WHEN relative order had been restored, Devonham realized, of course, that his colleague had cleverly spirited away their “patient”; also that the sculptor had carried off his daughter. Relieved to escape from the atmosphere of what he considered collective hysteria, he had borrowed mackintosh and umbrella, and declining several offers of a lift, had walked the four miles to his house in the rain and wind. The exercise helped to work off the emotion in him; his mind cleared healthily; personal bias gave way to honest and unprejudiced reflection; there was much that interested him deeply, at the same time puzzled and bewildered him beyond anything he had yet experienced. He reached the house with a mind steady if unsatisfied; but the emotions caused by prejudice had gone. His main anxiety centred about his chief.
He was glad to notice a light in an upper window, for it meant, he hoped, that LeVallon was now safely home. While his latchkey sought its hole, however, this light was extinguished, and when the door opened, it was Fillery himself who greeted him, a finger on his lips.
“Quietly!” he whispered. “I’ve just got him to bed and put his light out. He’s asleep already.” Paul noticed his manner instantly its happiness. There was a glow of mysterious joy and wonder in his atmosphere that made the other hostile at once.
They went together towards that inner room where so often together they had already talked both moon and sun to bed. Cold food lay on the table, and while they satisfied their hunger, the rain outside poured down with a steady drenching sound. The wind had dropped. The suburb lay silent and deserted. It was long past midnight. The house was very still, only the occasional step of a night-nurse audible in the passages and rooms upstairs. They would not be disturbed.
“You got him home all right, then?” Paul asked presently, keeping his voice low.
He had been observing his friend closely; the evident pleasure and satisfaction in the face annoyed him; the light in the eyes at the same time profoundly troubled him. Not only did he love his chief for himself, he set high value on his work as well. It would be deplorable, a tragedy, if judgment were destroyed by personal bias and desire. He felt uneasy and distressed.
Fillery nodded, then gave an account of what had happened, but obviously an account of outward events merely; he did not wish, evidently, to argue or explain. The strong, rugged face was lit up, the eyes were shining; some inner enthusiasm pervaded his whole being. Evidently he felt very sure of something something that both pleased and stimulated him.
His account of what had happened was brief enough, little more than a statement of the facts.
Finding himself close to LeVallon when the darkness came, he had kept hold of him and hurried him out of the house at once. The sudden blackness, it seemed, had made LeVallon quiet again, though he kept asking excitedly for the girl. When assured that he would soon see her, he became obedient as a lamb. The absence of light apparently had a calming influence. They found, of course, no taxis, but commandeered the first available private car, Fillery using the authoritative influence of his name. And it was Lady Gleeson’s car, Lady Gleeson herself inside it. She had thought things over, put two and two together, and had come back. Her car might be of use. It was. For the rain was falling in sheets and bucketfuls, the road had become a river of water, and Fillery’s automobile, ordered for an hour later, had not put in an appearance. It was the rain that saved the situation....
An exasperated expression crossed Devonham’s face as he heard this detail emphasized. He had meant to listen without interruption. The enigmatical reference to the rain proved too much for him.
“Why ‘the rain’? What d’you mean exactly, Edward?”
“Water,” was the reply, made in a significant tone that further annoyed his listener’s sense of judgment. “You remember the Channel, surely! Water and fire mutually destroy each other. They are hostile elements.”
There was a look almost of amusement on his face as he said it. Devonham kept a tight hold upon his tongue. It was not impatience or surprise he felt, though both were strong; it was perhaps sorrow.
“And so Lady Gleeson drove you home?”
He waited with devouring interest for further details. The throng of questions, criticisms and emotions surging in him he repressed with admirable restraint.
Lady Gleeson, yes, had driven the party home. Fillery made her sit on the back seat alone, while he occupied the front one, LeVallon beside him, but as far back among the deep cushions as possible. The doctor held his hand. At any other time, Devonham could have laughed; but he saw no comedy now. Lady Gleeson, it seemed, was awed by the seriousness of the “Chief,” whom, even at the best of times, she feared a little. Her vanity, however, persuaded her evidently that she was somehow the centre of interest.
Yet Devonham, as he listened, had difficulty in persuading himself that he was in the twentieth century, and that the man who spoke was his colleague and a man of the day as well.
“LeVallon talked little, and that little to himself or to me. He seemed unaware that a third person was present at all. Though quiet enough, there was suppressed vehemence still about him. He said various things: that ‘she belonged to us,’ for instance; that he ‘knew his own’; that she was ‘filled with fire in exile’; and that he would ‘take her back.’ Also that I, too, must go with them both. He often mentioned the sun, saying more than once that the sun had ‘sent its messengers,’ Obviously, it was not the ordinary sun he referred to, but some source of central heat and fire he seems aware of —”
“You, I suppose, Edward,” put in his listener quickly, “said nothing to encourage all this? Nothing that could suggest or stimulate?”
Fillery ignored, even if he noticed, the tone of the question. “I kept silence rather. I said very little. I let him talk. I had to keep an eye on the woman, too.”
“You certainly had your hands full a dual personality and a nymphomaniac.”
“She helped me, without knowing it. All he said about the girl, she evidently took to herself. When he begged me to keep the water out, she drew the window up the last half-inch.... The water frightened him; she was sympathetic, and her sympathy seemed to reach him, though I doubt if he was aware of her presence at all until the last minute almost —”
“And ‘at the last minute’?”
“She leaned forward suddenly and took both his hands. I had let go of the one I held and was just about to open the door, when I heard her say excitedly that I must let her come and see him, or that he must call on her; she was sure she could help him; he must tell her everything.... I turned to look.... LeVallon, startled into what I believe was his first consciousness of her presence, stared into her eyes, and leaned forward among his cushions a little, so that their faces were close together. Before I could interfere, she had flung her bare arms about his neck and kissed him. She then sat back again, turning to me, and repeating again and again that he needed a woman’s care and that she must help and mother him. She was excited, but she knew what she was saying. She showed neither shame nor the least confusion. She tasted of course with her it cannot last a bigger world. She was most determined.”
“His reaction?” inquired Devonham, amused in spite of his graver emotions of uneasiness and exasperation.
“None whatever. I scarcely think he realized he had been kissed. His interest was so entirely elsewhere. I saw his face a moment among the white ermine, the bare arms and jewels that enveloped him.” Fillery frowned faintly. “The car had almost stopped. Lady Gleeson was leaning back again. He looked at me, and his voice was intense and eager: ‘Dear Fillery,’ he said, ‘we have found each other, I have found her. She knows, she remembers the way back. Here we can do so little.’
“Lady Gleeson, however, had interpreted the words in another way.
“‘I’ll come tomorrow to see you,’ she said at once intensely. ‘You must let me come,’ the last words addressed to me, of course.”
The two men looked at one another a moment in silence, and for the first time during the conversation they exchanged a smile....
“I got him to bed,” Fillery concluded. “In ten minutes he was sound asleep.” And his eyes indicated the room overhead.
He leaned back, and quietly began to fill his pipe. The account was over.
As though a great spring suddenly released him, Paul Devonham stood up. His untidy hair hung wild, his glasses were crooked on his big ............