as soon as g.j. had been let into the abode by concepcion's venerable parlour-maid, the voice of concepcion came down to him from above:
"g.j., who is your oldest and dearest friend?"
he replied, marvellously schooling his voice to a similar tone of cheerful abruptness:
"difficult to say, off-hand."
"not at all. it's your beard."
that was her greeting to him. he knew she was recalling an old declined suggestion of hers that he should part with his beard. the parlour-maid practised an admirable deafness, faithfully to confirm concepcion, who always presumed deafness in all servants. g.j. looked up the narrow well of the staircase. he could vaguely see concepcion on high, leaning over the banisters; he thought she was rather fluffilly dressed, for her.
concepcion inhabited an upper part in a street largely devoted to the sale of grand pianos. her front door was immediately at the top of a long, straight, narrow stairway; so that whoever opened the door stood one step higher than the person desiring entrance. within the abode, which was fairly spacious, more and more stairs went up and up. "my motto is," she would say, "'one room, one staircase.'" the life of the abode was on the busy stairs. she called it also her alpine club. she had made upper-parts in that street popular among the select, and had therefore caused rents to rise. in the drawing-room she had hung a horrible enlarged photographic portrait of herself, with a chocolate-coloured mount, the whole framed in german gilt, and under it she had inscribed, "presented to miss concepcion iquist by the grateful landlords of the neighbourhood as a slight token of esteem and regard."
she was the only daughter of iquist's brother, who had had a business and a palace at lima. at the age of eighteen, her last surviving parent being dead, she had come to london and started to keep house for the bachelor iquist, who at that very moment, owing to a fortunate change in the ministry, had humorously entered the cabinet. these two had immediately become "the most talked-of pair in london," london in this phrase signifying the few thousand people who do talk about the doings of other people unknown to them and being neither kings, princes, statesmen, artistes, artists, jockeys, nor poisoners. the iquists had led the semi-intelligent, conscious-of-its-audience set which had ousted the old, quite unintelligent stately-homes-of-england set from the first place in the curiosity of the everlasting public. concepcion had wit. it was stated that she furnished her uncle with the finest of his mots. when iquist died, of course poor concepcion had retired to the upper part, whence, though her position was naturally weakened, she still took a hand in leading the set.
g.j. had grown friendly and appreciative of her, for the simple reason that she had singled him out and always tried to please him, even when taking liberties with him. he liked her because she was different from her set. she had a masculine mind, whereas many even of the males of her set had a feminine mind. she was exceedingly well educated; she had ideas on everything; and she never failed in catching an allusion. she would criticise her set very honestly; her attitude to it and to herself seemed to be that of an impartial and yet indulgent philosopher; withal she could be intensely loyal to fools and worse who were friends. as for the public, she was apparently convinced of the sincerity of her scorn for it, while admitting that she enjoyed publicity, which had become indispensable to her as a drug may become indispensable. moreover, there was her wit and her candid, queer respect for g.j.
yes, he had greatly admired her for her qualities. he did not, however, greatly admire her physique. she was tall, with a head scarcely large enough for her body. she had a nice snub nose which in another woman might have been irresistible. she possessed very little physical charm, and showed very little taste in her neat, prim frocks. not merely had she a masculine mind, but she was somewhat hard, a self-confessed egoist. she swore like the set, using about one "damn" or one "bloody" to every four cigarettes, of which she smoked, perhaps, fifty a day—including some in taxis. she discussed the sexual vagaries of her friends and her enemies with a freedom and an apparent learning which were remarkable in a virgin.
in the end she had married carlos smith, and, characteristically, had received him into her own home instead of going to his; as a fact, he had none, having been a parent's close-kept darling. london had only just recovered from the excitations of the wedding. g.j. had regarded the marriage with benevolence, perhaps with relief.
"anybody else coming to lunch?" he discreetly inquired of his familiar, the parlour-maid.
she breathed a negative.
he had guessed it. concepcion had meant to be alone with him. having married for love, and her husband being rapt away by the war, she intended to resume her old, honest, quasi-sentimental relations with g.j. a reliable and experienced bachelor is always useful to a young grass-widow, and, moreover, the attendant hopeless adorer nourishes her hungry egotism as nobody else can. g.j. thought these thoughts, clearly and callously, in the same moment as, mounting the next flight of stairs, he absolutely trembled with sympathetic anguish for concepcion. his errand was an impossible one; he feared, or rather he hoped, that the very look on his face might betray the dreadful news to that undeceivable intuition which women were supposed to possess. he hesitated on the stairs; he recoiled from the top step—(she had coquettishly withdrawn herself into the room)—he hadn't the slightest idea how to begin. yes, the errand was an impossible one, and yet such errands had to be performed by somebody, were daily being performed by somebodies. then he had the idea of telephoning privily to fetch her cousin sara. he would open by remarking casually to concepcion:
"i say, can i use your telephone a minute?" he found a strange concepcion in the drawing-room. this was his first sight of mrs. carlos smith since the wedding. she wore a dress such as he had never seen on her: a tea-gown—and for lunch! it could be called neither neat nor prim, but it was voluptuous. her complexion had bloomed; the curves of her face were softer, her gestures more abandoned, her gaze full of a bold and yet shamed self-consciousness, her dark hair looser. he stood close to her; he stood within the aura of her recently aroused temperament, and felt it. he thought, could not help thinking: "perhaps she bears within her the legacy of new life." he could not help thinking of her name. he took her hot hand. she said nothing, but just looked at him. he then said jauntily:
"i say, can i use your telephone a minute?" fortunately, the telephone was in the bedroom. he went farther upstairs and shut himself in the bedroom, and saw naught but the telephone surrounded by the mysterious influences of inanimate things in the gay, crowded room.
"is that you, mrs. trevise? it's g.j. speaking. g.j.... hoape. yes. listen. i'm at concepcion's for lunch, and i want you to come over as quickly as you can. i've got very bad news indeed—the worst possible. carlos has been killed at the front. what? yes, awful, isn't it? she doesn't know. i have the job of telling her."
now that the words had been spoken in concepcion's abode the reality of carlos smith's death seemed more horribly convincing than before. and g.j., speaker of the words, felt almost as guilty as though he himself were responsible for the death. when he had rung off he stood motionless in the room until the opening of the door startled him. concepcion appeared.
"if you've done corrupting my innocent telephone ..." she said, "lunch is cooling."
he felt a murderer.
at the lunch-table she might have been a genuine south american. nobody could be less like christine than she was; and yet in those instants she incomprehensibly reminded him of christine. then she started to talk in her old manner of a professional and renowned talker. g.j. listened attentively. they ate. it was astounding that he could eat. and it was rather surprising that she did not cry out: "g.j. what the devil's the matter with you to-day?" but she went on talking evenly, and she made him recount his doings. he related the conversation at the club, and especially what bob, the retired judge, had said about equilibrium on the western front. she did not want to hear anything as to the funeral.
"we'll have champagne," she said suddenly to the parlour-maid, who was about to offer some red wine. and while the parlour-maid was out of the room she said to g.j., "there isn't a country in europe where champagne is not a symbol, and we must conform."
"a symbol of what?"
"ah! the unusual."
"and what is there unusual to-day?" he almost asked, but did not ask. it would, of course, have been utterly monstrous to put such a question, knowing what he knew. he thought: i'm not a bit nearer telling her than i was when i came.
after the parlour-maid had poured out the champagne concepcion picked up her glass and absently glanced through it and said:
"you know, g.j., i shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that carly was killed out there. i shouldn't, really."
in amazement g.j. ceased to eat.
"you needn't look at me like that," she said. "i'm quite serious. one may as well face the risks. he does. of course they're all heroes. there are millions of heroes. but i do honestly believe that my carly would be braver than anyone. by the way, did i ever tell you he was considered the best shot in cheshire?"
"no. but i knew," answered g.j. feebly. he would have expected her to be a little condescending towards carlos, to whom in brains she was infinitely superior. but no! carlos had mastered her, and she was grateful to him for mastering her. he had taught her in three weeks more than she had learnt on two continents in thirty years. she talked of him precisely as any wee wifie might have talked of the soldier-spouse. and she called him "carly"!
neither of them had touched the champagne. g.j. decided that he would postpone any attempt to tell her until her cousin arrived; her cousin might arrive at any moment now.
while the parlour-maid presented potatoes concepcion deliberately ignored her and said dryly to g.j.:
"i can't eat any more. i think i ought to run along to debenham and freebody's at once. you might come too, and be sure to bring your good taste with you."
he was alarmed by her tone.
"debenham and freebody's! what for?"
"to order mourning, of course. to have it ready, you know. a precaution, you know." she laughed.
he saw that she was becoming hysterical: the special liability of the war-bride for whom the curtain has been lifted and falls exasperatingly, enragingly, too soon.
"you think i'm a bit hysterical?" she questioned, half menacingly, and stood up.
"i think you'd better sit down, to begin with," he said firmly.
the parlour-maid, blushing slightly, left the room.
"oh, all right!" concepcion agreed carelessly, and sat down. "but you may as well read that."
she drew a telegram from the low neck of her gown and carefully unfolded it and placed it in front of him. it was a war office telegram announcing that carlos had been killed.
"it came ten minutes before you," she said.
"why didn't you tell me at once?" he murmured, frightfully shocked. he was actually reproaching her!
she stood up again. she lived; her breast rose and fell. her gown had the same voluptuousness. her temperament was still emanating the same aura. she was the same new concepcion, strange and yet profoundly known to him. but ineffable tragedy had marked her down, and the sight of her parched the throat.
she said:
"couldn't. besides, i had to see if i could stand it. because i've got to stand it, g.j.... and, moreover, in our set it's a sacred duty to be original."
she snatched the telegram, tore it in two, and pushed the pieces back into her gown.
"'poor wounded name!'" she murmured, "'my bosom as a bed shall lodge thee.'"
the next moment she fell to the floor, at full length on her back. g.j. sprang to her, kneeling on her rich, outspread gown, and tried to lift her.
"no, no!" she protested faintly, dreamily, with a feeble frown on her pale forehead. "let me lie. equilibrium has been established on the western front."
this was her greatest mot.
