PIPPA had been to haunt Jasper’s studio a good deal. His pictured saints appealed to her imagination. She loved the of their robes and the gold of their backgrounds.  
Colour appealed to her, as already seen, enormously, though she had no power with brush or pencil herself. If she was ever to find expression for the thoughts and fancies which filled her brain she would possibly one day find it in writing. Beauty of language already moved her profoundly, and she would listen by the hour to anyone reading poetry aloud.
 
Jasper missed the child almost more than Miss Mason did. He seemed to have nothing to fill up the gap she left in his life, and his old restlessness in a measure returned. He took to dropping in at Miss Mason’s studio at odd hours, in order, so it seemed, to talk about Pippa, though he would often sit and silent. He would stare at the picture of Pippa wrapped in silk, her arms round the faun’s neck, which picture Barnabas had painted about a month , and which now hung in Miss Mason’s studio.
 
And one evening after looking at it for a long time he made a sudden remark—a remark that seemed forced from him.
 
“If Stella had lived she would have been nearly the same age as Pippa.”
 
Miss Mason looked up quickly.
 
“Who,” she asked, “was Stella?”
 
“My little girl,” said Jasper shortly.
 
“Ah,” said Miss Mason. And then she added quietly, “and your wife died too?”
 
“No,” said Jasper, “she is alive.”
 
There was a silence. The studio window was wide open, and the evening sunlight was streaming in. From one of the trees in the garden a thrush was singing a song of love and happiness.
 
“Perhaps,” said Miss Mason suddenly, “you would care to tell me about it.”
 
And Jasper told her. He told her the whole story, omitting nothing; though, wonderful to relate, making no excuses for himself.
 
“I suppose,” he ended, “that Bridget lost all interest in life, and I was always wanting her to be something she had lost the power of being. And I got disheartened because she could not adapt herself to my pattern.”
 
For a moment Miss Mason did not reply. She did not care to say that it had been largely Jasper’s fault that his wife had lost interest in life. After a moment she slowly.
 
“I think,” she said, “it is always dangerous to [Pg 190]try and cut people to our own pattern. We are so terribly apt to cut the cords of love first.”
 
“I know,” said Jasper, “and now it is, as she said, too late.”
 
“It is never too late,” said Miss Mason energetically. “Why don’t you go and see her?”
 
“I gave her my word of honour that I would not.”
 
“Pooh!” said Miss Mason. “It is sometimes more to break one’s word than to keep it. This is a case in point. Do you still care for your wife?”
 
Jasper hesitated. “I care for my memory of her as she was when I first married her—before the child died. I know after that at first I was disgusted. But that passed, especially later when I saw less of her. Then at the bottom of my heart I wanted to get back to the old footing. Somehow it seemed impossible. Before I saw her I felt I loved her, but the sight of her untidiness and the of the surroundings killed it. It would be killed again if I saw her now. It’s no use pretending otherwise.”
 
“Why don’t you take her out of her surroundings then?” asked Miss Mason.
 
Jasper looked up quickly. “It’s no use,” he said. “I love her now, but if I went down there the feeling would die away. When I see her and untidy it seems to kill my affection. I can’t help it. Even when I was a child I could [Pg 191]not eat the food I most liked if it were served in a careless fashion. I have honestly tried to fight the feeling. It is, however, part of my physical nature, and I can’t rid myself of it.” Jasper’s voice was quite and genuine.
 
Miss Mason’s brain was working rapidly. “I suppose Chiswick is rather a commonplace neighbourhood,” she remarked. “Foolish of you to choose it in the first instance. Where did you say the house was?” The question was put indifferently.
 
Jasper mentioned the street and number. Miss Mason appeared hardly to have heard it. She seemed in her own thoughts.
 
Jasper stayed a little longer in the studio. It was, in a sense, a comfort to have spoken of the story, and yet it had brought the memory of the last seven years almost too before his mind.
 
When he got up to go Miss Mason held out her hand.
 
“Good night,” she said. “Don’t feel too . Things often turn out better than one expects.”
 
And when he had gone she sat a long time in her big chair, her brain full of the wildest and most exciting plans, in which she was establishing herself as to the Fates. And the Fates laughed, and gave the threads of two lives temporarily into her hands for her own weaving.
 
 
The next morning Miss Mason told Sally to order a taxi to be at the studio at eleven o’clock.
 
“If I’m not taken there quickly,” she said to herself, “my courage will fail me, and I shall come home again.”
 
And she went over in her mind many sentences she had been carefully preparing during the long hours of a night.
 
One of them began rather like an old-fashioned letter. “My dear Mrs. Merton, I have ventured to call upon you in order to discuss a matter I am sure you must have very much at heart, namely, the welfare of your husband Jasper Merton.” She had repeated it a good many times to make sure she had it verbatim.
 
There were other phrases such as, “Pardon what may appear an unwarrantable interference on my part.” And, “The interest we both must feel in one for whom you have a wifely love, and I the affection of friendship.”
 
She felt she had them all on her tongue, when the of the taxi outside the studio warned her of its arrival.
 
“If I am not back to lunch, Sally,” said Miss Mason, with the air of one on some dangerous enterprise from which she might never return, “run out and buy a chop for yourself, and we can have the steak this evening. And give Mimsi a piece of boiled whiting and a saucerful of milk.”
 
 
She got into the taxi, tightly clutching her black satin bag, and sat down in one corner. It was the first time she had driven in a taxi, and she felt a trifle nervous. But for her desire to arrive at her destination before she had time to change her mind about going, she would have taken a four-wheeler.
 
The speed of the vehicle seemed excessive, but as other taxis passed them going at an even greater rate, she made up her mind to hope for the best. She did, however, put up a small mental prayer for safety.
 
In spite of the rate at which they were travelling they seemed a long time in getting to their destination. At last Miss Mason began to feel uneasy. She had heard of people being kidnapped and murdered on account of their money, and though she had only put ten shillings worth of silver and one sovereign in her purse, the might think her worth infinitely more.
 
She to ask him how much further they had to go. She noticed a long tube hanging from the front window. It was no doubt a whistle. She took it up and blew gently down it. There was no sound. She collected the whole force of her lungs and blew violently. The chauffeur, feeling a sudden and unpleasant at the back of his neck, looked round. He saw Miss Mason purple in the face from her efforts, and the speaking tube at her lips. Fearing apoplexy he stopped the taxi and came to the door.
 
“Wot is it, mum?” he asked.
 
“I only wanted to know if we were near the address I gave you?” she said breathlessly. “I think this whistle must be out of order, I can’t make it sound.”
 
The chauffeur . “That ain’t no bloomin’ whistle-pipe. That there’s a speakin’ toob,” he remarked scornfully. “Be at Road in five minutes now.”
 
He shut the door with a bang and climbed back to his seat.
 
“Whistle!” he said to himself. “Whistle! Thought there was a bloomin’ draught. The old party must ’ave fair ’erself.”
 
Miss Mason sank back in her corner and began to repeat the sentences in a rapid whisper.
 
In less than five minutes the taxi stopped before a small house divided from the pavement by a plot.
 
The chauffeur got down and opened the taxi door.
 
“’Ere y’are, mum,” he said.
 
Miss Mason got out, paid the man, crossed the gravel plot, and mounted the steps. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast.
 
“Is Mrs. Merton at home?” she asked of Emma, who opened the door.
 
“Yes’m. Will you come inside’m?” She showed Miss Mason into the little parlour. “What name shall I say, ’m?”
 
“Mrs. Merton won’t know my name,” said Miss Mason . “But ask her if she will speak to me for a few moments.”
 
Emma left the room breathing heavily as she moved, and Miss Mason sat very upright on the little sofa, her hands still clutching the black satin bag. Her eyes took in the whole room. She saw the and torn , the rather dirty chintz covers to the chairs, and the distinctly dirty muslin curtains to the windows. A mantel-border which covered the chimney-piece had come unnailed at one side, and was hanging in an untidy festoon. The carpet was faded, and from the last meal were below one of the chairs. There was a large Japanese fan in the fender before the empty grate; its edges were broken and torn. It was also fly-marked. Miss Mason could understand Jasper’s feelings very well. She saw what the place must mean to a man of his fastidious instincts. It might be that he was largely to blame that it had ever reached such a state, but having reached it it was almost unavoidable that he should shrink from it.
 
A step on the stairs made her start. She clutched more tightly at the bag and began murmuring “unwarrantable intrusion,” “mutual interest,” in a spasmodic fashion, her eyes on the door.
 
Suddenly it opened, and a woman in a rather soiled white dress came into the room. She ma............