the tiger was very conveniently close to the wedgwood institution. the tiger had a 'yard', one of those long, shapeless expanses of the planet, partly paved with uneven cobbles and partly unsophisticated planet, without which no provincial hotel can call itself respectable. we came into it from the hinterland through a wooden doorway in a brick wall. far off i could see one light burning. we were in the centre of bursley, the gold angel of its town hall rose handsomely over the roof of the hotel in the diffused moonlight, but we might have been in the purlieus of some dubious establishment on the confines of a great seaport, where anything may happen. the yard was so deserted, so mysterious, so shut in, so silent, that, really, infamous characters ought to have rushed out at us from the obscurity of shadows, and felled us to the earth with no other attendant phenomenon than a low groan. there are places where one seems to feel how thin and brittle is the crust of law and order. why one should be conscious of this in the precincts of such a house as the tiger, which i was given to understand is as respectable as the parish church, i do not know. but i have experienced a similar feeling in the yards of other provincial hotels that were also as correct as parish churches. we passed a dim fly, with its shafts slanting forlornly to the ground, and a wheelbarrow. both looked as though they had been abandoned for ever. then we came to the lamp, which illuminated a door, and on the door was a notice: 'private bar. billiards.'

i am not a frequenter of convivial haunts. i should not dare to penetrate alone into a private bar; when i do enter a private bar it is invariably under the august protection of an habitue, and it is invariably with the idea that at last i am going to see life. often has this illusion been shattered, but each time it perfectly renewed itself. so i followed the bold mr brindley into the private bar of the tiger.

it was a small and low room. i instinctively stooped, though there was no necessity for me to stoop. the bar had no peculiarity. it can be described in a breath: three perpendicular planes. back plane, bottles arranged exactly like books on bookshelves; middle plane, the upper halves of two women dressed in tight black; front plane, a counter, dotted with glasses, and having strange areas of zinc. reckon all that as the stage, and the rest of the room as auditorium. but the stage of a private bar is more mysterious than the stage of a theatre. you are closer to it, and yet it is far less approachable. the edge of the counter is more sacred than the footlights. impossible to imagine yourself leaping over it. impossible to imagine yourself in that cloistered place behind it. impossible to imagine how the priestesses got themselves into that place, or that they ever leave it. they are always there; they are always the same. you may go into a theatre when it is empty and dark; but did you ever go into a private bar that was empty and dark? a private bar is as eternal as the hills, as changeless as the monomania of a madman, as mysterious as sorcery. always the same order of bottles, the same tinkling, the same popping, the same time-tables, and the same realistic pictures of frothing champagne on the walls, the same advertisements on the same ash-trays on the counter, the same odour that wipes your face like a towel the instant you enter; and the same smiles, the same gestures, the same black fabric stretched to tension over the same impressive mammiferous phenomena of the same inexplicable creatures who apparently never eat and never sleep, imprisoned for life in the hallowed and mystic hollow between the bottles and the zinc.

in a tone almost inaudible in its discretion, mr brindley let fall to me as he went in—

this is she.'

she was not quite the ordinary barmaid. nor, as i learnt afterwards, was she considered to be the ordinary barmaid. she was something midway in importance between the wife of the new proprietor and the younger woman who stood beside her in the cloister talking to a being that resembled a commercial traveller. it was the younger woman who was the ordinary barmaid; she had bright hair, and the bright vacant stupidity which, in my narrow experience, barmaids so often catch like an infectious disease from their clients. but annie brett was different. i can best explain how she impressed me by saying that she had the mien of a handsome married woman of forty with a coquettish and superficially emotional past, but also with a daughter who is just going into long skirts. i have known one or two such women. they have been beautiful; they are still handsome at a distance of twelve feet. they are rather effusive; they think they know life, when as a fact their instinctive repugnance for any form of truth has prevented them from acquiring even the rudiments of the knowledge of life. they are secretly preoccupied by the burning question of obesity. they flatter, and they will pay any price for flattery. they are never sincere, not even with themselves; they never, during the whole of their existence, utter a sincere word, even in anger they coldly exaggerate. they are always frothing at the mouth with ecstasy. they adore everything, including god; go to church carrying a prayer-book and hymn-book in separate volumes, and absolutely fawn on the daughter. they are stylish—and impenetrable. but there is something about them very wistful and tragic.

in another social stratum, miss annie brett might have been such a woman. without doubt nature had intended her for the role. she was just a little ample, with broad shoulders and a large head and a lot of dark chestnut hair; a large mouth, and large teeth. she had earrings, a brooch, and several rings; also a neat originality of cuffs that would not have been permitted to an ordinary barmaid. as for her face, there were crow's-feet, and a mole (which had selected with infinite skill a site on her chin), and a general degeneracy of complexion; but it was an effective face. the little thing of twenty-three or so by her side had all the cruel advantages of youth and was not ugly; but she was 'killed' by annie brett. miss brett had a maternal bust. indeed, something of the maternal resided in all of her that was visible above the zinc. she must have been about forty; that is to say, apparently older than the late simon fuge. nevertheless, i could conceive her, even now, speciously picturesque in a boat at midnight on a moonstruck water. had she been on the stage she would have been looking forward to ingenue parts for another five years yet—such was her durable sort of effectiveness. yes, she indubitably belonged to the ornamental half of the universe.

'so this is one of them!' i said to myself.

i tried to be philosophical; but at heart i was profoundly disappointed. i did not know what i had expected; but i had not expected that. i was well aware that a thing written always takes on a quality which does not justly appertain to it. i had not expected, therefore, to see an odalisque, a houri, an ideal toy or the remains of an ideal toy; i had not expected any kind of obvious brilliancy, nor a subtle charm that would haunt my memory for evermore. on the other hand, i had not expected the banal, the perfectly commonplace. and i think that miss annie brett was the most banal person that it has pleased fate to send into my life. i knew that instantly. she was a condemnation of simon fuge. she, one of the 'wonderful creatures who had played so large a part' in the career of simon fuge! sapristi! still, she was one of the wonderful creatures, etc. she had floated o'er the bosom of the lake with a great artist. she had received his homage. she had stirred his feelings. she had shared with him the magic of the night. i might decry her as i would; she had known how to cast a spell over him—she and the other one! something there in her which had captured him and, seemingly, held him captive.

'good-evening, mr brindley,' she expanded. 'you're quite a stranger.' and she embraced me also in the largeness of her welcome.

'it just happens,' said mr brindley, 'that i was here last night. but you weren't.'

'were you now!' she exclaimed, as though learning a novel fact of the most passionate interest. the truth is, i had to leave the bar to miss slaney last night. mrs moorcroft was ill—and the baby only six weeks old, you know—and i wouldn't leave her. no, i wouldn't.'

it was plain that in miss annie brett's opinion there was only one really capable intelligence in the tiger. this glimpse of her capability, this out-leaping of the latent maternal in her, completely destroyed for the moment my vision of her afloat on the bosom of the lake.

'i see,' said mr brindley kindly. then he turned to me with characteristic abruptness. 'well, give it a name, mr loring.'

such is my simplicity that i did not immediately comprehend his meaning. for a fraction of a second i thought of the baby. then i perceived that he was merely employing one of the sacred phrases, sanctified by centuries of usage, of the private bar. i had already drunk mercurey, green chartreuse, and coffee. i had a violent desire not to drink anything more. i knew my deplorable tomorrows. still, i would have drunk hot milk, cold water, soda water, or tea. why should i not have had what i did not object to having? herein lies another mystery of the private bar. one could surely order tea or milk or soda water from a woman who left everything to tend a mother with a six-weeks-old baby! but no. one could not. as miss annie brett smiled at me pointedly, and rubbed her ringed hands, and kept on smiling with her terrific mechanical effusiveness, i lost all my self control; i would have resigned myself to a hundred horrible tomorrows under the omnipotent, inexplicable influence of the private bar. i ejaculated, as though to the manner born—

'irish.'

it proved to have been rather clever of me, showing as it did a due regard for convention combined with a pretty idiosyncrasy. mr brindley was clearly taken aback. the idea struck him as a new one. he reflected, and then enthusiastically exclaimed—

'dashed if i don't have irish too!'

and miss brett, delighted by this unexpected note of irish in the long, long symphony of scotch, charged our glasses with gusto. i sipped, death in my heart, and rakishness in my face and gesture. mr brindley raised his glass respectfully to miss annie brett, and i did the same. those two were evidently good friends.

she led the conversation with hard, accustomed ease. when i say 'hard' i do not in the least mean unsympathetic. but her sympathetic quality was toughened by excessive usage, like the hand of a charwoman. she spoke of the vagaries of the town hall clock, the health of mr brindley's children, the price of coal, the incidence of the annual wakes, the bankruptcy of the draper next door, and her own sciatica, all in the same tone of metallic tender solicitude. mr brindley adopted an entirely serious attitude towards her. if i had met him there and nowhere else i should have taken him for a dignified mediocrity, little better than a fool, but with just enough discretion not to give himself away. i said nothing. i was shy. i always am shy in a bar. out of her cold, cold roving eye miss brett watched me, trying to add me up and not succeeding. she must have perceived, however, that i was not like a fish in water.

there was a pause in the talk, due, i think, to miss annie brett's preoccupation with what was going on between miss slaney, the ordinary barmaid, and her commercial traveller. the commercial traveller, if he was one, was reading something from a newspaper to miss slaney in an indistinct murmur, and with laughter in his voice.

'by the way,' said mr brindley, 'you used to know simon fuge, didn't you?'

'old simon fuge!' said miss brett. 'yes; after the brewery company took the blue bell at cauldon over from him, i used to be there. he would come in sometimes. such a nice queer old man!'

'i mean the son,' said mr brindley.

'oh yes,' she answered. 'i knew young mr simon too.' a slight hesitation, and then: 'of course!' another hesitation. 'why?'

'nothing,' said mr brindley. 'only he's dead.'

'you don't mean to say he's dead?' she exclaimed.

'day before yesterday, in italy,' said mr brindley ruthlessly.

miss annie brett's manner certainly changed. it seemed almost to become natural and unecstatic.

'i suppose it will be in the papers?' she ventured.

'it's in the london paper.'

'well i never!' she muttered.

'a long time, i should think, since he was in this part of the world,' said mr brindley. 'when did you last see him?'

he was exceedingly skilful, i considered.

she put the back of her hand over her mouth, and bending her head slightly and lowering her eyelids, gazed reflectively at the counter.

'it was once when a lot of us went to ilam,' she answered quietly. 'the st luke's lot, you know.'

'oh!' cried mr brindley, apparently startled. 'the st luke's lot?'

'yes.'

'how came he to go with you?'

'he didn't go with us. he was there—stopping there, i suppose.'

'why, i believe i remember hearing something about that,' said mr brindley cunningly. 'didn't he take you out in a boat?'

a very faint dark crimson spread over the face of miss annie brett. it could not be called a blush, but it was as like a blush as was possible to her. the phenomenon, as i could see from his eyes, gave mr brindley another shock.

'yes,' she replied. 'sally was there as well.'

then a silence, during which the commercial traveller could be heard reading from the newspaper.

'when was that?' gently asked mr brindley.

'don't ask me when it was, mr brindley,' she answered nervously. 'it's ever so long ago. what did he die of?'

'don't know.'

miss annie brett opened her mouth to speak, and did not speak. there were tears in her reddened eyes. i felt very awkward, and i think that mr brindley also felt awkward. but i was glad. those moist eyes caused me a thrill. there was after all some humanity in miss annie brett. yes, she had after all floated on the bosom of the lake with simon fuge. the least romantic of persons, she had yet felt romance. if she had touched simon fuge, simon fuge had touched her. she had memories. once she had lived. i pictured her younger. i sought in her face the soft remains of youthfulness. i invented languishing poses for her in the boat. my imagination was equal to the task of seeing her as simon fuge saw her. i did so see her. i recalled simon fuge's excited description of the long night in the boat, and i could reconstitute the night from end to end. and there the identical creature stood before me, the creature who had set fire to simon fuge, one of the 'wonderful creatures' of the gazette, ageing, hardened, banal, but momentarily restored to the empire of romance by those unshed, glittering tears. as an experience it was worth having.

she could not speak, and we did not. i heard the commercial traveller reading: '"the motion was therefore carried by twenty-five votes to nineteen, and the countess of chell promised that the whole question of the employment of barmaids should be raised at the next meeting of the b.w.t.s." there! what do you think of that?'

miss annie brett moved quickly towards the commercial traveller.

til tell you what i think of it,' she said, with ecstatic resentment. 'i think it's just shameful! why should the countess of chell want to rob a lot of respectable young ladies of their living? i can tell you they're just as respectable as the countess of chell is—yes, and perhaps more, by all accounts. i think people do well to call her "interfering iris". when she's robbed them of their living, what does she expect them to do? is she going to keep them? then what does she expect them to do?'

the commercial traveller was inept enough to offer a jocular reply, and then he found himself involved in the morass of 'the whole question'. he, and we also, were obliged to hear in immense detail miss annie brett's complete notions of the movement for the abolition of barmaids. the subject was heavy on her mind, and she lifted it off. simon fuge was relinquished; he dropped like a stone into the pool of forgetfulness. and yet, strange as it seems, she was assuredly not sincere in the expression of her views on the question of barmaids. she held no real views. she merely persuaded herself that she held them. when the commercial traveller, who was devoid of sense, pointed out that it was not proposed to rob anybody of a livelihood, and that existent barmaids would be permitted to continue to grace the counters of their adoption, she grew frostily vicious. the commercial traveller decided to retire and play billiards. mr brindley and i in our turn departed. i was extremely disappointed by this sequel.

'ah!' breathed mr brindley when we were outside, in front of the town hall. 'she was quite right about that clock.'

after that we turned silently into a long illuminated street which rose gently. the boxes of light were flashing up and down it, but otherwise it seemed to be quite deserted. mr brindley filled a pipe and lit it as he walked. the way in which that man kept the match alight in a fresh breeze made me envious. i could conceive myself rivalling his exploits in cigarette-making, the purchase of rare books, the interpretation of music, even (for a wager) the drinking of beer, but i knew that i should never be able to keep a match alight in a breeze. he threw the match into the mud, and in the mud it continued miraculously to burn with a large flame, as though still under his magic dominion. there are some things that baffle the reasoning faculty. 'well,' i said, 'she must have been a pretty woman once.'

'"pretty," by god!' he replied, 'she was beautiful. she was considered the finest piece in hanbridge at one time. and let me tell you we're supposed to have more than our share of good looks in the five towns.'

'what—the women, you mean?'

'yes.'

'and she never married?'

'no.'

'nor—anything?'

'oh no,' he said carelessly.

'but you don't mean to tell me she's never—' i was just going to exclaim, but i did not, i said: 'and it's her sister who is mrs colclough?'

'yes.' he seemed to be either meditative or disinclined to talk. however, my friends have sometimes hinted to me that when my curiosity is really aroused, i am capable of indiscretions.

'so one sister rattles about in an expensive motor-car, and the other serves behind a bar!' i observed.

he glanced at me.

'i expect it's a bit difficult for you to understand,' he answered; 'but you must remember you're in a democratic district. you told me once you knew exeter. well, this isn't a cathedral town. it's about a century in front of any cathedral town in the world. why, my good sir, there's practically no such thing as class distinction here. both my grandfathers were working potters. colclough's father was a joiner who finished up as a builder. if colclough makes money and chooses to go to paris and get the best motor-car he can, why in hades shouldn't his wife ride in it? if he is fond of music and can play like the devil, that isn't his sister-in-law's fault, is it? his wife was a dressmaker, at least she was a dressmaker's assistant. if she suits him, what's the matter?'

'but i never suggested—'

'excuse me,' he stopped me, speaking with careful and slightly exaggerated calmness, 'i think you did. if the difference in the situations of the two sisters didn't strike you as very extraordinary, what did you mean?'

'and isn't it extraordinary?' i demanded.

'it wouldn't be considered so in any reasonable society,' he insisted. 'the fact is, my good sir, you haven't yet quite got rid of exeter. i do believe this place will do you good. why, damn it! colclough didn't marry both sisters. you think he might keep the other sister? well, he might. but suppose his wife had half-a-dozen sisters, should he keep them all! i can tell you we're just like the rest of the world, we find no difficulty whatever in spending all the money we make. i dare say colclough would be ready enough to keep his sister-in-law. i've never asked him. but i'm perfectly certain that his sister-in-law wouldn't be kept. not much! you don't know these women down here, my good sir. she's earned her living at one thing or another all her life, and i reckon she'll keep on earning it till she drops. she is, without exception, the most exasperating female i ever came across, and that's saying something; but i will give her that credit: she's mighty independent.'

'how exasperating?' i asked, surprised to hear this from him.

'i don't know. but she is. if she was my wife i should kill her one night. don't you know what i mean?'

'yes, i quite agree with you,' i said. 'but you seemed to be awfully good friends with her.'

'no use being anything else. no woman that it ever pleased providence to construct is going to frighten me away from the draught burton that you can get at the tiger. besides, she can't help it. she was born like that.'

'she talks quite ordinarily,' i remarked.

'oh! it isn't what she says, particularly. it's her. either you like her or you don't like her. now colclough thinks she's all right. in fact, he admires her.'

'there's one thing,' i said, 'she jolly nearly cried tonight.'

'purely mechanical!' said mr brindley with cruel curtness.

what seemed to me singular was that the relations which had existed between miss annie brett and simon fuge appeared to have no interest whatever for mr brindley. he had not even referred to them.

'you were just beginning to draw her out,' i ventured.

'no,' he replied; 'i thought i'd just see what she'd say. no one ever did draw that woman out.'

i had completely lost my vision of her in the boat, but somehow that declaration of his, 'no one ever did draw that woman out', partially restored the vision to me. it seemed to invest her with agreeable mystery.

'and the other sister—mrs colclough?' i questioned.

'i'm taking you to see her as fast as i can,' he answered. his tone implied further: 'i've just humoured one of your whims, now for the other.'

'but tell me something about her.'

'she's the best bridge-player—woman, that is—in bursley. but she will only play every other night for fear the habit should get hold of her. there you've got her.'

'younger than miss brett?'

'younger,' said mr brindley. 'she isn't the same sort of person, is she?'

'she is not,' said mr brindley. and his tone implied: 'thank god for it!'

very soon afterwards, at the top of a hill, he drew me into the garden of a large house which stood back from the road.