If Winter Comes

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

"Now throw yourself in front, any boy who wants to be killed," Lord Tybar called to the idlers. "No corpses to-day?" He let in the clutch. "Good-by, Sabre. Good-by, good-by." He waved his hand airily. The big car slid importantly up the street.

Sabre watched them pass out of sight. As the car turned out of The Precincts into High Street—a nasty corner—Lord Tybar, alone of the three, one hand on the steering wheel, half turned in his seat and twirled the silver-grey bowler in gay farewell.

Or mockery?

X

Through the day Sabre's thoughts, as a man sorting through many documents and coming upon and retaining one, fined down towards a picture of himself alone with Nona—alone with her, watching her beautiful face—and saying to her: "Look here, there were three things you said, three expressions you used. Explain them, Nona."

Fined down towards this picture, sifting the documents.

He thought, "Tybar—Tybar.—They're just alike in their way of saying things, Nona and Tybar. That bantering way they talk when they're together—when they're together. Tybar does, whoever he's with. Not Nona. Not with me. But with Tybar. She plays up to him when they're together. And he plays up to her. Everybody says how amusing they are. They're perfectly suited. They look so dashed handsome, the pair of them. And always that bantering talk. Nona chose deliberately between Tybar and me. I know she did. She loved me, till he came along. It's old. Ten years old. I can look at it. She chose deliberately. I can see her choosing: 'Tybar or Marko?—oh, dash it, Tybar.' And she chose right. She's just his mate. He's just her mate. They're a pair. That bantering, airy way of theirs together. That's just characteristic of the oneness of their characters. I couldn't put up that bantering sort of stuff. I never could. I'm a jolly sight too serious. And Nona knew it. She used to laugh at me about it. She still does. 'You puzzle, don't you, Marko?' she said this very morning."

He thought, "No, that wasn't laughing at me. Not that. No, it wasn't. Not that—nor any of it. What did she mean when she said 'There!' like that when she gave me her hand when she first came in? And took off her glove first. What did she mean when she said she had to come? 'Well, I had to come,' she said.—What did she mean when she said she was flotsam?—Flotsam! Why? Made me angry in my voice when I asked her. I said, 'How can you be flotsam?' And how the devil can she?—Nona, with Tybar, flotsam? But she said it. I said, 'How can you be flotsam, the life you've—taken?' I didn't mean to say 'taken' like that. I meant to have said 'the life you've got, you live.' But I meant taken, chosen. She did take it, deliberately. She chose between us. I might almost have heard her choose 'Marko or Tybar? Oh, dash it—Tybar.' I never reproached her, not by a look. I saw her point of view. My infernal failing, even then. Not by a look I ever reproached her. I thought I'd forgotten it, absolutely. But I haven't. It came out in that moment that I haven't. 'The life you've—taken!' I meant it to sting. Damn me, it did sting. That look she gave! As if I had struck her.—What rot! How could it sting her? How could she mind? Only if she regretted.—Is it likely?"

He thought, "But is she happy? Is it all what it appears between them? That remark she made to that woman and the extraordinary way she said it. 'You never forget you're married, do you?' Amazing thing to say, the way she said it. What did she mean? And that woman. She said something like, 'Nor you, do you?' and looked at me and then at Tybar. And Tybar looked—at Nona, at me, as if he'd got some joke, some mock...."

He thought, "What rot! She chose. She knew he was her sort. She knew I wasn't. She chose deliberately...."