It was not out of the way that a

spirit of camaraderie should spring up. Besides, she was young, she was

charmingly pretty, she was French, and—she obviously liked him.

At the same time, there was something

indescribable—a certain indefinable atmosphere of other places, other

times—that made him try hard to remain on his guard, and sometimes

made him catch his breath with a sudden start. It was all rather like a

delirious dream, half delight, half dread, he confided in a whisper to

Dr. Silence; and more than once he hardly knew quite what he was doing

or saying, as though he were driven forward by impulses he scarcely

recognised as his own.

And though the thought of leaving presented itself

again and again to his mind, it was each time with less insistence, so

that he stayed on from day to day, becoming more and more a part of the

sleepy life of this dreamy mediaeval town, losing more and more of his

recognisable personality. Soon, he felt, the Curtain within would roll

up with an awful rush, and he would find himself suddenly admitted into

the secret purposes of the hidden life that lay behind it all. Only, by

that time, he would have become transformed into an entirely different

being.

And, meanwhile, he noticed various little signs of

the intention to make his stay attractive to him: flowers in his

bedroom, a more comfortable arm-chair in the corner, and even special

little extra dishes on his private table in the dining-room.

Conversations, too, with “Mademoiselle Use” became more and more

frequent and pleasant, and although they seldom travelled beyond the

weather, or the details of the town, the girl, he noticed, was never in

a hurry to bring them to an end, and often contrived to interject

little odd sentences that he never properly understood, yet felt to be

significant.

And it was these stray remarks, full of a meaning

that evaded him, that pointed to some hidden purpose of her own and

made him feel uneasy. They all had to do, he felt sure, with reasons

for his staying on in the town indefinitely.

“And has M’sieur not even yet come to a decision?”

she said softly in his ear, sitting beside him in the sunny yard before dejeuner, the acquaintance having progressed with significant

rapidity. “Because, if it’s so difficult, we must all try together to

help him!”

The question startled him, following upon his own

thoughts. It was spoken with a pretty laugh, and a stray bit of hair

across one eye, as she turned and peered at him half roguishly.

Possibly he did not quite understand the French of it, for her near

presence always confused his small knowledge of the language

distressingly. Yet the words, and her manner, and something else that

lay behind it all in her mind, frightened him. It gave such point to

his feeling that the town was waiting for him to make his mind up on

some important matter.

At the same time, her voice, and the fact that she

was there so close beside him in her soft dark dress, thrilled him

inexpressibly.

“It is true I find it difficult to leave,” he

stammered, losing his way deliciously in the depths of her eyes, “and

especially now that Mademoiselle Use has come.”

He was surprised at the success of his sentence, and

quite delighted with the little gallantry of it. But at the same time

he could have bitten his tongue off for having said it.

“Then after all you like our little town, or you

would not be pleased to stay on,” she said, ignoring the compliment.

“I am enchanted with it, and enchanted with you,” he

cried, feeling that his tongue was somehow slipping beyond the control

of his brain. And he was on the verge of saying all manner of other

things of the wildest description, when the girl sprang lightly up from

her chair beside him, and made to go.

“It is soupe ci l’onion to-day!” she cried,

laughing back at him through the sunlight, “and I must go and see about

it. Otherwise, you know, M’sieur will not enjoy his dinner, and then,

perhaps, he will leave us!”

He watched her cross the courtyard, moving with all the grace and

lightness of the feline race, and her simple black dress clothed her,

he thought, exactly like the fur of the same supple species. She turned

once to laugh at him from the porch with the glass door, and then

stopped a moment to speak to her mother, who sat knitting as usual in

her corner seat just inside the hall-way.

But how was it, then, that the moment his eye fell

upon this ungainly woman, the pair of them appeared suddenly as other

than they were? Whence came that transforming dignity and sense of

power that enveloped them both as by magic? What was it about that

massive woman that made her appear instantly regal, and set her on a

throne in some dark and dreadful scenery, wielding a sceptre over the

red glare of some tempestuous orgy? And why did this slender stripling

of a girl, graceful as a willow, lithe as a young leopard, assume

suddenly an air of sinister majesty, and move with flame and smoke

about her head, and the darkness of night beneath her feet?

Vezin caught his breath and sat there transfixed.

Then, almost simultaneously with its appearance, the queer notion

vanished again, and the sunlight of day caught them both, and he heard

her laughing to her mother about the soupe l‘onion, and

saw her glancing back at him over her dear little shoulder with a smile

that made him think of a dew-kissed rose bending lightly before summer

airs.

And, indeed, the onion soup was particularly

excellent that day, because he saw another cover laid at his small

table, and, with fluttering heart, heard the waiter murmur by way of

explanation that “Ma’mselle Use would honour M’sieur to-day at dejeuner, as her custom sometimes is with her mother’s guests.”

So actually she sat by him all through that

delirious meal, talking quietly to him in easy French, seeing that he

was well looked after, mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him

with her own hand. And, later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in

the courtyard, longing for a sight of her as soon as her duties were

done, she came again to his side, and when he rose to meet her, she

stood facing him a moment, full of a perplexing sweet shyness before

she spoke—

“My mother thinks you ought to know more of the

beauties of our little town, and I think so too! Would M’sieur like me

to be his guide, perhaps? I can show him everything, for our family has

lived here for many generations.”

She had him by the hand, indeed, before he could

find a single word to express his pleasure, and led him, all

unresisting, out into the street, yet in such a way that it seemed

perfectly natural she should do so, and without the faintest suggestion

of boldness or immodesty. Her face glowed with the pleasure and

interest of it, and with her short dress and tumbled hair she looked

every bit the charming child of seventeen that she was, innocent and

playful, proud of her native town, and alive beyond her years to the

sense of its ancient beauty.

So they went over the town together, and she showed

him what she considered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house

where her forebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion

where her mother’s family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient

marketplace where several hundred years before the witches had been

burnt by the score. She kept up a lively running stream of talk about

it all, of which he understood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along

by her side, cursing his forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings

of his early manhood revive and jeer at him. And, as she talked,

England and Surbiton seemed very far away indeed, almost in another age

of the world’s history. Her voice touched something immeasurably old in

him, something that slept deep. It lulled the surface parts of his

consciousness to sleep, allowing what was far more ancient to awaken.

Like the town, with its elaborate pretence of modern active life, the

upper layers of his being became dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay

underneath began to stir in its sleep. That big Curtain swayed a little

to and fro. Presently it might lift altogether… .

V

He began to understand a little better at last. The

mood of the town was reproducing itself in him. In proportion as his

ordinary external self became muffled, that inner secret life, that was

far more real and vital, asserted itself.