“Mrs. Cawtree wrote to me,” Sally resumed, “and Fanny Solférino and my mother. My mother was very violent. My mother said that I had disgraced her. She declared that no decent person would ever receive me, unless—”
Sally paused. Like the lady whom she was quoting, she sometimes embroidered the truth.
“Unless—” she presently continued, and paused again.
But, as Welden manifested no interest in the proviso, she prodded him.
“I don’t like to tell you.”
Then, seeing that Welden had no intention of urging her, she took her courage in her jewelled hand.
“Unless you marry me.”
Welden had been occupied with the logic of her previous statement, but the unobtrusive modesty of this announcement surprised him from it.
He removed his cigar. “I had an idea that you were married already.”
Into the melancholy of Sally’s face there crept a smile. “I was,” she answered. “I am no longer.”
“Ah,” said Welden. “Is Malakoff dead?”
But now the smile in Sally’s face deepened. It burrowed under the melancholy and tossed it aside. She laughed.
“No, divorced. It was so amusing too. Shall I tell you about it? Shall I? Well, after I put in the petition, the judge had us both see him in private. Ridgeway told me he would. It appears that in divorce cases here the judge takes a sort of fatherly attitude and tries to get the parties to make up and, if you will believe me, he did try. He was so nice about it, too, that you would have thought he was my aunt and Malakoff was so rude you would have thought he was my mother. But the judge was really very nice. And so civil! Dear me, his mouth was just full of madame la duchesse and monsieur de duc. Later on, in the decree, he fined his monsieur le duc a hundred francs. Don’t you think it was amusing?”
Welden shrugged his shoulders. After the duel it had been grievous to him that he had not killed the man. Now he did not care. During the race he had tried to kill himself. There too he had failed. But that also was a matter of indifference. Before either race or duel he had been obsessed by the vision of a pillowed head. It had gone. Though he had failed with Malakoff and failed with himself, he had thoroughly assassinated that.
“Don’t you think it was amusing?” Sally repeated.
“You certainly have not been idle,” Welden replied. “What were the grounds?”
Sally made a gesture. Though there are things that men do, there are women who do not mention them.
Welden nodded. “Who was the co?”
“Who?” cried Sally. “Have you forgotten already? Don’t you remember the night of the ?”
Welden nodded again and knocked the ashes from his cigar. “You are no longer, then, madame la duchesse.”
Smilingly Sally stood up. She moved from the table, dropped him a curtsy and sweetly, yet simply, replied:
“I am Sally Kandy again, and yours if you will have me.”
“Thank you,” said Welden, quite as though he had been offered another cup of coffee. “Thank you. But did not this Ridgeway tell you about the Court of Cassation? Malakoff has six months in which to appeal. Of course he will do nothing of the kind. None the less, in the interim, any marriage of yours would be bigamous.”
At that last word Sally flushed and sat down. It is possible that she had misconstrued its meaning.
“What a dreadful expression,” she exclaimed. “I am sure I never should think of anything so horrid. But, in the interim, as you call it, what is there to prevent us from going to South Africa or, better still, to the East?”
At the door came a rap. Harris entered, busying himself with the cloth. Welden got up and limped to the window.
In the park without, leaves were falling, falling from branch to branch; falling slowly, as with regret; falling undecidedly with precaution. In their faint rustle was a sound such as the steps of fate may make when approaching furtively, a-tiptoe.
The hesitancy of it filtered into Welden’s thoughts. Usually, he knew what he had to do and did it. But illness plays strange tricks and destiny plays others. After all, he told himself, eventually there would be someone else. Perhaps as well then Sally as another. At least she would serve to show to Maud how indifferent he was to her. Even otherwise, how should it matter? How should anything matter any more?
He turned. Harris had gone. Sally through her half-closed eyes, was watching him.
“Very good,” he said. “We will go to the Orient since you wish it.”
With a feline twist of the tongue Sally moistened her lips. She had the sensation of being lifted lightly in the air. It was the last fence. She had reached the post a winner.
Alone in his room that night Welden still heard the leaves. They fell slowly, solemnly, burying the past beneath their slender weight, raising between him and it a veil, tenuous and aerial. Higher it rose, higher still, ever higher until, sinking again, it enveloped memory in it.
A fortnight later Welden and Sally, attended by their servants, embarked from Southampton on a voyage that took them first to India, where they loitered, then to Hong Kong, where they were married and finally to White Peacocks.
There the journey ended. There, for one of them, eternity began.
Part III
Afterward
I
Perspectives
“Well, William, how are you? Is Miss Barhyte at home?”
“Yes, sir, Miss Barhyte has just come in. I hope I see you very well, sir. It’s a long time, sir—”
Taking Welden’s hat and stick, the servant showed him into the library, which apparently, was unaltered. The cushions on the sofa were as colourful as before. Opposite, the piano stood, and from the walls powdered heads looked down. But, from the table, the Sicilians had gone. In place
