“Oh, I’ll jolt him all right,” answered Glendenning, who was leaving the room.
VII
That evening, Camille dined alone, or as much alone as a young woman can be who is served by a servant and whose mind is thoroughly occupied. Of Archibald, she was subconsciously aware that, always old, latterly he had seemed to be older. But Revell inhabited her thoughts. Since that high noon when he had lunched with her on a mouthful of sorrel, she had seen him every day. He had sat with her, walked with her, ridden with her, and, where a girl like Camille is concerned, few young men can do that without saying the same thing over and over again.
Revell had omitted even mentioning it. But there are always ways of telling, and Camille knew the state of his mind as well as she knew her own. She knew that she was head over heels in love with this man of whom she knew nothing. Yet, although she lacked the experience to recognize it, that very fact increased his attractiveness. In the history of love, the most sudden, surprising, and devastating passions have been inspired by people who had mystery for sole asset.
Revell had many another. He was very good looking and equally unassuming. In addition, he was distinctly well bred. He never talked about himself. When questioned, he switched. In spite of which, Camille felt at home with him; felt, as girls who have read Mrs. Besant sometimes do feel, that in anterior, forgotten, and enigmatic lives, they had met and loved before. For precisely as she had become conscious of her own psychosis, she was conscious of his. She knew that he loved her. He had made her feel that he meant the very thing he did not say. For the subtlety of that—and subtle it certainly was—she loved him all the more. But as she would have loved him anyway, it perhaps did not matter.
It mattered, and monumentally, to Glendenning, who, on several occasions, had succeeded in making himself even more obnoxious than usual. There was the defunct Mrs. Grundy, whom he evoked and flung at her. Living as she was, and, as he put it, without the ghost of a chaperon, such goings-on did not do. Besides, what did she know of Revell? Was she even sure that his name was Revell? Et cetera and so forth and so on.
To all of which Camille had turned an angry ear and on each occasion had turned him out. None the less, when there is mud enough, some of it will stick. It affected the girl. It made her realize that, on the subject of the one and only, she was considerably in the dark.
At the moment, she was not only in the dark; she was really alone. Archibald had vanished. A moment more and there he was again and would she see Mr. Revell?
Camille moistened her lips, went into the adjoining room, gave him her hand, and said:
“I was just thinking about you. Sit down and tell me all about yourself. It’s perfectly ridiculous. I don’t yet know what your middle name is.”
Revell, who was looking very fit, smiled as he answered:
“That must be because I haven’t any.”
But Camille was not to be denied. “Your middle name can stand for you, then. We’ve talked about me, or, rather, you have, and that topic is threadbare. We’ve talked gastronomy, and I’ve found that you know very little about it. We’ve talked art, and you’ve found that I know less. We’ve talked horses, war, submarines, aëroplanes, the czar, the kaiser, and the weather. Barring horses, I never want to talk of any of them again. I want to talk business. Who are you?”
Revell’s smile deepened.
“Didn’t somebody put the same question to Plato, and didn’t he answer: ‘I wish I knew?’ ”
“Oh, if you’re going to bring out your seventeen-inch guns! And, anyway, Plato probably found out. If you have not, I’ll help you. Your name is Victor Revell. You are nice, quiet, and gentlemanly. You were Mike’s friend, and now you are mine. I like you very much. But I know nothing of you.”
“You might not like me so well if you did.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, as somebody said, the soul of another is a dark place.”
Camille shook her head at him.
“I’m sure yours isn’t. I feel as if I had always known you. And yet, at the same time, I feel that I don’t know you at all.”
Revell looked down, then up.
“No one knows another. We seldom know ourselves. How can we? Life is a procession of phenomena, of which one departs as another appears and of which each, created by what has gone before, creates that which follows, the result being that, though from cradle to grave, a man is called the same, never, either mentally or physically, is he. The man of this instant perishes. He is replaced by a new one during the next.”
“Do you think that is a pretty way to talk to a girl?” Camille with an air of severity inquired. “Why don’t you tell me something I can’t understand. Or if that is difficult, treat me like a fellow of your own size and tell me some of your adventures. Don’t you want to smoke, Señor Don Hidalgo?”
Revell lit a cigarette, shifted, and answered:
“Adventures consist more in what we put in them than in what they contain. Of themselves, they are empty. It is our imagination that fills them. The only adventures worth having are those that come not from without, but from within. Take Napoleon. His existence was a dream from which he awoke at St. Helena. It was there only that he really lived.”
Camille made a face.
“There you go again! More artillery!”
“Well, then, take Mrs. Druce, take Madame Humbert.”
“I’m willing. Where are they?”
“Where they deserve to be—among the immortals. With nothing
