“And who is murdered?” asked Hilda, rather coldly and sneeringly.
“Me! It murders all the bowels of compassion in a man.”
A wave of pure hate came out of the artist. He heard the note of dislike in the other man’s voice, and the note of contempt. And he himself loathed the mention of bowels of compassion. Sickly sentiment!
Mellors stood rather tall and thin, worn-looking, gazing with flickering detachment that was something like the dancing of a moth on the wing, at the pictures.
“Perhaps stupidity is murdered; sentimental stupidity,” sneered the artist.
“Do you think so? I think all these tubes and corrugated vibrations are stupid enough for anything, and pretty sentimental. They show a lot of self-pity and an awful lot of nervous self-opinion, seems to me.”
In another wave of hate, the artist’s face looked yellow. But with a sort of silent hauteur he turned the pictures to the wall.
“I think we may go to the dining-room,” he said.
And they trailed off, dismally.
After coffee, Duncan said:
“I don’t at all mind posing as the father of Connie’s child. But only on the condition that she’ll come and pose as a model for me. I’ve wanted her for years, and she’s always refused.” He uttered it with the dark finality of an inquisitor announcing an auto da fé.
“Ah!” said Mellors. “You only do it on condition, then?”
“Quite! I only do it on that condition.” The artist tried to put the utmost contempt of the other person into his speech. He put a little too much.
“Better have me as a model at the same time,” said Mellors. “Better do us in a group, Vulcan and Venus under the net of art. I used to be a blacksmith, before I was a gamekeeper.”
“Thank you,” said the artist. “I don’t think Vulcan has a figure that interests me.”
“Not even if it was tubified and titivated up?”
There was no answer. The artist was too haughty for further words.
It was a dismal party, in which the artist henceforth steadily ignored the presence of the other man, and talked only briefly, as if the words were wrung out of the depths of his gloomy portentousness, to the women.
“You didn’t like him, but he’s better than that, really. He’s really kind,” Connie explained as they left.
“He’s a little black pup with a corrugated distemper,” said Mellors.
“No, he wasn’t nice today.”
“And will you go and be a model to him?”
“Oh, I don’t really mind any more. He won’t touch me. And I don’t mind anything, if it paves the way to a life together for you and me.”
“But he’ll only shit on you on canvas.”
“I don’t care. He’ll only be painting his own feelings for me, and I don’t mind if he does that. I wouldn’t have him touch me, not for anything. But if he thinks he can do anything with his owlish arty staring, let him stare. He can make as many empty tubes and corrugations out of me as he likes. It’s his funeral. He hated you for what you said: that his tubified art is sentimental and self-important. But of course it’s true.”
XIX
“Dear Clifford, I am afraid what you foresaw has happened. I am really in love with another man, and I do hope you will divorce me. I am staying at present with Duncan in his flat. I told you he was at Venice with us. I’m awfully unhappy for your sake: but do try to take it quietly. You don’t really need me any more, and I can’t bear to come back to Wragby. I’m most awfully sorry. But do try to forgive me, and divorce me and find someone better. I’m not really the right person for you, I am too impatient and selfish, I suppose. But I can’t ever come back to live with you again. And I feel so frightfully sorry about it all, for your sake. But if you don’t let yourself get worked up, you’ll see you won’t mind so frightfully. You didn’t really care about me personally. So do forgive me and get rid of me.”
Clifford was not inwardly surprised to get this letter. Inwardly, he had known for a long time she was leaving him. But he had absolutely refused any outward admission of it. Therefore, outwardly, it came as the most terrible blow and shock to him. He had kept the surface of his confidence in her quite serene.
And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall.
Clifford was like a hysterical child. He gave Mrs. Bolton a terrible shock, sitting up in bed ghastly and blank.
“Why, Sir Clifford, whatever’s the matter?”
No answer! She was terrified lest he had had a stroke. She hurried and felt his face, took his pulse.
“Is there a pain? Do try and tell me where it hurts you. Do tell me!”
No answer!
“Oh dear, oh dear! Then I’ll telephone to Sheffield for Dr. Carrington, and Dr. Lecky may as well run round straight away.”
She was moving to the door, when he said in a hollow tone:
“No!”
She stopped and gazed at him. His face was yellow, blank, and like the face of an idiot.
“Do you mean you’d rather I didn’t fetch the doctor?”
“Yes! I don’t want him,” came the sepulchral voice.
“Oh, but Sir Clifford, you’re ill, and I daren’t take the responsibility. I must send for the doctor, or I shall be blamed.”
A pause: then the hollow voice said:
“I’m not ill. My wife isn’t coming back.” It was as if an image spoke.
“Not coming back? you mean her ladyship?” Mrs. Bolton moved a little nearer to the bed. “Oh, don’t you believe it. You can trust her ladyship to come back.”
The image in the bed did not change, but it pushed a
