He did not sit down. He stood with an elbow on the mantelpiece, and examined a Tanagra figurine. It was not unlike Helen in miniature.
“There you are, Jim. Where’s your pipe?” She lifted an arm, which would have delighted him in Grecian marble, and pressed his shoulder. He noticed the turquoise on her white hand. He sank into the chair. She sat on the arm of it, and he did not hear what she was saying, for her voice was as far as something just remembered. The bold curves of the thigh beside him, instead of satisfying him, as would that of a statue, so disturbed him that its proximity gave him anxiety. It was dangerous; and she had said “get rid of them.” He could not forget that. He was not going to blaspheme life. There was no fellowship here. He stood up and met her glance. She was patiently watching him in enchanting perplexity.
“Why, aren’t you going to stay?” She looked down, and paused. “You’ve only just come,” she said very quietly. He did not answer, and she said more. He vaguely wondered whether he rightly understood her. The courage of this woman! He dared not look at her. His own sensations were baffling, but somehow he remained rigidly outside himself, so that his body could not act, as though he were afraid, not of her, but of coming too close to himself. There was something more important. She took a step back, and her arm, which had been raised towards him, fell to her side, as though she had forgotten it was raised. He had no sense.
V
At Brixton on Monday evening, Mr. Perriam was trying to leave his house. It was his address, or his house; he never called it his home. He had but just come from Manchester, and the fact that the train had been late gave him the impression that he was an overtasked man to whom even time was an enemy. But he could do it all. He was a strong man. He could continue till he had steeled the indecision into which his affairs had softened in his absence. But it was imperative that he should go to Billiter Avenue at once. He was incensed by the impediments placed by the stupid in the straight course of a just man single-minded in his devotion to good order and common sense. His menservants, with an air of solicitude, and in swift obedience to his peremptory exactions, were silently cursing him, and doing things awry. Mr. Perriam had been in a hurry when he arrived, he was in desperation to leave, and was moving about the hall with an abrupt and heavy celerity which could have been mistaken for craziness, or at best black temper, except that he was so evidently controlling with dignity his righteous impatience over the follies of inferior creatures.
His wife was not there. She had withdrawn unnoticed to a secluded upper room at the first wave of disturbance sent before Mr. Perriam’s car as it entered the outer gates of his residence, as it passed in fact between the two giant pineapples in stone which guarded their Brixton privet hedge. Mrs. Perriam was represented in the hall by the silently protesting surrogation of some Chinese silk tapestry, and a few comforting rugs and prints. They did not accord with the magnificent Indian furniture of Mr. Perriam’s importation, but they did give something on which the eye could rest. But Mr. Perriam’s eye did not rest upon them. He was unaware that his wife was in any way represented. The reproach he felt because she was not there to assuage for an anxious man the torment of the foolishness about him gave his countenance a shadow of proud resignation. His thoughts concentrated on his grave decision, that he must ignore his dinner, and go instantly to his office to examine his letters. He knew his fear was both natural and scrupulous, that ignorance and folly, while he was away, had deflected the orderly directions of his authority.
Jimmy was wondering when his chief would come. The offices of Perriams were deserted. It was past six o’clock. The only light was in his room. Jimmy had to wait. The church clock in St. Mary Axe chimed a quarter-past, half past; and its echo in the empty office where the shadows were deepening was like the memory of things gone in a place where the stir of men would be seen no more. Colet’s surviving light might have been a meaningless obstinacy in the face of advancing night. The desks in the big room were cleared of their books, and the bare mahogany surfaces gleamed in cold patches in the dusk. One of the cats of the building strolled across the linoleum. Jimmy stood up and nervously stretched himself. He saw that cat. Ah! another creature was alive there. He called to it. But the cat only twitched her tail and went on. She was nothing to him; she was only a familiar, native to the desert.
But why should he wait? There was really nothing to wait for. He did not want to see Perriam. And perhaps the boss was not coming after all. It was impossible to do any work. If Perriam came there was no report he could make which could be called good. He could give nothing to the place; and
