II
In the vast hall-way of the house, with men tramping about the stone floor bringing in his luggage and his trophies, the butler very silently gave him a slim letter. Aubrey Carlyle looked at the handwriting on the letter, and then at the silent servant.
“When did my wire arrive?”
“At six o’clock last night, sir.”
And then Aubrey knew the letter in his hand to hold the greatest shock of his life. But he was not a dramatic man, he did not take his surprises dramatically. He put the letter into his pocket.
“And then, Hunt?”
“Sir?”
“And then?”
“Madam left by the eleven o’clock London train this morning, sir. She took luggage.”
“I will have a bath now. Very hot, tell Vesey. Dinner at the usual time. Thank you, Hunt.” Twenty-five years had Hunt been with his master; ten years longer than Gloria.
Aubrey had his bath, very hot. And then he put on those nice, slack, black things which so advantage a man’s looks at night; and with them he always wore a soft shirt, for Aubrey would have seen the greatest hostess in the land to blazes rather than be uncomfortable in a stiff one. For a long time he sat on the broad window-seat in his bedroom and looked out on the avenue of tall trees that joined his park to the distant shroud of Carmion Wood. The prospect was very fair in the soft evening light. God is like a woman in the evenings, He makes the land look so shy. And then he heard Gloria’s voice, but it was very distant, for it came from across a wide valley. He just heard Gloria’s voice, but he could not make out what she was saying. And he remembered sudden little phrases of hers in her fine, whispering voice, little broken phrases, and how she would smile very crookedly, and how her great eyes would queerly cloud over.
And then he read the letter. It was a very short letter.
It was after ten o’clock when he passed from the dining-room into the drawing-room. Hunt entered after him to draw the curtains across the French windows, but he was told to let them be; and Hunt switched on the lights, but he was told to switch them off again and that nothing more would be required of him that night.
Again Aubrey read the letter. It was a very short letter. “You know why, dear. Good-bye. Gloria.”
He was angry, because he didn’t know why; he had not the faintest idea why. But anger is no sort of a weapon with which to fight solitude, and this was the most solitary moment of Aubrey Carlyle’s life, he who had hunted wild beasts in the loneliest places of the Americas.
He threw wide open the three French windows and prowled about the large dim room. “You know why.” God in Heaven, what was she talking about! How could he know why?—and what was there to know? He prowled about the room....
They had been good friends, amazingly good friends. He had relied on her to understand that. Good Lord, everything he had done to her or had not done to her had been in friendship! Surely she had understood that.... She had seemed to.... Fourteen, fifteen years.... Why, she couldn’t have expected him to behave like an impassioned lover all the time! Fifteen years.... There were moments.... When he came back from any of his travels and saw her, he loved her madly. It was like a choke in the heart when he saw her on his returns, that marvellous tawny Gloria with the funny crooked smile. Oh, child, child, what have you done? He had treated her like a friend.... And what was the use of having a great friend if you had to write letters to her? He never wrote letters when he was abroad; he hated writing letters. Of course she had understood that....
And he prowled about the large dim room, through the clear throbbing stillness, for the face of the moon hung over distant Carmion Wood and leered genially into the room. He did not understand.... At last he sat down in a great chair by the fireplace, and as he sat there he thought how, after his many returns, he had sat on that chair and taken Gloria to his knee and loved her. And Aubrey Carlyle cried for the first time in his life....