself.
I wish I was like you, Esther, because you care for
me ; I wish I was like Aunt Eleanor, because she cares
for stealing. I wish I was like Daddy because he
cares for old brandy. You are all better off than I.
I envy anybody and everybody who cares for anybody
with her heart. No doubt having a heart is often a
120 DODO THE SECOND
very great nuisance, and often leads you to make a
dreadful fool of yourself ; but it gets tedious to be wise
and cool all the time, like me.*'
Seymour entered at this moment carrying a little
silver censer with incense in it.
*' The smell of food is sufficiently strong," he said,
"and supper is ready. Also, the smell of incense
reminds me of stepping out of the blazing sunlight into St.
Mark's at Venice. Nadine, you look too exquisite, but
depressed. Has not the effect of Mamma worn off yet ? "
" Oh, it's not your mother, it's me," said she.
" You think about yourself too much," observed
Seymour. " I know the temptation so well, and gener-
ally yield to it. It is a great mistake ; one occasionally
has doubts whether one is the nicest person in the world,
and whether it is worth while doing anything, even col-
lecting jade. But such doubts never last long with me."
" Don't you ever wish you had a heart, Seymour ? "
she asked. " You and I have neither of us got hearts."
" I know, and I am so exceedingly comfortable
without one, that I should be sorry to get one. If
you have a heart, sooner or later you get into a state
of drivel about somebody, who probably doesn't drivel
about you. That must be so mortifying. Even if
two people drivel mutually they are deplorable objects,
but a solitary driveller is like a lonely cat on the tiles,
and is a positive nuisance. Poor Hugh ! Nadine, you
suit my wall-paper quite exquisitely. Also it suits
you. Don't let any of us go to bed to-night, but see
the morning come. The early morning is the colour
of a wood pigeon's breast, and looks frightfully tired,
as if it had sat up all night too. Most people look per-
fectly hideous at that moment, but I really don't
believe you would. Do sit up and let me see."
" I look the colour of an oyster at dawn," said Esther,
" it is just as if I had gone bad."
Her brother looked at her thoughtfully.
** Yes, my dear, I can imagine your looking quite
DODO THE SECOND 121
ghastly," he said. " You had better go away before
dawn. It might make me seriously unwell."
" I shall. I shall go to the dance at the Embassy,
I think. Madame Tavita is so hideous that she makes
me feel good-looking for a week."
" You always behave as if you were pretty, which
matters far more than being pretty," said Seymour.
" It matters very little what people look like if they
only behave as if they were Venuses, just as it does not
matter how tall you are if you consistently look at a
point rather above the head of the person you are
talking to."
Nadine was recovering a little under the influence of
food.
" That is quite true," she said. " And if you want
to look really rich you must be shabby or not wash
your face. Seymour, let us try to write a little book
together, * Fifty ways of appearing enviable.' You
should eat a great deal in order to make it appear you
have a good digestion, although you may be quite
sick afterwards, and refuse a great many invitations
to show what a wild social success you are, even though
you dine all by yourself at home. My dear, what
delicious food ; did you cook it, or Antoinette ? "
" Both. We each threw in what we thought would
be good and stirred it together. I am sorry for people
who are not greedy. I am told that when you are old
food and saving money are the only pursuits that don't
pall. At present food and spending money are par-
ticularly attractive, and a piquancy is added if you
haven't got any money. And now we all feel better."
Seymour had a piece of needlework, which he often
produced when he was staying with friends, in order
to irritate them. He seldom worked at it when at
home, but to-night he got it out in order to irritate
his sister into going to the ball without delay, for
Esther was always exasperated to a point almost
122 DODO THE SECOND
beyond her control by the sight of her brother with
his thimble and needle. So before long she took her
departure, leaving Nadine to follow (which was Sey-
mour's design), and he put the needlework back into its
embroidered bag again.
" I am afraid my methods are a little obvious," he
said, " but poor Esther sees nothing but the most
obvious hints. You have to say things very loud and
clear to her, like the man in ' Alice in Wonderland.' "
" Who was that ? " asked Nadine absently. " And
what did you want Esther to do ? "
"To go away, of course. I wanted to talk to you,
Nadine. I have never known you look so beautiful as
to-night. You look troubled too. Troubles make
people feel plain but look beautiful."
Nadine shifted her position so that she faced him.
" Yes, do talk to me," she said. " See if you can
distract me a little from myself. My mind hurts me,
Seymour. I wish I had a hard bright mind, as some
people have. Their minds are like ... I don't know
what they are like ; I can't trouble to think to-night.
How stupid are all the jinkings and monkey- tricks we go
through. I have worn an inane smile all day, and when
I tried to read my ' Plato,' it merely bored me. No-
thing seems worth while. And don't be commonplace,
and say that it is liver. It is nothing of the sort.
Would you be surprised if I burst into tears ? "
" You have been thinking of the old 'un," remarked
Seymour.
" Whom do you mean ? "
" Hugh, of course. Do you know you are rather like
a boy watching the struggle of a butterfly he has im-
paled. You are sorry for it, but you don't let it go."
" He impaled himself," said Nadine.
" Well, you gave him the pin. But, as you don't
mean to marry him, make that quite clear to him."
" But how ? "
" Marry me," said Seymour.
CHAPTER VI
EDITH ARBUTHNOT had conceived the idea, an unhappy
one as regards her family and neighbours, that every-
one who aspired to the name of Musician (it is not too
much to assert that her aspirations tended that way)
should be able to play every instrument in the band.
Just now she was learning the French horn and double-
bass simultaneously. She kept her mind undistracted
by the hideous noises she produced, and expected others
to do so. Thus, unless she was practising some instru-
ment that required the exclusive use of the mouth, she
would talk (and did so) while she learned.
Just now she was seated on the terrace wall at Win-
ston, which was of a convenient height for playing the
double-bass, which rested on the terrace below, and
conversing at the top of her voice to Dodo, who sat a
yard or two away. These stentorian tones of course
were necessary in order that she should be heard above
the vibrating roar of the ill-played strings. She could
not at present get much tone out of them ; but for
volume, it was as if all the bumble-bees in the world
were swarming in all the threshing-machines in the
world, which were threshing everything else in the
world.
" I used to think you were heartless, Dodo," she
shouted, " but compared to Nadine you are a sickly
sentimentalist."
When Dodo did not feel equal to shouting back she
spoke in dumb show. Now she concisely indicated
" Rot " on her fingers.
" It isn't rot," shouted Edith. " Ah, what a
123
124 DODO THE SECOND
wonderful thing a double-bass is ; I shall write a Suite
for the double-bass unaccompanied I really mean it.
If it is true that you are without a heart, Nadine would
seem to have an organ which is all that a heart is not
very highly developed. Probably she inherited a
tendency from you, and has developed and cultivated
it. What do you say ? "
" I said, * do stop that appalling noise, darling/ "
screamed Dodo. " I shall burst a blood-vessel if I try
to talk against it."
" Very well ; I must just play just two or three
scales," said Edith.
The hoarse clamour grew more and more vibrant
and Dodo stopped her ears. Eventually the bow, as
Edith brought it down on to the first note of a new
scale, flew from her hands and, describing a parabola
hi the air, fell into a clump of sweet-peas in the flower-
bed below the terrace.
" I must learn not to do that," she said. " It hap-
pened yesterday, and I shan't consider myself pro-
ficient until I am safe not to hit the conductor in the
face. About Nadine. She is going to perpetrate the
most horrible cruelty, marrying that dreadful young
man, while Hugh is just dying for her. Hugh reminds
me of what Jack was like, Dodo."
" Oh, do you think so ? " said Dodo. " Except that
Jack was once twenty-five, which is what Hugh is now,
I don't see the smallest resemblance. Jack was so good-
looking, and Hugh only looks good, and though Hugh
is a darling, he is just a little slow and heavy, which
Jack never was. You will be able to compare them,
by the way, because Hugh is coming here this after-
noon. I asked him not to, but he is coming just
the same. I told him Nadine and Seymour were
both here."
" Perhaps he means to kill Seymour," said Edith
thoughtfully. " It certainly would be the obvious
thing to do "
DODO THE SECOND 125
" Hughie would always do the obvious thing," said
Dodo.
" I will now finish my sentence," said Edith. " It cer-
tainly would be the obvious thing to do, provided that
the public executioner would not hang him, and that
Nadine would marry him. But things would probably
go the other way about, which would not be so satis-
factory for Hugh. Really the young generation is very
bloodless ; it talks more than we did, but it does
absolutely nothing."
" We used to talk a good deal," remarked Dodo,
" and we are not silent yet. At least you and I are not.
Edith, has it ever struck you that you and I are middle-
aged ? Or is middle-age, do you think, not a matter of
years but of inclination ? I think it must be, for it is
simply foolish to say that I am forty-five, though it
would be simply untrue to say that I was anything
else. That is by the way ; we will talk of ourselves
soon. Where had I got to ? Oh yes, Hugh is coming
down this afternoon though I implored him not to.
Nadine says I was wrong. She wants me to be very
nice to him, as she has been so horrid. They have not
seen each other for a whole week, ever since her engage-
ment was announced. I am sure Nadine misses him ;
she will be miserable if Hugh deserts her."
Edith plucked impatiently at the strings of the
double-bass and aroused the bumble-bees again.
" That's what 1 mean by bloodless," she said.
" They are all suffering from anaemia together. Their
blood has turned to a not very high quality of grey
matter in the brain. Nadine wants you to be kind to
Hugh, because she has been so horrid ! Dodo, don't
you see how fish-like that is ? And he, since he can't
marry her, takes the post of valet-de-chambre, and looks
on while Seymour gives her little butterfly kisses and
small fragments of jade. I saw him kiss her yester-
day, Dodo. It made me feel quite faint and weak, and
I had to hurry into the dining-room and take half a glass
126 DODO THE SECOND
of port. It was the most debilitated thing I ever saw.
Berts is nearly as bad, and though he is nine feet high
and plays cricket for his county, he is somehow lady-
like. I can't think where he got it from ; certainly not
from me. And as for Hugh, I suppose he calls it faith-
fulness to hang about after Nadine, but I call it anaemia.
I am surprised at Hugh ; I should have thought he was
sufficiently stupid to have more blood in him. He
ought to box Nadine's ears, kick Seymour and in-
stantly marry somebody else, and have dozens of great
red-faced, white-toothed children. Bah ! "
Dodo had subsided into hopeless giggles over this
remarkable tirade against the anaemic generation, and
Edith plucked at her double-bass again as she con-
cluded with this exclamation of scorn.
" And I can't think how you allow Nadine to marry
that that jade," said Edith.
Dodo became momentarily serious.
" If you were Nadine's mother," she said, "you would
be delighted at her marrying anybody. She is the sort
of girl who doesn't want to marry, and afterwards
wishes she had. I am not like that ; I was continually
marrying somebody and then wishing I hadn't. But
Nadine doesn't make mistakes. She may do things that
appear very odd, but they are not mistakes ; she has
thought things out very carefully first. You see quite
a quantity of eligible youths and several remarkably
ineligible ones have wanted to marry her, and she has
never felt any dear me, what is it a man with a small
income always feels when a post with a large income is
offered him oh yes, a call ; Nadine has never felt any
call to marry any of them. There are many girls like
that to whom the physical makes very little appeal.
But what does appeal to Nadine very strongly is the
mental, and Seymour however many times you call him
a jade, is as clever as he can be. In him also, I should
say, the physical side is extremely undeveloped, and
so I think that he and Nadine may be very happy.
DODO THE SECOND 127
Now Hugh is not clever at all ; he has practically no
intellect and that to Nadine is an insuperable defect.
Now don't call her prig or blue stocking. She is neither
the one nor the other. But she has a mind. So have
you. So for that matter have I, and it has led me to
do weird things."
Edith thrummed her double-bass again.
" Dodo, I can't tell you how I disapprove of you,"
she said, " and how I love you. You are almost
entirely selfish, and yet you have charm. Most utterly
selfish people lose their charm when they are about
thirty. I made sure you would But I was quite
wrong. Now I am utterly unselfish : I live entirely for
my husband and my art. I live for him by seldom
going near him since he is much happier alone. But
then I never had any charm at all. Now you have
always lived, and do still, completely for your own
pleasure "
Dodo clapped her hands violently in Edith's face
for it required drastic measures to succeed in inter-
rupting her.
" Ah, that is an astonishingly foolish thing for you to
say," she said. " If I lived for my pleasure, do you
know what I should do ? I should have a hot bath,
go to bed and have dinner there. I should then go to
sleep, and when I woke up I should go for a ride, have
another hot bath and another dinner, and go to sleep
again. There is nothing so pleasant as riding and hot
baths and food and sleep. But I never have sought
my pleasure. What I always have sought is my happi-
ness. And that on the whole is our highest duty.
Don't swear. There is nothing selfish about it, if you
are made like me. Because the thing that above all
others makes me happy is to contrive that other people
should have their own way. That is why I never
dream of interfering in what other people want. If they
really want it, I do all I can to get it for them. I was
not ever thus, as the hymn says, but I am so now.
128 DODO THE SECOND
The longer I live the more clearly I see that it is im-
possible to understand why other people want what they
want, but it seems to me that all that concerns me is
that they do want. I can see how they want, but never
why. I can't think, darling, for instance, why you
want to make those excruciating noises, but I see how.
Here's Jack : Jack, come and tell us about Utopia."
Edith had laid her double-bass down on the ground
of the terrace.
" Yes, but I want to sit down," he said. " May I sit
on it, Edith ? "
Edith screamed. He took this as a sign that he
might not, and sat on the terrace wall.
" Utopia ? " he asked. " You've got to be a man
to begin with and then you have to marry Dodo. It
does the rest."
" What is It ? "
" That which does it, your consciousness. Dodo, it
would send up rents in Utopia if Seymour went to a
nice girls' school. He is rather silly, and wants the
nonsense knocked out of him."
" But there you make a mistake," said she. " Al-
most every one who is nice is nice because the nonsense
has not been knocked out of him. People without
heaps of nonsense are merely prigs. Indeed that is the
best definition of a prig ; one who has lost his capability
for nonsense. Look at Edith ! She doesn't know
she's nonsensical, but she is. And she thinks she is
serious all the time with her great boots and her great
double-bass and her French horns. Oh me, oh me !
The reasonable people in the world are the ruin of it ;
they spoil the sunshine. Look at the abominable
Liberal party with terrible reasonable schemes for
scullery-maids. They are all quite excellent, and it is
for that reason they are so hopeless. It is, moreover,
a great liberty to take with people to go about ameliorat-
ing them. I should be furious if anybody wanted to
ameliorate me. Darling Bishop Algy, the other day,
DODO THE SECOND 129
said he always prayed for my highest good. I begged
him not to, because if his prayers were answered, Provi-
dence might think I should be better for a touch of
typhoid. You can't tell what strange roundabout
ways Providence may have. So he promised to stop
praying for me, because he is so understanding, and
knew what I meant. But when Lloyd George wants
to give scullery-maids a happy old age with a canary in
the window it is even worse. It is so sensible ; I can see
them sitting dismally in the room listening to their
canary, when they would be much more comfortable
in a nice workhouse, with Edith and me bringing them
packets of tea and flannel. Don't let us talk politics ;
there is nothing that saps the intellect so much."
" Edith and I have not talked much yet," observed
Jack.
" No, you are listening to Utopia, which as I said,
consists largely of nonsense. If you are to be happy,
you must play, you must be ridiculous, you must want
everybody else to be ridiculous. But everybody must
take his own absurdities quite seriously."
Dodo sat up, pulled Jack's cigarette case from his
pocket and helped herself.
" The Greeks and Romans were so right," she said,
" they had a slave class, though with them it was an
involuntary slave-class. We ought to have a voluntary
slave-class, consisting of all the people who like working
for a cause. There are heaps of politicians who natur-
ally belong to it, and clergymen and lawyers and
financiers, all the people in fact who die when they
retire, being devitalized when they have not got
offices and churches to go to. You can recognise a
slave the moment you see him. He always, socially,
wants to open the door or shut the window, or pick up
your gloves. The moment you see that look in a man's
eye, that sort of itch to be useful, you should be able
to give secret information and make him a slave at
200 a year, instead of making him a Cabinet Minister
130 DODO THE SECOND
or a bishop or a director of a company. He wants
work ; let him have it. Edith, darling, you would be
a slave instantly, and the State would provide you
with double-basses and cornets. I haven't thought it
all completely out, since it only occurred to me this
minute, but it seems to me an almost painfully sound
scheme now that I mention it. Think of the financiers
you would get ! There would be poor Mr. Carnegie and
Rockefeller and the whole of the Rothschild house, and
Barings and Speyers all quite happy because they are
happy when they work. And all the millions they
make how they make it, I don't know, unless they
buy gold cheap and sell it dear, which I believe is really
what they do all the millions they make would be
at the disposal of those who know how to spend it.
I suppose I am a Socialist."
Edith put her forehead in her hands.
" I don't know what you are talking about," she
said.
" I have my doubts myself," said Dodo ingenuously.
" It began about Nadine's marriage and then drifted.
You get to all sorts of strange places if you drift, both
morally and physically. It really seems very unfair,
that if you don't ever resist anything you go to the bad.
It looks as if evil was stronger than good, but Algy
shall explain it to me. He can explain almost any-
thing, including wasps. Jack, dear, do make me stop
talking ; you and the sunshine and Edith have gone
to my head, and given me the babbles."
" I insist on your going on talking," said Edith.
" I want to know how you can let Nadine marry with-
out love."
" Because a great many of our unfortunate sex, dear,
never fall in love, as I mean it, at all. But I would
not have them not marry. They often make excellent
wives and mothers. And I think Nadine is one of
those. She is as nearly in love with Hugh as she has
ever been with anybody, but she quite certainly will
DODO THE SECOND 131
not marry him. Here she is ; I daresay she will
explain it all herself. My darling, come and talk
matrimony shop to Edith ; Jack and I are going for a
short ride before lunch. Will you be in when Hugh
comes ? "
Nadine sat 'down in the chair from which Dodo had
risen. She was dressed in a very simple linen dress of
cornflower blue, that made the whites and pinks of her
face look absolutely dazzling.
" Yes, I will wait for him," she said. " Seymour
thought it would be kinder if he went to meet him at
the station, so that Hughie could get rid of some of
the hate on the way up. He has perception des
apercus tres-fins. And I will explain anything to any-
body in the interval. I want to be married, and so
does Seymour, and we think it will answer admirably
if we marry each other. There is very little else to say.
We are not foolish about each other "
" I find you are extremely modern," interrupted
Edith.
" You speak as if you did not like that," said Nadine,
" but surely somebody has got to be modern if we are
going to get on at all. Otherwise the world remains
stock still, or goes back. I do not think it would be
amusing to be Victorian again ; indeed there would be
no use in us trying. We should be such obvious for-
geries, Seymour particularly. I consider it lucky that
he was not born earlier ; if he had grown up as he is in
Victorian days, they would certainly have done away
with him somehow. Or his mother would have exposed
him in Battersea Park like Oedipus."
Edith leaned over the terrace wall, and took the
double-bass bow out of the tall clump of sweet peas.
" There are exactly two things in the world worth
doing," she said, " to love and to work. Certainly
you don't work, Nadine, and I don't believe you love."
Nadine looked at her a moment in silence and
hostility.
132 DODO THE SECOND
" That is a very comfortable reflection," she observed,
" for you who like working better than anything else
in the world except perhaps golf. I wonder you did
not say there were three things in the world worth
doing, making that damned game the third."
Edith had spoken with her usual cock-sure breezy
enthusiasm, and looked up surprised at a certain venom
and bitterness that underlay the girl's reply.
" My dear Nadine," she said. " What is the
matter ? "
Nadine glared at her a moment, and then broke into
rapid speech.
" Do you think I would not give the world to be able
to love?" she said. "Do you think I send Hugh
marching through hell for fun ? You say I am heartless,
as if it was my fault ! Would you go to a blind man in
the street and say ' You beast, you brute, why don't you
see ? ' Is he blind for fun ? Am I like this for fun ? "
She got up from her seat and came and stood in
front of Edith, flushed with an unusual colour, and
continued more rapidly yet, emphasizing her points
by admirable gesticulations of her hands. Indeed
they seemed to have speech on their own account ;
they were extraordinarily eloquent.
" Do you know you make me lose my temper ? "
she said. " That is a rare thing with me ; I seldom lose
it, but when I do it is quite gone, and I don't care what
I say, so long as it is what I mean. For the minute
my temper is absolutely vanished, and I shall make
the most of its absence. Who are you to judge and
condemn me ? and give me rules for conduct, how
work and love are the only things worth doing ? What
do you know about me ? Either you are absolutely
ignorant about me, or so stupid that the very cabbages
would seem clever by you. And you go telling me
what to do ! And what do you know about love ?
To look at you, as little as you know about me. Yes ;
no wonder you sit there with your mouth open staring
DODO THE SECOND 133
at me, you and your foolish great fat-bellied bloated
violin. You are not accustomed to be spoken to like
this. It never occurred to you that I would give the
world to be able to love as Jill and Polly and Mary and
Minnie love. I do not go about saying that any more
than a cripple calls attention to his defect : he tries
to be brave and conceal it. But that is me, a dwarf,
a hunch-back, a cretin of the soul. That is the matter
with me, and you are so foolish that it never occurred
to you that I wanted to be like other people. You
thought it was a pose of which I was proud, I think.
There ! Now do not do that again."
Nadine paused, and then sighed.
" I feel better," she said, " but quite red in the face.
However, I have got my temper back again. If you
like I will apologise for losing it."
Edith jumped up and kissed Nadine. When she
intended to kiss anybody she did it, whether the victim
liked it or not.
" My dear, you are quite delightful," she said. " I
thoroughly deserve every word. I was utterly ignorant
of you. But I am not stupid ; if you will go on, you
will find I shall understand."
Suddenly Nadine felt utterly lonely. All she had
said of herself in her sudden exasperation was perfectly
genuine, and now, when her equanimity returned, she
felt as if she must tell somebody about this isolation,
which for the moment, in any case, was sincerely and
deeply hers. That she was a girl of a hundred moods
was quite true, but it was equally true that each mood
was authentically inspired from within. Many of
them, no doubt, were far from edifying, but none could
be found guilty of the threadbare tawdriness of pose
She nodded at Edith.
" It is as I say," she said. " I hate myself ; but here
I am, and here soon will Hugh be. It is a disease this
heartlessness : I suffer from it. It is rather common
too, but commoner among girls than boys."
134
Then, queerly and unexpectedly, but still honestly,
her intellectual interest in herself, that cold egoism
that was characteristic of another side of her, awoke.
" Yet it is interesting," she said, " because it is out
of this sort of derangement that types and species
come. For a million years the fish we call the sole had
a headache, because one of its eyes was slowly travelling
through its head. For a million years man was un-
comfortable where the tail once came, because it was
drying up. For a million years there will be girls like
me, poor wretches, and at the end there will be another
type of woman, a third sex, perhaps, who from not
caring about those things which Nature evidently
meant her to care about will have become different.
And all the boys like Seymour will be approximating to
the same type from the other side, so that eventually
we shall be like the angels "
" My dear, why angels ? " asked Edith.
" Neither marrying nor giving in marriage. La, la !
And I was saying only the other day to him that I
wished to marry half a dozen men ! What a good
thing that one does not feel the same every day. It
would be atrociously dull. But in the interval, it is
lonely now and then for those of us who are not exactly
and precisely of the normal type of girl. But if you
have no heart, you have to follow your intelligence,
to go where your intelligence leads you, and then wave
a flag. Perhaps nobody sees it, or only the wrong
sort of person, who says, ' What is that idiot-girl
waving that rag for ? ' But she only waves it
because she is lost, and hopes that somebody will
see it."
Nadine laughed with her habitual gurgle.
" We are all lost," she said. " But we want to be
found. It is only the stupidest who do not know they
are lost. Well, I have what is Hugh's word, ah yes
I have gassed enough for one morning. Ah, and there
is the motor coming back from the station. I am
DODO THE SECOND 135
glad that Hugh has not thrown Seymour out, and
driven forwards and backwards over him."
The motor at this moment was passing not more
than a couple of hundred yards off through the park
which lay at the foot of the steep garden terraces
below them. From there the road wound round in a
long loop towards the house.
" I shall go to meet Hugh at once, and get it over,"
said Nadine ; and thereupon she whistled so shrilly
and surprisingly on her fingers, that Hugh, who was
driving, looked up and saw her over the terrace. She
made staccato wavings to him, and he got out.
" You whistled the octave of B in alt," remarked
Edith appreciatively.
" And my courage is somewhere about the octave
of B in profundis," said Nadine. " I dread what
Hugh may say to me."
" I will go and talk to him," said Edith. " I under-
stand you now, Nadine. I will tell him."
Nadine smiled very faintly.
" That is sweet of you," she said, " but I am afraid
it wouldn't be quite the same thing."
Nadine walked down the steep flight of steps in the
middle of the terrace, and out through the Venetian
gate into the park. Hugh had just arrived at it from
the other side, and they met there. No word of greet-
ing passed between them ; they but stood looking at
each other. He saw the girl he loved, neither more
nor less than that, and did not know if she looked well
or ill, or if her gown was blue or pink or rainbowed.
To him it was Nadine who stood there. But she saw
details, not being blinded : he was big and square, he
looked a picture of health, brown-eyed, clear of skin,
large-mouthed, with habit of smiling written strongly
there. He had taken off his hat, as was usual with
him, and as usual his hair looked a little disordered,
as if he had been out on a windy morning. There was
136 DODO THE SECOND
that slight thrusting outwards of his chin which sug-
gested that he would meet argument with obstinacy,
but that friendly and level look from his eyes that
suggested an honesty and kindliness hardly met with
outside the charming group of living beings known as
dogs. He was like a big kind dog, polite to strangers,
kind to friends, hopelessly devoted to the owner of his
soul. But to-day his mouth did not indulge its habit :
he was quite grave.
" Why did you kiss me the other night ? " he said.
Nadine had already repented of that rash act. Being
conscious of her own repentance, it seemed to her
rather nagging of him to allude to it.
" I meant nothing," she said. " Hughie, are we
going to stand like posts here ? Shan't we stroll "
" I don't see why : let us stand like posts. You did
kiss me. Or do you kiss everybody ? "
Nadine considered this for a moment.
" No, I don't kiss everybody," she said. " I never
kissed a man before. It was stupid of me. The
moment after I had done it I wanted to kiss some foot-
men to show you it didn't mean anything. You are
like the Inquisition. My next answer is that I have
kissed Seymour since. I I don't particularly like
kissing him. But it is usual."
" And j'ou are going to marry him ? "
Nadine's courage, which she had confessed was a B
in profundis, sank into profundissima.
" Yes ; I am going to marry him," she said.
" Why ? You don't love him. And he doesn't
love you."
" I don't love anybody," said Nadine quickly. " I
have said that so often that I am tired of saying it.
Girls often marry without being in love. It just
happens. What do you want ? Would you like me
to go on spinstering just because I won't marry you ?
That I will not do. You know why. You love me, and
I can't marry you unless I love you. Ah, mon Dieu,
DODO THE SECOND 137
it sounds like Ollendorf. But I should be cheating
you if I married you, and I will not cheat you. You
would expect from me what you bring to me, and it
would be right that I should bring it you, and I cannot.
If you didn't love me like that, I would marry you
to-morrow, and the trousseau might go and hang
itself. Mamma would give me some blouses and
stockings, and you would buy me a tooth-brush. Yes,
this is very flippant, but when serious people are goaded
they become flippant. Oh, Hughie, I wish I was
different. But I am not different. And what is it
you came down here about ? Is it to ask me again
to marry you, and to ask me not to marry my dear
little Seymour ? "
" Little ? " he asked.
" It was a term of endearment. Besides, it is not
his fault that he does not weigh fourteen stones "
" Stone," said he, with the tremor of a smile.
" No, stones," said Nadine. " I choose that it should
be stones : fourteen great square lumps. Hughie,
don't catch my words up and correct me. I am serious
and all you can answer is ' stone ' instead of ' stones.' '
" I did it without thinking," he said. " I only fell
back into the sort of speech there used to be between
us. It was like that, serious one moment and silly
the next. I spoke without thinking, as we used to
speak. I won't do it again."
" And why not ? " demanded Nadine.
" Because now that you tell me you really are going
to marry Seymour, everything is changed between us.
This is what I came to tell you. I am not going to
hang about, a mixture between a valet and an ami de
la maison. You have chosen now. When you refused
me before, there was always in my mind the hope that
some day you would give me a different answer. I
waited long and patiently and wilh'ngly for that chance.
Now the chance no longer exists. You have scratched
me "
138 DODO THE SECOND
Nadine drew her eyebrows together.
" Scratched you ? " she said. " Oh, I see, a race ;
not nails."
" And I am definitely and finally out of it."
" You mean you are no longer among my friends ? "
asked Nadine.
" I shall not be with you so much or so intimately.
We must talk over it just this once. We will stroll if
you like. It is too hot for you standing in the sun
without a hat."
" No, we will settle it here and now," said she quickly.
" You don't understand. My marriage with Seymour
will make no difference in the quality of affection I
have always had for you. Why should I give up my
best friend ? Why should you ? "
" Because you are much more than my best friend,
and I am obliged to give up, at last, that idea of you.
You have forced me to see that it is not to be realised.
And I won't sit about your house, to have people
pointing at me, and saying to each other, ' That's the
one who is so frightfully in love with her.' It may
sound priggish, but I don't choose to be quite so un-
manly as that. Nor would you much respect me if
I did so choose."
" But I never did respect you," said Nadine quickly.
" I never thought of you as respectable or otherwise.
It doesn't come in. You may steal and cheat at cards,
and I shall not care. I like whom I like : I like you
tremendously. What do you mean you are going to
do ? Go to Burmah or Bengal ? I don't want to lose
you, Hughie. It is unkind of you. Besides we shall
not marry for a long time yet, and even then Ah, it
is the old tale, the old horror called ' Me ' all over again
I don't love anybody. Many are delightful, and I
am so fond of them. But the other, the absorption,
the gorgeous foolishness of it all, it is away outside of
me, a fairy-tale, and I am grown up now and say,
' For me it is not true.' "
DODO THE SECOND 139
Hugh came a step nearer her.
" You poor devil," he said gently.
Tears, as yet unshed, gathered in Nadine's eyes.
They were fairly creditable tears : they were not, at
any rate, like the weepings of the great prig-prince
and compounded merely cf " languor and self-pity,"
but sorrow for Hugh was one ingredient in them. Yet,
in the main, they were for herself, since the only solvent
for egoism is love.
" Yes, I am that," she said. " I'm a poor devil.
I'm lost, as I said to that foolish Arbuthnot woman
with her feet and great violin. Hark, she is playing
it again : she is a big C major. She has been scolding
me, though, if it comes to that, I gave it her back with
far more gamin in my tongue. And now you say you
will not be friends any longer, and Mamma does not
like my marrying Seymour, though she does not argue,
and there is no one left but myself, and I hate myself.
Oh, I am lost, and I wave my flags, and there is no one
who sees or understands. I shall go back to Daddy,
I think, and he and I will drink ourselves drunk, and
I shall have the red nose. But you are the worst of
them all, Hugh ! It is a very strange sort of love you
have for me, if all it can do is to desert me. And yet
the other day I felt as you feel ; I felt it would only
be fair to you to see you less. I am a damned weather-
cock. I go this way and that, but the wind is always
cold. I am sorry for you, I want you to be happy, I
would make you happy myself, if I could."
Nadine's eyes had quite overflowed, and as she
poured out this remarkable series of lamentations, she
dabbed at her moistened cheeks. Yet Hugh, though
he was so largely to blame, as it seemed, for this emo-
tion, and though all the most natural instincts in him
longed to yield, knew that deep in him his determina-
tion was absolutely unsoftened. It, and his love for
Nadine were of the quality of nether millstones. But
all the rest of him longed to comfort her.
140 DODO THE SECOND
" Oh, Nadine, don't cry," he said. " I'm not worth
crying about to begin with."
"It is not you alone I cry about," said Nadine,
with justice. " I cry a little for you, every third
drop is for you. The rest is quite for myself."
"It is never worth while to cry for one's self," he
said.
" Who wants it to be worth while ? I feel like crying,
therefore I cry. Hardly anything I do is worth while,
yet I go on doing, and I get tired of it before it is
done. Already I am tired of crying, and besides, it
gives me the red nose without going to Daddy. Not
you and I together are worth making myself ugly for.
But you are so disagreeable, Hughie ; first I wanted
to stroll, and you said ' no,' and then when I didn't
want to stroll you said ' yes,' and you aren't going to
be friends with me, and I feel exactly as I used to feel
when I was six years old, and it rained. Come, let us
sit down a little, and you shall tell me what you mean
to do, and how it will be between us. I will be very
good ; I will bless any plan you make like a bishop.
It shall all be as you will. I owe you so much, and
there is no way by which I can ever pay you. I don't
want to be a curse to you, Hughie ; I don't, indeed."
She sat down, leaning against a great beech trunk,
and he lay on the coarse meadow grass beside her.
" I know you don't," he said.
He looked at her steadily, as she finished mopping
her cheeks. Her little burst of tears had not made
her nose at all red ; it had but given a softness to her
eyes. Never before had he so strongly felt her way-
ward irresistible charm, which it was so impossible to
analyse or to explain. Indeed, if it came to analysis
there were strange ingredients there ; theie was egoism
as complete, and yet as disarming as that of a Persian
kitten; there was the unreasonableness of a spoilt
child ; there was the inconsiderateness and unreliability
of an April day, which alternates its gleams of the
DODO THE SECOND 141
saffron sun of spring with cold rain and plumping
showers. Yet he felt that there was something utterly
adorable, wholly womanly that lay sheathed in these
more superficial imperfections, something that stirred
within them conscious of the coming summer, just as
the life embalmed within the chrysalis stirs, giving
token of the time when the husk shall burst, and that
which was but a brown mummied thing shall be wafted
on wings of silver emblazoned with scarlet and gold.
Then there was her beauty, too, which drew his eyes
after the wonder of its perfection, and was worthy of
the soul that he divined in her. And finally (and
this, perhaps, to him was the supreme magnet) there
was the amazing and superb quality of her vitality,
that sparkled and effervesced in all she did and said,
so that for him her speech was like song or light, and
to be with her was to be bathed in the effulgence of
her spirit. And Hugh looking at her now, felt, as
always, that his self slipped from him, so that he was
conscious of her only ; she possessed him, and he lay
like the sea with the dazzle of sunlight on it that both
reflects the radiance and absorbs it.
Then he sat up, and half turned from her, for there
were things to be said yet that he could scarcely say
while he looked at her.
" I know you don't mean to be a curse to me," he
said, " and you couldn't be if you tried. Whatever
you did, and you are going to do a pretty bad thing
now in marrying that chap, must be almost insignificant
compared to the love which you have made exist in me."
He paused a moment.
" I have thought it all out," he said, " but it is
difficult, and you must give me time. I'm not quick
like you, as you know very well, but sometimes I get
there. It is like this."
She was watching him and listening to him, with a
curious intentness and nervousness, as a prisoner
about to receive sentence may watch the judge. Her
142 DODO THE SECOND
hands clasped and unclasped themselves, her breath
came short and irregular. It seemed as if she, for once,
had failed to understand him whom she had said she
knew too fatally well. Just now, at any rate, and on this
topic, it was clear she did not know what he was going to
propose. Yet it was scarcely a proposal she waited for ;
she waited for his word, his ultimatum. Up till now she
had dominated him completely with her quick wit,
her far more subtle intelligence, her beauty, her vitality.
But for once, now he was her master, she felt she had
to bow to his simplicity and his uncomplicated strength,
his brute virility. It was but faintly that she recog-
nised it, the recognition came to her consciousness but
as an echo. But the voice that made the echo came
from within.
" I have received my dismissal from you," he said,
" as head of your house, as your possible husband.
As I said, I won't take the place of the tame cat instead.
God knows I don't want to cut adrift from you, and
I can't cut adrift from you. But my aspiration is
rendered impossible, and therefore both my mental
attitude to you and my conduct must be altered. I
daresay Berts and Tommy and Esther and all the
rest of them will go lying about on your sofa, and
smoking in your bedroom just as before. Well, I
can't be intimate in that sort of way any longer. You
said you never reckoned whether you respected me
or not, and that may be so. But without wanting to
be heavy about it, I have got to respect myself. I can't
help being your lover, but I can help tickling my love,
so to speak, making it squirm and wriggle. Whether
I am respectable or not, it is, and I shan't as I said
I shan't tickle it. Also, though I would be hurt in
any other way for your sake, I won't be hurt like that.
Don't misunderstand me. It is because my love for
you is not one atom abated, that I won't play tricks
with it. But when it says to me ' I can't bear it,'
I shall not ask it to bear it. You always found me
DODO THE SECOND 143
too easy to understand ; I think this is another instance
of it."
He paused a moment, and Nadine gave a little sob-
bing sigh.
" Oh, Hughie," she began.
" No, don't interrupt," he said. " I want to go
through with it, without discussion. There is no
discussion possible. I wouldn't argue with God about
it. I should say ' You made me an ordinary human
man, and you've got to take the consequences. In
the same way you have chosen Seymour, and I am
telling you what is the effect. Now you are tired of
hearing it I love you. And therefore I want your
happiness without reservation. You have decided it
will conduce to your happiness to marry Seymour.
Therefore, Nadine this is quite simple and true
I want you to do so. I may rage and storm on the
surface, but essentially I don't. Somewhere behind
all I may say and do, there is, as you once said to
me, the essential me. Well, that says to you ' God bless
you.' That's all."
He unclasped his hands from round his knees, and
stood up, big and simple and strong.
" There's nothing more to be said," he went on. " I
thought when I came down it might take a long time
to tell you this. But it has taken ten minutes only.
I thought perhaps you would have a lot to say about
it, and I daresay you have, but I find that it doesn't
concern me. Don't think me brutal, any more than
I think you brutal. I am made like this, and you are
made otherwise. By all means, let us see each other
often I hope, but not just yet. I've got to adjust my-
self you see, and you haven't. You never loved me,
and so what you have done makes no difference in your
feeling towards me. But I've got to get used to it."
She looked up at him, as he stood there in front of
her with the green lights through the beech-leaves
playing on him.
144 DODO THE SECOND
" You make me utterly miserable, Hugh," she said.
" No, I don't There is no such thing as misery
without love. You don't care for me in the way that
could could give you the privilege of being miserable."
For one half-second she did not follow him. But
immediately the quickness of her mind grasped what
cafnJB so easily and simply to him.
j" Ah, I see," she said, her intelligence leading her
awa|y from him by the lure of the pleasure of perception.
" jWhen you are like that, it is even a joy to be miser-
able. Is that so ? "
/ " Yes, I suppose that is it. Your misery is a a
wireless message from your love. Bad news, perhaps,
but still a communication."
She got up.
" Ah, my dear," she said, " that must be so. I
never thought of it. But I can infer that you are right.
Somehow you are quickened, Hughie. You are giving
me a series of little shocks. You were never quite like
that before."
'* I was always exactly like that," he said, " I have
told you nothing that I have not always known."
Again her brilliant egoism asserted itself.
" Then it is I who am quickened," she said. " There
is nothing that quickens one so much as being hurt. It
makes all your nerves awake and active. Yes ; you
have hurt me, and you are not sorry. I do not mind
being hurt, if it makes me more alive. Ah, the only
point of life is to be alive. If life was a crown of thorns,
how closely I would press it round my head, so that
the points wounded and wounded me. It is so shallow
just to desire to be happy. I do not care whether I
am happy or not, so long as I feel. Give me all the
cancers and consumptions and decayed teeth, and gout
and indigestion and necrosis of the spine and liver if
there is such a thing, so that I may feel. I don't feel :
it is that which ails me. I have a sane body and a sane
mind, and I am tired of sanity. Kick me, Hughie,
DODO THE SECOND 145
strike me, spit at me, make me angry and disgusted,
anything, oh anything. I want to feel, and I want to
feel about you most particularly, and I can't, and there
is Edith playing on her damned double-bass again.
I hear it, I am conscious of it, and it is only the things
that don't matter which I am conscious of. I am
conscious of your brown eyes, my dear, and your big
mouth and your trousers and boots, and the cow that is
wagging its tail and looking at us as if it was going to be
sick. Its dinner, I remember, goes into its stomach,
and then it comes up again, and then it becomes milk
or a calf or something. It has nine stomachs, or is it a
cat that has nine lives, or nine tails ? I am sure about
nine. Oh Hughie, I see the outside aspect of things,
and I can't get below. I am a flat stone that you send
to make chickens, is it no, ducks and drakes over a
pond ; flop, flop, the foolish thing. And somehow
you with your stupidity and simplicity, you go down
below, and drown, and stick in the mud, and are so un-
comfortable and miserable. And I am sorry for you ;
I hate you to be uncomfortable and miserable, and oh,
I envy you. You suffer and are kind, and don't envy,
and are not puffed up, and I envy your misery, and am
puffed up because I am so desirable, and I don't really
suffer you are quite right and I am not kind. Hugh,
I can't bear that cow, drive it away, it will eat me, and
make milk of me. And there, look, are Mamma and
Papa Jack, coming back from their ride. Papa Jack
loves her ; his face is like a face in a spoon when he looks
at her, and I know she is learning to love him. She
no longer thinks when she is talking to him, as to
whether he will be pleased. That is a sure sign. She
is beginning to be herself, at her age too ! She doesn't
think about thinking about him any more : it comes
naturally. And I am not myself ; I am something else ;
rather, I am nothing else ; I am nothing at all, just some
intelligence, and some flesh and blood and bones. I
am not a real person. It is that which is the matter. I
K
146 DODO THE SECOND
long to be a real person, and I can't. I crawl sideways
over other things like a crab ; I wave my pincers and
pinch. I am lost ; I am nothing ! And yet I know
how horribly I know it there is something behind,
more than the beastly idol with the wooden eye, which
is all I know of my real self. If only I could find it !
If only I could crack myself up like a nut and get to a
kernel. For God's sake, Hughie, take the nut-crackers,
and crack me. But it is idle to ask you to do it. You
have tried often enough. You will have to get a
stronger nut-cracker. Meantime I am a nut, just a
nut, with its hard bright shell. Seymour is another
nut. There we shall be."
Hugh caught her by the wrists.
" I can't stand it, Nadine," he said. " You feel
nothing for him. He is nothing to you. How can you
marry him ? It's profane ; it's blasphemous. You
say you can give nothing to anybody. Well, make the
best of yourself. I can give all I am to you. Isn't
that better than absolute nil ? You can't give, but
let me give. It's worship, it's all there is '
She stood there with her wrists in his hands, his
strong fingers bruising and crushing them. She could
have screamed for the pain of it.
" No, and a thousand times no," she said. " I won't
cheat."
" I ask you to cheat.''
" And I won't. Hughie dear, press harder, hurt me
more, so that you may see I am serious. You may bite
the flesh off me, you may strangle me, and I will stand
quite still and let you do it. But I won't marry you.
I won't cheat you. My will is stronger than your body,
and I would die sooner."
" Then your marriage is a pure farce," said he.
" Come and laugh at it," she saidi
CHAPTER VII
HUGH'S intention had been to stay several days, at the
least, with the Chesterfords, and had brought down
luggage that would last any reasonable person a fort-
night. Unluckily he had not foreseen the very natural
effect that the sight of Seymour would have on him,
and as soon as lunch was over he took his hostess into a
corner and presented the situation with his usual
simplicity.
" It is like this, Aunt Dodo," he said. " I didn't
realise exactly what it meant to me till I saw Seymour
again. He drove me up from the station, and it got
worse all the time. I thought perhaps since Nadine
had chosen him, I might see him differently. I think
perhaps I do, but it is worse. It is quite hopeless ; the
best thing I can do is to go away again at once."
Dodo had lit two cigarettes by mistake, and since,
during their ride, Jack had (wantonly, so she thought)
accused her of wastefulness, she was smoking them
both, holding one in each hand in alternate whiffs.
But she threw one of them away at this, and laid her
hand on Hugh's knee.
" I know, my dear, and I am so dreadfully sorry,"
she said. " I was sure it would be so, and that's why
I didn't want you to come here. I knew it was no good.
I can see you feel really unwell whenever you catch
sight of Seymour or hear anything he says. And about
Nadine ? Did you have a nice talk with her ? "
Hugh considered.
" I don't think I should quite call it nice," he said.
" I think I should call it necessary. Anyhow, we have
147
148 DODO THE SECOND
had it and and I quite understand now. As that is
so, I shall go away again this afternoon. It was a mis-
take to come at all."
" Yes, but probably it was a necessary mistake. In
certain situations mistakes are necessary ; I mean
whatever one does seems to be wrong. If you had
stopped away you would have felt it wrong too."
" And will you answer two questions, Aunt Dodo ? "
he asked.
" Yes, I will certainly answer them. If they are
very awkward ones I may not answer them quite
truthfully."
" Well, I'll try Do you approve of Nadine's mar-
riage ? Has it your blessing ? "
" Yes, my dear ; truthfully it has. But it is right to
tell you that I give my blessings rather easily, and when
it is clearly no use attempting to interfere in a matter,
it is better to bless it than curse it. But if you ask me
whether I would have chosen Seymour as Nadine's
husband, out of all the possible ones, why, I would not.
I thought at one time that perhaps it was going to be
Jack. But then Jack chose me, and as we all know a
girl may not marry her step-father, particularly if her
mother is alive and well. But I should not have chosen
you either, Hughie, if your question implies that. I
used to think I would, but when Nadine explained to
me the other day, I rather agreed with her. Of course,
she has explained to you."
Hugh looked at her with his honest, trustworthy,
brown eyes.
" Several times," he said. " But if I agreed, I
shouldn't be worrying. Now another question. Do
you think she will be happy ? "
" Yes, up to her present capacity. If I did not think
she would be happy, I would not bless it. Dear Edith,
for example, thinks it is a shocking and terrible mar-
riage. For her I daresay it would be, but then it isn't
she whom Seymour proposed to marry. They would
DODO THE SECOND 149
be a most remarkable couple, would they not ? I think
Edith would kill him, with the intention of committing
suicide after, and then determine that there had been
enough killing for one day. And the next day suicide
would appear quite out of the question. So she would
write a funeral march."
Dodo held the admirably sensible view that if dis-
cussion on a particular topic is hopeless, it is much better
to abandon it, and talk as cheerfully as may be about
something different. But this entertaining diversion
altogether failed to divert Hugh.
" You said she would be happy up to her present
capacity ? " he reminded her.
" Yes : that is simple, is it not ? As we develop our
capacity for happiness, our misery also develops as
well. Whether Nadine's capacity will develop much,
I cannot tell. If it does, she may not be happy up to it.
But who knows ? We cannot spend our lives in ar-
ranging for contingencies that may never take place,
and changes in ourselves that may never occur."
Dodo looked in silence for a moment at his grave
reliable face, and felt a sudden wonder at Nadine for
having chosen as she had done. And yet her reason
for rejecting this extremely satisfactory youth was
sound enough ; their intellectual levels were such miles
apart. But Dodo, though she did not express her
further thought, had it very distinct in her mind. " If
she does develop emotionally like a woman," she said
to herself, " there will not be a superfluity of happiness
about. And she will look at you and wonder how she
could have refused you."
But necessarily she did not say this, and Hugh got up.
" Well then, at the risk of appearing a worse prig
than John Sturgis," he said, " I may tell you that as
long as Nadine is happy, the mam object is accom-
plished. My own happiness consists so largely in the
fact of hers. Dear me, I wonder you are not sick at my
sententiousness. I am quite too noble to live, but I
150 DODO THE SECOND
don't really want to die. Would it make Nadine hap-
pier, if I told Seymour I should be a brother to him ? "
Dodo laughed.
" No, Hughie, it would make her afraid that your
brain had gone, or that you were going to be ill. It
would only make her anxious. Is the motor round ?
I am sorry you are going, but I think you are quite right
to do so. Always propose yourself, Hughie, whenever
you feel like it."
" I don't feel like it at present," said he. " But
thanks awfully, Aunt Dodo."
Dodo felt extremely warmly towards this young man,
who was behaving so very well and simply.
" God bless you, dear Hugh," she said, " and give
you your heart's desire."
" At present my heart's desire .appears to be making
other plans for itself," said Hugh.
Esther had said once, in a more than usually enligh-
tened moment, that Nadine's friends did her feeling
for her, and she observed them, and put what they felt
into vivacious and convincing language and applied it
to herself. Certainly Hugh, when he drove away again
this afternoon, was keenly conscious of what Nadine
had talked about to Edith : he felt lost, and the flag
he had industriously waved so long for her seemed
to be entirely disregarded. He hardly knew what he
had hoped would have come of this ill-conceived visit
which had just ended so abruptly, but a vague sense
of Nadine's engagement being too nightmare-like to be
true had prompted him to go in person and find out.
Also, it had seemed to him that when he was face to
face with Nadine, asking her at point-blank range
whether she was going to marry Seymour, it was im-
possible that she should say " yes." Something
different must assuredly happen : either she would
say it was a mistake or something inside him must
snap. But there was no mistake about it, and nothing
DODO THE SECOND 151
had snapped. The world proposed to proceed just as
usual. And he could not decline to proceed with it ;
unless you died you were obliged to proceed, however
intolerable the journey, however unthinkable the
succession of days through which you were compelled
to pass. Life was like a journey in an express train
with no communication cord. You were locked in,
and could not stop the train by any means. Some
people, of course, threw themselves out of the window,
so to speak, and made violent ends to themselves ; but
suicide is only possible to people of certain tempera-
ment, and Hugh was incapable of even contemplating
such a step. He felt irretrievably lost, profoundly
wretched, and yet, quite apart from the fact that he
was temperamentally incapable of even wishing to
commit suicide, the fact that Nadine was in the world
(whatever Nadine was going to do) made it impossible
to think of quitting it. That was the manner and
characteristic of his love : his own unhappiness meant
less to him than the fact of her.
Until she had suggested it the thought of travelling
had not occurred to him : now, as he waited for his
train at the station, he felt that at all costs he wanted
to be on the move, to be employed in getting away
from the " intolerable anywhere " that he might happen
to be in. Wherever he was, it seemed that any other
place would be preferable; and this he supposed was
the essence of the distraction that travel is supposed
to give. His own rooms in town he felt would be soaked
in associations of Nadine, so too would be the houses
where he would naturally spend these coming months
of August and September. Not till October, when his
duties as a clerk in the Foreign Office called him back
to town, had he anything with which he felt he could
occupy himself. An exceptional capacity for finding
days too short and few, even though they had no duties
to make the hours pass, had hitherto been his only
brilliance ; now all gift of the kind seemed to have been
152 DODO THE SECOND
snatched from him ; he could not conceive what to do
with to-morrow or the next day or any of the days
that should follow. An allowance of seven days to
the week seemed an inordinate superfluity ; he was
filled with irritation at the thought of the leisurely
march of interminable time.
He spent the evening alone, feeling that he was a
shade less intolerable to himself than anybody else
would have been ; also, he felt incapable of the atten-
tion which social intercourse demands. His mind
seemed utterly out of his control, as unable to remain
in one place as his body. Even if he thought of Nadine,
it wandered, and he would notice that a picture hung
crooked, and jump up to straighten it. One such
was a charming water-colour sketch by Esther of the
beach at Meering, with a splash of sunlight low in the
West that, shining through a chimney in the clouds,
struck the sea very far out, and made there a little
island of reflected gold. Esther had put in this golden
islet with some reluctance : she had said that even in
Nature it looked unreal, and would look even more
unreal in Art, especially when the artist happened to
be herself. But Nadine had voted with Hugh on behalf
of the golden island, just because it would appear
unreal and incredible. "It is only the unreal things
that are vivid to us," she had said, " and the incredible
things are just those which we believe in. Isn't that
so, Hughie ? "
How well he remembered her saying that ; her voice
rang in his ears like a haunting tune ! And while
Esther made this artistic sacrifice to the god of things
as they are not, he and Nadine strolled along the firm
sandy beach, shining with the moisture of the receding
tide. She had taken his arm, and just as her voice
now sounded in his ears so he could feel the pressure
of her hand on his coat.
" You live among unrealities," she said, " although
you are so simple and practical. You are thinking now
DODO THE SECOND 153
that some day you and I will go to live on that golden
island. But there is no island really ; it is just like the
rest of the sea, only the sun shines on it."
The bitter truth of that struck him now as applied
to her and himself. Though she had refused him
before, the sun shone on those days, and not until she
had engaged herself to Seymour did the gold fade.
Not until to-day, when he had definite confirmation
of that from her own lips, had he really believed in her
rejection of him. He well knew her affection for him ;
he believed, and rightly, that if she had been asked to
name her best friend, she would have named none other
than himself. It had been impossible for him not to be
sanguine over the eventual outcome, and he had never
really doubted that some day her affection would be
kindled into flame. He had often told himself that it
was through him that she would discover her heart.
As she had suggested, he would some day crack the
nut for her, and show her her own kernel, and she would
find it was his.
And now all those optimisms were snuffed out. He
had completely to alter and adjust his focus, but that
could not be done at once. To-night he peered out,
as it were, on to familiar scenes, and found that his
sight of them was misty and blurred. The whole world
had vanished in cold grey mists. He was lost, quite
lost, and . . . and there was a letter for him on the
table which he had not noticed. The envelope was
obviously of cheap quality, and was of those propor-
tions which suggest a bill. A bill it was, from a book-
seller, of four shillings and sixpence incurred over a
book Nadine had said she wanted to read. He had
passed the bookseller's on his way home immediately
afterwards, and of course he had ordered it for her.
She had not cared for it ; she had found it unreal.
" The man is meant to arouse my sympathy," she had
said, " and only arouses my intense indifference. I am
acutely uninterested in what happens to him." Hugh
154 DODO THE SECOND
felt as if she had been speaking of himself, but the
moment after knew that he did her an injustice. Even
now he could not doubt the sincerity of her affection
for him. But there was something frozen about it.
It was like sleet, and he, like a parched land, longed
for the pity of the soft rain.
Hugh had a wholesome contempt for people who pity
themselves, and it struck him at this point that he was
in considerable danger of becoming despicable in his
own eyes. He had been capable of sufficient manliness
to remove himself from Nadine that afternoon, but
his solitary evening was not up to that standard ; he
might as well have remained at Winston, if he was to
endorse his refusal to dangle after her with nothing
more virile than those drawling sentimentalities. She
was not for him : he had made this expedition to-day
in order to convince himself on that point, and already
his determination was shewing itself unstable, if it
suffered him to dangle in mind though not in body.
And yet how was it possible not to ? Nadine, physi-
cally and tangibly was certainly going to pass out of his
life, but to eradicate her from his soul would be an act
of spiritual suicide. Physically there was no doubt
that he would continue to exist without her, spiritually
he did not see how existence was possible on the same
terms. But he need not drivel about her. There
were always two ways of behaving after receiving a blow
which knocked you down, and the one that commended
itself most to Hugh was to get up again.
Lady Ayr at the end of the London season had for
years been accustomed to carry out some itinerant
plan for the improvement and discomfort of her family.
One year she dragged them along the castles by the
Loire, another she forced them, as if by pumping,
through the picture galleries of Holland, and this
summer she proposed to shew them a quantity of the
English cathedrals. These abominable pilgrimages
DODO THE SECOND 155
were made pompously and economically : they stayed
at odious inns, where she haggled and bargained with
the proprietors, but on the other hand she informed
the petrified vergers and custodians whom she con-
ducted (rather than was conducted by) round the
cathedrals or castles in their charge, that she was the
Marchioness of Ayr, was directly descended from the
occupants of the finest and most antique tombs, that
the castle in question had once belonged to her family,
or that the gem of the Holbeins represented some aunt
of hers in bygone generations. Here pomp held sway,
but economy came into its own again over the small
silver coin with which she rewarded her conductor.
On English lines she had a third-class carriage reserved
for her and beguiled the tedium of journeys by reading
aloud out of guide-books an account of what they had
seen or what they were going to visit. Generally they
put up at temperance hotels, and she made a point of
afternoon tea being included in the exiguous terms at
which she insisted on being entertained. John aided
and abetted her in those tours, exhibiting an ogreish
appetite for all things Gothic and mental improvement,
and her husband followed her with a white umbrella,
and sat down as much as possible. Esther's part in
them was that of a resigned and inattentive martyr,
and she fired off picture postcards of the places they
visited to Nadine and others with " This is a foul hole "
or " The beastliest inn we have struck yet " written
on them, while Seymour revenged himself for the dis-
comforts inflicted on him by examining his mother as
to where they had seen a particular rose-window or
portrait by Rembrandt, and then by the aid of a guide-
book proving she was wrong. Why none of them
revolted and refused to go on these annual journeys,
now that they had arrived at adult years, they none of
them exactly knew, any more than they knew why they
went, when summoned, to their mother's dreadful
dinner-parties, and it must be supposed that there was
156 DODO THE SECOND
a touch of the inevitable about such diversions : you
might grumble and complain, but you went.
This year the tour was to start with the interesting
city of Lincoln, and the party assembled on the platform
at King's Cross at an early hour. The plan was to
lunch in the train, so as to start sight-seeing immedi-
ately on arrival, and continue (with a short excursion
to the hotel in order to have the tea which had been
included in the terms) until the fading light made it
impossible to distinguish ancestral tombs or Norman
arches. Lady Ayr had not seen Seymour since his
engagement, and as she ate rather gristly beef sand-
wiches, she gave him her views on the step. Though
they were all together in one compartment the con-
versation might be considered a private one, for Lord
Ayr was sleeping gently in one corner, John was ab-
sorbed in the account of the Roman remains at Lincoln
(Lindun Colonia, as he had already announced),
and Esther with a slightly leaky stylograph was
writing a description of their depressing journey to
Nadine.
" What you are marrying on, Seymour, I don't
know," she said. " Neither your father or I will be
able to increase your allowance, and Nadine Walder-
nech has the appearance of being an expensive young
woman. I hope she realizes she is marrying the son
of a poor man, and that we go third class."
" She is aware of all that," said Seymour, wiping
his long white ringer tips on an exceedingly fine cambric
handkerchief, after swallowing a sandwich or two,
" and we are marrying really on her money."
" I am not sure that I approve of that," said his
mother.
" The remedy is obvious," remarked Seymour.
" You can increase my allowance. I have no objection.
Mamma, would you kindly let me throw the rest of
that sandwich out of the window ? It makes me ill to
look at it."
DODO THE SECOND 157
" We are not talking about sandwiches. Why do
you not earn some money like other younger sons ? "
" I do. I earned four pounds last week, with des-
cribing your party and other things, and there is my
embroidery as well, which I shall work at most indus-
triously. I shall do embroidery in the evening, after
dinner, while Nadine smokes."
Lady Ayr looked out of the window and pointed
magisterially to the towers of some great church in the
town through which the train was passing.
" Peterborough," she said, " We shall see Peter-
borough on our way back. Peterborough, John.
Ayr and Esther we are passing through Peter-
borough."
Esther lookejl out on to the mean backs of houses.
" The sooner we pass through Peterborough the
better," she observed.
John turned rapidly over the leaves of his guide-
book.
" Peterborough is seventy-eight miles from London,
and contains many buildings of interest," he informed
them.
Lady Ayr returned to Seymour.
" I hope you will insist on her leaving off smoking
when you are married to her," she said. " I cannot
say she is the wife I should have chosen for you."
" I chose her myself," observed Seymour.
" Tell me more about her. Certainly the Waldenechs
are a very old family, there is that to be said. Is she
serious ? Does she feel her responsibilities ? Or is
she like her mother ? "
Seymour brushed a few remaining sandwich-crumbs
off his trousers.
" I think Aunt Dodo is one of the most serious people
I know," he said. " She is serious about everything.
She does everything with all her might. Nadine is
not quite so serious as that. She is rather flippant
about things like food and dress. However, no doubt
158 DODO THE SECOND
my influence will make her more serious. But, as a
matter of fact, I can't tell you about Nadine. A fort-
night ago, when I proposed to her I could have. I
could have given you a very complete account of her.
But I can't any longer ; I am getting blind about her.
I only know that it is she. Not so long ago I told her
a quantity of her faults with ruthless accuracy, but I
couldn't now. I can't see them any more ; there's a
glamour."
Esther looked up.
" Oh, Seymour," she said, " are you talking about
Nadine ? Are you falling in love with her ? How
very awkward ! Does she know ? "
Seymour pointed a withering finger at his sister.
"Little girls should mind their own business," he
said.
" Oh, but it is my business. Nadine matters far
more than anyone else. She might easily think it
not right to marry you if you were in love with
her."
Lady Ayr turned a petrifying gaze from one to the
other.
" She seems a very extraordinary young person,"
she said. " And in any case Esther has no business to
know anything about it."
" Whether she thinks it right or not, she is going to
marry me," said Seymour.
Esther shook her head.
** You are indeed blind about Nadine," she said, " if
you think she would ever do anything she thought
wrong."
" You might be describing John," said Seymour
rather hotly. " Anyhow Nadine is not like John."
" I see no resemblance," said Lady Ayr. " But it is
something to know she would not do anything she
thought wrong."
" When you say it in that voice, mother," said
Esther, " you make nonsense of it."
DODO THE SECOND 159
" The same words in any voice mean the same thing,"
said Lady Ayr.
Seymour sighed.
" I am on Esther's side for once," he said.
Esther turned to her brother :
" Seymour, you ought to tell Nadine you are falling
in love with her," she said. " I really don't think she
would approve. Why, you might become as bad as
Hugh. Of course you are not so stupid as Hugh ah,
stupid is the wrong word you haven't got such a plain
kind of intellect as Hugh which was Nadine's main
objection "
Seymour patted Esther's hand with odious superior-
ity. " You are rather above yourself, my little girl,"
he said, " because just now I agreed with you. It has
gone to your head, and makes you think yourself
clever. Shut your eyes till we get to Lincoln. You
will feel less giddy by degrees. And when you open
them again, you can mind your own business, and
Mamma will tell you about the Goths and Vandals who
built the cathedral. You are a Vandal yourself ; you
will have a fellow feeling. Mamma dear, put down
that window. I am going to see cathedrals to please
you, but I will not be stifled to please anybody. The
carriage reeks of your beef sandwiches. But I think
I have some scent in my bag."
" I am quite sure you have," said Esther, scornfully.
" I am writing to Nadine, by the way. I shall tell her
you are falling in love with her."
" You can tell her exactly what you please," said
Seymour, suavely. " Ah, here is some wall-flower scent.
It is like a May morning. Yes, tell Nadine what you
please, but don't bother me. What is the odious town
we are coming to ? I think it must be Lincoln. John,
here is Lincoln, and all the people are ancient Romans."
Seymour obligingly sprayed the expensive scent
about the carriage, even though they were so shortly
to disembark.
i6o DODO THE SECOND
" The river Witham," said John, pointing to a small
and fetid ditch. " Remains of Roman villas "
"The inhabitants of which died of typhoid," said
Seymour. " Tell Nadine we are enjoying Lincoln,
Esther. Had father better be allowed to sleep on, or
shall I wake him ? There is a porter ; call him,
mother I won't carry my bag even to save you six-
pence. But don't tell him we are Marchionesses and
lords and ladies, because then he will expect a shilling.
I perceive a seedy-looking bus outside. That is prob-
ably ours. It looks as if it came from some low kind
of inn. I wish I had brought Antoinette. And yet
I don't know. She would probably have given notice
after seeing the degradation of our summer holiday."
" Seymour, you are making yourself exceedingly
disagreeable," said his mother.
"It is intentional. You made yourself disagreeable
to me ; you began. As for you, Esther, you must
expect to see a good deal less of Nadine after she and
I are married. I will not have you mooning about the
house, reminding her of all the damned yes, I said
damned nonsense you and she and Berts and Hugh
talked about the inequality of marriages where one
person is clever and the other stupid, or where one
loves and the other doesn't. You have roused me, you
and mother between you, and I am here to tell you that
I will manage my own affairs, which are Nadine's also,
without the smallest assistance from you. Put that
in in your ginger-beer, or whatever we have for
dinner, and drink it. You thought I was only a sort
of thing that waved its hands and collected jade, and
talked in rather a squeaky voice, and walked on its
toes. Well, you have found out your mistake, and
don't let me have to teach it you again. You can tell
Nadine in your letter exactly what I have said. And
don't rouse me again ; it makes me hot. But mind
your own business instead, and remember that when
I want either your advice or mother's, I will ask for
DODO THE SECOND 161
it. Till then you can keep it completely to your-
selves. You needn't answer me ; I don't want to hear
anything you can have got to say. Let us go to the
cathedral. I suppose it is that great cockshy on the
top of the hill. I know it will prove to have been built
by our forefathers. The verger will like to know about
it. But bear in mind I don't want to be told anything
about Nadine."
Seymour had become quite red in the face with the
violence of the feelings that prompted these straight-
forward remarks, and before putting the spray of wall-
flower scent back in his bag, he shut his eyes and
squirted himself in the face in order to cool himself,
while Esther stared at him open-mouthed. She
hardly knew him, for he had become exactly like a
man, a transformation more unexpected than anything
that ever happened at a pantomime, and she instantly
and correctly connected this change in him with what
he had been saying. For the reason of the change was
perfectly simple and sufficient ; during those last
days at Winston, after the departure of Hugh, he had
fallen in love with Nadine, and his nature, which had
really been neither that of man or woman, had suddenly
sexed itself. He had not in the least cast off his
tastes and habits ; to spray himself and a stuffy rail-
way-carriage with wallflower scent was still perfectly
natural to him, and no doubt, unless Nadine objected
very much, he would continue to take Antoinette about
with him as his maid, but he had declared himself a
man, and found, even as his sister found, that the
change in him was as immense as it was unexpected.
He thought, with more than usual scorn, of Nadine's
friends, such as Esther and Berts, who all played
about together like healthy, but mentally anaemic,
children, for he, the most anaemic of them all, had
suddenly had live blood, as it were, squirted into him.
Indeed, the only member of the clan whom he thought of
with toleration was Hugh, with whom he felt a bond of
162 DODO THE SECOND
brotherhood, for Hugh, like himself, loved Nadine like
a man. Already, also, he felt sorry for him, recog-
nising in him a member of his own sex. Hitherto
he had disliked his own sex, because they were men,
now he found himself detesting people like Berts,
because they were not. For men, so he had begun
to perceive, are essentially those who are aware of the
fact of women ; the rest of them, to which he had
himself till so lately belonged, he now classified as more
or less intellectual amoebae. And the corresponding
members of the other sex were just as bad ; Esther
had no sense of sex, nor, perhaps, and here he paused,
had Nadine.
That, it is true, gave him long pause. He knew
quite well that Nadine had been no more in love with
him, when they had got engaged, than had he been
with her. They had both been (and she, so he must
suppose, was still) quite undeveloped as regards those
instincts. Hugh with all his devotion and developed
manliness had awakened no corresponding flame in
her, and Seymour was quite clear-sighted enough to
see that there was no sign of his having succeeded
where Hugh had failed. She belonged, as Dodo had
remarked, to that essentially modern type of girl,
which, unless she marries while quite young, will
probably be spinster still at thirty. They had brains,
they had a hundred intellectual and artistic interests,
and studied mummies or logic, or Greek gems, or
themselves, and lived in flats, eagerly and happily, and
smoked and substituted tea for dinner. They knew
of nothing in their natures that gave them any imperious
call ; on the other hand, they called imperiously,
though unintentionally, to others. Nadine had called
like that to Hugh, and was dismayed at the tumult she
had roused, regretting it, but not comprehending it.
And now she had called like that to Seymour. She
was like the sleeping beauty in the wood, calling in her
sleep Hugh had answered her first, and had fought
DODO THE SECOND 163
his way through thicket and briar, but his coming
had not awakened her. Then she had called again,
and this time Seymour stood by her. She had given
him her hand, but her sleep had been undisturbed.
She smiled at him, but she smiled in her sleep.
The seedy bus, of the type not yet quite extinct,
with straw on the bottom of it, proved to be sent for
them, and they proceeded over cobbled streets, half
deafened by the clatter of ill-fitting windows. After
a minute or two of this Seymour firmly declined to
continue, for he said the straw got up his trousers
and tickled his legs, and the drums of his ears were
bursting. So he got delicately out, in order to take a
proper conveyance, and promised to meet the rest of
them at the west door of the cathedral. Here he sat
very comfortably for ten minutes till they arrived,
and entering in the manner of a storming party, they
literally stumbled over an astonished Archdeacon,
who was superintending some measurement of paving-
stone immediately inside, and proved to be a cousin
of Lady Ayr's. This fact was not elicited without
pomp, for the cathedral was not open to visitors at
this hour, as he informed them, on which Lady Ayr
said : "I suppose there will be no difficulty in the
way of the Marquis of Ayr Ayr, this is an Arch-
deacon and his wife and family seeing it." Upon
which " an " Archdeacon said : " Oh, are you Susie
Ayr ? " Explanations of cousinship luckily satis-
factory followed, and they were conducted round the
cathedral by him free of all expense, and dined with
him in the evening, at a quarter to eight, returning
home at ten, in order to get a grip of all they were
going to see next day, by a diligent perusal of the
guide-books.
They were staying at an ancient hostelry called the
" Goat and Compasses," a designation the origin of
which John very obligingly explained to them, but
Seymour, still, perhaps, suffering from the straw at
164 DODO THE SECOND
the bottom of the bus, thought that the " Flea and
Compasses " would be a more descriptive title. No
room was on a level with any other room or with the
passage outside it, and short, obscure flights of steps
designed to upset the unwary communicated between
them. A further trap was laid down for unsuspicious
guests in the matter of doors and windows, for the
doors were not quite high enough to enable the person
of average height to pass through them without hitting
his forehead against the jamb, and the windows, when
induced to open, descended violently again in the
manner of a guillotine. The floors were as wavy as the
pavement of St. Mark's at Venice, the looking-glasses
seemed like dusky wells, at the bottom of which the
gazer darkly beheld his face, and the beds had feather
mattresses on them. Altogether, it was quite in the
right style, except that it was not a temperance hotel,
for the accommodation of Lady Ayr on a tour of family
culture, and she and John, after a short and decisive
economical interview with the proprietor, took pos-
session of the largest table in the public drawing-room,
ejecting therefrom two nervous spinsters who had
been looking forward to playing patience on it, and
spreading their maps of the town over it, read to each
other out of guide-books, while Lord Ayr propped
himself up dejectedly in a corner, where he hoped to
drop asleep unperceived. The troublesome interview
with the proprietor had been on the subject of making
a deduction from the agreed terms, since they had all
dined out. He was finally routed by a short, plain
statement of the case by Lady Ayr.
" If you can afford to take us in for so much, dinner
included," she said, " you can afford to take us in.; for
less without dinner. I think there is no more to be said
on the subject. Breakfast, please, at a quarter past
eight punctually, and I shall require a second candle in
my bedroom. I think your terms, which I do not say
are excessive, included lights ? Thank you ! "
DODO THE SECOND 165
Seymour had declined to take part in this guide-
book conference, saying with truth that he felt sure
it would all be very completely explained to him
next day, and let himself out into the streets of
the town, which were already growing empty of
passengers. Above, the sky was lucent with many
stars, and the moon, which had risen an hour before,
cleared the house-roofs and shone down into the streets
with a very white light, making the gas-lamps look
red. Last night from the terrace at Winston they
had all watched it rise, full-flaring, over the woods
below the house. Then he and Nadine had strolled
away together, and in that luminous solitude with her
he had felt himself constrained and tongue-tied. He
had no longer at command the gabble that usually rose
so glibly to his lips, that gay, witty, inconsequent talk
that had truthfully represented what went on in his
quick-discerning brain. His brain now was taken up
with one topic only, and it was as hard for him to speak
to her of that as it was for him to speak of anything
else. He knew that she had entered into her engage-
ment with him in the same spirit as he had proposed
to her. They liked each other, each found the other a
stimulating companion, by each, no doubt, the attrac-
tion of the other's good looks was felt. She, he was
certain, regarded him now as she had regarded him
then, while for him the whole situation had undergone
so complete a change that he felt that the very fortress
of his identity had been stormed and garrisoned by the
besieging host. And what was the host ? That tall
girl with the white slim hands, who without intention
had picked up a key and, cursorily so it seemed, had
unlocked his heart, so that it stood open to her. Hon-
estly, he did not know that it was made to unlock ; he
had thought of it always as some toy Swiss chalet, not
meant to be opened. But she had opened it, and gone
inside.
The streets grew emptier, lights appeared behind
166 DODO THE SECOND
blinds in upper windows, and only an occasional step
sounded on the pavements. He had come to an open
market place, and from where he paused and stood the
western towers of the cathedral rose above the inter-
vening roofs, and aspired whitely into the dark velvet
of the night. Hitherto Seymour would have found
nothing particular to say about moonlight, in which he
took but the very faintest interest, except that it tended
to provoke an untimely loquaciousness in cats. But
to-night he found his mind flooded with the most hack-
neyed and commonplace reflections. It reminded him
of Nadine : it was white, and chaste, and aloof, like her.
. . . He wanted her, and he was going to get her, and
yet would she really be his in the sense that he was hers ?
Then for a moment habit asserted itself, and he told
himself he was being common, that he was dropping
to the level of plain and barbarous Hugh. It was very
mortifying, yet he could not keep off that level. He
kept on dropping there, as he stared at the moonlit
towers of the cathedral, unsatisfied and longing. But
it may be doubted whether he would have felt better
satisfied if he had known how earnestly Nadine had
tried to drop, or rise, to the moonlit plane, or how
sincerely, even with tears, she had deplored her in-
ability to do so. For it was not he whom she had
sought to join there*
CHAPTER VIII
DODO was seated in her room in Jack's house in town,
intermittently arguing with him and Miss Grantham
and Edith and Berts, and in intervals ringing up on the
telephone as many of her friends as she could remember
the names of and asking them to her dance. The month
was November, and the dance was for to-day week,
which was the ist of December, and as far as she had
got at present it appeared that all her friends were in
town and that they would all come. Nadine was
similarly employed next door, and as they both asked
anybody who occurred to them, the same people
frequently got asked twice over.
" Which," said Dodo, " is an advantage, as it looks
as if we really wanted them very much. Oh, is that
Esther ? Esther, we are having a dance on December
the ist, and will you all come ? Yes : wasn't it a good
idea ? That is nice. Of course delighted if your
mother cares to come too "
" Then I shan't," said Berts.
" Berts, shut up," said Dodo in a penetrating whis-
per. " Yes, darling Esther, Berts said something, but
I don't know what it was, as they are all talking
together. Yes, a cotillion. Good-bye dear. . . . Look
out the number of Hendrick's Stores, Grantie. But I
really won't lead the cotillion with Berts. It is too
ridiculous ; a man may not lead the cotillion with
his grandmother ; it comes in the prayer-book."
" Three thousand and seven," said Miss Grantham
14 Paddington."
" Three double o seven, Padd., please, miss,"
167
168 DODO THE SECOND
said Dodo briskly to the telephone. " I always say
' Please miss,' and then they are much pleasanter. I
used to say ' I'm Princess Waldenech, please, miss ' ; but
they never believed it, and said ' Gam ! ' But I was,
darling Jack, I was ! No, my days of leading the
cotillion came to an end under William the Fourth.
There is nothing so ridiculous as seeing an old thing
No, I'm not the Warwick Hotel ! Do I sound like the
Warwick Hotel ? "
Dodo's face suddenly assumed an expression of
seraphic interest.
" It's too entrancing," she whispered. " I'm sure
it's a nice man, because he wants to marry me. He
says I didn't meet him in the Warwick Hotel this
morning. That was forgetful. Yes ? Oh, he's rung
off, he has jilted me. I wish I had said I was the
Warwick Hotel : it was stupid of me. I wonder if
you can be married by telephone with a clergyman
taking the place of ' please miss.' Where had we got
to ? Oh yes, Hendrick's : three double o seven, you
idiot. I mean please, miss. What ? Thank you,
miss. No, Nadine and Berts shall lead it."
" I would sooner lead with Lady Ayr," said Berts.
" Nadine always forgets everything "
" Oh, Hendrick's, is it ? " said Dodo. " Yes, Lady
Chest erf ord. I am really, and I want a band for the
evening of December the ist. No, not a waist-band.
Music. Yes, send somebody round."
Dodo put down the ear-piece.
" Let us strive not to do several things together,"
she said. " For the moment we will concentrate on the
cotillion. Jack, dear, why did you suggest I should
lead ? It has led to so much talking, of which I have
had to do the largest part.
" I want you to," he said. * I'll take you to Egypt
in the spring, if you will. I won't otherwise."
" Darling, you are too unfair for words. You want
to make an ass of me. You want everybody to say,
DODO THE SECOND 169
4 Look at that silly old grandmamma ! ' I probably
shall be a grandmamma quite soon, if Nadine is going
to marry Seymour in January * Silly old grandmamma.'
they will say, ' capering about like a two-year old,'
Because I shall caper : if I lead, I shan't be able to
resist kicking up."
Jack came across the room and sat on the table by
her.
" Don't you want to lead, Dodo ? " he asked
quietly.
" Yes, darling, I should love to. I only wanted
pressing. Oh, my beloved Berts, what larks ! We'll
have hoops, and snow-balls, and looking-glass, and
woolly-bear don't you know woolly-bear ? and
paper-bags and obstacles and balance. And then the
very next day I shall settle down, and behave as befits
my years and riches and honour. I am old and Jack
is rich, and has endowed me with all his worldly goods,
and we are both strictly honourable. But I feel it's a
hazardous experiment. If I hear somebody saying,
as no doubt I shall, ' Surely, Lady Chesterford is a
little old ? ' I shall collapse in the middle of the floor,
and burst into several tears. And then I shall wipe
my eyes, both of them if both have cried, and if not
one, and say ' Beloved Berts, come on ! ' And on we
shall go."
" You haven't asked Hugh yet," said Miss Grantham,
looking at the list.
" Nadine did," said Dodo. " He said he wasn't
certain. They argued."
" They do," said Berts. " Aunt Dodo, may I come
to dine this evening, and have a practice afterwards ? "
" Yes, my dear. Are you going ? Till this evening
then."
Dodo turned to Jack, and spoke low.
" Oh, Jack," she said, " Waldenech's in town.
Nadine saw him yesterday."
" Glad I didn't," said Jack.
170 DODO THE SECOND
" I'm sure you are, darling. But here we all are,
you know. You can't put him out like a candle.
About the dance, I mean. I think I had better ask
him. He won't come, if I ask him."
" He won't come anyhow," said Jack.
" You can't tell. I know him better than you.
He's nasty, you know, poor dear. If I didn't ask him,
he might come. He might think he ought to have
been asked, and so come instead. Whereas, if he was
asked, he would probably think it merely insulting of
me, and so stop at home."
" Don't whisper to each other," said Edith loudly.
" I can't bear a husband and wife whispering to each
other. It looks as if they hadn't got over the honey-
moon. Dodo, I haven't had a single word with you
yet "
" Darling Edith, you haven't. If you only would
go to the other end of the telephone, I would talk to
you for hours, simply to thwart the ' please miss ' who
asks if we haven't done yet. The only comfortable
conversation is conducted on the telephone. Then you
can say ' hush ' to everybody else, in the room. In-
deed, it isn't usually necessary to say ' hush.' Any-
body with a proper interest in the affairs of other
people always listens to what you say, trying to
reconstruct what the inaudible voice says. Jack was
babbling down the telephone the other day, when I
particularly wanted to talk, but when he said ' Never
let him shave her again,' how could I interrupt ? "
*' Did he shave her again ? " asked Miss Grantham.
' Who was she ? "
" You shouldn't have said that," said Dodo, " be-
cause now I have to explain. It was the poodle, who
had been shaved wrong, and she had puppies soon
after, and they probably all had hair in the unfashion-
able places. Please talk to each other, and not about
poodles. Jack and I have a little serious conversation
to get through."
DODO THE SECOND 171
" I will speak," said Edith, " because it matters to
me. We've let our house, Dodo at least Bertie let
it, and has gone to Bath, because he is rheumatic.
Berts can stay at the Bath Club, because he isn't, but
I want to stay with you."
" This house is becoming like Basle railway-station,"
remarked Jack.
" Yes, dear. Every proper house in town is," said
Dodo. " A house in London isn't a house, it is a junc-
tion. People dine and lunch, and sleep if they have
time. I haven't. Yes, Edith, do come. Jack wants
you to, too, only he doesn't say so, because he is
naturally reticent."
Edith instantly got up.
" Then may I have some lunch at once ? " she said.
" Cold beef will do. But I have a rehearsal at half-past
one."
The telephone bell rang and Dodo took up the ear-
piece.
" No, Lady Chesterford is out," she said. " But
who is it ? No ; she hasn't come in yet. What ?
No : she isn't expected at all. She is quite unex-
pected."
She replaced the instrument.
" I recognised his voice, Jack," she said, " it was
Waldenech, and I oughtn't to have said I was unex-
pected, because perhaps he will guess. But he sounded
a bit thick, don't they say ? Yes, dear Edith, have
some cold beef, because it is much nicer than anything
else. I shall come and have lunch in one minute, too,
as I didn't have any breakfast. Take Grantie away
with you, and I will join you."
" I won't have cold beef, whatever happens," said
Grantie.
Dodo turned round, facing Jack, as soon as the
others had left the room, and laid her hand on his knee.
" Jack, I feel sure I am right," she said. " I don't
want Waldenech here any more than you do. But,
172 DODO THE SECOND
after all, he is Nadine's father. I wish Madge or Belle
or somebody who writes about society would lay down
for us the proper behaviour for re-married wives
towards their divorced husbands."
" I can tell you the proper behaviour of divorced
husbands towards re-married wives," said Jack.
" Yes, darling, but you must remember that Wal-
denech has nothing to do with proper behaviour. He
always behaved most improperly. If he hadn't, I
shouldn't be your wife now. I think that must be an
instance of all things working together for good, as
St. Peter says."
" Paul," remarked Jack.
" Very likely, though Peter might be supposed to
know most about wives. Jack, dear, let us settle this
at once, because I am infernally hungry, and the
thought of Edith eating cold beef makes me feel home-
sick. I think I had much better ask Waldenech to
our dance. There he is : I've known him pretty
well, and it's just because he is nothing more than an
acquaintance now, that I wish to ask him. To ask
him will show the the gulf between us."
Jack shook his head.
" I prefer to show the gulf by not asking him," he
said.
Dodo frowned, and tapped the skirt of her riding-
habit with her whip. She was rather tired and very
hungry, for she had been playing bridge till two o'clock
the night before, and had got up at eight to go out
riding, and, meaning to have breakfast afterwards,
had found herself plunged in the arrangements for her
ball, which had lasted without intermission till this
moment. But she felt unwilling to give this point up,
unless Jack absolutely put his foot down with regard
to it.
" I think I am right," she said. " He is rather a
devil."
" All the more reason for not asking him."
DODO THE SECOND 173
" Do you mean that you forbid me to invite him ? "
she asked.
He thought for a moment.
" Yes, I forbid you," he said.
Dodo got up at once, flicked him in the face with the
end of her riding-whip, and before he had really time
to blink, kissed him on exactly the same spot, which
happened to be the end of his nose.
" That is finished, then," she said, in the most good-
humoured voice. " And now I have both the whip
and the whip-hand. If anything goes wrong, darling,
I shall say, ' I told you so/ till you wish you had never
been born."
He caught her whip and her hands in his.
" You couldn't make me wish that," he said.
Her whole face melted into a sunlight of adorable
smiles.
" Oh, Jack, do you really mean that ? " she asked.
" And because of me ? "
He pulled her close to him.
" I suppose I should mean in spite of you," he
said. " Go and eat with that ogre Edith. And
then, darling, will you rest a little ? You look rather
tired."
She raised her eyes to his.
" But I am tired," she said. " It would be a dis-
grace not to be tired every day. It would show you
hadn't made the most of it."
" I don't like you to be tired," he said, " especially
since it isn't lunch-time yet. You haven't got much
more to do to-day, I hope."
" But lots, and all so jolly. Oh, my dear, the world
is as full as the sea at high-tide. It would be wretched
not to fling oneself into it. But it is only high-tide
till after my dance. Then we go down to Meering, and
snore, and sleep like pigs, and eat like kittens, and
sprout like mushrooms."
" You've asked a houseful there," objected Jack.
174 DODO THE SECOND
' Yes, darling, but it's only people like you and
Esther and Hugh. I shan't bother about you."
" Is Hugh coming there ? " he asked.
" Yes. He goes abroad directly afterwards, as he
has exchanged from the Foreign Office into the Em-
bassy at Rome for six months. He is wise, I think.
He doesn't want to be here when Nadine is married,
nor for some time afterwards. But he wants to see
her again first."
" The rest is wise," said Jack, " but that is abomin-
ably foolish."
" Perhaps it is, but how one hates a young man to
be altogether wise. A wise young man is quite in-
tolerable. In fact wisdom generally is intolerable.
It would be intolerable of me to lie down after lunch,
and not eat and drink what I chose. You would be
intolerable if you didn't make yourself so utterly
foolish about me. Oh, Jack, let us die if necessary, but
don't let us be wise before that."
Jack had nothing to say to this remarkable aspira-
tion, and Dodo went out to join Edith. But he sat
still on the edge of the table after she had gone, not
altogether at ease. During the last month or so, he
had several times experienced impulses, not to be
accounted for rationally, which had made him ask her
if she felt quite well, and now that he collected these
occasions in his mind, he could not recollect any very
reassuring response on her part. She had told him not
to fuss ; she had stood before him, radiant, brilliant,
and said, " Do I look particularly unwell ? Why do
you want to spoil the loveliest time of all my life ? "
But she did not seem to have given him any direct
answer at all, and the cumulative effect of those pos-
sible evasions troubled him a little. But he soon told
himself that such cloud was born of his imagination
only, for it was impossible to conceive, when he let
himself contemplate the memory of those days since
last July, that there could be anything wrong behind
DODO THE SECOND 175
them, in so serene a beneficence of happiness were
they wrapped. He had never dreamed that the world
held such store, and he had not ever so faintly realized
how jejune and barren his life had been before. He,
for all his fifty years, had not yet lived one half of
them, for less than half himself had passed through
the months that made them up. It was as if all his
life he had dreamed, dreamed with God knew what
shocks and catastrophes that Dodo was his, and last
July only he had awoke to find that his arms were
indeed about her, and that she herself was pressed
close to him. And she, too, had told him that she
was happy, not pleased merely, or excited or thrilled,
but happy. Incredible as it seemed to his modest
soul, her happiness was one with his. It seemed there
was nothing left to ask God for ; the only possible
attitude was to stand up and praise and thank Him.
Jack did that every day and night that passed.
Dodo, when she left her husband, had not gone
straight to the dining-room to join Edith and the cold
beef. For half-an-hour before, she had been conscious
of a queer faintness and feeling of sickness that had
made it an effort to continue enthusiastically tele-
phoning and arguing. It seemed probable to her that
it was merely the result of a rather strenuous morning
without any food except the slice of bread and butter
that had accompanied her early bedroom tea, but she
thought that she would go upstairs and have her hot
bath, and perhaps rest a little before she went down-
stairs again. Her bathroom, which opened out of her
bedroom, was prepared for her, the water steaming
and smelling of the delicious verbena-salts which her
maid had put into it, and convinced that she would
feel perfectly fit again after it, she quickly undressed,
and went in with bare feet to enjoy herself. But
even as she took off her dressing-gown, the sickness
came on again with violent and overmastering qualms,
unaccountable, rather alarming. But before long it
176 DODO THE SECOND
passed off, and she was herself again, though still rather
white and tremulous. It left her a little uneasy . . .
she could not understand the suddenness of her indis-
position* However, it had gone now, and instinctively
obeying the habit of years, she swiftly turned her
mind to contemplate the thoroughly delightful things
that lay in front of her, rather than the disturbing
moment that had passed now, leaving only a black
patch in memory. But before she slipped into the
hot, aromatic water, she wiped the sweat from her
forehead. She splashed the steaming water over her
back, wriggling a little at the touch of it.
" Oh, Lord, how nice," she said to herself, " and
it's so hot that it's hardly possible to bear it. And
that reminds me that I utterly forgot to say my
prayers this morning, because I was in such a hurry.
Anyone would have been on such a lovely morning,
with such a lovely horse waiting at the door. But I
am having the nicest time that anybody ever had,
and I'll try not to be quite such a disgrace as I
used to be."
Dodo gave a loud sigh of reverent content and
splashed again. It must be understood that she was
saying her forgotten prayers.
" And Jack's a perfect darling," she went on, " and
I am so pleased to love somebody. I never really
loved anybody before, if you know what I mean by
love, except, perhaps, Nadine. It makes the most
tremendous difference, and one doesn't think about
one's self absolutely all the time, though I daresay
very nearly. Of course I was always fond of people,
but I think that was chiefly because they were mostly
so nice to me. I must go to church next Sunday, which
is to-morrow, and do all this properly, but it would
have been much more convenient if it had been the
day after to-morrow, as I think I promised Jack to
play golf with him to-morrow. But I'll see what
can be done. Now I've dropped the soap, and isn't
DODO THE SECOND 177
everything extraordinarily mixed up ? Oh, and I
would much sooner not be so sick again, if it's all the
same . . . '
Dodo dropped the soap which she had just rescued
from the botton of the cloudy water, and looked up
with bright eyes. A sudden idea, wonderful, incredible,
luminous, had dawned on her.
" Oh, my dear, can it be that ? " she said aloud.
" Is it possible ? "
She recollected that she had said " my dear " when
she was by way of saying her forgotten prayers, and
so added " Amen " very loudly and piously. Then,
quite revivified, she got out, dried herself with great
speed, and went downstairs half-dressed with an
immense fur-coat to cover deficiencies, since it was
inpossible to wait any longer for food. She felt no
fatigue any more, but a sudden intense eagerness at
the thought of what possibly her indisposition might
mean. It seemed almost incredible, but she found
herself longing for a return of that which had frightened
her before.
It was impossible for her to cram any more engage-
ments into that day, since they already fitted into
each other like the petals of a rose not yet fully blown,
but she made an appointment with her doctor for next
morning. The interview was not a long one, but Dodo
came out from it, wreathed in smiles, immensely
excited, and hurried home, where she went straight up
to Jack's room. She seized him with both hands, and
kissed him indiscriminately.
" Oh, my dear, you can't possibly guess," she said,
" because it is quite too ridiculous, and only a person
like me could possibly have done anything of the
kind, and you're Zecharias, but you needn't be dumb.
Oh, Jack, don't you see. Yes ; it's that. I'm going to
have a baby. There ! I was well exceedingly Channel-
steamer yesterday, and at first I didn't guess. I thought
I was only being unwell. Did you ever hear anything
M
178 DODO THE SECOND
so nice, and I am a very wonderful woman, aren't I,
and pray God it will be a boy. Oh, Jack, think how
bored I was with the bearing of my first child ! I
didn't deserve it, and you used to come and cheer me
up. And then, poor little innocent, it was taken
from me. Poor little chap ; he would have been
Lord Chesterford now instead of you, if he had lived.
Won't it seem funny giving birth to the same baby,
so to speak, twice ? Ah, my dear, but it's not the
same ! It's your child this time, Jack, and I shan't
be bored this time. You see, I didn't really become a
woman at all till lately. I was merely a sprightly little
devil, and so I suppose God is giving me another
chance. Jack, it simply must be a boy ; I shall love
to hear Lord Harchester cry this time."
Jack, though informed that he needn't be like
Zecharias, had been dumb because there was no
vacant moment to speak in. The news had amazed
and astounded him.
" Oh, Dodo ! " he said " Next to yourself, that is
the best gift of all. But I'm not sure I forgive you,
for suspecting you were ill, and not telling me."
" Then I shall get along quite nicely without your
forgiveness," said she. " Forgiveness, indeed ! Or
will it be twins ? Wouldn't that be exciting ? But
a boy anyhow ; I've ordered him, and he shall have
one blue eye because he's yours and one brown one be-
cause he's mine, and so he'll be like a Welsh collie, and
everyone will say ' What a pretty little dog ; does he
bite ? ' Jack, I hope he'll be rather a rip when he
grows up, and make love to other people's wives. I
suppose I oughtn't to wish that, but I can't help it.
I like a boy with a little dash in him. He shall be
about as tall as you, but much better looking, and, oh,
to think that I once had a boy before, and didn't
care ! My conscience ! I care now, and only yester-
day I said I should probably soon be a grandmother,
and now I've got to leave out the grand, and be just
DODO THE SECOND 179
a humble mother first. I'm not humble ; I'm just as
proud as I can stick together."
Suddenly this amazing flood of speech stopped,
and Dodo grew dim-eyed, and laid her head on her
husband's shoulder.
" ' My soul doth magnify the Lord ! ' " she whispered.
The night of Dodo's ball had arrived, and she was
going to lead the cotillion, but not dance more than she
felt to be absolutely necessary. She had told everybody
what was going to happen to her, in strict privacy,
which was clearly the best way of keeping it secret for
the present. Since she was not going to dance more
than a step or two she had put on all the jewels she
could manage to attach to herself, including the girdle
of great emeralds that Waldenech had given her. This
was a magnificent adornment, far too nice to give back
to him when she divorced him, and she meant to let
Nadine have it, as soon as she could bear to part with
it herself, which did not seem likely to happen in the
immediate future. It consisted of large square stones
set in brilliants, and long pear-shaped emeralds
depended from it. Jack had once asked her how she
could bear to wear it, and she had said " Darling, when
emeralds are as big as that, they help you to bear a
good deal. They make a perfect Spartan of me." In
other respects she wore what she called the " nursery
fender," which was a diamond crown so high that
children would have been safe from falling over it into
the fire, the famous Chesterford pearls, and a sort of
breast-plate of rubies, like the high-priest.
" I suppose it's dreadfully vulgar to wear so many
jewels," she said to Jack, as they took their stand at
the top of the stairs, where Dodo intended to remain
and receive her guests, as long as she could bear not
being in the ball-room, " but most people who have
got very nice stones like me, I notice, are vulgar. The
truly-refined people are those who have got three
180 DODO THE SECOND
garnets and one Oriental zircon. They also say that
big pearls, great eggs like these, are vulgar, and seed-
pearls tasteful. What a word ' tasteful ' ! And they
talk of people being very simply and exquisitely
dressed. Thank God, no one can say I'm simply
dressed to-night. I'm not ; I'm the most elaborate
object for miles round. Jack, when my baby
Dear Lady Ayr, how nice to see you, and Esther
and John. Seymour dined here, and he has been
taking notes of our clothes for the new paper called
' Gowns.' '
As in the old days when Dodo piped, the world
danced, and to-night she was as vital, as charged
with that magnetism that spreads enjoyment round
itself more infectiously than influenza, as ever. Her
beauty too was like a rose, full-blown, but without
one petal yet fallen ; and she stood there, in the glory
of her incomparable form, jewelled and superb, a
Juno decked for a feast among the high gods. All
the world of her friends streamed up the stairs to be
welcomed by that wonderful smiling face, and many
instead of going in to the ball-room waited round
the balustrade at the stair-head watching her. By
degrees the tide of arriving guests slackened, and she
turned to Jack.
" Jack, dear, the band is turning all my blood into
champagne, and I can't cork it," she said. " However,
champagne oughtn't to be corked. Come and have
one turn with me round the ball-room. Why are they
all standing about, instead of going to dance ? Do
they want to be shewn how ? Just once round, or
perhaps twice, and then I will stop quiet until the
cotillion."
Dodo suddenly knit her eyebrows, and looked sharply
down into the hall below.
" I was right, and you were wrong," she said.
" There's Waldenech just come in. He is not going
to come upstairs. Wait here for me."
DODO THE SECOND 181
Jack stepped forward.
" No, that's for me to do," he said.
Dodo laid her hand on his arm.
" Do as I tell you, my dear," she said. " Wait here ;
it won't take me a minute."
She went straight down into the hall : all smiles and
gaiety had left her face, but its vitality was quite unim-
paired. The colour that was in her cheeks had left
them, but it was not fear that had driven it away, but
anger. He was just receiving a ticket for his hat and
coat, and she went straight up to him.
" Waldenech, take your hat and coat, and go away,"
she said. " You must have come to the wrong house ;
you were not asked here."
He turned at the sound of her voice, and looked up
at her.
" You incomparable creature," he said rather thickly.
' You pearl ! "
" Give the Prince his hat and coat," said Dodo.
" Now go, Waldenech, before I disgrace you. I mean
it ; if you do not go quietly and at once, you shall be
turned out."
His eyes wandered unsteadily from her face to her
bosom, and down to her waist where the great girdle
gleamed and shone.
' You still wear the jewels I gave you," he said.
Dodo instantly undid the clasp, and the girdle fell
on to the carpet.
" I do not wear them any more," she said. " Take
them, and go."
He stood there for a moment without moving, while
the duel between their wills fought itself out, Then
he bent down and picked the girdle up.
" I ask your pardon most humbly," he said. " I
am a gentleman, really. Please let me see you put the
girdle on again, before I go ; and say you forgive me.
Also, if your husband knows I am here, ask his pardon
for me also."
182 DODO THE SECOND
Some great wave of pity came over Dodo, utterly
quenching her anger.
" Oh, Waldenech, you have all my forgiveness, my
dear," she said. " But take the jewels."
" I ask you to give me that sign of your forgiveness,"
he said.
Dodo smiled at him.
" Fasten it yourself, then," she said.
His fingers halted over this, but in a moment he had
found and secured the clasp.
" Good-night," he said.
The whole scene had lasted not more than a minute,
and scarcely half a dozen people had seen her speaking
to him, or knew who he was. Berts, who had just
arrived, was one of these. Dodo turned to him.
" Ah, there you are, Berts," she said. " We are
going to begin the cotillion exactly at twelve. Yes,
poor dear Waldenech looked in, but he couldn't stop.
You might remember not to tell Nadine. And why
wasn't Edith here for dinner ? Or isn't she staying
here now ? Now I come to think of it, I haven't seen
her all day."
" She left your house yesterday," said Berts, " and
I've just left her at home eating a chop and correcting
proofs of a part-song. She was also singing. She's
coming though, and says she will lead the cotillion with
me, as she's sure you oughtn't to. She didn't say
why."
" What incomparable delicacy ! " said Dodo. " Come
upstairs, Bertino."
Dodo went up to Jack.
" He went like a lamb, poor dear," she said, " though
I thought for a moment he was going to stop like a lion.
It gave me a little heart-ache, Jack, for, after all, you
know Now we are going twice round the ball-room.
It isn't much of a heart-ache, it's only a little one, and
I expect it will soon stop."
DODO THE SECOND 183
This, it may be expected, was the case, for certainly
Dodo did not behave as if she had any kind of ache,
however little, anywhere, and, whether she danced or sat
still, she was the sun and centre of the brilliant scene.
Wall-flowers raised their heads on her approach, and
were galvanized into vitality. She ordained that there
should be a waltz in which nobody should take part
who was not over forty, led off herself with Lord Ayr,
who had not had a wink of sleep all evening, and was far
too much surprised to be capable of resistance, and
convinced him that his dancing days were not nearly
over yet. All manner of women who hoped that no-
body dreamed that they were more than thirty-five at
the most followed her, reckless of the antiquity which
they had publicly and irrevocably acknowledged,
while Edith Arbuthnot, arriving in the middle of this,
and being quite unable to find a disengaged gentleman
of suitable years, pirouetted up and down the room
all by herself, until she clawed hold of Jack, who was
taking the breathless Lady Ayr to get some strictly
unalcoholic refreshment.
" I don't know how I came to do it," said this lady
to Esther, as she drank her lemonade. " I haven't
danced for years. Somehow I feel as if it was Lady
Chesterford's fault. She has got into everybody's
head, it seems to me. We're all behaving like boys
and girls. Fancy Ayr dancing, too ! Ayr, I saw you
dancing."
Lord Ayr had come in with Dodo, at the end of this,
unutterably briskened up.
" And I saw you dancing, my dear," he said. " And
I hope you feel all the better for it, because I do."
" We all do," said Dodo, " and we'll all do it again.
Now I want everything at once, a cigarette and an ice
and a glass of champagne and Berts. Esther, be
angelic and fetch me Berts. Don't tell him only I want
him, but fetch him. Oh Jack, isn't it fun ; yes, darling,
we're going to begin the cotillion immediately, and I'm
184 DODO THE SECOND
going to be ever so quiet. Edith, it was dear of you to
offer to take my place, but I wouldn't give it up to
Terpsichore herself or even Salome. Jack dear, go
and make everyone sit down in two rows round the
ball-room, and if anybody finds a rather large diamond
about, its probably mine, though I never wrote my
name on it. ... Wasn't it careless ? It resembles the
Koh-i-noor. Oh, Berts, there you are. Now don't
lose your head, but give all the plainest women the
most favours. Then the pretty ones will easily see the
plan, and the plain ones won't. It's the greatest happi-
ness for the plainest number."
Certainly it was the most successful cotillion. As
Dodo had arranged, all the more unattractive people
got chosen first, and all the more attractive, as Dodo
had foreseen, saw exactly what was happening. The
style was distinctly anti-Leap-year and in the mirror
figure men, instead of women, rejected the faces in the
glass, and Lord Ayr had nothing whatever to say to his
wife, who was instantly accepted by Jack. And at the
end, a skirmishing section of the band preceding, they
danced through the entire house, from cellar to garret.
They waltzed through drawing-rooms and dining-
room, and up the stairs, and through Dodo's bedroom,
and through Jack's dressing-room, where his pyjamas
were lying on his bed (Berts put them on, en passant),
and into cul-de-sacs, and impenetrable servants' rooms.
And somehow it was Dodo all the time who inspired
these childish orgies ; those near her saw her, those
behind danced wildly after her to catch sight of her.
There was no accounting for it, except in the fact that
while she was enjoying herself so enormously, it was
impossible not to enjoy too. Sometimes it was she
shrieking " Yes, straight on," sometimes it was her
laugh-choked voice, saying " No, don't go in there,"
but the fact that she was leading them, with her
nursery fender, and her vitality, and her ropes of pearls,
and her complete abandon to the spirit of dancing,
DODO THE SECOND 185
with Berts for partner in Jack's pyjamas, made a
magnet that it was impossible not to follow. They
passed through bedroom and attic, they went twice
round the huge kitchen, where the chef, at Dodo's
imperious command, laid down his culinary imple-
ments (which at the moment meant, in short Saxon
speech, an ice-pail) and joined the dance with the first
kitchen-maid. Then Dodo saw a footman standing
idle, and called to him " Take my maid, William," and
William with a broad grin, embraced a perfectly willing
French woman of great attractions, and joined in the
dance. Like the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream,
they danced the whole house through, Dodo with Berts,
the chef with the kitchen-maid, William with Dodo's
maid, Lord Ayr with Nadine, Lady Ayr with somebody
whom nobody knew by sight, and had probably come
there intentionally by mistake, and the first twenty
couples or so finished up in the cellar. This, though it
seemed improvised, had been provided for, and there
were cane-chairs to rest in, and bottles instantly
opened. The rest, following the band, danced their
way back to the supper-room, where they were almost
immediately joined by the cellar-party, who were
hungry as well as thirsty, and had nothing to eat
down below.
It was between three and four o'clock that the last
guests took their ways. As the dance had been an-
nounced to take place from ten till two, the cordial
spirit of the invitation had been made good. And at
length Dodo found herself alone with Jack.
" Lovely, just lovely," she said, as he unclasped her
diamond collar. ' ' Oh, Jack, what a darling world it is. "
" Not tired ? "
Dodo faced round, and her brilliance and freshness
was a thing to marvel at.
" Look at me ! " she said. " Tell me if I look tired ! "
He laid the collar down on her table ; her neck seemed
186 DODO THE SECOND
to him so infinitely more beautiful than the gorgeous
bauble with which it had been covered.
" Not very. Ah, Dodo, and this is the best of all,
when they have all gone, and you are left."
She put her face up to his.
" Why, of course," she said. " Do you suppose I
wasn't looking forward to this one minute alone with
you all the evening ? I was, my dear, though if I said
I thought of it all the time, I should be telling a silly lie.
But it was anchored firmly in my mind all the time.
Oh, what pretty speeches for a middle-aged old couple
to make to each other ! But the fact is that we get on
very nicely together. Good-night, old boy. It's all
too lovely. Oh Daddy ! Fancy becoming Daddy !
Oh, by the way, did Hugh come ? I didn't see him."
" Yes, he sat out a couple of dances with Nadine, and
then went away."
" Poor old chap ! " said Dodo.
As has been mentioned Dodo proposed to take her
family and a great many other people as well to spend
Christmas down at Meering, which at this inclement
time of the year often had spells of warm and genial
weather. Scattered through the same weeks there were
to be several shooting-parties at Winston, but motor-
cars driven at a sufficiently high speed would make
light of the difficulty of being in two places at the
same time, and on the day after the dance she talked
these arrangements over with Nadine.
" In any case," she said, " you can be hostess in one
house and I in the other, so that we can be in two places
at once quite easily, so Jack is wrong as usual. Jack,
dear, I said, ' as usual.' "
Jack got up ; it was he who had made the ill-con-
sidered remark that you can't be in two places at once.
" I heard," he said, " and you may hear, too, that
I will not have you going up to North Wales every other
day, and flying down again the next. Otherwise you
DODO THE SECOND 187
may settle what you like. Personally I shall be at
Winston almost all the time, as there's a heap of business
to be done, and as Nadine hates shooting-parties "
" Oh, a story ! " said Nadine.
" Well, my dear, you always do your best to spoil
them by making a large quantity of young gentlemen,
who have been asked to shoot, sit round you and talk
to you instead."
" Papa Jack, if you want to call me a flirt, pray do so.
I will forgive you instantly. And to save you trouble,
I will tell you what you are driving to "
" At," said Jack.
" Driving to," repeated Nadine with considerable
asperity, for she was aware she was wrong. " You
want me to be at Meering, and Mamma to be at Winston.
So why not say so without calling me a flirt ? "
" This daughter of Eve " began Jack.
" My name is Dorothea," interrupted Dodo, " but
they call me Dodo for short. I was never called Eve
either before, during, or after baptism."
" All I mean," said Jack, " is that Dorothea is not
going to divide the week into week-ends, and be twenty-
four hours at Meering and then twenty-four hours at
Winston. The master of the house has spoken."
" What a bully ! " said Nadine.
" Then I shan't give you a wedding-present," said
Jack.
" Darling Papa Jack you are not a bully. Let's all
go down to Meering in a few days, and stop there over
Christmas. Then you and Dorothea shall go to Win-
ston, and I shall be left all alone at Meering, and you
shall have your horrid shooting parties and she shall
do the flirting instead of me."
" Strictly speaking, will you be all alone at Meering ?"
" Not absolutely. I have asked a few friends."
" Who is going to chaperone you all, darling ? " said
Dodo.
" We shall chaperone each other, as usual."
i88 DODO THE SECOND
" That you and Dodo can settle," said Jack. " Good-
bye : don't quarrel."
" Indeed that will be all right, Mamma," said
Nadine, " or I daresay Edith would come. Anyhow,
we were often all together before like that in the
summer."
" Yes, my dear, but it's a little different now," said
Dodo. " You are engaged to Seymour, and Hugh is
going to be there, too."
" Yes, but that makes it all the simpler."
Dodo got up.
" I wonder if you realize that Seymour is in love with
you," she said. " In love with you like Hugh is, I
mean."
" Perfectly, and he is charming about it," said
Nadine. " And I practise every morning being in love
with him like that. I think I am getting on very well.
I dreamed about him last night. I thought he gave
me a great box of jade and when I opened it, there was
a rabbit inside "
" That shows great progress," said Dodo.
" Mamma, I think you are laughing at me. But
what would you have ? I am very fond of him, he is
handsome and clever and charming. I expected to
find it tiresome when he told me he was in love like
that, but it is not the least so ! "
Memories of the man she had married when she was
even younger than Nadine, came unbidden into Dodo's
mind ; she remembered her first husband's blind dog-
like devotion and her own ennui when he strove to
express it, to communicate it to her.
** Nadine," she said, " treat it reverently, my dear.
There is nothing in the world that a man can give a
woman that is to be compared to that. It is better
than a rabbit in a jade-box. When I was even younger
than you Papa Jack's cousin gave it me, and and I
didn't reverence it. Don't repeat my irreparable error."
" Weren't you nice to him ? " asked Nadine.
DODO THE SECOND 189
" I was a brute-beast to him, my darling."
" Oh, I shan't be a brute-beast to Seymour," said
Nadine. " Besides I don't suppose you were. You
didn't know ; wasn't that all ? "
Dodo wiped the mist from her eyes.
" No, that wasn't nearly all. But be tender with it,
and pray, oh, my dear, pray that you may catch that
that noble fever. Who calls it that ? It is so true.
And Hughie ? I never saw him last night."
Nadine made a little gesture of despair.
" Ah, dear Hughie," she said. " That is not very
happy. That is so largely why I wanted to marry
Seymour quickly, in January instead of later, so that
it may be done, and Hughie will not fret any more.
I hate seeing him suffer. And I can't marry him. It
would not be fair ; it would be cheating him, as I told
him before."
" But are you not cheating Seymour ? " asked
Dodo.
" Not in the same way. He is not simple like Hugh.
Hugh has only one thought ; Seymour has plenty of
others. He has such a mind ; it is subtle and swift
like a woman's. Hughie has the mind of a great
retriever dog, and the eyes of one. There is all the
difference in the world between them. Seymour knows
what he is in for, and still wants it. Hugh thinks he
knows, but he doesn't. I understand Hugh so well ;
I know I am right. And I would have given anything
to be able to be in love with him. It was a pity ! "
There was something here that Dodo had not known
and there was a dangerous sound about it.
" Do you mean you wish you were in love with
Hugh ? " she asked.
" Oh, yes, Mamma, but I'm not. I used to practise
trying to be for months and months, just as I am
practising for Seymour now. La, la, what a world ! "
Nadine paused a moment.
" Of course I've quite stopped practising being in
igo DODO THE SECOND
love with Hugh since I was engaged to Seymour," she
said with an air of the most candid virtue " That
would be cheating."
Nadine got up looking like a tall white lily.
" Seymour is so good for me," she said. " He
doesn't think much of my brain, you know, and I used
to think a good deal of it. He doesn't say I'm stupid,
but he hasn't got the smallest respect for my mind. I
am not sure whether he is right, but I expect seeing so
much of Hugh made me think I was clever. I wonder
if being in love makes people stupid. He himself seems
to me to be not quite so subtle as he was, and perhaps
it's my fault. What do you think, Mamma ? "
CHAPTER IX
IT was the morning after Christmas Day, and Dodo
and Jack had just driven off from Meering on their
way to Winston, where a shooting party was to assemble
that day, leaving behind them a party that regretted
their departure, but did not mean to repine. Edith
Arbuthnot had promised to arrive two days before,
to take over from Dodo the duty of a chaperone, but
she had not yet come, nor had anything whatever been
heard of her.
" Which shows," said Berts lucidly, " that nothing
unpleasant can have happened to mother, or we should
have heard."
Until she came Nadine had very kindly consented
to act as regent, and in that capacity she appeared
in the hall, a little while after Dodo had gone, with a
large red contadina umbrella, a book or two, and an
expressed determination to sit out on the hill-side till
lunch-time.
" It is Boxing Day I know," she said, " but it is too
warm to box, even if I knew how. The English climate
has gone quite mad, and I have told my maid to put
my fur coat in a box with those little white balls until
May. Now I suppose you are all going to play the
foolish game with those other little white balls till
lunch."
Seymour was seated in the window-sill, stitching
busily at a piece of embroidery which Antoinette had
started for him.
" I am going to do nothing of the sort," he said.
"It is much too fine a day to do anything. Besides,
191
I 9 2 DODO THE SECOND
there is no one fit to play with. Nadine, will you be
very kind and ring for my maid. I am getting in a
muddle."
Berts, who was sitting near him, got up, looking rather
ill. Also he resented being told he was not fit to play
golf with.
" May I have my perambulator, please, Nadine ? "
he asked.
Seymour grinned.
" Berts, you are easier to get a rise out of than
anyone I ever saw," he remarked. " It is hardly worth
while fishing for you, for you are always on the feed.
And if you attempt to rag I shall prick you with my
needle."
Nadine lingered a little after the others had gone, and
as soon as they were alone Seymour put down his
embroidery.
" May I come and sit on the hill-side with you ? " he
asked. " Or is the the box-seat already engaged ? "
" Hugh suggested it," she said. " I was going out
with him."
Seymour picked up his work again.
" It seems to me I am behaving rather nicely," he
said. " At the same time I'm not sure that I am not
behaving rather anaemically. I haven't seen you
much since I came down here. And after all I didn't
come down here to see Esther."
Nadine frowned, and laid her hand on his arm. But
she did not do it qi ' te instinctively. It was clear she
thought it would be appropriate. Certainly that was
quite clear to Seymour.
" Take that hand away," he said. " You only put
it there because it was suitable. You didn't want to
touch me."
Nadine removed her hand as if his coat-sleeve was
red-hot.
" You are rather a brute," she said.
" No, I am not, unless it is brutal to tell you what
DODO THE SECOND 193
you know already. I repeat that I am behaving rather
nicely."
It was owing to him to do him so much justice.
" I know you are," she said, " you are behaving very
nicely indeed. But it is only for a short time, Seymour.
I don't mean that you won't always behave nicely,
but that there are only a limited number of days on
which this particular mode of niceness will be required
of you, or be even possible. Hugh is going away next
week, after that you and I will be Darby and Joan
before he sees me again. You are all behaving nicely :
he is too. He just wanted one week more of the old
days, when we didn't think, but only babbled and
chattered. I can't say that he is reviving them with
very conspicuous success : he doesn't babble much,
and I am sure he thinks furiously all the time. But he
wanted the opportunity : it wasn't much to give him."
" Especially since I pay," said Seymour quickly.
He saw the blood leap to Nadine's face.
" I'm sorry," he said. " I oughtn't to have said that,
though it is quite true. But I pay gladly : you must
believe that also. And I'm glad Hugh is behaving
nicely, that he doesn't indulge in in embarrassing
reflections. Also when does he go away ? "
' Tuesday, I think."
" Morning ? " asked Seymour hopefully.
Nadine laughed : he had done that cleverly, making
a parody and a farce out of that which a moment before
had been quite serious.
' You deserve it should be," she said.
" Then it is sure to be in the afternoon. Now I've
finished being spitfire. I want to ask you something.
You haven't been up to your usual form of futile and
clannish conversation. You have been rather plaintive
and windy "
" Windy ? " asked Nadine.
' Yes, full of sighs, and I should say it was Shake-
speare. Are you worrying about anything ? "
N
194 DODO THE SECOND
She looked up at him with complete candour.
" Why of course, about Hughie," she said. " How
should I not ? "
" I don't care two straws about that," said Seymour,
" as long as your worrying is not connected with me.
I mean I am sorry you worry, but I don't care. Of
course you worry about Hugh. I understand that,
because I understand what Hugh feels, and one doesn't
like one's friends feeling like that. But it's not about
you and me ? "
Nadine shook her head and Seymour got up.
" Well, let us all be less plaintive," he said. " I have
been rather plaintive too. I think I shall go and take
on that great foolish Berts at golf. He will be plaintive
afterwards, but nobody minds what Berts is. Will you
give me a kiss, or would you rather not ? "
" I don't mind," said Nadine.
Seymour very rudely put out his tongue at her.
" Then, take, oh, take those lips away," he remarked.
Whatever plaintiveness there was about was cer-
tainly not shared by the weather, which, if it was mad,
as Nadine had suggested, was possessed by a very genial
kind of mania. An octave of spring-like days, with
serene suns, and calm seas, and light breezes from the
south-west had decreed an oasis in midwinter, warm
halcyon days that made even in December the snow-
drops and aconites to blossom humbly and bravely,
and set the birds to busy themselves with sticks and
straws as if nesting- time was already here. New
grass already sprouted green among the greyness of
last year's growth, and it seemed almost cynical to
doubt that spring was not verily here. Indeed, where
Hugh and Nadine sat this morning it was May, not
March that seemed to have invaded and conquered
December ; there lay upon the hillside a vernal frag-
rance that set a stray bee or two buzzing round the
honied sweetness of the gorse, with which the time of
DODO THE SECOND 195
blossoming is never quite over, and to-day all the winds
were still, and no breeze stirred in the bare, slender
birches or set the spring-like stalks of the heather
quivering. Only, very high up in the unplumbed blue
of the zenith thin fleecy clouds lay stretched in streamers
and combed feathers of white, shewing that far above
rivers of air swept headlong and swift.
Nadine had a favourite nook on this steep hillside
below the house, reached by a path that stretched out
to the southern promontory of the bay. It was a
little hollow, russet-coloured now with the bracken of
the autumn and carpeted elsewhere by the short-
napped velvet of the turf. Just in front the cliff
plunged sheer on to the beach, where they had so
often bathed in the summer, and where the reef of
tumbled sandstone rocks stretched out on to the
waveless sea like brown amphibious monsters that
were fish at high tide and grazing beasts at the
ebb. Down there below a school of gulls hovered
and fished with wheelings of white wings, but not a
ripple lapped the edges of the rocks. Only the sea
breathed softly as in sleep, stirring the fringes of brown
weed that had gathered there, but no thinnest line of
white shewed breaking water. Along the sandy fore-
shore of the bay there was the same stillness : heaven
and earth and ocean lay under an enchantment of
quietude. The sand-dunes opposite and the hills
beyond lay reflected in the sea, as if in the tran-
quility of some land-locked lake There was a spell,
a hush over the world, to be broken by God knew
what gentle awakening of activity or catastrophic
disturbance.
Hugh and she had vralked to this withdrawn hollow of
the hill almost in silence. He had offered to carry her
books for her, but she had said that they were of no
weight, and after a pause he had announced a fragment
of current news to which she had no comment to add,
but had noticed the windless unnatural calm of the
196 DODO THE SECOND
day. Something in this unusual stillness of weather
had set her nerves a-quiver, and perhaps the position
she was in, bound as she was to Seymour, not struggling
against it, but quite accepting it, made ordinary inter-
course difficult. For she had it all her own way ; Hugh
was behaving with exemplary discretion, Seymour was
behaving with admirable tolerance, and just because
they both made her own part so easy for her, she,
womanlike, found the smoothed-out performance of it
to be difficult. Had she instructed each of them how to
behave, her instructions were carried out to the letter's
foot : they were impeccable as lover and rejected lover,
and therefore she wanted something different . The
situation was completely of her own making : her actors
played their parts exactly as she would have them
play, and yet there was something wanting. They
were too well-drilled, too word-perfect, too certain to
say all she had designed for them from the right spot
and in the right voice. True, for a moment just now
Seymour had shown signs of individualism when he
called attention to the fact that he was behaving very
nicely, and that he would be glad when the scene was
over, but Hugh had shown none whatever, except for
the fact that he had asked to be allowed a few days like
the days of old before he left England. He had assured
her in the summer that he would never seek to get back
into the atmosphere of unthinking intimacy again,
but, poor fellow, when there were to be so few days left
him before the situation was sealed and made irrevoc-
able his heart had cried out against the edict of his
will, and foolish though it might be, he had asked for
this week of Meering days. But from his point of view,
no less than from hers, they had been but a parody of
what he had hoped for, they had been frozen and con-
gealed by the reserve and restraint that he dared not
break. Below that surface-ice he knew how swiftly
ran the torrent in his soul, but the ice quite stretched
from shore to shore. It was this which disappointed
DODO THE SECOND 197
Nadine, for she equally with Hugh had expected that
he could realize the impossible, and that he, loving her
as he did, and knowing that she was so soon to give
herself to another man, could cast off the knowledge
of that and resume for a space the unshackled intimacy
of old. The Ethiopian and leopard would have found
their appropriate feats far easier, for it was Hugh's
bones and blood he had to change, not mere skin and
hair, and the very strength of the bond that bound him
to her made the insuperableness of the barrier. He
felt every moment the utter failure of his attempt,
while she, who thought she understood him so well, had
no notion how radical the failure was. Not loving,
she could not understand. He knew that now, and
thought bitterly of the little fireworks of words she
had once lit for him on that same text, believing that
by the light of those quick little squibs she could read
his heart.
So, when they were settled in their nook, once again
she tried to recapture the old ease. She pointed down-
wards over the edge of the cliff.
" Oh, Hughie, what a morning," she said. " Quiet
sea and gulls, and bees and gorse. What a summer in
December, a truce with winter, isn't it ? I've brought a
handful of nice books. Shall I read ? "
" Oh, soon," said he. " But your summer in Decem-
ber isn't going to last long. There is a wind coming,
and a big one. Look at the mares'-tails of clouds up
above. Can't you smell the wind coming ? I always
can. And the barometer has dropped nearly an inch
since last night."
He put back his head and sniffed, moving his
nostrils rather like a horse.
" Oh, how fascinating," said Nadine. " If I do that
shall I smell the wind ? "
It made her sneeze instead.
" I don't think much of that," she said. " I expect
you looked at the barometer before you smelt the
198 DODO THE SECOND
wind. Besides, how is it possible to smell the wind
before there is any wind to smell ? And when it comes
you feel it instead."
" It will be a big storm," said Hugh.
Even as he spoke some current of air stirred the
surface of the sea below them, shattering the reflections.
It was as if some great angel of the air had breathed on
the polished mirror of the water, dimming it. Next
moment the breath cleared away again, and the surface
was as bright and unwavering as before. But some
half-dozen of the gulls that had been hovering and chid-
ing there rose into the higher air, leaving their feeding-
ground, and after circling round once or twice, glided
away over the sand-dunes inland. Almost immediately
afterwards, another relay followed, and another, till
the bay that had been so populous with birds was
quite deserted. They did not pause in their flight,
but went straight inland, in decreasing specks of white,
till they vanished altogether.
" The gulls seem to think so, too," said Hugh.
" Then they are probably wrong," said Nadine.
" The instincts Nature implants in animals are almost
invariably incorrect. For instance, the Siberian tigers
at the Zoo. For several years they never grew winter
coats, and all the naturalists went down on their knees
and said : ' O wonderful Mother Nature : their
instincts tell them this is a milder climate than Siberia.'
But this winter, the mildest ever known, the poor things
have grown the thickest winter coats ever seen. So all
the naturalists had to get up again and dust their
trousers where they had knelt down."
" Put your money on the gulls and me," said Hugh.
" Look there again, far away along the sands."
To Nadine the most attractive feature about Hugh
was his eyes. They had a far-away look in them that
had nothing whatever spiritual or sentimental in it,
but was simply due to the fact that he had extra-
ordinarily long sight. She obediently screwed up her
DODO THE SECOND 199
eyes and followed his direction, but saw nothing what-
ever of import.
" It's getting nearer ; you'll see it soon," said Hugh.
Soon she saw. A whirlwind of sand was advancing
towards them along the beach below, revolving giddily.
As it came nearer they could see the loose pieces of
seaweed and jetsam being caught up into it. It came
forward in a straight line perhaps as fast as a man
might run, getting taller as it approached and gyrating
more violently. Then in its advance it came into
collision with the wall of cliff on which they sat, and
was shattered. They could hear, like the sound of
rain, the sand and rubbish of which it was composed
falling on to the rocks.
" Oh, but did you invent that, Hughie ? " she said.
" It was quite a pretty trick. Was it a sign to this
faithless generation, which is me, that you could smell
the wind ? Or did the gulls do it ? Prophesy to me
again ! "
He lay back on the dry grass.
" Trouble coming, trouble coming," he said.
" Just the storm ? " she asked. " Or is this more
prophecy ? "
" Oh, just the storm," he said. " I always feel
depressed and irritated before a storm."
" Are you depressed and irritated ? " she asked.
" Sorry. I thought it was such a nice calm morning."
Hugh took up a book at random, which proved to
be Swinburne's Poems and Ballads. At random he
opened it, and saw the words :
" And though she saw all Heaven in flower above
She would not love."
" Oh, do read," said Nadine. " Anything ; just
where you opened it."
Hugh sat up, a bitterness welling in his throat. He
read :
" And though she saw all Heaven in flower above
She would not love."
200 DODO THE SECOND
Nadine flushed slightly, and was annoyed with her-
self for flushing. She could not help knowing what
must be in his mind, and tried to make a diversion.
" I don't think she was to be blamed," she said.
" A quantity of flowers stuck all over the sky would
look very odd, and I don't think would kindle anybody's
emotions. That sounds rather a foolish poem. Read
something else."
Hugh shut the book.
" ' Though all we fell on sleep, she would not weep,'
is the end of another stanza," he said.
Nadine looked at him for a long moment, her lips
parted as if to speak, but they only quivered ; no
words came. There was no doubt whatever as to
what Hugh meant, but still, with love unawakened, and
with her tremendous egotism rampant, she saw no
further than that he was behaving very badly to her.
He had come down here to renew the freedom and
intimacy of old days ; till to-day he had been silent,
stupid, but when he spoke like this, silence and stupidity
were better. She was sorry for him, very sorry, but
the quiver of her lips half at least consisted of self-pity
that he made her suffer too.
" You mean me," she said, speaking at length and
speaking very rapidly. " It is odious of you. You
know quite well I am sorry ; I have told you so. I
cried ; I remember I cried when you made that visit
to Winston, and the cow looked at me. I daresay
you are suffering damned torments, but you are being
unfair. Though I don't love you like that, I wish
I did. Do you think I make you suffer for my own
amusement ? Is it fun to see my best friend like
that ? Is it my fault ? You have chosen to love this
heartless person, me. If I had no liver, or no lungs,
instead of no heart, you would be sorry for me. Instead
you reproach me. Oh, not in words, but you meant
me, when you said that. Where is the book out of
which you read ? There, I do that to it ; I send it
DODO THE SECOND 201
into the sea, and when the gulls come back they will
peck it, or the sea will drown it first, and the wind which
you smell will blow it to America. You don't under-
stand ; you are more stupid than the gulls."
She made one swift motion with her arm, and Poems
and Ballads flopped in the sea as the book dived clear
of the cliff into the water below.
More imminent than the storm which Hugh had
prophesied was the storm in their souls. He, with his
love baffled raged at the indifference with which she
had given herself to another ; she, distrusting for the
first time, the sense and wisdom of her gift, raged at
him for his rebellion against her choice.
" Don't speak," she said, "for I will tell you more
things first. You are jealous of Seymour "
Hugh threw back his head and laughed.
" Jealous of Seymour ? " he cried. " Do you really
think I would marry you if you consented in the spirit
in which you are taking him ? Once it is true, I
wanted to. You refused to cheat me those were
your words and I begged you to cheat me, I implored
you to cheat me, so long as you gave me yourself. I
didn't care how you took me, so long as you took me.
But now I wouldn't take you like that. Now, for
this last week, I have seen you and him together, and
I know what it is like."
" You haven't seen us together much," said Nadine.
" I have seen you enough. I told you before that
your marriage was a farce. I was wrong. It's much
worse than a farce. You needn't laugh at a farce.
But you can't help laughing, at least I can't, at a
tragedy so ludicrous."
Nadine got up. The situation wafc as violent and
sudden as some electric storm. What had been pent
up in him all this week, had exploded ; something in
her exploded also.
" I think I hate you," she said.
" I am sure I despise you," said he
202 DODO THE SECOND
He got up also, facing her. It was like the bursting
of a reservoir ; the great sheet of quiet water was
suddenly turned into torrent and foam.
" I despise you," he said again. " You intended
me to love you ; you encouraged me to let myself go.
All the time you held yourself in, though there was
nothing to hold in ; you observed, you dissected. You
cut down with your damned scalpels and lancets to
my heart, and said, ' How interesting to see it beat-
ing ! ' Then you looked coolly over your shoulder
and saw Seymour, and said, ' He will do : he doesn't
love me, and I don't love him ! ' But now he does
love you, and you probably guess that. So, very soon,
your lancet will come out again, and you will see his
heart beating. And again you will say, ' How interest-
ing ! ' But there will be blood on your lancet. You
are safe, of course, from reprisals. No one can cut
into you, and see your blood flow, because you haven't
got any blood. You are something cold and hellish.
You often said you understood me too well. Now
you understand me even better. Toast my heart,
fry it, eat it up ! I am utterly at your mercy, and
you haven't got any mercy. But I can manage to
despise you ; I can't do much else."
Nadine stood quite still, breathing rather quickly,
and that movement of the nostrils, which she had tried
to copy from him, did not make her sneeze now.
" It is well we should know each other," she said
with an awful cold bitterness, " even though we shall
know each other for so little time more. It is always
interesting to see the real person '
" If you mean me," he said hotly, " I always showed
you the real person. I have never acted to you, nor
pretended. And I have not changed. I am not
responsible if you cannot see ! "
Nadine passed her tongue over her lips. They
seemed hard and dry, not flexible enough for speech.
" It was my blindness then," she said. " But we
DODO THE SECOND 203
know where we are now. I hate you, and you despise
me. We know now."
Then suddenly an impulse, wholly uncontrollable,
and coming from she knew not where, seized and com-
pelled her. She held out both her hands to him.
" Hughie, shake hands with me," she said. " This
has been nightmare talk, a bad thing that one dreams.
Shake hands with me, and that will wake us both
up. What we have been saying to each other is
impossible ; it isn't real or true. It is utter nonsense
we have been talking."
How he longed to take her hands and clasp them and
kiss them ! How he longed to wipe off all he had
said, all she had said. But somehow it was beyond
him to do it. It was by honest impulse that the words
of hate and contempt had risen to their lips ; the words
might be cancelled, but what could not be quenched,
until some mistake was shown in the workings of their
souls, was the thought-fire that had made them boil
up. She stood there, lovely and welcoming, the girl
whom his whole soul loved, whose conduct his whole
soul despised, eager for reconciliation, yearning for a
mutual forgiveness. But her request was impossible.
God could not cancel the bitterness that had made him
speak. He threw his hands wide.
" It's no good," he said. " I am sorry I said certain
things, for there was no use in saying them. But I
can't help feeling that which made me say them.
Cancel the speeches by all means. Let the words be
unsaid with all my heart."
" But let us be prepared to say them again," said
Nadine quietly. " It comes to that."
' Yes, it comes to that. I am not jealous of Sey-
mour. I laughed when you suggested it ; and I am
not jealous because you don't love him. If you loved
him, I should be jealous, and I should say, ' God bless
you ! ' As it is "
" As it is, you say ' Damn you ! ' " said Nadine.
204 DODO THE SECOND
Hugh shook his head.
" You don't understand anything about love," he
said. " How can you until you know a little bit what
it means ? I could no more think or say ' Damn you/
than I could say ' God bless you.' '
Nadine had withdrawn from her welcome and desire
for reconciliation.
" Neither would make any difference to me," she
said.
" I don't suppose they would, since I make no differ-
ence to you," said he. " But there is no sense in
adding hypocrisy to our quarrel."
Nadine sat down again on the sweet turf.
" I cancel my words then, even if you do not," she
said. " I don't hate you. I can't hate you, any more
than you can despise me. We must have been talking
in nightmare."
" I am used to nightmare/' said Hugh. " I have
had six months of nightmare. I thought that I could
wake ; I thought I could could pinch myself awake
by seeing you and Seymour together. But it's still
nightmare."
Nadine looked up at him.
" Oh, Hughie, if I loved you ! " she said.
Hugh looked at her a moment, and then turned
away from her. Outside of his control certain muscles
worked in his throat ; he felt strangled.
" I can say ' God bless you ' for that, Nadine," he
said huskily. "I do say it. God bless you, my
darling."
Nadine had leaned her face on her hands when he
turned away. She divined why he turned from her;
she heard the huskiness of his voice, and the thought
of Hughie wanting to cry gave her a pang that she
had never yet known the like of. There was a long
silence, she sitting with hand-buried face, he seeing
the sunlight swim and dance through his tears. Then
he touched her on the shoulder.
DODO THE SECOND 205
" So we are friends again in spite of ourselves," he
said. " Just one thing more then, since we can talk
without hatred and contempt. Why did you refuse
to marry me, because you did not love me, and yet '
consent to marry Seymour like that ? "
She looked up at him.
" Oh, Hughie, you fool," she said. " Because you
matter so much more."
He smiled back at her.
" I don't want to wish I mattered less," he said.
' You couldn't matter less."
He had no reply to this, and sat down again beside
her. After a little Nadine turned to him.
" And I said I thought it was such a calm morning,"
she said.
" And I said that storm was coming," said he.
She laid her hand on his knee.
" And will there be some pleasant weather now ? "
she said. " Oh, Hughie, what wouldn't I give to
get two or three of the old days back again, when we
babbled and chattered and were so content ? "
" Speak for yourself, Miss," said Hugh. " And for
God's sake don't let us begin again. I shall quarrel
with you again, and and it gives me a pain. Look
here, it's a bad job for me all this, but I came here to
get an oasis ; also to pinch myself awake : metaphors
are confusing things. Bring on your palms and springs.
They haven't put in an appearance yet. Let's try
anyhow."
Nadine sat up.
" Talking of the weather " she began.
" I wasn't."
' Yes you were, before we began to exchange com-
pliments."
She broke off suddenly.
" Oh, Hughie, what has happened to the sun ? " she
said.
" I know it is the moon," said Hugh.
206 DODO THE SECOND
' You needn't quote that. The shrew is tamed for
a time. Is a shrew-mouse a lady mouse with a foul
temper, do you think ? About the sun look."
It was worth looking at. Right round it, two or
three diameters away, ran a complete halo, a pale
white line in the abyss of the blue sky. The little
feathers of wind-blown clouds had altogether vanished,
and the heavens were untarnished from horizon to
zenith. But the heat of the rays had sensibly dimin-
ished, and though the sunshine appeared as whole-
hearted as ever, it was warm no longer.
" This is my second conjuring-trick," said Hugh.
" I make you a whirlwind, and now I make you a ring
round the sun, and cut off the heating apparatus.
Things are going to happen. Look at the sea, too.
My orders."
The sea was also worth looking at. An hour ago
it had been turquoise blue, reflecting the sky. Now
it seemed to reflect a moonstone. It was grey-white,
a corpse of its previous self. Then even as they
looked, it seemed to vanish altogether. The horizon
line was blotted out, for the sky was turning grey also,
and both above and below, over the cliff-edge, there was
nothing but an invisible grey of clear emptiness. The
sun halo spread both inwards and outwards, so that
the sun itself peered like a white plate through some
layer of vapour that had suddenly formed across the
whole field of the heavens. And still not a whistle or
sigh of wind sounded.
Hugh got up.
" As I have forgotten what my third conjuring trick
is," he said. " I think we had better go home. It
looks as if it was going to be a violent one."
He paused a moment, peering out over the invisible
sea. Then there came a shrill faint scream from some-
where out in the dim immensity.
" Hold on to me, Nadine," he cried. " Or lie down."
He felt her arm in his, and they stood there together.
DODO THE SECOND 207
The scream increased in volume, becoming a maniac
bellow. Then like a solid wall the wind hit them. It
did not begin out of the dead calm as a breeze ; it did
not grow from breeze to wind, it came from seawards,
like the waters of the Red Sea on the hosts of Pharaoh,
an overwhelming wall of riot and motion. Nadine's
books, all but the one she had cast over the cliff's edge,
turned over, and lay with flapping pages, then like
wounded birds they were blown along the hill-side.
The hat she had brought out with her, but had not put
on, rose straight in the air and vanished. Hugh,
with Nadine on his arm, had leaned forward against
this maniac blast, and the two were not thrown down
by it. The path to the house lay straight up the steep
hillside behind them, and turning they were so blown
up it that they stumbled in trying to keep pace to
that irresistible torrent of wind that hurried them
along. It took them but five minutes to get up the
steep brae, while it had taken them ten minutes to
walk down, and already there flew past them seaweed
and sand and wrack, blown up from the beach below.
Above, the sun was completely veiled, a web of cloud
had already obscured the higher air, but below all was
clear, and it looked as if a stone could be tossed on to the
hills on the futher side of the bay.
They had to cross the garden before they came to
the house. Already two trees had fallen before this
hurricane-blast and even as they hurried over the lawn,
an elm, screaming in all its full-foliaged boughs, leaned
towards them and cracked and fell. Then a chimney
in the house itself wavered in outline, and next moment
it crashed down on to the roof, and a covey of flying
tiles fell round them.
It required Hugh's full strength to close the door
again after they had entered, and Nadine turned to
him, flushed and ecstatic.
" Hughie, how divine," she said. " It can't be
measured, that lovely force. It's infinite. I never
208 DODO THE SECOND
knew there was strength like that. Why have we come
in ? Let's go out again. It's God ; it's just God."
His eyes too were alight with it and his soul surged
to his lips.
" Yes," he said. " And that's what love is like."
And then for the first time, Nadine understood. She
did not feel, but she was able to understand.
" Oh, Hughie," she said, " I am an unlucky wretch."
CHAPTER X
THE section of the party which had gone to play
golf, fought their way home a few minutes later, and
they all met at lunch. Edith Arbuthnot had arrived
before any of them got back, and asked if the world
had been blown away. As it had not, she expressed
herself ready to chaperone anybody.
" And Berts is happy too," said Seymour, when he
came in very late for lunch, since he wished to change
all his clothes first, as they smelt of wind, "because
Berts has at last driven a ball two hundred yards.
Don't let us mention the subject of golf. It would be
tactless. There was no wind when he accomplished
that remarkable feat, at least not more wind than there
is now. What there was was behind him, and he topped
his ball heavily. I said ' Good shot.' But I have
tact. Since I have tact, I don't say to Nadine that
it was a good day to sit out on the hill-side and read.
I would scorn the suggestion."
A sudden sound as of drums on the window inter-
rupted this tactful speech, and the panes streamed.
" Anyhow I shall play golf," said Edith. " What
does a little rain matter ? I'm not made of paper."
' Yes, you are ; music paper," said Berts.
" If you want to win a match, play with Berts,"
said Seymour pensively. " But if you only want to
be blown away and killed, anybody will do. I shall
get on with my embroidery this afternoon, and my
maid will sit by me and hold my hand. Dear me, I
hope the house is well built."
For the moment it certainly seemed as if this was
209 O
2io DODO THE SECOND
not the case, for the whole room shook under a sudden
gust more appalling than anything they had felt yet.
Then it died away again, and once more the windows
were deluged with sheets of rain flung, it seemed, almost
horizontally against them. For a few minutes only
that lasted, then stopped as if a tap had been turned,
and the wind settled down to blow with a steady
uniform violence.
Nadine had finished lunch and went across to the
window. The air was perfectly clear, and the hills
across the bay, ten miles distant, seemed again but
a stone's throw away. Overhead, straight across the
sky, stretched a roof of hard grey cloud, but away
to the west, just above the horizon line, there was
an arch of perfectly clear sky, of pale duck's-egg
green, and out of this it seemed as out of a funnel
the fury of the gale was poured. The garden was
strewn with branches and battered foliage, and the
long gravel path flooded by the tempest of rain was
discharging itself on to the lawn, where pools of bright
yellow water were spreading. Across the grass lay the
wreck of the fallen trees, the splintered corpses of what
but an hour ago had been secure and living things,
waiting, warm and drowsy for the tingle of spring-time
and rising sap. Like the bodies of young men on a
battlefield, with their potentialities of love and life
unfulfilled, there, by the blast of the insensate fury of
the wind, they lay stricken and dead, and the birds
would no more build in their branches, nor make their
shadowed nooks melodious with love-songs. No more
would summer clothe them in green, nor autumn in
their liveries of gold ; they were dead things and at
the most would make a little warmth on the hearth,
before the feathery ash, all that was left of them, was
dispersed on the homeless winds.
But the pity of this blind wantonness of destruction
was more than compensated for in Nadine's mind by
the glorious savagery and force of the unlooked-for
DODO THE SECOND 211
hurricane, and she easily persuaded Hugh to come out
with her and be beaten and stormed upon. Always
sensitive to the weather, this portentous storm had
aroused in her a sort of rapture of restlessness ; she
rejoiced in it, and somehow feared it for its ruth-
lessness and indifference.
They took the path that led downward to the beach,
for it was the tumult and madness of the sea that
Nadine especially wished to observe. Though as yet
the gale had been blowing only an hour or two, it had
raised a monstrous sea, and long before they came
down within sight of it they heard the hoarse thunder
and crash of broken waters penetrating the screaming
bellow of the gale, and the air was salt with spray and
flying foam. To the west there was still that clear
arch of open sky through which the wind poured ;
somewhere behind the clouds to the left of it the sun
was near to its setting, and a pale livid light shone out
of it catching the tops of the breakers as they streamed
landwards. Between these foam-capped tops lay huge
hollows and darknesses, out of which would suddenly
boil another crest of mountainous water. The tide
was only at half flood, but the sea packed by this
astounding wind was already breaking at the foot of
the cliffs themselves, while in the troughs of the waves
as they rode in there appeared and disappeared again
the big scattered rocks from some remote cliff-fall that
were strewn about the beach. Sometimes a wave
would strike one of these full, and be shattered against
it, spouting heavenwards in a column of solid water ;
oftener the breakers swept over them unbroken, until
with menace of their toppling crests they flung them-
selves with long tongues of hissing water on the rocks
at the foot of the cliffs. Then, with the scream of the
withdrawn shingle, the spent water was furiously
dragged back to the base of the next incoming wave,
and was caught up again to hurl itself against the land.
Sometimes a sudden blast of wind would cut off the
212 DODO THE SECOND
crest of the billow even as it curled over, and fling it
a monstrous riband of foam through the air, sometimes
two waves converging rose up in a fountain of water
and fell back without having reached the shore. This
way and that, rushing and rolling, in hills and valleys
of water, the maddened sea crashed and thundered,
and every moment the spray rose more densely from
the infernal cauldron. Then as the tide rose higher,
the waves came in unbroken and hurled their tons of
water against the face of the cliff itself. Above, con-
tinuous as a water-fall, rose the roar and scream of the
gale, ominous, insensate, bewildering ; it was as if the
elements were being transmuted back into the chaos out
of which they came.
Nadine and Hugh, clinging together for support,
stood there for some minutes, half way down the side
of the cliff, watching the terror and majesty of the
spectacle, she utterly absorbed in it, and cruelly uncon-
scious of him. Then, since they could no longer get
down to the base of the cliff, they skirted along it till
they came to the sandy foreshore of the bay. There
from water-level they could better see the immensity of
the tumult, the strange hardness and steepness of the
ware-slopes. It was as if a line of towers and great
buildings were throwing themselves down on to the
sands, and breaking up into sheets and eddies of foam-
sheeted water, while behind them there rose again
another street of toppling buildings, which again
shattered itself on the beach. Great balls of foam torn
from the spent water trundled by them on the sands,
and bunches of brown seaweed torn from the rocks
were flung in handfulls at their feet. Once from the
arch in the sky westwards a dusky crimson light
suddenly burned, reddening the wave crests to blood,
and then as the darkness of the early winter sunset
gathered, they turned, and were blown up the steep
cliff-path again, wet and buffeted. Conversation had
been altogether impossible, and they could but
DODO THE SECOND 213
communicate with pointing finger and nodding head.
Yet, somehow, to be together thus, cut off by the riot
of winds and waves, from all sense of the existence of
others, in that pandemonium of tempest, gave to Hugh,
at least, a closer feeling of intimacy with Nadine than
he had ever yet known. She clung to him, she sheltered
under his shoulder unconsciously, instinctively, as an
animal trusts his master without knowing it is trust-
ing. And that to his aching hunger for her was some
thing ....
But the gale was to bring them closer together yet.
CHAPTER XI
ALL the evening and all night long the gale continued.
Now and then the constant scream of it would leap
upwards a couple of octaves as a shriller blast struck
the house, and again for a moment the mad chant,
as of all the devils in hell intoning together,
would drop into silence. From time to time, like a
tattoo of drums, the rain battered at the window panes,
but through it all whether in hushes of the wind, or
when its fiercest squall descended, the beat of the surf
sounded ever louder. And all through the night (the
result perhaps of his agitated talk with Nadine in the
morning, or of his intimate gale-encompassed isolation
with her in the afternoon) Hugh turned and tossed
midway between sleeping and waking. Sometimes he
seemed to himself to be yelling round the house among
the spirits of the air, seeking admittance, sometimes
it seemed to him that he was anvil to the hammer
of the surf, and whether he was homelessly wander-
ing outside among the spirits of the wind, or was
being done to death by those incessant blows of the
beating waves, it was Nadine that he sought. And as
the night went on the anguish of his desire grew ever
more acute, and the beating of the waves a more poig-
nant torture, until, while yet no faintest lightening of
winter's dawn had broached the gross blackness of the
night, he roused himself completely and sat up in bed
and turned on his light.
To him awake the riot outside was vastly magnified
compared with the dimmer trouble of his dream, so
too was his yearning for Nadine. His windows looked
214
DODO THE SECOND 215
eastwards away from the quarter of the gale, and,
getting out of bed, he lifted a sash and peered out.
Nothing whatever could be seen ; it was as if he gazed
into the darkness of the nethermost pit, out of which,
blown by the blast of the anger of God, came the shrieks
of souls that might not rest, driven for ever along,
drenched by the river of their own unavailing tears.
Even though he was awake, the strange remote horror
of nightmare was on him, and it was in vain that he
tried to comfort himself by saying, like some child
repeating a senseless lesson, " A deep depression has
reached us travelling eastwards from the Atlantic."
He tried to read, but still the nightmare sense possessed
him, and he fancied he had to read a whole line, neither
more nor less, between the poundings of the waves.
Then, as usually happens towards the ends of these
witch-ridden Walpurgis nights, he got back to bed
again and slept calmly and dreamlessly.
He and Seymour alone out of the party put in an
appearance at breakfast time ; it seemed probable that
the others were compensating themselves for a dis-
turbed night by breakfasting upstairs, and afterwards
the two went out together to look at the doings of the
darkness. By this time the wind had considerably moder-
ated, the rain had ceased altogether, and the thick pall
of cloud that had last night overlain the sky was split
up into fragments and islands and flying vapours, so
that here and there pale shafts of sunlight shone on
to land and sea. But the thunder of the surf had
immeasurably increased, and when they went to the
cliff-edge which he and Nadine had passed down
yesterday afternoon, they looked on to an indescrib-
able confusion of tremendous waters. The tide was
just beginning to flow, but the bay was still packed
with the sea heaped up by the wind, and the end
of the reef with its big scattered rocks was out be-
yond the walls of breaking water. The sea appeared
to have been driven distraught by the stress of the
216 DODO THE SECOND
night; cross currents carried the waves in all direc-
tions ; it almost seemed that some, shrinking from the
wall of cliff in front, were trying to beat out to sea again.
Quite away from land they jousted and sparred with
each other, not jestingly, but, it seemed, with some
grim purpose, as if they were practising their strength
for deeds of earnest violence, as for some civil war
among themselves. It was round the outermost rocks
that this sport of billowy giants most centred ; right
across the bay ran some current that set on to the end
of the reef, and there it met with the waves coming
straight in-shore from the direction of the blowing of
the gale. There they spouted and foamed together,
yet not in play ; some purpose, so regular were these
rounds of combat, seemed to underlie their wrestlings.
Hugh threw away a charred peninsula of paper, once
a cigarette, which the wind had smoked for him. He
never had felt much sense of comradeship in the pres-
ence of Seymour, and their after-breakfast stroll had
no more virtue than was the reward of necessary
politeness.
" There is something rather senseless in this display
of wasted energy," said Seymour. " Each of those
waves would probably cook a dinner, if its force was
reasonably employed."
Hugh, in spite of his restless night, had something
of Nadine's thrilled admiration for the turmoil, and felt
slightly irritated.
" They would certainly cook your goose or mine,"
he remarked.
Seymour wondered whether it would be well to say
" Do you allude to Nadine as our goose ? " but, perhaps
wisely, refrained.
" That would be to the good," he said. " Goose is
a poor bird at any time, but uneatable unless properly
roasted."
Hugh did not attend to this polite rejoinder, for he
had caught sight of something incredible not so far out
DODO THE SECOND 217
at sea, and he focussed his eyes instantly on it. For
the moment, what he thought he had seen completely
vanished; directly afterwards he caught sight of it again,
a fishing-boat with mast broken, reeling drunkenly on
the top of a huge wave. His quick long-sighted eyes
told him in that one moment of slewing deck that it
presented to them, before it was swallowed from sight
in the trough of the next wave, that there were two
figures on it, clinging to the stump of the broken mast.
" Look," he said, " there is a boat out there."
It rose again to the crest of a wave and again plunged
giddily out of sight. The incoming tide was bearing
it swiftly shorewards, swiftly also the cross-current that
set towards the end of the reef was bearing it there.
Hugh did not pause. He laid hold of Seymour by
the shoulder.
" Run up to the house," he said, " and fetch a couple
of men. Bring down with you as much rope as you can
find. Don't say anything to Nadine and the women.
But be quick."
He ran down to the beach himself, as Seymour went
on his errand, seeing at once that there were two things
that might happen to this stricken cripple of a ship.
In one case, the incoming tide with its following waves
might bear it straight onto the sandy beach; in the other
the cross-current, in which now it was labouring, might
carry it across to the reef where the waves were roaring
and wrestling together. It was in case of this first
contingency that he ran down on to the sands to be
ready. The beach was steep there ; the boat would ride
in until it was flung down by that fringe of toppling,
hard-edged breakers, In that tumble and scurry of
surf it might easily be that strong arms could drag out
of the fury of the backwash whatever was cast there.
The boat, a decked fishing boat, would be dumped down
on the sand ; there would be a half-minute, or a
quarter-minute when something might be done. On
the other hand this greedy sucking current might carry
2i8 DODO THE SECOND
it on to the reef. Then, by the mercy of God, a rope
might be of some avail, if a man could reach the ship
before it got there.
As he ran down the cliff, a sudden splash of sun-
light broke through the clouds, making a bright patch
of illumination round the boat as it swung over an-
other breaker. There was only one figure there now,
lying full length on the deck, and clinging with both
hands to the stump of the mast. Then once again the
water broke over it, lucidly green in the sunlight, and
all Hugh's heart went out to that solitary prone body,
lying there helpless in the hands of God and the gale.
His heart stood still to see whether when next the
drifting boat reappeared it would be tenantless, and
with a sob in his throat, " Oh thank God," he said,
when he saw it again, for the figure still lay there.
It was doubtful whether the current or the tide
would win, and Hugh pulled off his coat and waistcoat,
and threw them on the beach, in order to be able to rush
in unimpeded of arm and muscle. Then with a strange
sickness of heart, he saw that as the boat was getting
in nearer, it was visibly moving sideways across to the
left, where the reef lay. And he waited, in the suspense
of powerlessness.
The wind now had quite abated ; it was as if it had
done its work, in making ready the theatre of plunging
waters, and now waited to observe what drama should
be moving across the stage of billows.
Soon from behind, he heard across the shingle at the
top of the beach the approach of the others. Seymour
had brought Berts and two men with him, and they
carried with them half a dozen long coils of rope, part
of the fire-rescue apparatus of the house. While watch-
ing and waiting for them, Hugh's mind had been un-
commonly busy, and he found now that his plan was
quite made. It was no longer possible to hope that the
boat would come to land on the sandy beach, where
without doubt two or three able-bodied men could
DODO THE SECOND 219
rescue anyone cast up, but was driving straight on to
the rocks. Once there, rescue was all but impossible ;
the only chance lay in reaching it before it was smashed
to atoms on the immense boulders and sharp-toothed
fangs. Quickly he tied three of the ropes together,
and fastened the end round his body just below the
shoulders, and took off his boots.
" I'm going in ; " he said, "you all hold the rope and
pay it out. If I come near the end of it, tie a fresh
piece on "
Suddenly across the shingle came footsteps, and a
cry. Nadine ran down the beach towards them.
She was clad only in a dressing-gown, that rainbow-hued
one in which one night last June she had entertained
a company in her room, and slippers, so that her
ankles showed white and bare. She saw what Hugh
intended, and something within her, some denizen of her
soul, which till that moment had been unknown to her,
took possession of her.
" No, Hughie, not you, not you," she screamed.
*' Seymour, anybody, but not you."
The cry had come from her very heart ; she could
no more have stifled it than she could have stopped the
beating of it. Then suddenly, she realized what she
had said, and sank down on the beach burying her face
in her hands.
" Take care of her, Seymour," said Hugh, and there
was more heroism required for these few little words
than for the desperate feat he was about to attempt.
He did not look round again, nor wish to say anything
more, and there was no time to lose.
" Now you chaps," he called out, and ran forward to
the edge of the water.
At the moment an immense billow poised and curled
just in front of him. The wash of it covered him waist-
deep and he floundered and staggered as the rush of
water went by him. Then as the spent water drew out
to sea again he ran with it, to where another breaker
220 DODO THE SECOND
was toppling in front of him. With a low outward
spring he dived into the hollowed vault head foremost
and passed through it.
The beach was very steep here, and coming up again
through and beyond the line of surf, he found himself
in deep water. Behind him lay the breaking line of
billows, but in front the huge mountains of water rose
and fell unbroken. As he was lifted up on the first of
these, swimming strongly against it, he saw not a
hundred yards from him his helpless and drifting goal.
He could see, too, who it was who lay there, desperately
clinging to the stump of the mast with white slender
wrists ; it was quite a young boy. And at that sight,
Hugh's pity and determination were strung higher
than ever. Here was a young creature, in desperate
plight among these desperate waterways, one who
should not yet have known what peril meant. And at
the risk of spending a little strength, when strength
was so valuable, Hugh gave a great shout of notice
and encouragement. Then he was swallowed up in the
trough of a wave again. But when he rose next, he saw
that the boy had raised his head, and that he saw
him.
The current that swept towards the rocks, swept also
a little shorewards, and Hugh, measuring the distance
between the boat and the fatal breakers with his eye,
and measuring again the distance between the boat
and himself, knew that he must exert himself to the
point of exhaustion to get to the boat before it was
drifted to its final destruction. But as he swam, he
knew he had made a mistake hi not taking off his shirt
and trousers also, and giving himself an unimpeded
use of his limbs. His trousers particularly dragged
and hampered him ; then suddenly he remembered a
water-game at which he used to be expert at school,
namely, of taking a header into the bathing-place in
flannels and undressing in the water. It seemed worth
while to sacrifice a few seconds to accomplish that,
DODO THE SECOND 221
and, as cool and collected as when he was doing it for
mere sport at school, he trod water, slipped his legs out
of his trousers, and saw them float away from him.
Then twice as vigorous he struck out again. His shirt
did not bother him ; besides, the rope was tied round
his chest, and there was not time foi more disencum-
brances.
For the next five minutes, for he was fighting the
tide, he just swam and swam. Occasionally rising to a
wave it seemed to him that he was making no way at
all, but somehow that did not discourage him. The only
necessity that concerned him was that he must go till
he could go no longer. And all the time like a dream
and yet like a draught of wine to him was Nadine's
involuntary cry " No, Hughie, not you." He did not
trouble to guess what that meant. He was only
conscious that it invigorated and inspired him.
The minutes passed ; once the rope seemed to jerk
him back, and he found himself swearing underneath
his breath. Then, though it was terribly heavy, he
realized that it was free again, and that he was not
being hampered. Then he suddenly found himself
much closer to the boat than he had any idea of, and
tLis, though he was getting very tired, gave him a new
supply of nervous force. He swam into three valleys
more, he surmounted three ridges of water, and lo, the
boat was on the peaks directly opposite to him, and
Lorn opposite sides they plunged into the same valley
together. Not fifty yards off to the left, incredible
fountains of foam spouted and aspired.
Then, oh, blessed moment, he caught hold of the side
of the lurching fishing-smack, and a pale little boyish
frightened face was close to his. He clung for a second
to the side, and they went up and down two big billows
together. Then he got breath enough to speak.
" Now, little chap," he said, " don't be frightened,
for we're all right. Catch hold of the rope here, close
to my body, and just jump in. Yes, that's right.
222 DODO THE SECOND
Plucky boy ! Take hold with both hands of the rope.
Not so cold, is it ? "
Once again, before he let go of the boat, they rose to
an immense wall of water, and Hugh saw the figures
on the beach, four of them standing in the wash of the
sea, paying out the rope, and one standing there also
a little apart waving seawards, clapping her hands.
And what she said came to him clear and distinct across
the hills and valleys of destruction.
" Oh, Hughie, well done, well done ! " she cried.
" Now pull, all of you, pull him in ! "
He was glad she added that, for in the hurry of the
moment he had given no instructions as to what they
were to do when he reached the boat, and what seemed
so obvious out here, might not have seemed so obvious
to those on the beach, and he was not sure that there
was enough power left in him to shout to them. But
Nadine understood ; once she had said she understood
him too well. It was enough now that she understood
him enough.
He let go of the boat. For a moment it seemed
inclined to follow them, and he thought the bowsprit
was going to hit him. Then he felt a little pull on the
rope under his shoulders, and the boat made a sort of
bow of farewell, and slid away towards the spouting
towers of foam. Hugh was utterly exhausted ; he
could just paddle with a hand or kick downwards to
keep his head above water, but he gave away one breath
yet.
" Nothing to be frightened at," he said. " We're
all right now."
The buoyant water, for all the wickedness of its foam
and savage hunger, sustained him sufficiently. He
turned round seawards in the water so that the great
surges did not overwhelm him from behind, and put
an arm on the rope underneath the boy's neck, so as
to support them both. He forced himself even in his
utter weariness to be collected, and to remember that
DODO THE SECOND 223
for several minutes yet there was nothing whatever
to be done except with the minimum possible of exer-
tion to keep afloat, while the rope towed them back
towards that line of steep towers and curling preci-
pices beyond which lay the shore, and those who stood
on the shore. Sometimes the crest of a wave broke
over them, almost smothering him, but then again they
found themselves on a downward hillside of water,
where the panting lungs could be satisfied, and the
labouring heart supplied. Somewhere, inside of him,
he wanted to know where this poor foundered fishing-
smack had come from and how this young boy had
managed to cling to it, but he had not sufficient
strength to give voice to his desire, for all that he had
must be husbanded to meet that final assault of the
row of breakers through which they had to pass.
And as they got nearer, he began to form his plan.
This young, unknown life, precious to him now as an
unborn baby to a woman, was given into his charge.
It seemed to him that, as a woman has to bring to birth
the life within her whatever it costs her, so he had
to save the life of this unknown little fisher-boy, and
take all risks himself. Whatever lay beyond that line
of breakers, his business was here, and he did not for
one second argue the values. He did not forget Nadine
nor her last cry to him as he set forth on his peril, but
for the moment there was something that concerned
him even more than Nadine, and he had to make the
best plans he could for saving this young life that had
been put in his hands, even if he fought God over it.
The only question was how to devise the best chance
of saving it.
They were close in now, and this three-minute pause
of floating had restored him. He was just conscious
of bitter cold, even as he was conscious of the group
on the edge of the sand, and of the hissing waters.
But none of these things seemed to have anything to
do with him ; they were but external phenomena.
224 DODO THE SECOND
Between him and the shore were still three towering
lines of breakers, sharp-edged, steep as roofs. The
third of them suddenly tumbled and disappeared with
a thick thud, and an uprising of shattered spray. And
suddenly his plan presented itself, fully finished in his
mind.
He had been swimming for not more than a quarter
of an hour, and the minutes of that fierce outward
struggle which had seemed so long to him, had to
Nadine passed in a flash. For once she had got com-
pletely outside herself, and, concentrated and absorbed
in another, the time had gone by in one flare of tri-
umphant expectation. For a moment after that
heart's cry had been flung out of her, she had sat dazed
and bewildered by the consciousness that it seemed to
have revealed to her, for until she had cried out that
Seymour, that anybody but Hugh must make the
desperate attempt, she had not known her own heart,
nor could she have, for it was not till then that it was
unlocked to herself. When she looked up again Hugh
had already plunged through the breakers, and was
swimming, and instantly her soul was with him there
in the inhuman sea, glorying in his strength, proud of
his splendid and desperate adventure, and not for one
moment doubting of its success. None but he, she
felt, could do it, and it was impossible that he should
fail. She would not have had him back by her side,
saying that the attempt was mere suicide, for all the
happiness that the world contained, and had she been
able to change places with the boy who clung to the
helpless boat, she would have sprung ecstatic to the
noble risk, for the sake of having Hugh battle the seas
on his way to rescue her. Failing that, it had been
gloriously ordained that he should do this, and that
she should stand with heart uplifted, and be privileged
to see the triumphant venture. She saw him reach the
boat, knowing that he would, and clapped her hands and
called to him, and with bright eyes and laughing mouth
DODO THE SECOND 225
she eagerly watched him getting nearer. Then, just
as the moment when Hugh made his plan, she realised
that between him and her there lay that precipice of
water that kept flinging itself down in thunder on the
shore, and ever reforming again. And the light died
out of her face, and she grew ashen grey to the lips and
watched.
Hugh had been floating with his face seawards.
Now he turned round to the shore again. She saw him
smile at the boy, as they rose on the crest of a wave,
and she saw him speak.
" Now, we're all right," was what he said. " Get
on my back, and hold on to my shoulders."
The rope had ceased to pull. The men in control of
it just held it taut, waiting to pull when the exact
moment came. The boy did as Hugh told him, and
next moment the two rose up on the crest of the line
of breakers. Twenty feet below him as they topped
it, Hugh looked over on to the backwash of the pre-
ceding wave, being dragged into the rampart of water
which bore them, and was growing higher as it rose to
its ruin. But the boy's fall would be broken, if they
were to be pounded on the beach by the toppling bil-
low : at any rate, Hugh could not contrive a better
plan.
Then the wave curled, and he was flung forwards,
twisting as he fell. He saw the slim little figure he
had been carrying shot over his shoulder, lifted from
behind by the wave, and flung clear of its direct impact
on the beach, and he heard his mind say, " That won't
hurt him."
Then he felt something stupendous, as heavy as the
world, strike him on the back. After that he felt
nothing more at all.
* * * * *
As dusk was closing in Nadine sat in the window of
her big black-painted sitting-room, where so many
well-attended sessions had been held. Hugh had been
226 DODO THE SECOND
in the surgeon's hands since they carried him in, and
all that could be done had been done. Afterwards,
Nadine had seen the surgeon, and learned from him all
there was to fear and the little there was to hope for. It
was possible that Hugh might not live till the morning,
but simply pass away from the shock of his injuries.
On the other hand, his splendid constitution might
pull him through that. But given that he lived
through the immediate danger, it was doubtful if he
could ever lead an active life again. The boy he had
saved was practically unhurt, and was fast asleep.
Nadine sat there very quiet both in mind and body.
She did not want to rave or rebel, she merely let her
mind sit as it were, in front of these things, and con-
template them, like a picture, until they became familiar.
She felt they were not familiar yet ; though she knew
them to be true, they were somehow unreal and
incredible. She did not yet grasp them ; it seemed to
her that her mind was stunned and was incapable of
apprehending them. So she had to keep her attention
fixed on them, until they became real. Yet she found
it difficult to control her mind ; it kept wandering off
into concentric circles round the centre of the only
significant thing in the world. . . .
Out on the sea the sun had set, and there were
cloud-bars of fading crimson on the horizon level
across a field of saffron yellow. This yellow toned
off into pale watery green, and high up in the middle
of that was one little cloud like an island that still
blazed in the sunlight of the upper air. Somehow
that aroused a train of half-forgotten reminiscences.
There had been a patch of sunlight once like an island,
on the grey of the sea it was connected with a picture
yes, it was a sketch which Esther had made for
Hugh, and she had put in the island reluctantly, saying
it looked unreal in nature and would be worse in art.
But Hugh had wanted it there, and as Esther worked,
she herself had walked with him along the beach from
DODO THE SECOND 227
which he had been carried up to-day, and she had
told him that he lived in unrealities, and pictured to
himself that some day he and she would live on some
golden sunlit island together. She remembered it all
now /
Her mind came back to the centre, and started off
again on that splendid deed of the morning. She had
quite lost her head when she called out, " No, Hughie,
not you ! " It must have been Hugh to do it, no one
else could have done it. The idea of Berts or Seymour
wrestling with and overcoming that mountainous and
maddened sea was unthinkable. Only Hugh could
have done it, and the deed was as much part of him
as his brown eyes or his white strong teeth. And if
at the end the sea had flung him down and broken him,
that was after he had laughed at the peril and snatched
its prey out of its very jaws of death. Even as things
were now with him, Nadine could not regret what he
had done, and if tune had run back, and she saw
him again plunging into that riot and turmoil, she
felt that she would not now cry out to him like that.
She would have called God-speed to him instead.
Once again her mind rippled away from its centre.
She had called out to Seymour or Berts to go. At the
time it had been quite instinctive, but she saw now
what had prompted her instinct. She meant though
then she did not know she meant it that she could
spare anyone but Hugh. That was what it came to,
and she wondered if Hugh had understood that. Sey-
mour, without doubt, must have done so ; he was so
clever. Probably he would tell her he understood, and
ask her if it was not that which was implied. But all
such considerations seemed to her to matter very little.
There was only one thing that mattered, and that was
not whether Hugh lived or died even, but simply the
fact of Hugh.
Her mother had telegraphed that she was coming
at once ; and Nadine remembering that she had not
228 DODO THE SECOND
told the servants, got up and rang the bell. But before
it was answered there came an interruption for which
she had been waiting. One of the two nurses whom
the surgeon from Chester had brought with him,
knocked at her door. She had been tidying up, and
removing all traces of what had been done.
" The room is neat again now," she said, " and you
may come and just look at him."
" Is he conscious or in pain ? " asked Nadine.
" No ; but he may regain consciousness at any
time, though I don't think he will have any pain."
They went together up the long silent passages in
which there hung that curious hush which settles
down on a house when death is hovering by it, and
came to his door which stood ajar. Then from some
sudden qualm and weakness of flesh, Nadine halted,
shrinking from entering.
" Do not come unless you feel up to it," said Nurse
Bryerley. " But there is nothing that will shock
you."
Nadine hesitated no more, but entered.
They had carried him, not to his own room, but to
another with a dressing-room adjoining. His bed
stood along the wall to the left of the door, and he
lay on his back with his head a little sideways towards
it. There was nothing in the room that suggested
illness, and when Nadine looked at his face there was
nothing there that suggested it either. His eyes were
closed, but his face was as untroubled as that of some
quiet sleeper. In the wall opposite were the western-
looking windows and the room was lit only by
that fast-fading splendour. The cloud-island still
hung in the sky, but it had turned grey as the light
left it.
Then even as Nadine looked at him, his eyes opened
and he saw her.
"Nadine," he said.
The nurse stepped to the bedside.
DODO THE SECOND 229
" Ah, you axe awake again," she said. " How do
you feel ? "
" Rather tired. But I want to speak to Nadine."
" Yes, you can speak to her," she said, and signed to
the girl to come.
Nadine came across the room to him, and knelt
down.
" Oh, Hughie," she said, " well done ! "
He looked at her, puzzled for the moment, with
troubled eyes.
" You said that before," he said. " It was the last
thing you said. Why did you oh, I remember now.
Yes, what a bang I came. How's the little fellow,
the one on my back ? "
" Quite unhurt, Hughie. He is asleep."
" I thought he wouldn't be hurt. It was the best
plan I could think of. I say, why did you call to me
not to go at first ? I had to."
" I know now you had to," said she.
" I want to ask you something else. How badly
am I hurt ? "
Nadine looked up at the nurse a moment, who nodded
to her. She understood exactly what that meant.
" You are very badly hurt, dear Hughie," she said,
" but, but it is worth it fifty tunes over."
Hugh was silent a moment.
" Am I going to die ? " he asked.
Nadine did not need instruction about this.
" No, a thousand times, no," she said. " You're
going to get quite well. But you must be patient and
rest and sleep."
Nadine's throat grew suddenly small and aching,
and she could not find her voice for a moment.
' You are quite certainly going to live," she said.
" To begin with I can't spare you."
Hugh's eyelids fluttered and quivered.
" By Jove ! " he said, and next moment they had
quite closed.
230 DODO THE SECOND
The nurse signed to Nadine to get up and she rose
very softly and tiptoed away. At the door she looked
round once at Hugh, but already he was asleep. Then
still softly she came back and kissed him on the fore-
head and was gone again.
She had been with him but a couple of minutes, but
as she went back to her room, she heard the stir of
arrival in the hall, and went down. Dodo had that
moment arrived.
" Nadine, my dear," she said, " I started the moment
I got your telegram. Tell me all you can. How is
he ? How did it happen ? You only said he had had
a bad accident, and that you wanted me."
Nadine kissed her.
" Oh Mamma," she said. " Thank God it wasn't an
accident. It was done on purpose. He meant it just
like that. But you don't know anything, I forgot.
Will you come to my room ? "
" Yes, let us go. Now tell me at once."
" We have had a frightful gale," she said, " and this
morning Hughie saw a fishing boat close in land, driv-
ing on to the reef. There was just one shrimp of a boy
on it, and Hughie went straight hi, like a duck to water,
and got him off and swam back with him. There was
a rope and Seymour and Berts pulled him in. And
when they got close in, Hughie put the boy on his back
oh Mamma, thank God for men like that and the
breakers banged him down on the beach, and the boy
was unhurt. And Hughie may die very soon, or he
may live "
Nadine's voice choked for a moment. All day she
had not felt a sob rise in her throat.
" And if he lives," she said, " he may never be able
to walk again, and I love him."
Then came the tempest of tears, tears of joy and
sorrow, a storm of them, fruitful as autumn rain, fruit-
ful as the sudden deluges of April, with God knows what
DODO THE SECOND 231
warmth of sun behind. The drought of summer in
her, the ice of winter in her had broken up in the rain
that makes the growth and the life of the world. The
frozen ground melted under it, the soil cracked with
drought drank it in ; the parody of life that she had
lived became the farce that preceded sweet serious
drama, tragedy it might be, but something human. . . .
And Dodo, woman also, understood that ; she too had
lived years that parodied herself, and knew what the
awakening to womanhood was, and the immensity of
that unsuspected kingdom. It had come late to her,
to Nadine early : some were almost born in conscious-
ness of their birthright, others died without realizing
it. So, mother and daughter, they sat there in silence,
while Nadine wept her fill.
" It was the splendidest adventure," she said, at
length lifting her head. " It was all so gay. He
shouted to that little boy in the boat to encourage him
to cling on, and oh, those damned reefs were so close.
And when they rode in, Hughie like a horse with a child
on his back over that that precipice, he said something
again to encourage him."
Nadine broke down again for a moment.
" Hughie has never thought about himself at all,'*
she said. " He used always to think about me. But
when he went on his adventure he didn't think about
me. He thought only of that little stupid boy, God
bless him. And, oh Mamma, I gave myself away
I got down to the beach just before Hughie went in,
and I lost my head and I screamed out : ' Not you,
Hughie; Seymour, Berts, anybody, but not you.' It
wasn't I who screamed ; something inside me screamed,
and that which screamed was was my love for Hughie,
and I never knew of it. But inside me something
swelled, and it burst. Yes ; Hughie heard, I am sure,
and Seymour heard, and I don't care at all."
Nadine sat up, with a sort of unconscious pride in her
erectness.
232 DODO THE SECOND
" I saw him just now," she said, " and he quite knew
me, and asked if he was going to die. I told him he
certainly was not, as I couldn't spare him."
Nadine gave her little croaking laugh.
" And he instantly went to sleep," she said.
The veracious historian is bound to state that this
was an adventure absolutely after Dodo's heart. All
her life she had loved impulse, and disregarded its
possibly appalling consequences. Never had she
reasoned before she acted, and she could almost have
laughed for joy at those blind strokes of fate. Hugh's
splendid venture thrilled her, even as it thrilled Nadine,
and for the moment the result seemed negligible. A
great thing had " got done " in the world ; now by all
means let them hope for the best in its sequel, and do
their utmost to bring about the best, not with a fainting
or regretful heart, but with a heart that rejoiced and
sang over the glory of the impetuous deed that brought
about these dealings of love and life.
Dodo's eyes danced as she spoke, danced and were
dim at the same time.
" Oh, Nadine, and you saw it ! " she said. " How
glorious for you to see that, and to know at the same
moment that you loved him. And, my dear, if Hughie
is to die, you must thank God for him without any
regret . There is nothing to regret . And if he lives ' '
" Oh, Mamma, one thing at a time," said Nadine.
" If he only lives, if only I am going to be allowed to
take care of him, and to do what can be done."
She paused a moment.
" I am so glad you have come," she said, " it was
dear of you to start at once like that. Did Papa Jack
want you not to go ? "
" My dear, he hurried me off to that extent that I
left behind the only bag that mattered."
" That was nice of him. They have been so hope-
less, all of them here, because they didn't understand.
DODO THE SECOND 233
Berts has been looking like a funeral all day, the sort
with plumes. And Edith has been running in and out
with soup for me, soup and mince and glasses of port.
I think I think Seymour understood though, because
he was quite cheerful and normal. Oh Mamma,
if Hughie only lives, I will marry Seymour as a thank-
offering."
Dodo looked at her daughter in amazement.
" Not if Seymour understands," she said.
Nadine frowned.
" It's the devil's own mess," she observed.
" But the devil never cleans up his messes," said
Dodo. " That's what we learn by degrees. He makes
them, and we clean them up. More or less that is to
say."
She paused a moment, and flung the spirit of her
speech from her.
" I don't mean that," she said. " The opposite
is the truth, for God makes beautiful things, and we
spoil them. And then He makes them beautiful again.
It is only people who can't see at all, that see the other
aspect of it. I think they call them realists I know
it ends in ' ist.' But it doesn't matter what you call
them. They are wrong. We have got to hold our
hearts high, and let them beat, and let ourselves enjoy
and be happy and taste things to the full. It is easier
to be miserable, my dear, for most people. We are the
lucky ones. Oh, if I had been a charwoman, like that
thing in the play, with a husband who stole and was
sent to prison, I should have found something to be
happy about. Probably a large diamond in the grate,
which I should have sold without being traced."
These remarkable statements were not made without
purpose. Dodo knew quite well that courage and
patience and cheerfulness would be needed by Nadine,
and she was willing to talk the most outrageous nonsense
to give the sense of vitality to her, to make her see that
no great happening like this, whatever the end, was a
234 DODO THE SECOND
thing to moan and brood over. It must be taken with
much more than resignation a quality which she
despised and with hardly less than gaiety. Such at
any rate was her private human gospel, which she found
had not served her so badly.
" I have quite missed my vocation," she said. " I
ought to have been born in poverty-stricken and
criminal classes to show the world that being hungry
does not make you unhappy any more than having
three diamond tiaras makes you happy. You've
got the birthright of happiness, Nadine; don't sell
it for any sort of pottage. Never anticipate trouble,
but if it conies embrace and welcome it ; it is
part of life, and thus it becomes your friend. Oh, I
wish I had been here this morning ! I would have
shouted for glee to see that darling Hughie go churning
out to sea. I am jealous of you. Just think ; if
Papa Jack had come a-wooing of you, as I really
thought he might be doing in the summer, you would
have married him, and I should be looking after Hughie.
Isn't that like me ? I want everybody's good times
myself."
These amazing statements were marvellously suc-
cessful.
" I won't give my good time away even to you,"
said Nadine.
" No, you are sharper than a serpent's tooth. Now,
darling, we will go very quietly along the passage, and
just see if Hughie is asleep. I should so like to wake
him up I know he is asleep in order to tell him how
splendid it all is. Don't be frightened ; I'm not going
to. We will just go to the door, and that enormous
nurse, whom I saw peering over the banisters, will
tell us to go away. And then I shall go to dress for
dinner, and you will too "
" Oh Mamma, I can't come down to dinner," said
Nadine.
" Yes, dear, you can and you will. There's going
DODO THE SECOND 235
to be no sadness in my house. If you don't, I shall
send Edith up to you with mince and her 'cello and
soup. Oh, Nadine, and it was all just for a little stupid
boy, who very likely would have been better dead.
He will now probably grow up, and be an anxiety to
his parents, if he's got any they usually haven't
and came to a bad and early end. What a great
world ! "
CHAPTER XII
NADINE enquired at Hugh's door again that night
before she went to bed, and found that he was still
asleep. She had promised her mother not to sit up,
but as she undressed she almost smiled at the useless-
ness of going to bed, so impossible did it seem that
sleep should come near her. Besides, it was quite
possible, she knew, that before morning she would
be called to see Hugh once more, and for the last
time. . . . After her one outburst of crying, she
had felt no further agitation, for something so big
and so quiet had entered her heart that all poignancy
of anxiety and suspense were powerless to disturb it.
As has been said, it was scarcely even whether
Hugh lived or died that mattered ; the only thing
that mattered was Hugh. Had she been compelled
to say whether she believed he would live or not,
she would have given the negative. And yet there
was a quality of peace in her that could not be
shaken. It was a peace that humbled and exalted her.
It wrapped her round very close, and yet she looked up
to it, as to a mountain-peak on which dawn has broken.
Despite her conviction that sleep was impossible,
she had hardly closed her eyes, when it embraced and
swallowed up all her consciousness. This cyclone of
emotion, in the centre of which dwelt the windless
calm, had utterly tired her out, though she was unaware
of fatigue, and her rest was dreamless. Then suddenly
she knew that there was light in the room, and
that she was being spoken to, and she passed from
236
DODO THE SECOND 237
unconsciousness back to the full possession of her
faculties, as swiftly as they had been surrendered.
She found Dodo bending over her.
" Come, my darling," she said.
Nadine had no need to ask any question, but as she
put on her slippers and dressing-gown Dodo spoke
again.
" He has been awake for an hour and asking for
you," she said. " The nurse and the doctor are with
him ; they think you had better come. It is possible
that if he sees you there, he may go off to sleep again.
But it is possible you are not afraid, darling ? "
Nadine's mouth quivered into something very like
a smile.
" Afraid of Hughie ? " she asked.
They went up the stairs, and along the passage
together. The moon that last night had been hidden
by the tempest of storm-clouds, or perhaps blown
away from the sky by the hurricane, now rode high
and cloudlessly amid a multitude of stars. No wind
moved across those ample floors ; only from the beach
they heard the plunge and thunder of the sea that
could not so easily resume its tranquility. The moon-
light came through the window of Hugh's room also,
making on the floor a shadow-map of the bars.
He was lying again with his face towards the door,
but now his eyes were vacantly open, and his whole
face had changed. There was an agony of weariness
over it, and from his eyes there looked out a dumb
unavailing rebellion. Before they had got to the door
they had heard a voice inside speaking, a voice that
Nadine did not recognise. It kept saying over and over
again : " Nadine, Nadine."
As she came across the room to the bed, he looked
straight at her, but it was clear he did not see her, and
the monotonous unrecognisable voice went on saying :
" Nadine, Nadine."
The doctor was standing by the head of the bed,
238 DODO THE SECOND
looking intently at Hugh, but doing nothing ; the
nurse was at the foot.
He signed to Nadine to come, and took a step to-
wards her.
" You've got to make him feel you are here," he
said. Then with his hand he beckoned to the nurse
and to Dodo, to stand out of sight of Hugh, so that
by chance he might think himself alone with the girl.
Nadine knelt down on the floor, so that her face was
close to those unseeing eyes, and the mouth that
babbled her name. And the great peace was with her
still. She spoke in her ordinary natural voice without
tremor.
" Yes, Hughie, yes," she said. " Don't go on calling
me. Here I am. What's the use of calling now ?
I came as soon as I knew you wanted me."
" Nadine, Nadine," said Hughie, in the same un-
meaning monotone.
" Hughie, you are quite idiotic ! " she said. " As
if you didn't know in your own heart that I would
always come when you wanted me. I always would,
my dear. You need never be afraid that I shall leave
you. I am yours, don't you see ? "
" Nadine, Nadine," said Hugh.
Nadine's whole soul went into her words.
" Hughie, you are not with me yet," she said. " I
want you, too, and I mean to have you. I didn't
know till to-day that I wanted you, and now I can't
do without you. Hughie, do you hear ? " she said.
There was dead silence. Then Hugh gave a great sigh.
" Nadine ! " he said. But it was Hugh's own voice
that spoke.
She bent forward.
" Oh, Hughie, you have come then," she said.
" Welcome. You don't know how I wanted you."
" Yes ; I'm here all right," said Hugh, in a voice
scarcely audible. " But I'm so tired. It's horrible ;
it's like death ! "
DODO THE SECOND 239
Nadine gave her little croaking laugh.
" It isn't like anything of the kind," she said. " But,
of course, you are tired. Wouldn't it be a good thing
to go to sleep ? "
" I don't know," said Hugh.
" But I do. I'm tired too, Hughie, awfully tired.
If I leaned my head back against your bed I should
go to sleep too."
" Nadine, it is you ? " said Hugh.
" Oh, my dear ! What other girl could be with
you ? "
" No, that's true. Nadine, would it bore you to
stop with me a bit ? We might talk afterwards, when
when you've had a nap."
" That will be ripping," said Nadine, assuming a
sleepy voice.
There was silence for a little. Then once again, but
in his own voice Hugh spoke her name. This time
she did not answer, and she felt his hand move till it
rested against her hair.
Then in the silence Nadine became conscious of
another noise regular and slow as the faint hoarse
thunder of the sea, the sound of quiet breathing. After
a while the doctor came round the head of the bed.
" We can manage to wrap you up, and make you
fairly comfortable," he whispered. " I think he has
a better chance of sleeping if you stop there."
The light and radiance in Nadine's eyes was a miracle
of beauty, like some enchanted dawn rising over a
virgin and unknown land. She smiled her unmistak-
able answer, but did not speak, and presently Dodo
returned with pillows and blankets, which she spread
over her and folded round her.
" The nurse will be in the next room," said the
doctor, " call her if anything is wanted."
Dodo and the doctor went back to their rooms, and
Nadine was left alone with Hugh. That night was
birth-night and bridal-night of her soul ; there was it
240 DODO THE SECOND
born, and through the long hours of the winter night
it watched beside its lover and its beloved, in that
stillness of surrender to and absorption in another that
lies beyond and above the unrest of passion, amid the
snows and sunshine of the most ultimate regions to
which the human spirit can aspire. - She knew nothing
of the passing of the hours, nor for a long time did any
thought or desire of sleep come near her eyelids, but
the dim moon became to her the golden island of which
once, in uncomprehending mockery she had spoken
to Hugh. She knew it to be golden now, and so far
from being unreal, there was nothing in her experience
so real as it.
She could just turn her head without disturbing
Hugh's hand that lay on her plaited hair, and from
time to time she looked round at him. His face still
wore the sunken pallor of exhaustion, but as his sleep,
so still and even-breathing, began to restore the low
ebb of his vital force, it seemed to Nadine that the
darkness of the valley of the shadow to the entrance of
which he had been so near, cleared off his face as
eclipse passes from the moon. How near he had been,
she guessed, but it seemed to her that for the present
his face was set the other way. She knew, too, that it
was she who had had the power to make him look life-
wards again, and the knowledge filled her with a thrill
of abasing pride. He had answered to her voice when
he was past all other voices, and had come back in
obedience to it.
She did not, and she could not be troubled with
the thought of anything else besides the fact that
Hugh lived. As far as was known yet, he might never
recover his activity and movement again, and years
of crippled life might be all that lay in front of him,
but in the passing away of the immediate imminent
fear, she could not weigh or even consider what that
would mean. Similarly the thought of Seymour lay
for the present outside the focus of her mind ;
DODO THE SECOND 241
everything but the fact that Hugh lived was blurred
and had wavering outlines. As the hours went on the
oblongs of moonshine on the floor moved across the
room, narrowing as they went. Then the moon sank
and the velvet of the cloudless sky grew darker, and
the stars more luminous. One great planet, tremulous
and twinkling made a glory beside which all the lesser
lights paled into insignificance. No wind stirred in
the great halls of the night, the moans and yells of its
unquiet soul were still, and the boom of the surf grew
ever less sonorous, like the thunder of a retreating
storm. Occasionally the night-nurse appeared at the
door- way of the room adjoining, and as often Nadine
looked up at her smiling. Once very softly, she came
round the head of the bed, and looked at Hugh, then
bent down towards the girl.
" Won't you get some sleep ? " she said, and Nadine
made a little gesture of raised eyebrows and parted
hands that was characteristic of her.
" I don't know," she whispered. " Perhaps not. I
don't want to."
Then her solitary night vigil began again, and it
seemed to her that she would not have bartered a
minute of it for the best hour that her life had known
before. The utter peace and happiness of it grew as
the night went on, for still close to her head there came
the regular uninterrupted breathing, and the weight,
just the weight of a hand absolutely relaxed lay on
her hair. Not the faintest stir of movement other
than those regular respirations came from the bed, and
all the laughter and joy of which her days had been
full, was as the light of the remotest of stars compared
to the glorious planet that sang in the windless sky,
when weighed against the joy that that quiet breathing
gave her. She did not colour her consciousness with
hope, she did not illuminate it by prayer ; there was
no room in her mind for anything except the knowledge
that Hugh slept and lived.
242 DODO THE SECOND
It was now near the dawning of the winter day ;
the stars were paling, and the sky grew ensaffroned
with the indescribable hue that heralds day. Foot-
falls, muffled and remote began to stir in the house,
and far away there came the sound of crowing cocks,
faint but exultant, hailing the dawn. About that time,
Nadine looked round once more at Hugh, and saw in
the pallid light of morning that the change she had
noticed before was more distinct. There had come
back to his face something of the firm softness of youth,
there had been withdrawn from it the droop and hard-
ness of exhaustion. And turning again, she gave one
sigh and fell fast asleep.
Lover and beloved they lay there sleeping, while the
dawn brightened in the sky, she leaning against the
bed where he was stretched, he with his hand on her
hair. And strangely, the moment that she slept, their
positions seemed to be reversed, and Hugh in his sleep
appeared unconsciously to keep watch and guard over
her, though all night she had been awake for him.
Once her head slipped an inch or two, so that his hand
no longer lay on her hair, but it seemed as if that move-
ment reached down to him fathom-deep in his slumber
and immediately afterwards his hand, which had lain
so motionless and inert all night, moved, as if to a
magnet, after that bright hair, seeking and finding it
again. And dawn brightened into day, and the sun
leaped up from his lair in the East, and still Nadine
slept, and Hugh slept. It was as if until then the
balance of vitality had kept the girl awake to pour
into him of her superabundance ; now she was drained,
and sleep with the level stroke of his soft hand across
the furrows of trouble and the jagged edges of injury
and exhaustion comforted both alike,
It had been arranged after these events of storm
that the party should disperse, and Dodo went to early
breakfast downstairs with her departing guests, who
were leaving soon after. But first she went into the
DODO THE SECOND 243
nurse's room, next door to where Hugh lay, to make
enquiries, and was taken by her to look into the sick-
room. With daylight their sleep seemed only to have
deepened ; it was like the slumber of lovers who have
been long awake in passion of mutual surrender, and
at the end have fallen asleep like children, with mere
effacement of consciousness. Nadine's head was a
little bowed forward, and her breath came not more
evenly than his. It was the sleep of childlike content
that bound them both, and bound them together.
Dodo looked long, and then with redoubled pre-
caution moved softly into the nurse's room again, with
mouth quivering between smiles and tears.
" My dear, I never saw anything so perfectly sweet,"
she said. " Do let them have their sleep out, nurse.
And Nadine has slept in Hugh's room all night ! What
ducks ! Please God it shall so often happen again !
Nurse Bryerley was not unsympathetic, but she felt
that explanations were needed.
" I understood the young lady was engaged to some-
one else," she said.
Dodo smiled.
*' But until now no one has quite understood the
young lady," she said. " Least of all, has she
understood herself. I think she will find that she is
less mysterious now."
" Mr. Graves will have to take some nourishment
soon," said Nurse Bryerley.
Dodo considered.
" Then could you not give him his nourishment very
cautiously, so that he will go to sleep again after-
wards ? " she asked. " I should like them to sleep
all day like that. But then, you see, nurse, I am a very
odd woman. But don't disturb them till you must.
I think their souls are getting to know each other.
That may not be scientific nursing, but I think it is
sound nursing."
" Certainly the young lady was awake till nearly
244 DODO THE SECOND
dawn," said Nurse Bryerley. " It wouldn't hurt her
to have a good rest."
Dodo beamed.
" Oh, leave them as long as possible," she said.
" You have no idea how it warms my heart. There
will be trouble enough when they wake."
Seymour was among those who were going by the
early train, and when Dodo came down he had finished
breakfast. He got up just as she entered.
" How is he ? " he asked.
Dodo's warm approbation went out to him.
" It was nice of you to ask that first, dear Seymour,"
she said. " He is asleep ; he has slept all night."
Seymour lit a cigarette.
" I asked that first," he said, " because it was a
mixture of politeness and duty to do so. I suppose
you understand."
Dodo took the young man by the arm.
" Come out and talk to me in the hall," she said.
" Bring me a cup of tea."
The morning sunshine flooded the window-seat by
the door, and Dodo sat down there for one moment's
thought before he joined her. But she found that no
thought was necessary. She had absolutely made up
her mind as to her own view of the situation, and with
all the regrets in the world for him, she was prepared to
support it. In a minute Seymour joined her.
" Nadine came down to the beach just before Hugh
went in yesterday morning," he said, " and she called
out called ? shouted out : ' Not you Hughie ;
Seymour, Berts, anybody, but not you.' There was
no need for me to think what that meant."
Dodo looked at him straight.
" No, my dear, there was no need," she said.
" Then I have been a a farcical interlude," said he,
not very kindly. " You managed that farcical inter-
lude, you know. You licensed it, so to speak, like the
censor of plays."
DODO THE SECOND 245
" Yes, I licensed it ; you are quite right. But, my
dear, I didn't license it as a farce ; there you wrong
me, I licensed it as what I hoped would be a very
pleasant play. You must be just, Seymour ; you
didn't love her then, nor she you. You were good
friends, and there was no shadow of a reason to suppose
that you would not pass very happy times together.
The great love, the real thing, is not given to everybody.
But when it comes, we must bow to it. ... It is
royal."
All his flippancy and quickness of wit had gone from
him. Neat conversation remained only because it was
a habit.
" And I am royal," he said. " I love Nadine like
that."
" Then you know that when that regality comes,"
she said quickly, " it comes without your control.
It is the same with Nadine ; it is by no wish of her that
it came."
*' I must know that from Nadine," he said. " I
can't take your word for it, or anybody's except hers.
She made a promise to me."
" She cannot keep it," said Dodo. " It is an im-
possibility for her. She made it under different con-
ditions, and you put your hand to it under the same.
And Nadine said you understood, and behaved so
delightfully yesterday. All honour to you, since behind
your behaviour there was that knowledge, that
royalty."
" I had to. But don't think I abdicated. But she
was in terrible distress, and really, Aunt Dodo, the
rest of your guests were quite idiotic. Berts looked
like a frog ; he had the meaningless pathos of a frog
on his silly face "
" Nadine said he looked like a funeral with plumes,"
Dodo permitted herself to interpolate.
" More like a frog. Edith kept pouring out glasses
of port to take to Nadine, but I think she usually
246 DODO THE SECOND
forgot and drank them herself. It was a lunatic asylum.
But Nadine felt."
" Ah, my dear," said Dodo, with a movement of her
hand on to his.
Seymour quietly disengaged his own.
" Very gratifying," he said : " but as I said, I take
nobody's word for it, except Nadine's. She has got to
tell me herself. Where is she ? I have to go in five
minutes, but to see her will still leave me four to spare.
Dodo got up.
" You shall see her," she said. " But come quietly
because she is asleep."
" If she is only to talk to me in her sleep " began he.
" Come quietly," said Dodo.
But all her pity was stirred, and as they went along
the passage to Hugh's room, she slipped her arm into
his. She knew that her coup was slightly theatrical,
but there seemed no better way of showing him. It
might fail : he might still desire explanations, but it
was worth trying.
" And remember I am sorry," she said, " and be
sure that Nadine will be sorry."
" Riddles," said Seymour.
" Yes, my dear, riddles if you will," said she. " But
you may guess the answer."
Dodo quietly turned the handle of the door into the
nurse's room, and entered with her arm still in his.
She made a sign of silence, and took Seymour straight
through into the sick-room. All was as she had left
it a quarter-of-an-hour ago ; Nadine still slept and
Hugh, in that same attitude of security and love.
Her head was drooped, she slept as only children and
lovers sleep. But Dodo with all her intuition did not
see as much as Seymour, who loved her, saw. The
truth of it was branded into his brain, whereas it only
shone in hers. She saw the situation ; he felt it.
Then with a signal of pressure on his arm, she led
him out again.
DODO THE SECOND 247
" She has been there all night," she said. " She
only fell asleep at dawn."
They were in the passage again before Seymour
spoke.
" There is no need for me to awake her or talk to her,"
he said. " You were quite right. And I congratulate
you on your ensemble. I should have guessed that it
required most careful rehearsal. And I should have
been wrong. And now, for God's sake, don't be kind
and tender "
He took his arm away from hers, feeling for her the
mere resentment that he might feel against the foot-
man who conveyed cold soup to him. He did not
want the footman's sympathy nor did he want
Dodo's.
" And spare me your optimism," he said. " If you
tell me it is all for the best, I shall scream. It isn't
for the best, as far as I am concerned. It is damned
bad. I was a Thing, and Nadine made a man of me.
Now she is tired of her handiwork, and says that I shall
be a Thing again. And don't tell me I shall get over
it. The fact that I know I shall makes your informa-
tion, which was on the tip of your tongue, wanton and
superfluous. But if you think I shall love Hugh,
because he loves Nadine, you are utterly astray. I am
not a child in a Sunday school, letting the teacher
smack both sides of my face. I hate Hugh, and I am
not the least touched by the disgusting spectacle you
have taken me on tiptoe to see. They looked like two
amorous monkeys in the monkey-house "
Seymour suddenly paused and gasped.
" They didn't," he said. " At any rate Nadine looked
as I have often pictured her looking. The difference
is that it was myself, not Hugh, beside whom I imagined
her falling asleep. That makes a lot of difference if
you happen to be the person concerned. And now I
hope the motor is ready to take me away, and many
thanks for an absolutely damnable visit. Don't look
248 DODO THE SECOND
pained. It doesn't hurt you as much as it hurts me.
There is a real cliche to finish with."
Dodo's coup had been sufficiently theatrical to satisfy
her, but she had not reckoned with the possible savage-
ness that it might arouse. Seymour's temper, as well
as his love, was awake, and she had not thought of the
two as being at home simultaneously, but had imagined
they played Box and Cox with each other in the minds
of men. Here Box and Cox met, and they were hand-
in-hand. He was convinced and angry ; she had
imagined he would be convinced and pathetic. With
that combination she had felt herself perfectly com-
petent to deal. But his temper roused hers.
" You are at last interesting," she said briskly,
" and I have enjoyed what you call your damnable
visit as much as you. You seem to have behaved
decently yesterday, but no doubt that was Nadine's
mistake."
" Not at all ; it was mine," he said.
" Which you now recognise," said she. " I am afraid
you must be off, if you want to catch your train.
Good-bye."
" Good-bye," said he.
He turned from her at the top of the stairs, and went
down a half-dozen of them. Then suddenly he turned
back again.
" Don't you see I'm in hell ? " he said.
Dodo entirely melted at that, and ran down the stairs
to him.
" Oh, Seymour, my dear," she said. " A woman's
pity can't hurt you. Do accept it."
She drew that handsome tragical face towards her,
and kissed him.
" Do you mind my kissing you ? " she said.
41 There's my heart behind it. There is, indeed."
" Thanks, Aunt Dodo," he said. " And and you
might tell Nadine I saw her like that. I am not so
very stupid. I understand ; good-bye.'*
DODO THE SECOND 249
" And Hugh ? " she asked, quite unwisely, but in
that optimistic spirit that he had deprecated.
" Don't strain magnanimity," he said. " Its quality
is not strained. I said good-bye. Say good-bye to
Nadine for me. Say I saw her asleep, and didn't
disturb her. I never thought much of her intelligence,
but she may understand that. She will have to tell me
what she means to do. That I require. At present
our wedding-day is fixed."
Seymour broke off suddenly and ran downstairs
without looking back.
Dodo was quite sincerely very sorry for him, but
almost the moment he had gone she ceased altogether
to think about him, for there was so many soul-
absorbing topics to occupy her, and forgetting she had
had no breakfast, she went to Edith's room (Edith
alone had not the slightest intention of going away)
to discuss them. Her optimism was quite incurable :
she could not look on the darker aspect of affairs for
more than a minute or two. She found Edith break-
fasting in bed, with a large fur-cape flung over her
shoulders. Her breakfast had been placed on a table
beside her, but for greater convenience she had dis-
posed the plates round her, on her counterpane. There
were also disposed there sheets of music-paper a pen
and ink-bottle, and a box of cigarettes. The window
was wide open, and as Dodo entered the draught
caused the music paper to flutter, and Edith laid hasty
restraining hands on it, and screamed with her mouth
full.
" Shut the door quickly ! " she cried. " And then
come and have some breakfast, Dodo. I don't think
I shall get up to-day. I have been composing since
six this morning, and if I get up the thread may be
entirely broken. Beethoven worked at the C Minor
Symphony for three days and nights without eating,
sleeping or washing."
250 DODO THE SECOND
" I see you are eating," remarked Dodo. " I hope
that won't prevent your giving us another C minor."
' The C minor is a much over-rated work," said
Edith, "it is commonplace melodically, and clumsily
handled. If I had composed it, I should not be very
proud of it."
" Which is a blessing you didn't, because then you
would have composed something of which you were not
proud," said Dodo, ringing the bell. " Yes, I shall have
some breakfast with you. Oh, Edith, everything is so
interesting, and Hughie has slept all night, and Nadine
with him. They are sleeping now, Nadine on the floor,
half-sitting up with her head against the bed, looking
too sweet for anything. And poor dear Seymour has just
gone away. I took him in to see them by way of break-
ing it to him. Who could have guessed that he would
fall in love with her ? It is very awkward, for I
thought it would be such a nice, sensible marriage.
And now, of course, there will be no marriage at all."
At this moment the bell was answered, and Edith
in trying to prevent her music-paper from practising
aviation, upset the ink-bottle. Several minutes were
spent in quenching the thirst of sheets of blotting
paper at it, as you water horses when their day's work
is over.
" One of the faults of your mind, Dodo," said Edith,
as this process was going on, " is that you don't con-
centrate enough. You have too many objects in focus
simultaneously. Now my success is due to the fact
that I have only one in focus at a time. For instance,
this Stygian pool of ink does not distress me in the
slightest "
" No, darling, it's not your counterpane," said
Dodo.
" It wouldn't distress me if it was. But if I opened
your mind I should find Hugh's recovery, Nadine's
future, and your baby in about equally vivid colours,
and all in sharp outline. Also you make too many
DODO THE SECOND 251
plans for other people. Do leave something to Provi-
dence now and then."
" Oh, I leave lots," said Dodo. " I only try to
touch up the designs now and then. Providence is
often rather sketchy and unfinished. But yesterday's
design was absolutely wonderful. I can hardly even
be sorry for Hugh."
Edith shook her head.
" You are quite incorrigible," she said. " Provi-
dence sent what was clearly intended to be a terrible
event, but you see all sorts of glories in it. I don't
think it is very polite. It is like laughing at a ghost
story instead of being terrified."
Dodo's breakfast had been brought in, and she fell
to it with an excellent appetite.
" There is nothing like scenes before breakfast to
make one hungry," she said. " Think how hungry a
murderer would be if he was taken out to be hanged
before breakfast, and then given his breakfast after-
wards. I had a scene with Seymour, you know. I
am very sorry for him, but somehow he doesn't seem to
matter. He lost his temper, which I rather respected,
and showed me he had an ideal. That I respect too. I
remember the struggles I used to go through in order
to get one."
" Were they successful ? " asked Edith.
" Only by a process of elimination. I did everything
that I wanted, and found it was a mistake, So, last
of all, I married Jack. What a delightful life I have
led, and how good this bacon is. Don't you think
David is a very nice name ? I am going to call my
baby David."
" It may be a girl," said Edith.
" Then I shall call it Bathsheba," said Dodo without
pause. " Or do I mean Beersheba ? Bath, I think.
Edith, why is it that when I am most anxious and full
of cares, I feel it imperative to talk tommy-rot ? I'm
sure there is enough to worry me into a grave if not a
252 DODO THE SECOND
vault, between Seymour and Nadine and Hugh. But
after all, one needn't worry about Nadine. It is quite
certain that she will do as she chooses, and if she wants
to marry Hugh with both arms in slings, and two
crutches, and a truss and one of those sort of scrapers
under one foot, she certainly will. I brought her up on
those lines, to know her own mind, and then do what
she wanted. It has been a failure hitherto, because she
has never really wanted anything. But now I think
my system of education is going to be justified. I am
also suffering from reaction. Last night I thought our
dear Hughie was dying, and I am perfectly convinced
this morning that he isn't. So too, I am sure, is Nadine :
otherwise she couldn't have fallen asleep like that.
And what Hughie did was so splendid. I am glad God
made men like that, but it doesn't prevent my eating
a huge breakfast and talking rot. I hope you don't
mean to go away. It is so dull to be alone in the
house with two young lovers, even when one adores
them both."
" Aren't you getting on rather quick, Dodo ? "
asked Edith.
" Probably : but Seymour is congedit how do you
say it spun, dismissed, and quite certainly Nadine has
fallen in love with Hugh. There isn't time to be slow,
nowadays. It you are slow you are left gasping on the
beach like a fish. I still swim in the great water
thank God."
Dodo got up, and her mood changed utterly. She
was never other than genuine, but it had pleased
Nature to give her many facets, all brilliant, but all
reflecting different-coloured lights.
" Oh, my dear, life is so short," she said, " and every
moment should be so precious to everybody. I hate
going to sleep, for fear I may miss something. Fancy
waking in the morning and finding you had missed
something, like an earthquake or a suffragette riot !
My days are reasonably full, but I want them to be
DODO THE SECOND 253
unreasonably full. And just now Jack keeps saying
' Do rest ; do lie down ; do have some beef -tea.'
Just as if I didn't know what was good for David !
Edith, he is going to be such a gay dog ! All the girls
and all the women are going to fall desperately in love
with him. He is going to marry when he is thirty, and
not a day before, and he will be absolutely simple and
unspoiled and a wicked little devil on his marriage
morning. And then all his energies will be concentrated
on one point, and that will be his wife. He will utterly
adore her, and think of nobody else except me. I shall
be seventy-five, you perceive, at that time, and so I
shall be easy to please. The older one gets the easier
one is to please. Already little things please me quite
enormously, and big ones, as you also perceive, make
me go off my head. Oh, I am sure heaven will be ex-
tremely nice, if I ever die, which God forbid, but how-
ever nice it is, it won't be the same as this. You agree
there I know ; you want to make all the music you can
first "
" As a protest against what seems to be the music of
heaven," said Edith firmly. " If we may judge by
hymn tunes and chants, and the first act of Parsifal,
and I suppose the last of Faust, and Handel's oratorios,
it is very degrading stuff ; harmonically it is childishly
simple, and the proportion of full closes is nearly
indecent. The idea of putting on a golden crown and
playing that sort of nursery-rhyme for ever and ever
is most depressing. And I want another ink-bottle."
Edith whistled a short phrase on her teeth, as a
gentle hint to her hostess.
" It's for the flutes," she said, " and the 'cellos take
it up two octaves lower."
She grabbed at her music paper.
" Then the horns start it again in the subdominant,"
she said, " and all the silly audience will think they are
merely out of tune. That's because they got what they
didn't expect. To be any good, you must surprise the
254 DODO THE SECOND
ear. I'll surprise them. But I want another ink-
bottle. And may I have lunch in my room, Dodo, if
necessary ? I don't know when I shall be able to get up."
Dodo was not attending in any marked manner.
" We will all do what we choose," she said genially.
" We will be a sort of harmless Medmenham Abbey.
You shall spill all the ink you please, and Nadine shall
marry Hugh, who will get quite well, and I shall go and
order dinner and see if Nadine is awake. I am afraid
I am rather fatuously optimistic this morning, like Mr.
Chesterton, and that is always so depressing, both to
other people at the time, and to oneself subsequently.
Dear me, what a charming world if there was no such
thing as reaction. As a matter of fact I do not ex-
perience much of it."
Edith gave a great sigh of relief as Dodo left the room,
and concentrated herself with singular completeness on
the horn-tune in the subdominant. She was quite
devoted to Dodo, but the horn-tune was in focus just
now, and she knew if Dodo had stopped any longer,
she would have become barely tolerant of her presence.
Shortly afterwards the fresh supply of ink came also,
and Edith proceeded straight up into the seventh
heaven of her own compositions.
Dodo found a packet of letters waiting for her and
among them a telegram from Miss Grantham saying
" Deeply grieved. Can I do anything ? " This she
swiftly answered, replying " Darling Grantie. Nothing
whatever." and went to Nadine's room, where she found
Nadine, half-dressed, rosy from her bath, and radiant
of spirit.
" Oh, Mamma, I never had such a lovely night," she
said. " How delicious it must be to be married ! I
didn't wake till half-an-hour ago, and simultaneously
Hughie woke, which looks as if we suited each other,
doesn't it ? And then the doctor came in, and looked
at him, and said he was much stronger, much fuller of
vitality for his long sleep, and he congratulated me on
DODO THE SECOND 255
having made him sleep. And the nurse told me the
first great danger, that he would not rally after the shock
of the operation, was over. As far as that goes he will
be all right."
Nadine kissed her mother, and clung round her neck,
dewy-eyed.
" I'm not going to think about the future," she said.
" Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof. It is
enough this morning that Hughie has got through the
night and is stronger. If I had been given any wish
to be fulfilled I should have chosen that. And if on
the top of that I had been given another, it would
have been that I should have helped towards it,
which I suppose is the old Eve coming in. I think I
had better finish dressing, Mamma, instead of babbling.
Have you had breakfast ? "
" Yes, dear, I had it with Edith. She is in bed
making tunes and pouring ink over the counterpane,
and not minding."
Nadine's face clouded for a moment, in spite of the
accomplishment of her wishes.
" And then I must see Seymour," she said. " It is
no use putting that off. But, oh, Mamma, to think
that till yesterday I was willing to marry him, with
Hugh in the world all the time. Whatever happens to
Hugh, I can't marry him, Seymour, I mean, if the ridicu-
lous English pronouns admit of any meaning, and I
must tell him."
" Seymour left hali-an-hour ago," said Dodo. " But
there's no need for you to tell him. I took him into
Hugh's room and he saw you asleep. He understands.
He couldn't very well help understanding, darling
he told me he understood before, when you called out
to Hugh not to attempt the rescue. But he only under-
stood it pretty well, as the ordinary person says he
understands French. But when he saw you asleep, not
exactly in Hugh's arms, but sufficiently close, he
understood it like a real native, poor boy ! "
256 DODO THE SECOND
" What did he do ? " asked Nadine.
" He behaved very rightly and properly, and lost his
temper with me, just as I lose my temper with the por-
ter at the station if I miss my train. I had been just
porter to him. He thanked me for a horrid visit, only
he called it damnable, and so I lost my temper, too,
and we had a few flowers of speech on the staircase, not
big ones, but just promising buds. And then, poor
chap, he came back to me, and told me he was in hell,
and I kissed him, and he didn't seem to mind much,
and I suppose he caught his train. Otherwise he would
have been back by now. I'm exceedingly sorry for
him, Nadine, and you must write him a sweet little
letter, which won't do any good at all, but it's one of
the things you have to do. Darling, I wonder if jilting
runs in families like consumption and red faces. You
see I jilted my darling Jack, to marry into your family.
But you must write the sweet little letter I spoke of,
because you are sorry, only you couldn't help it."
" Did you write a sweet little letter under under the
same circumstances to Papa Jack ? " asked Nadine.
" No, dear, because I hadn't got anybody exceedingly
wise to give me that good advice," said Dodo. " Also
because I was a little brute, there is no reason why you
should be."
" Perhaps it runs in the family, too," suggested
Nadine.
" Then the quicker it runs out of the family the
better. Besides you are sorry for Seymour."
Nadine opened her hands wide.
" Am I ? I hope so," she said. " But if you are
quite full of gladness for one thing, Mamma, it is a little
difficult to find a corner for anything else."
Dodo turned to leave the room.
" Anywhere will do. Just under the stairs," she
said. " I don't want you to put it in the middle of
the drawing-room. After all, darling, you propose to
jilt him."
DODO THE SECOND 257
" There's something in that," said Nadine. " Oh,
Mamma, I used not to have any heart at all and now
I've got one, it doesn't belong to me."
" No woman's heart belongs to her " said Dodo.
" If it belongs to her, it isn't a heart."
" I should have thought that nonsense yesterday,"
said Nadine. " Oh, wait while I finish dressing, I
shan't be ten minutes. What meetings we have had
in my lovely black room ! One I remember so par-
ticularly. You and Esther and Berts all lay on the
settee like sardines in evening dresses, and I had just
refused to marry Hugh, who was playing billiards with
Uncle Algy. Somehow the things like love and devo-
tion seemed to me quite old-fashioned, or anyhow they
seemed to me signs of age. They did indeed. I
thought a clear brain was infinitely preferable to a
confused heart, especially if it belonged to somebody
else. I'm not used to it now, Mamma ; it still seems
to me very odd like a hat that doesn't fit. But it's a
fact, and I suppose I shall grow into it, not that anyone
ever grew into a hat. But when Hugh swam out
yesterday morning, something came tumbling down
inside me. Or was it that only something cracked,
like the shell of a nut ? It does not much matter, so
long as it is not mended again. But how queer that it
should happen in a second, like that. I suppose time
has nothing to do with what concerns one's soul. I
believe Plato says something about it. I don't think
I shall look it up. Re wrote wonderfully, but when a
thing happens to oneself, that seems to matter more
than Plato's reflections on the subject."
There was a short pause as Nadine brushed her
teeth, but Dodo sitting on the unslept-in bed, did not
feel inclined to break it. She wondered whether a
particular point in the situation would occur to Nadine,
whether her illumination as regards a woman's heart
threw any light on that very different affair, a man's
heart. She was not left long in doubt. The question
K
258 DODO THE SECOND
of a man's heart was altogether unilluminated, and to
Dodo there was something poignantly pathetic about
Nadine's blissful ignorance. She came and sat down
on the bed close to her mother.
" Hughie will see I love him," she said, " because he
won't be able to help it I shall just wait, oh, so
happily, for him to say again what he has so often
said before. He will know my answer, before I give it
him. I hope he will say it soon. Then we shall be
engaged, and people who are engaged are a little freer,
aren't they, Mamma ? "
Dodo felt incapable of clouding that radiant face,
for she knew in the days that were coming, all its
radiance would be needed : not a single sparkle of
light must be wasted. But it did not seem to her very
likely that Hugh, whose joyous strength and splendid
activity had been so often rejected by Nadine, would
be likely to offer again what would be, in all probability,
but a crippled parody of himself. But her sense of
justice told her that Nadine owed him all the strength
and encouragement her eager vitality could give him.
It was only fair that she should devote herself to him,
and let him feel all the inspiration to live that her care
of him could give him. But it seemed to her very
doubtful if Hugh would consent, even if he perceived
that it was love not warm friendship that she gave
him, to let himself and his crippled body appeal to her.
In days gone by, she would not marry him for love, and
it seemed to Dodo that a real man, as Hugh was,
would not allow her to marry him for pity. He had
offered her his best, and she had refused it ; it would
not be surprising if he refused to offer her his worst.
The joy that had inspired Dodo so that she had
softly melted over the sight of Nadine asleep by
Hugh, and had exultantly mopped up the spilt ink
with Edith suddenly evaporated, leaving her dry and
cold.
"You must wait, Nadine," she said. "You must
DODO THE SECOND 259
make no plans. Give Hughie your vitality, and don't
ask more."
She got up.
" Now, my darling, I shall go downstairs," she said,
" and order your breakfast. You must be hungry.
And then you can say your prayers, and breakfast will
be ready."
Nadine, absorbed in her own thoughts, felt nothing
of this.
" Prayers ? " she said. " Why A was praying all
night till dawn. At least, I was wanting, just wanting,
and not for myself. Isn't that prayers ? "
Dodo loved that : it was exactly what she meant in
her inmost heart by prayers. She drew Nadine to her
and kissed her.
" Darling, you have said enough for a week," she
said, " if not more. And you said them because you
must, which is the only proper plan. If you don't feel
you must say your prayers, it is just as well not to
say them at all. But you shall have breakfast, whether
you feel you must or not. I say you must."
ONE morning a fortnight later, Jack, Dodo, and Edith
were sitting together on the cliff above the bay, looking
down on to the sandy foreshore. Jack, finding that
Dodo was obliged to stop at Meering with Nadine,
had personally abandoned his third shooting-party,
leaving Berts, whom he implicitly trusted to make
himself and everybody else quite comfortable, in charge.
Among the guests was Berts' father, whom Berts
apparently kept in his place. Jack had just told Dodo
and Edith the contents of Berts' letter, received that
morning. All was going very well, but Berts had
arranged that his father should escort two ladies of
the party to see the interesting town of Lichfield one
afternoon, instead of shooting the Warren beat, where
birds came high and Berts' father was worse than
useless. But it was certain that he would enjoy
Lichfield very much, and the shoot would be more
satisfactory without him. If his mother was still at
Meering, Berts sent his love, and knew she would agree
with him.
Edith just now, working her way through the entire
orchestra, was engaged on the cor anglais which, while
Hugh was still so ill, Dodo insisted should not be
played in the house. It gave rather melancholy notes,
and was productive of moisture. But she finished a
passage which seemed to have no end, before she
acknowledged these compliments. Then she emptied
the cor anglais into the heather.
" Poor Bertie is a drone," she said, " he never
260
DODO THE SECOND 261
thinks it worth while to do anything well. Berts is
better : he thinks it worth while to sit on his father
really properly. I thought my energy might wake
Bertie up, and that was chiefly why I married him.
But it only made him go to sleep. Lichfield is about
his level. I don't know anything about Lichfield, and
I don't know much about Bertie. But they seem to
me rather suitable. And much more can be done
with the cor anglais than Wagner ever imagined. The
solo in Tristan is absolute child's play. I could
perform it myself with a week's practice."
Dodo had been engaged in a small incendiary opera-
tion among the heather, with the match with which
she had lit her cigarette. For the moment it seemed
that her incendiarism was going to fulfil itself on
larger lines than she had intended.
" Jack, I have set fire to Wales, like Lloyd George,"
she cried. " Stamp on it with your great feet. What
great large strong feet ! How beautiful are the feet
of them that put out incendiary attempts in Wales !
About Bertie, Edith, if you will stop playing that
lamentable flute for a moment "
" Flute ? " asked Edith.
" Trombone if you like. The point is that your
vitality hasn't inspired Bertie ; it has only drained him
of his. You set out to give him life, and you have
become his vampire. I don't say it was your fault : it
was his misfortune. But Berts is calm enough to keep
your family going. The real question is about mine.
Yes, Jack, that was where Hughie went into the sea,
when the sea was like Switzerland. And those are the
reefs, before which, though it's not grammatical, he
had to reach the boat. He swam straight out from
where your left foot is pointing. A Humane Society
medal came for him yesterday, and Nadine pinned it
on to his bed-clothes. He says it is rot, but I think
he rather likes it. She pinned it on while he wai
asleep, and he didn't know what it meant. He thought
262 DODO THE SECOND
it was the sort of thing that they give to guards of
railway trains. The dear boy was rather confused, and
asked if he had joined the station-masters."
Jack shaded his eyes from the sun.
" And a big sea was running ? " he asked.
" But huge. It broke right up to the cliffs at the
ebb. And into it he went like a duck to water."
Edith got up.
" I have heard enough of Hugh's trumpet blown,"
she said.
" And I have heard enough of the cor anglais," said
Dodo. " Dear Edith, will you go away and play it
there ? You see, darling, Jack came out this morning
to talk to me, and I came out to talk to him. Or we
will go away if you like : the point is that somebody
must."
" I shall go and play golf," said Edith with
dignity. " I may not be back for lunch. Don't wait
for me."
Dodo was roused to reply to this monstrous recom-
mendation.
" If I had been in the habit of waiting for you," she
said, " I should still be where I was twenty years
ago. You are always in a hurry, darling, and never
in time."
" I was in time for dinner last night," said Edith.
" Yes, because I told you it was at eight, when it
was really at half-past."
Edith blew a melancholy minor phrase.
" Leit-motif," she said, " describing the treachery of
a friend."
" Tooty, tooty, tooty," said Dodo cheerfully, " de-
scribing the gay impenitence of the same friend."
Edith exploded with laughter, and put the cor
anglais into its green-baize bag.
" Goodbye," she said, " I forgive you."
" Thanks, darling. Mind you play better than any-
body ever played before, as usual."
DODO THE SECOND 263
" But I do," said Edith passionately.
Dodo leaned back on the springy couch of the
heather as Edith strode down the hillside.
" It's not conceit," she observed, " but conviction
and it makes her so comfortable. I have got a certain
amount of it myself, and so I know what it feels like.
It was dear of you to come down, Jack, and it will be
still dearer of you if you can persuade Nadine to go
back with you to Winston."
" But I don't want to go back to Winston. Any-
how, tell me about Nadine. I don't really know
anything more than that she has thrown Seymour over,
and devotes herself to Hugh."
" My dear, she has fallen head over ears in love with
him."
" You are a remarkably unexpected family," Jack
allowed himself to say.
" Yes : that is part of our charm. T think some-
where deep down she was always in love with him, but,
so to speak, she couldn't get at it. It was like a seam
of gold : you aren't rich until you have got down
through the rock. And Hugh's adventure was a charge
of dynamite to her : it sent the rock splintering in all
directions. The gold lies in lumps before his eyes, but
I am not sure whether he knows it is for him or not.
He can't talk much, poor dear, he is just lying still,
and slowly mending, and very likely he thinks no
more than that she is only very sorry for him, and
wants to do what she can. But in a fortnight from
now comes the date when she was to have married
Seymour. He can't have forgotten that."
" Forgotten ? " asked Jack.
" Yes, he doesn't remember much at present. He
had severe concussion as well as that awful breakage
of the hip."
" Do they think he will recover completely ? " asked
Jack.
264 DODO THE SECOND
"They can't tell yet. His smaller injuries have healed
so wonderfully that they hope he may. They are
more anxious about the effects of the concussion than
the other. He seems in a sort of stupor still ; he recog-
nises Nadine of course, but she hasn't except on that
first night seemed to mean much to him."
" What was that ? "
" He so nearly died then. He kept calling for her
in a dreadful strange voice, and when she came he
didn't know her for a time. Then she put her whole
soul into it, the darling, and made him know her, and
he went to sleep. She slept, or rather lay awake, all
night by his bed. She saved his life, Jack ; they all
said so. She went into the valley of death after him,
and led him back."
" It seems rather perverse to refuse to marry him
when he is sound, and the moment he is terribly
injured to want to," said Jack.
" My darling, it is no use criticising people," said
Dodo, " unless by your criticism you can change them.
Even then it is a great responsibility. But you could
no more change Nadine by criticising her, than you
could change the nature of the wild cat at the Zoo by
sitting down in front of its cage, and telling it you
didn't like its disposition, and that it had not a good
temper. You may take it that Nadine is utterly in
love with him."
" And as he has always been utterly in love with
her, I don't know why you want me to take Nadine
away. Bells and wedding-cake as soon as Hugh can
hobble to church."
" Jackino, you don't see," she said. " If I know
Hughie at all, he won't dream of offering himself to
Nadine until it is certain that he will be an
able-bodied man again. And she is expecting him to,
and is worrying and wondering about it. Also, she is
doing him no good now. It can't be good for an
invalid to have continually before him the girl to whom
DODO THE SECOND 265
he has given his soul, who has persistently refused to
accept it. It is true that they have exchanged souls
now as far as that goes my darling Nadine has so
much the best of the bargain but Hugh has to begin
the the negotiations, and he won't, even if he sees
that Nadine is a willing Barkis, until he knows he has
something more than a shattered unmendable thing
to offer her. Consequently he is silent, and Nadine is
perplexed. I will go on saying it over and over again
if it makes it any clearer, but if you understand, you
may signify your assent in the usual manner. Clap
your great hands and stamp your great feet ; oh,
Jack, what a baby you are ! "
" Do you suppose she will consent to come away ? "
said Jack, coughing a little at the dust his great feet
had raised from the loose soil.
" Yes, if you can persuade her that her presence
isn't good for Hugh. So you will try : that's all right.
Nadine has a great respect for Papa Jack's wisdom,
and I can't think why. I always thought a lot of your
heart, dear, but very little of your head. You mustn't
retort that you never thought much of either of mine,
because it wouldn't be manly, and I should tell you
you were a coward as the Suffragettes do when they
hit policemen in the face."
" And why should it be I to do all this ? " asked
Jack.
" Because you are Papa Jack," said Dodo, " and a
girl listens to a man when she would not heed a woman.
Oh, you might tell her, which is probably true, that
you want somebody to take care of you at Winston.
You could use that to help to preach down a step-
daughter's heart. You must think of these things for
yourself, though, because in my heart I am really
altogether on Nadine's side. I think it is wonderful
that she should now be waiting so eagerly and humbly
for Hugh, poor crippled Hugh, as he at present iSj to
speak. She has chosen the good part like Mary, and
266 DODO THE SECOND
I want you for the present to take it away from her.
It's wiser for her to go, but am I," asked Dodo
dramatically, " to supply the ruthless foe, which is you,
with guns and ammunition against my daughter ? "
' You can't take both sides," remarked Jack.
" Jack, I wish you were a woman for one minute,
just to feel how ludicrous such an observation is. Our
lives not perhaps Edith's are passed in taking both
sides. My whole heart goes out to Hugh, who has
been so punished for his gallant recklessness, and then
the moment I say ' punished ' I think of Nadine's
awakened love and shout, ' No, I meant rewarded.'
Then I think of Nadine, and wonder if I could bear her
being married to a cripple, and simultaneously, now
that she has shown she can love, I cannot bear the
thought of her being married to anybody else. After
all Nelson had only one eye and one arm, and though
he wasn't exactly married to Lady Hamilton, I'm sure
she was divinely happy. But then, best of all, I
think of Hugh making a complete recovery, and once
more coming to Nadine with his great brown doggy
eyes, and telling her. . . . Then for once I don't take
both sides, but only one, which is theirs, and if it
would advance their happiness, . I would even take
away from poor little Seymour his jade and his
Antoinette, which is all that Nadine left him with,
without a single qualm of regret."
"After all she has left him where she found him,"
said Jack, who had rather taken Edith's view about
their marriage. " He had only his Antoinette and his
jade when she accepted him, and until you make a
further raid, he will have them still."
Dodo shook her head.
" Jack, it is rather tiresome of you," she said. " You
are making me begin to have qualms for Seymour. She
found his heart for him, you see, and now having
taken everything out of it, she has gone away again,
leaving him a cupboard as empty as Mother Hubbard's."
DODO THE SECOND 267
" He will put the jade back. And Antoinette," said
Jack hopefully.
Dodo got up.
" That is what I doubt," she said. " Until we have
known a thing, we can't miss it. We only miss it
when we have known it, and it is taken away leaving
the room empty. Then old things won't always go
back into their places again : they look shabby and
uninteresting, and the room is spoiled. It is very
unfortunate. But what is to happen when a girl's
heart is suddenly awakened ? Is she to give it an
opiate ? What is the opiate for heartache ? Surely
not marriage with somebody different. Yet jilt is an
ugly word."
Dodo looked at Jack with a sort of self-deprecation.
" Don't blame Nadine, darling," she said. " She
inherited it ; it runs in the family."
Jack jumped up, and took Dodo's hands in his.
" You shall not talk horrible scandal about the
woman I love," he said.
" But it's true," said Dodo.
" Therefore it is the more abominable of you to
repeat it," said he.
But there was a certain obstinancy about Dodo that
morning.
" I think it's good for me to keep that scandal alive
in my heart," she said. " Usen't the monks to keep
peas in their boots to prevent them getting too com-
fortable ? "
" Monks were idiots," said Jack loudly, " and any
one less like a monk than you, I never saw. Monk,
indeed ! Besides I believe they used to boil the peas first. ' '
Dodo's face, which had been a little troubled, cleared
considerably.
" That showed great commonsense," she said. " I
don't think they can have been such idiots. Jack, if
I boil that pea, would you mind my still keeping it in
my boot ?
268 DODO THE SECOND
" Rather messy," said he. " Better take it out.
After all, you did really take it out when you married
me."
Dodo raised her eyes to his.
" David shall take it out," she said.
Jack had not at present heard of this nomenclature.
In fact it did him credit that he instantly guessed to
whom allusion was being made.
"Oh, that's settled, is it?" he said. "And now,
David's mother, give me a little news of yourself. Is
all well ? "
Dodo's mouth grew extraordinarily tender.
" Oh, so well, Jesse," she said, " so well."
She was standing a foot or so above him, on the
steep hillside, and bending down to him, kissed him,
and was silent a moment. Then she decided swiftly
and characteristically that a few words like those that
had just passed between them were as eloquent as
longer speeches, and became her more usual self again.
" You are such a dear, Jack," she said, " and I will
forgive your dreadful ignorance of the name of David's
mother. Oh, look at the sea-gulls fishing for their
lunch. Oh, for the wings of a sea-gull, not to fly and
be at rest at all, but to take me straight to the dining-
room. And I feel certain Nadine will listen to you,
and it would be a good thing to take her away for a
little. She is living on her nerves, which is as expensive
as eating pearls, like Cleopatra."
"Drinking," said Jack. " She dissolved them "
" Darling, vinegar doesn't dissolve pearls : it is a
complete mistake to suppose it does. She took the
pearl like a pill and drank some vinegar afterwards.
Jack, pull me up the hill, not because I am tired but
because it is pleasanter so. I am sorry you are going
to-morrow, and I shall make love to Hughie after
you've gone and pretend it's you. I do pray Hughie
may get quite well, and he and Nadine, and you and I
may all have our heart's desire. Edith too ; I hope she
DODO THE SECOND 269
will write a symphony so beautiful that by common
consent we shall throw away all the works of Beethoven
and Bach and Brahms just as we throw away anti-
quated Bradshaws."
She was rather out of breath after delivering herself
of this series of remarkable statements, and Jack got in
a word.
" And what was the name of David's mother ? " he
asked, with a rather tiresome reversion to an abandoned
topic.
" I don't know or care," said Dodo with dignity.
" But I'm going to be."
It required all Jack's wisdom to persuade Nadine to
go away with him, at the first opening of the subject.
But in the end she yielded, for during this last fort-
night she had felt (as by the illumination of her love
she could not help doing) that at present she " meant "
very little to Hugh. Her presence, which on that
first critical night had not done less than set his face
towards life instead of death, had, she felt, since then,
dimly troubled and perplexed him. Every day she had
thought that he would need her, but each day passed
and he still lay there with a barrier between him and her.
Yet any day he might want her, and she was loth to
go. But she knew how tired and overstrained she felt
herself, and the ingenious Papa Jack made use of this.
" You have given him all you can, my dear, for the
present," he said. " Come away and rest, and what
is Dodo's phrase ? and fill your pond again."
" And I may come back if Hughie wants me ? " she
asked.
That was easy to answer. If Hugh really wanted
her, the difficult situation solved itself. But there was
one thing more.
" I don't suppose I need ask it," said Nadine, " but
if Hughie gets worse, much worse, then I may come ?
I I could not be there then."
270 DODO THE SECOND
Jack kissed her.
" My dear girl," he said, " what do you take me
for ? An ogre ? But we won't think about that at
all. Please God, you will not come back for that
reason."
Nadine very rudely dried her eyes on his rough
homespun sleeve.
" You are such a comfort, Papa," she said. " You're
quite firm and strong, like like a big wisdom-tooth.
And when we are at Winston will you let Seymour
come down and see me if he wants to. And and if
he comes will you come and interrupt us in half an
hour ? I've behaved horribly to him, but I can't help
it, and it that we aren't to be married, I mean was
in the Morning Post to-day, and it looked so horrible
and cold. But whatever he wants to say to me I
think half an hour is sufficient. I wonder I wonder
if you know why I behaved like such a pig ? "
" I think I might guess," said Jack.
*' Then you needn't, because there's only one possible
guess. So we'll assume that you know. What a
nuisance women are to your poor long-suffering sex.
Especially girls."
Jack laughed.
" They are just as much a nuisance afterwards,"
said he. " Look at your mother, how she is making
life one perpetual martyrdom to me."
" But she used to be a nuisance to you, Papa Jack,"
said Nadine.
" There again you are wrong," he said. " I always
loved her."
" And does that prevent one's being a nuisance ? "
asked Nadine. " Are you sure ? Because if you
are you needn't interrupt Seymour quite so soon. I
said half an hour because I thought that would be
time enough for him to tell me what a nuisance I
was "
" You're a heartless little baggage," observed Jack.
DODO THE SECOND 271
" Not quite," said Nadine.
" Well, you're an April day," said he, seeing the
smile break through.
" And that is a doubtful compliment," said she.
" But you are wrong if you think I am not sorry for
Seymour. Yet what was I to do, Papa Jack, when I
made The Discovery ? "
" Well, you're not a heartless little baggage," con-
ceded Jack, " but you have taken your heart out of
one piece of the baggage, and packed it in another."
" Oh, la, la," said Nadine. " We mix our meta-
phors."
Nadine left with Jack in the motor soon after break-
fast next morning. It had been settled that she
should not tell Hugh she was going, until she said
goodbye to him, and when she went to his room next
morning to do so she found him still asleep, and the
tall nurse entirely refused to have him awakened.
" Much better for him to sleep than to say goodbye,"
said this adamantine woman. " When he wakes, he
shall be told you have gone, if he asks."
" Of course he'll ask," said Nadine.
She paused a moment.
" Will you let me know if he doesn't ? " she added.
Nurse Bryerly's grim capable face relaxed into a
smile. She did not quite understand the situation, but
she was quite content to do her best for her patient
according to her lights.
" And shall I say that you'll be back soon ? " she
asked.
Nadine had no direct reply to this.
" Ah, do make him get well," she said.
" That's what I'm here for. And I will say that
you'll be back soon, shall I, if he wants you ? "
" Soon ? " said Nadine. " That minute."
Hugh slept long that morning, and Dodo was not
272 DODO THE SECOND
told he was awake and ready to receive a morning call
till the travellers had been gone a couple of hours.
She had spent them in a pleasant atmosphere of con-
scious virtue, engendered by the feeling that she had
sent Jack away when she would much have preferred
his stopping here. But as Dodo explained to Edith
it took quite a little thing to make her feel good, whereas
it took a lot to make her feel wicked.
" A nice morning, for instance," she said, " or send-
ing my darling Jack away because it's good for Nadine,
or getting a postal order. Quite little things like that
make me feel a perfect saint. Whereas the powers of
hell have to do their worst as the hymn says, to make
me feel wicked."
Edith gave a rather elaborate sigh. She had to
sigh carefully because she had a cigarette and a pen
in her mouth while she was scratching out a blot she
had made on the score she was revising. So care was
needed, otherwise cigarette and pen might have been
shot from her mouth. When she spoke her utterance
was indistinct and mumbling.
" I suppose you infer that you are more at home in
heaven than hell," she said, " since just a touch makes
you feel a saint. I should say it was the other way
about. You are so at home in the other place that the
most abysmal depths of infamy have to be presented
to you before you know they are wicked at all, whereas
you hail as divine the most infinitestimal distraction
that breaks the monotonous round of vice. Perhaps I
am expressing myself too strongly, but I feel strongly.
The world is more high-coloured to me than to other
people."
" Darling, I never heard such a moderate and well-
balanced statement," said Dodo. " Do go on."
" I don't want to. But I thought your optimism
about yourself was sickly, and wanted a a dash of
discouragement. But you and Nadine are both the
same : if you behave charmingly you tell us to give
DODO THE SECOND 273
the praise to you, if you behave abominably you say
' I can't help it ; it was Nature's fault for making me
like that.' Now I am not that sort of shuffler ; what-
ever I do I take the responsibility, and say ' I am I.
Take me or leave me.' But I have no doubt that
Nadine believes it has been too wonderful of her to
fall in love with Hugh. And when she jilts Seymour,
she says ' Enquire at Nature's Workshop ; this firm is
entirely independent.' Bah ! "
Dodo laughed, but her laugh died rather quickly.
" Ah, don't be hard, Edith," she said. " We most
of us want encouragement at times, and we have to
encourage ourselves by making ourselves out as nice
as we can. Otherwise we should look on the mess we
make of things as a hopeless job. Perhaps it is hope-
less, but that is the one thing we mustn't allow.
We are like " Dodo paused for a simile " we are like
children to whom is given a quantity of lovely little
squares of mosaic, and we know, our souls know, that
they can be put together into the most beautiful
patterns. And we begin fairly well, but then the devil
comes along and jogs our elbow, and smashes it all up.
Probably it is our own stupidity, but it is more en-
couraging to say it is the devil or nature, something
not ourselves. Good heavens, my elbow has been
jogged often enough ! And when the pattern gets on
well, we encourage ourselves by saying : ' This is
clever and good and wise Me doing it now ! ' And then
perhaps something very big and solemn comes our way,
and we bow our heads, and know it isn't ourselves at
all."
Edith had finished erasing her blot, and was gathering
her sheets together. She tapped them dramatically
with an inky-forefinger.
" This is big and solemn," she said. " But it's Me.
The artist's inspiration never comes from outside :
it is always from within. I'm going to send it to have
the band parts copied to-day."
S
274 DODO THE SECOND
At the moment the message came that Hugh re-
ceived, and Dodo got up. He had received Edith one
morning, but the effect was that he had eaten no lunch
and had dozed uneasily all the afternoon. Edith had
been content with the explanation that her vitality
was too strong for him, and, while ready to give him
another dose of it, did not press the matter.
He lay propped up in bed, with a wad of pillows at
his back. He looked far more alert and present than
he had yet done. Hitherto, he had been slow to grasp
the meaning of what was said to him, and he hardly ever
volunteered a statement or question, but this morning
he smiled and spoke with quite unusual quickness.
" Morning, Aunt Dodo," he said. "I'm awfully
brisk to-day."
Nurse Bryerley put in a warning word.
" Don't be too brisk," she said. " Please don't let
him be too brisk," she added looking at Dodo.
" Hughie dear, you do look better," she said, " but
we'll all be quite calm and self-contained, like flats."
Hugh frowned for a moment ; then his face cleared
again.
" I see," he said. " Bright, aren't I ? Aunt Dodo
I have certainly woke up this morning. You look real,
do you know ; before I was never quite certain about
you. You looked as if you might be a good forgery,
but spurious. Have a cigarette, and why shouldn't I ? "
" Wiser not," said Nurse Bryerley laconically.
Hugh's briskness did not seem to be entirely good-
natured.
" How on earth could a cigarette hurt me ? " he said.
" Perhaps it would be wiser for Lady Chesterford not
to smoke either. Aunt Dodo, you mustn't smoke.
Wiser not."
Nurse Bryerley smiled with secret content.
" That's right, Mr. Graves," she said. " I like to see
my patients irritable. It always shows they are getting
better."
DODO THE SECOND 275
" I should have thought you might have seen that
without annoying me," said Hugh.
" Well, well, I don't mind your having one cigarette
to keep Lady Chesterford company," said the nurse.
" But you'll be disappointed."
Dodo took out her case as Nurse Bryerley left the
room. " Here you are, Hughie," she said.
Hugh lit one, and blew a cloud of smoke through his
nostrils.
" Are they quite fresh, Aunt Dodo ? " he said.
" Yes, dear, quite. Doesn't it taste right ? "
" Yes, delicious," said Hugh, absolutely deter-
mined not to find it disappointing. " I say, what a
sunny morning ! "
" Is it too much in your eyes ? "
" It is rather. Will you ask Nurse Bryerley to pull
the blind down."
Dodo pulled down the blind too far on the first
attempt to be pleasing, not far enough on the second.
Hugh felt she was very clumsy.
" Isn't Nadine coming to see me this morning ? "
he asked. " But I daresay she is tired of sitting with
me every day."
Dodo came back to her chair by the bed again.
" She went off with Jack to Winston this morning,"
she said. " Just for a change. She was very much
tired and overdone. You've been a fearful anxiety
to her, you dear bad boy."
Hugh put his cigarette down and shut his mouth, as
if firmly determined never to speak again.
" She came in to say good-bye to you," she said,
" but you were asleep and they didn't want to wake
you."
There was still dead silence on Hugh's part.
" It was only settled she should go yesterday," she
continued, " and she had to be persuaded. But Jack
wanted one of us, and, as I say, she was very much
overdone. Now I'm not the least overdone. So I
276 DODO THE SECOND
stopped. But I wish she could have seen how much
more yourself you were when you woke to-day."
At length Hugh spoke.
" What is the use of telling me that sort of tale ? "
he said. " She is going to be married to Seymour in
a few days. She has gone away for that. I suppose
in some cold-blooded way she thought it better to sneak
off without telling me. No doubt it was very tactful
of her."
Dodo turned round towards him.
" No, Hughie, you are quite wrong," she said.
" Nadine is not going to marry Seymour at all."
Hugh lifted his right hand, and examined it cursorily.
A long cut, now quite healed, run up the length of his
forefinger.
" I see," he said. " She said she would marry
Seymour in order to get rid of me, and now that I have
been got rid of in other ways, she has no further use for
him. Isn't that it ? "
His face had become quite white, and the hand with
the healed wound trembled so violently that the bed
shook.
"No, that is not it," said Dodo quietly. "And
don't be so nervous and fidgetty, my dear."
Suddenly the trembling ceased.
" Aunt Dodo, if it is not that, what is it ? "he asked,
in a voice that would have melted Rhadamanthus.
She turned a shining face on him, and laid her hand
on his.
" Oh, Hughie, He still and get well," she said. " And
then ask Nadine herself. She will come back when you
want her. She told Nurse Bryerley to tell you so, if you
asked."
Hugh moved across his other hand, so that Dodo's
lay between his.
" I must ask you one more thing," he said. " Is it
because of me in any way that she chucked Seymour ?
I entreat you to say ' no/ if it is ' no.' "
DODO THE SECOND 277
" I can't say ' no,' " said Dodo.
Hugh drew one long sobbing breath.
" It's mere pity then," he said. " Nadine always
liked me, and she always was impulsive like that. I
daresay she won't marry him till I'm better, if I am ever
better. She will wait till I am strong enough to enjoy
it thoroughly."
Dodo interrupted him.
" Hughie, don't say bitter and untrue things like
that," she said. " And don't feel them. She is not
going to marry Seymour, either now or afterwards."
Once again Hugh was silent, and after an interval
Dodo spoke, divining exactly what was in his irritable
convalescent mind.
" I have never deceived you before, Hughie," she
said, " and you have no right to distrust me now. I
am telling you the truth. I also tell you the truth
when I say you must get bitter thoughts out of your
mind. Ah, my dear, it is not always easy. There's a
beast within each of us."
" There's a beast within me," said Hugh.
" And there's a dear brave fellow whom I am so
proud of," said Dodo.
Hugh's lips quivered, but there was a quality in his
silence as different from that which had gone before,
as there was between his callings of Nadine on the night
when she fought death for him.
" And now that's enough," said Dodo. " Shall I
read to you Hughie, or shall I leave you for the present? "
He held her hand a moment longer.
" I think I will lie still and and think," he said.
" Good luck to your fishing, dear," said she rising.
" Good luck to your fishing ? " he asked. " It's in
a picture. Small boy fishing, kneeling on the waves."
Dodo beat a strategic retreat.
" Is it ? " she said.
But it seemed to Hugh that her voice lacked the
blank-inquiry tone of ignorance.
278 DODO THE SECOND
Hugh settled himself a little lower down on his back-
ing of pillows, after Dodo had left him, and tried to
arrange his mind, so that the topics that concerned it
stood consecutively. But Dodo's last remark, which
certainly should have stood last also in his reflections,
kept on shouldering itself forward. She had wished
him " good luck to his fishing," and he could not
bring himself to believe that, consciously or uncon-
sciously, there was not in her mind a certain picture,
of a little winged boy, kneeling in the waves, who
dropped a red line into the unquiet sea. He could not,
and did not try to remember the painter, but certainly
the picture had been at some exhibition which he and
Nadine had attended together. A little winged boy. . . .
The title was printed after the number in the catalogue.
Nadine was not to marry Seymour now or afterr
wards. . . . There came a black speck again over his
thoughts. He himself had been got rid of by this
crippling accident, and now she had expunged Seymour
also. " And though she saw all heaven in flower above,
she would not love." The lines came into his mind
without any searching for them ; for the moment he
could not remember where he had heard them. And
then memory began to awake.
Hitherto, he had not been able to recall anything of
the day or two that preceded his catastrophe, though he
could remember a few of the events immediately before
it. He remembered Nadine calling out " No, Hugh, not
you," he remembered her cry of " Well done " ; he re-
membered that he had floated in on that line of toppling
waters with a small boy on his back. But now a fresh
thread of memory had been awakened : some connection
in his brain had been restored, and he remembered their
quarrel and reconciliation on the day the gale began,
how she had said, " Oh, Hughie, if only I loved you ! "
Soon after came the portentous advent of the wind,
with the blotting out of the sun, and the transforma-
tion of the summer sea.
DODO THE SECOND 279
He heard with unspeakable irritation the entry of
Nurse Bryerley. That seemed an unwarrantable in-
trusion, for he felt as if he had been alone with Nadine,
and now this assiduous grenadier broke in upon them
with a hundred fidgetty offices to perform. She re-
stored to him a fallen pillow, she closed a window
through which a breeze was blowing rather freely, she
brought him a cup of chicken broth. It seemed an
eternity before she asked him if he was comfortable, and
made her long delayed exit. Even then she reminded
him that the doctor was due in half an hour.
But for half an hour he would be alone now, and for
the first time since his accident he found that he wanted
to think. Hitherto his mind had sat vacant, like an
idle passenger who sees without observation or in-
terest the transit of the country. But Dodo's visit
this morning, and her communications to him had made
life appear a thing that once more concerned him : up
till now it was but a manoeuvre taking place round him,
but outside him. Now the warmth of it reached him
again, and began to circulate through him. And what
she had told him was being blown out, as it were, in his
brain, even as a lather of soapsuds is blown out into an
iridescent bubble, on which gleam all the hues of
sunset and moonrise and rainbow. That rainbow was
not one of the vague dreams in which, lately, his mind
had moved, it was a real thing, not receding but coming
nearer to him, blown towards him by some steady breeze,
not idly vagrant in the effortless air. Should it break
on his heart, not into nothingness, but into the one white
light out of which the sum of all lights and colours is
made ?
He could not doubt that it was this which Dodo
meant. Nadine had thrown over Seymour and that
event concerned him. And then swift as the coming
of the storm which they had seen together, came the
thought, clear and precise as the rim of thunder-clouds,
that, for all he knew, a barrier for ever impenetrable,
280 DODO THE SECOND
lay between them. For he could never offer to her a
cripple ; the same pride that had refused to let him take
an intimate place beside her after she, by her acceptance
of Seymour, had definitely rejected him, forbade him,
without possibility of discussion, to let her tie herself
to him, unless he could stand sound and whole beside
her. He must be competent in brain and bone and
body to be Nadine's husband. And for that as yet he
had no guarantee.
Since his accident he had not up till now cared to
know precisely what his injuries were, nor whether he
could ever conpletely recover from them. The con-
cussion of the brain had quenched all curiosity and
interest not only in things external to him, but in him-
self, and he had received the assurance that he was
going on very well with the unconcern that we feel for
remote events. But now his thoughts flew back from
Nadine and clustered round himself. He felt that he
must know his chances, the best or the worst . . . and
yet he dreaded to know, for he could live for a little
in a paradise by imagining that he would get com-
pletely well, instead of in the shattered ruin, which
the knowledge of the worst would strew round
him.
But this morning the energy of life which for those
two weeks had lain dormant in him, began to stir again.
He wanted. It seemed to him but a few moments since
his nurse left him that Dr. Cardew came in. He saw
the flushed face and brightened eyes of his patient, and
after an enquiry or two took out the thermometer he
had not used for days, and tested Hugh's temperature.
He put it back again in its nickel case with a smile.
" Well, it's not any return of fever, anyhow," he said.
" Do you feel different in any way this morning ? "
" Yes. I want to get well."
" Highly commendable," said Dr. Cardew.
Hugh fingered the bed-clothes in sudden agitation.
" I want to know if I shall get well," he said. " I
DODO THE SECOND 281
don't mean half well, in a Bath chair, but quite well.
And I want to know what my injuries were."
Dr. Cardew looked at him a moment without speak-
ing. But it was perfectly clear that this fresh colour
and eagerness in Hugh's face, was but the lamp of life
burning brighter. There was no reason that he should
not know what he asked, now that he cared to know.
" You broke your hip-bone," he said. " You also
had very severe concussion of the brain. There were
a quantity of little injuries."
" Oh, tell me the best and the worst of it quickly,"
said Hugh with impatience.
" I can tell you nothing for certain for a few days yet
about the fracture. There is no reason why it should
not mend perfectly. And to-day for the first time I am
not anxious about the other."
Quite suddenly Hugh put his hands before his face
and broke into a passion of weeping.
CHAPTER XIV
A WEEK later, Dodo was interviewing Dr. Cardew in her
sitting-room at Meering. He had just spoken at some
length to her, and she had time to notice that he
looked like a third-rate actor, and recorded the fact also
that Edith seemed to have gone back to scales and the
double-bass. This impression was conveyed from
next door. He spoke like an actor too, and said things
several times over, as if it was a play. He talked about
fractures and conjunctions, and X-ray photographs,
and satisfaction, and the recuperative powers of youth
and satisfaction and X-rays. Eventually Dodo could
stand this harangue no longer.
" It is all too wonderful," she said, " and I quite see
that if science hadn't made so many discoveries, we
couldn't tell if Hughie would have a bath chair till
doomsday or not. But now, Dr. Cardew, he is longing
to hear, and dreading to hear, poor lamb, and won't
you let me be the butcher, or I suppose I should say
Mary ? You've been such a clever butcher, if you
understand, and I do want to be Mary, who had a little
lamb," she added in desperation, lest he should never
understand her allusive conversation. " Of course he's
not my little lamb, but my daughter's, and he wants
to know so frightfully Yes : I understand about
his intellect too. It seems to me as bright as it ever
was, and I notice no change whatever. He always
spoke as if he was excited. May I go ? "
Dodo intended to go, whether she might or not, but
just at the door, she seemed to herself to have treated
this distinguished physician with some abruptness.
She unwillingly paused.
282
DODO THE SECOND 283
" Do stop to lunch," she said, " it will be lunch in ten
minutes, and you will find me not so completely dis-
tracted. I shall be quite sensible, and would you
ring the bell and tell them you are stopping ? Don't
mind the scales and the double-bass, dear Dr. Cardew :
it is only Mrs. Arbuthnot, of whom you have heard.
She will not play at lunch. I know you think you have
come to a mad-house, but we are all quite sane. And I
may go and tell Hughie what you have told me ?
If you hear loud screams of joy, it will only be me, and
you needn't take any notice."
Dodo slid along the passage, upset a chair in Nurse
Bryerley's room, and knelt down on the floor by Hugh's
bed. She clawed at something with her eager hands,
and it was chiefly bed-clothes.
" Oh, praise God, Hughie," she said. " Amen.
There ! Now you know, and there won't be any
crutches, my dear, or the shadow of a bath-chair,
whatever that is like. You won't have chicken-broth,
and a foolish nurse, not you, dear Nurse Bryerley,
I didn't mean you, and you will walk again and run
again, and play the fool, just like me for a hundred
years more. I told Dr. Cardew you weren't ever very
calm or unexcited, and your poor broken hip has
mended itself, and your kidneys aren't mixed up with
your liver and lights, and you've you've got your
strong young body back again, and your silly young
brain. Oh Hughie ! "
Dodo leaned forward and clutched a more satis-
factory handful of Hugh's shoulders.
" I couldn't let anybody but myself tell you," she
said. " I had to tell you. But nobody else knows.
You can tell anybody else you want to tell."
Hugh was paying but the very slightest attention
to Dodo.
" Telegraph-form," he said rather rudely to Nurse
Bryerley.
Dodo loved this inattention to herself. There was
284 DODO THE SECOND
nothing banal about it. He had no more thought of
her than he would have had for a newspaper that con-
tained ecstatic tidings. He did not stroke or kiss or
shake hands with a mere newspaper that told him
such great things.
" It's so funny not to have telegraph-forms handy,"
he said.
" I know, dear. They ought always to be in every
room. But servants are so forgetful. Talk to me
until Nurse Bryerley gets one."
Hugh looked at her with shining eyes.
" How can I talk ? " he said. " There's nothing to
say. I want that telegraph form."
Dodo, human and practical and explosive, yearned
for the statement of what she knew.
" Whom are you going to telegraph to ? " she asked.
Hugh had time for one contemptuous glance at her.
" Oh, Aunt Dodo, you ass ! " he said. " Oh, by
Jove, how awfully rude of me, and I haven't thanked
you for coming to tell me. Thanks so much ; I am so
grateful to you for all your goodness to me ah."
He took a telegraph-form and scribbled a few words.
" May it go now ? " he said.
Dodo was almost embarrassingly communicative at
lunch, at which meal Edith did not appear, and the
continued booming of the double-bass indicated that
Art was being particularly long that morning. Con-
sequently Dodo found herself alone with an astonished
physician.
" If only a man could be a clergyman and a doctor,"
she said, " you could tell him every thing, because
clergy know all about the soul and doctors all about
the body, and when you completely understand any-
thing, you can't be shocked at it. I think I should
have poisoned you, Dr. Cardew, if you had said that
Hughie would never be the same man again ; anyhow
I shouldn't have asked you to lunch. Ah, in that case
DODO THE SECOND 285
I couldn't have poisoned you. How difficult it must
be to plan a crime really satisfactorily. I always have
had a great deal of sympathy with criminals, because
my great-grandfather was hanged for smuggling. Do
have some more mutton, which calls itself lamb. I
certainly shall. I'm going to have a baby you know, or
perhaps you didn't. Isn't it ridiculous at my age, and
he's going to be called David."
" In case " began Dr. Cardew.
" No, in any case," said Dodo. " I mean it certainly
is going to be a boy. You shall see. What a day for
January, is it not ? The year has turned, though I hope
that doesn't mean it will go bad. I wish you had seen
Hughie's face when I told him he wasn't going to have
a bath-chair. He looked like one of Sir Joshua
Reynolds' angels with a three weeks' beard, which
I shouldn't wonder if he was shaving now since, as I
said, there aren't going to be any bath-chairs."
" I don't quite follow," said Dr. Cardew politely.
" I'm sure I don't wonder," said Dodo cordially,
" although it's so clear to me. But you see, he's going
to propose to my daughter now that it's certain he will
be the same man again and not a different one, and no
eligible young man ever has a beard. What a good
title for a sordid and tragic romance ' Beards and Bath-
chairs ' would be. Of course Hughie instantly called
for a telegraph-form, and when I asked him who he
was telegraphing too, he called me an ass, in so many
words, or rather so few. After all I had done for him,
too ! Oh, here's Edith ! Edith, Dr. Cardew and I have
not been listening to your playing but we're sure it has
been lovely. Do you know Dr. Cardew, and it's Mrs.
Arbuthnot, or ought I to say ' she's Mrs. Arbuthnot.'
Edith, if you don't mind our smoking, Dr. Cardew and I
will wait and talk to you for a little, but if you do, we
won't."
Edith shook hands so warmly with the doctor, that
lie felt he must have been an old friend of hers, and that
286 DODO THE SECOND
the fact had eluded his memory. But it was only the
general zeal which a long musical morning gave her.
" I'm sure you came to see our poor Hugh," she
said. " Do tell me, is there the slightest chance of his
ever walking again ? "
" Not the smallest," said Dodo, " I've just been to
break the news to him, and he has telegraphed to
Nadine to come at once. I can't keep it up. Edith,
he is going to be perfectly well again, and he has tele-
graphed to Nadine just the same."
Edith looked a little disappointed.
" Then I suppose we must resign ourselves to a
perfectly conventional and Philistine ending," she
said. " There was all the makings of a twentieth
century tragedy about the situation, and now I am
afraid it is going to tail off and be domestic and happy
and utterly inartistic. I had better hopes for Nadine,
she always looked as if there might be some wild
destiny in
