For the first time since his “return” Tarr found no Kreisler at the café. “I wonder what that animal’s up to,” he thought. The gar?on told him that Kreisler had not been there at all that evening. Tarr reconsidered his responsibilities. He could not return to Montmartre without just informing himself of Kreisler’s whereabouts and state of mind. The “obstacle” had been eluded. It must be transported rapidly “in the way” again, wherever and in whatever direction the sluggish stream was flowing.

Bertha’s he did not intend to go to if he could help it. A couple of hours at tea-time was what he had instituted as his day’s “amount” of her company. Kreisler’s room would be better. This he did. There was a light in Kreisler’s room. The window had been pointed out to him. This perhaps was sufficient, Tarr felt. He might now go home, having located[231] him. Still, since he was there he would go up and make sure. He lighted his way up the staircase with matches. Arrived at the top floor he was uncertain at which door to knock. He chose one with a light beneath it and knocked.

In a moment some one called out “Who is it?” Recognizing the voice Tarr answered, and the door opened slowly. Kreisler was standing there in his shirt-sleeves, glasses on, and a brush in his hand.

“Ah, come in,” he said.

Tarr sat down, and Kreisler went on brushing his hair. When he had finished he put the brush down quickly, turned round, and pointing to the floor said, in a voice suggesting that that was the first of several questions:

“Why have you come here?”

Tarr at once saw that he had gone a step too far, and either shown bad calculation or chanced on his rival at an unfortunate time. It was felt, no doubt, that—acting more or less as “keeper,” or check, at any rate—he had come to look after his charge, and hear why Kreisler had absented himself from the café.

“Why have you come, here?” Kreisler asked again, in an even tone, pointing again with his forefinger to the centre of the floor.

“Only to see you, of course. I thought perhaps you weren’t well.”

“Ah, so! I want you, my dear English friend, now that you are here, to explain yourself a little. Why do you honour me with so much of your company?”

“Is my company disagreeable to you?”

“I wish to know, sir, why I have so much of it!” The Deutscher-student was coming to the top. His voice had risen and the wind of his breath appeared to be making his moustaches whistle.

“I, of course, have reasons, besides the charm of your society, for seeking you out.”

Tarr was sitting stretched on one of Kreisler’s two chairs looking up frowningly. He was annoyed at having let himself in for this interview. Kreisler stood in front of him without any expression in[232] particular, his voice rather less guttural than usual. Tarr felt ill at ease at this sudden breath of storm and kept still with difficulty.

“You have reasons? You have reasons! Heavens! Outside! Quick! Out!”

There was no doubt this time that it was in earnest. He was intended rapidly to depart. Kreisler was pointing to the door. His cold grin was slightly on his face again, and an appearance of his hair having receded on his forehead and his ears gone close against his head warned Tarr definitely where he was. He got up. The absurdity in the situation he had got himself into chiefly worried him. He stood a moment in a discouraged way, as though trying to remember something. His desire for a row had vanished with the arrival of it. It had come at such an angle that it was difficult to say anything, and he had a superstition of the vanity about the marks left by hands, or rather his hands.

“Will you tell me what on earth’s the matter with you to-night?” he asked.

“Yes! I don’t want to be followed about by an underhand swine like you any longer! By what devil’s impudence did you come here to-night? For a week I’ve had you in the café. What did you want with me? If you wanted your girl back, why hadn’t you the courage to say so? I saw you with another lady to-night. I’m not going to have you hovering and slavering around me. Be careful I don’t come and pull your nose when I see you with that other lady! You’re welcome, besides, to your girl?”

“I recommend you to hold your mouth! Don’t talk about my girl. I’ve had enough of it. Where her sense was when she alighted on a specimen like you—” Tarr’s German hesitated and suddenly struck, as though for the rest of the night. He had stepped forward with a suggestion of readiness for drama:

“Heraus, schwein!” shouted Kreisler, in a sort of incredulous drawling crescendo, shooting his hand[233] towards the door and urging his body like the cox of a boat. Like a sheep-dog he appeared to be collecting Tarr together and urging him out.

Tarr stood staring doubtfully at him.

“What?”

“Heraus! Out! Quicker! Quicker!! Quick!”

His last word, “Schnell!” dropped like a plummet to the deepest tone his throat was capable of. It was short and so absolutely final that the grace given, even after it had been uttered, for this hateful visitor to remove himself, was a source of astonishment to Tarr. For a man to be ordered out of a room that does not belong to him always puts him at a disadvantage. Should he insist, forcibly and successfully, to remain, it can only be for a limited time. He will have to go sooner or later, and make his exit, unless he establish himself there and make it his home henceforth; a change of lodging most people are not, on the spur of the moment, prepared to decide on. The room, somehow, too, seems on its owner’s side, and to be vomiting forth the intruder. The civilized man’s instinct of ownership makes it impossible for any but the most indelicate to resist a feeling of hesitation before the idea of resistance in another man’s shell! All Tarr’s attitude to this man had been made up of a sort of comic hypocrisy. Neither comedy nor hypocrisy were usable for the moment.

Had Tarr foreseen this possible termination of his r?le of “obstacle?” And ought he, he would ask himself, to have gone on with this half-farce if he were not prepared to meet the ultimate consequences? Kreisler was quite unworthy to stand there, with perfect reason, and to be telling him to &ldq............