Lamp-light
within, too, was showing yellow between the Venetian blinds; a cold
gas-jet gleamed out of the basement window. He seemed bereft now of all
desire or emotion, simply the passive witness of things external in a
calm which, though he scarcely realised its cause, was an exquisite
solace and relief. His senses were intensely sharpened with
sleeplessness. The faintest sound belled clear and keen on his ear. The
thinnest beam of light besprinkled his eyes with curious brilliance. As quietly as some nocturnal creature he ascended the steps to the
porch, and leaning between stone pilaster and wall, listened intently
for any rumour of those within. He heard a clear, rather languid and delicate voice quietly speak on
until it broke into a little peal of laughter, followed, when it fell
silent by Sheila’s—rapid, rich, and low. The first speaker seemed to be
standing. Probably, then, his evening visitors had only just come in,
or were preparing to depart. He inserted his latchkey and gently pushed
at the cumbersome door. It was locked against him. With not the
faintest thought of resentment or surprise, he turned back, stooped
over the balustrade and looked down into the kitchen. Nothing there was
visible but a narrow strip of the white table, on which lay a black
cotton glove, and beyond, the glint of a copper pan. What made all
these mute and inanimate things so coldly hostile? An extreme, almost nauseous distaste filled him at the thought of
knocking for admission, of confronting Ada, possibly even Sheila, in
the cold echoing gloom of the detestable porch; of meeting the first
wild, almost metallic, flash of recognition. He swept softly down
again, and paused at the open gate. Once before the voices of the night
had called him: they would not summon him forever in vain. He raised
his eyes again towards the window. Who were these visitors met together
to drum the alien out? He narrowed his lids and smiled up at the
vacuous unfriendly house. Then wheeling, on a sudden impulse he groped
his way down the gravel path that led into the garden. As he had left
it, the long white window was ajar. With extreme caution he pushed it noiselessly up, and climbed in, and
stood listening again in the black passage on the other side. When he
had fully recovered his breath, and the knocking of his heart was
stilled, he trod on softly, till turning the corner he came in sight of
the kitchen door. It was now narrowly open, just enough, perhaps, to
admit a cat; and as he softly approached, looking steadily in, he could
see Ada sitting at the empty table, beneath the single whistling
chandelier, in her black dress and black straw hat. She was reading
apparently; but her back was turned to him and he could not distinguish
her arm beyond the elbow. Then almost in an instant he discovered, as,
drawn up and unstirring he gazed on, that she was not reading, but had
covertly and instantaneously raised her eyes from the print on the
table beneath, and was transfixedly listening too. He turned his eyes
away and waited. When again he peered in she had apparently bent once
more over her magazine, and he stole on. One by one, with a thin remote exultation in his progress, he mounted
the kitchen stairs, and with each deliberate and groping step the
voices above him became more clearly audible. At last, in the darkness
of the hall, but faintly stirred by the gleam of lamplight from the
chink of the dining-room door, he stood on the threshold of the
drawing-room door and could hear with varying distinctness what those
friendly voices were so absorbedly discussing. His ear seemed as
exquisite as some contrivance of science, registering passively the
least sound, the faintest syllable, and like it, in no sense meddling
with the thought that speech conveyed. He simply stood listening, fixed
and motionless, like some uncouth statue in the leafy hollow of a
garden, stony, unspeculating. ‘Oh, but you either refuse to believe, Bettie, or you won’t understand
that it’s far worse than that.’ Sheila seemed to be upbraiding, or at
least reasoning with, the last speaker. ‘Ask Mr Danton—he actually
_saw_ him.’

‘“Saw him,”’ repeated a thick, still voice. ‘He stood there, in that
very doorway, Mrs Lovat, and positively railed at me. He stood there
and streamed out all the names he could lay his tongue to. I
wasn’t—unfriendly to the poor beggar. When Bethany let me into it I
thought it was simply—I did indeed, Mrs Lawford—a monstrous
exaggeration. Flatly, I didn’t believe it; shall I say that? But when I
stood face to face with him, I could have taken my oath that that was
no more poor old Arthur Lawford than—well, I won’t repeat what
particular word occurred to me. But there,’ the corpulent shrug was
almost audible, ‘we all know what old Bethany is. A sterling old chap,
mind you, so far as mere character is concerned; the right man in the
right place; but as gullible and as soft-hearted as a tom-tit. I’ve
said all this before, I know, Mrs Lawford, and been properly snubbed
for my pains. But if I had been Bethany I’d have sifted the whole story
at the beginning, the moment he put his foot into the house. Look at
that Tichborne fellow—went for months and months, just picking up one
day what he floored old Hawkins—wasn’t it?—with the next. But of
course,’ he added gloomily, ‘now that’s all too late. He’s moaned
himself into a tolerably tight corner. I’d just like to see, though, a
British jury comparing this claimant with his photograph, ‘pon my word
I would. Where would he be then, do you think?’

‘But my dear Mr Danton,’ went on the clear, languid voice Lawford had
heard break so light-heartedly into laughter, ‘you don’t mean to tell
me that a woman doesn’t know her own husband when she sees him—or, for
the matter of that, when she doesn’t see him? If Tom came home from a
ramble as handsome as Apollo to-morrow, I’d recognise him at the very
first blush—literally! He’d go nuzzling off to get his slippers, or
complain that the lamps had been smoking, or hunt the house down for
last week’s paper. Oh, besides, Tom’s Tom—and there’s an end of it.’

‘That’s precisely what I think, Mrs Lovat; one is saturated with one’s
personality, as it were.’

‘You see, that’s just it! That’s just exactly every woman’s husband all
over; he is saturated with his personality. Bravo, Mr Craik!’

‘Good Lord,’ said Danton softly. ‘I don’t deny it!’

‘But that,’ broke in Sheila crisply—‘that’s just precisely what I asked
you all to come in for. It’s because I know now, apart altogether from
the mere evidence, that—that he is Arthur. Mind, I don’t say I ever
really doubted. I was only so utterly shocked, I suppose. I positively
put posers to him; but his memory was perfect in spite of the shock
which would have killed a—a more sensitive nature.’ She had risen, it
seemed, and was moving with all her splendid impressiveness of silk and
presence across the general line of vision. But the hall was dark and
still; her eyes were dimmed with light.