Tarr had arrived at Bertha’s place about seven in the evening on his first return from Montmartre. He hung about for a little. In ten minutes’ time he had his reward. She came out, followed by Kreisler. Bertha did not see him at first. He followed on the other side of the street, some fifteen yards behind. He did this with sleepy gratification. All was well.

Relations with her were now, it must be clear, substantially at an end. A kind of good sensation of alternating jealousy and regret made him wander along with obedient gratitude. Should she turn round and see him, how uncomfortable she would be! How naturally alike in their mechanical marching gait she and the German were! He was a distinct third party. Being a stranger, with very different appearance, thrilled him agreeably. By a little man?uvre of short cuts he would get in front of them. This he did.

Bertha saw him as he debouched from his turning. She stopped dead, and appeared to astonished Kreisler to be about to take to her heels. It was flattering in a way that his mere presence should produce this effect. He went up to her. Her palm a sentimental instrument of weak, aching, heavy tissues, she gave him her hand, face fixed on him in a mask of regret and reproach. Fascinated by the intensity of this, he had been staring at her a little too long, perhaps with some of the reflection of her expression. He turned towards Kreisler. He found a, to him, conventionally German indifferent countenance.

[205]

“Herr Kreisler,” Bertha said with laconic energy, as though she were uttering some fatal name. Her “Herr Kreisler” said hollowly, “It’s done!” It also had an inflexion of “What shall I do?”

A sick energy saturated her face, the lips were indecently compressed, the eyes wide, dull, with red rims.

Tarr bowed to Kreisler as Bertha said his name. Kreisler raised his hat. Then, with a curious feeling of already thrusting himself on these people, he began to walk along beside Bertha. She moved like an unconvinced party to a bargain, who consents to walk up and down a little, preliminary to a final consideration of the affair. “Yes, but walking won’t help matters,” she might have been saying. Kreisler’s indifference was absolute. There was an element of the child’s privilege in Tarr’s making himself of the party (“Sorbet, tu es si jeane”). There was the claim for indulgence of a spirit not entirely serious! The childishness of this turning up as though nothing had happened, with such wilful resolve not to recognize the seriousness of things, Bertha’s drama, the significance of the awful words, “Herr Kreisler!” and so on, was present to him. Bertha must know the meaning of his rapid resurrection—she knew him too well not to know that. So they walked on, without conversation. Then Tarr inquired if she were “quite well.”

“Yes, Sorbert, quite well,” she replied, with soft tragic banter.

As though by design, he always found just the words or tone that would give an opening for this sentimental irony of hers.

But the least hint that he had come to reinstate himself must not remain. It must be clearly understood that Kreisler was the principal figure now. He, Tarr, was only a privileged friend.

With unflattering rapidity somebody else had been found. Her pretension to heroic attachment w............