When Lucian went back to town Haidee was winding up a short round of visits in the North; she rejoined him a week later in high spirits and excellent health. Everything had been delightful; everybody had been nice to her; no end of people had talked about Lucian and his new play—she was dreaming already of the glories of the first night and of the radiance which would centre about herself as the wife of the brilliant young author. Lucian had returned from Norway in equally good health and spirits; he was confident about the tragedy and the epic: he and his wife therefore settled down to confront an immediate prospect of success and pleasure. Haidee resumed her usual round of social gaieties; Lucian was much busied with rehearsals at the theatre and long discussions with Harcourt; neither had a care nor an anxiety, and the wheels of their little world moved smoothly.

Saxonstowe, who had come back to town for a few weeks before going abroad again, took to calling a good deal at the little house in Mayfair. He had come to understand and to like Lucian, and though they were as dissimilar in character as men of different temperament can possibly be, a curious bond of friendship, expressed in tacit acquiescence rather than in open avowal, sprang up between them. Each had a respect for the other’s world—a respect which was amusing to Sprats, who, watching them closely, knew that each admired the other in a somewhat sheepish, schoolboy fashion. Lucian, being the less reserved of the two, made no secret of his admiration of the man who had done things the doing of which necessitated bravery, endurance, and self-denial. He was a fervent worshipper—almost to a pathetic extreme—of men of action: the sight of soldiers marching made his toes{167} tingle and his eyes fill with the moisture of enthusiasm; he had been so fascinated by the mere sight of a great Arctic explorer that he had followed him from one town to another during a lecturing tour, simply to stare at him and conjure up for himself the scenes and adventures through which the man had passed. He delighted in hearing Saxonstowe talk about his life in the deserts, and enjoyed it all the more because Saxonstowe had small gift of language and told his tale with the blushes of a schoolboy who hates making a fuss about anything that he has done. Saxonstowe, on his part, had a sneaking liking, amounting almost to worship, for men who live in a world of dreams—he had no desire to live in such a world himself, but he cherished an immense respect for men who, like Lucian, could create. Sometimes he would read a page of the new epic and wonder how on earth it all came into Lucian’s head; Lucian at the same moment was probably turning over the leaves of Saxonstowe’s book and wondering how a man could go through all that that laconic young gentleman had gone through and yet come back with a stiff upper lip and a smile.

‘You and Lucian Damerel appear to have become something of friends,’ Lady Firmanence remarked to her nephew when he called upon her one day. ‘I don’t know that there’s much in common between you.’

‘Perhaps that is why we are friends,’ said Saxonstowe. ‘You generally do get on with people who are a bit different to yourself, don’t you?’

Lady Firmanence made no direct answer to this question.

‘I’ve no doubt Lucian is easy enough to get on with,’ she said dryly. ‘The mischief in him, Saxonstowe, is that he’s too easy-going about everything. I suppose you know, as you’re a sort of friend of the family, that a good deal is being said about Mrs. Damerel and Eustace Darlington?’

‘No,’ said Saxonstowe; ‘I’m not in the way to hear that sort of thing.’{168}

‘I don’t know that you’re any the better for being out of the way. I am in the way. There’s a good deal being said,’ Lady Firmanence retorted with some asperity. ‘I believe some of you young men think it a positive crime to listen to the smallest scrap of gossip—it’s nothing of the sort. If you live in the world you must learn all you can about the people who make up the world.’

Saxonstowe nodded. His eyes fixed themselves on a toy dog which snored and snuffled at Lady Firmanence’s feet.

‘And in this particular case?’ he said.

‘Why was Lucian Damerel so foolish as to go off in one direction while his wife went in another with the man she originally meant to marry?’ inquired Lady Firmanence. ‘Come now, Saxonstowe, would you have done that?’

‘No,’ he said hesitatingly, ‘I don’t think I ............