"What you did for Maisie. How did you put it last night? You've led them to their kingdom."
He smiled. "I seem to have a faculty for doing that. I do for others what I can't do for myself."
Still not looking at him, she said: "Perhaps you
don't find your own kingdom because you're too much in love with the search. You don't want to bring your journey to an end. There are people like that."
"I'm not one of them.—I wish you'd look at me, Lady Dawn. Do you know what I covet most in all the world? Rest and certainty. I don't mean a lazy kind of rest, but the rest of a mind at peace with itself—the certainty we all had while the war was on, when we were adventuring for the advantage of other people. I've done nothing lately that wasn't for myself. I want some one to live for, so that I can forget myself. I've been thinking——"
The waiter presented the bill. Tabs scarcely knew whether to curse or bless. He had been approaching the danger-mark; nevertheless, he wasn't at all sure that he was grateful for the interruption. His heart cried out to him to risk humiliation by one last act of daring. Experience warned him that it is the sins of precaution—the follies left uncommitted—that are most regretted by men of seventy.
She rose as he was gathering up his change. The purpose that had brought them to London was ended. There was no further reason for their being together. If they were to prolong their companionship, a new excuse must be invented. He saw by the tentative manner in which she waited, that she also had realized that. He became perturbed lest she might dismiss him. Speaking hurriedly to forestall her, he said, "I suppose we had better make sure of Terry by hunting her up at Mulberry Tree Court."
She barely nodded. Perhaps she thought, now
that Braithwaite had been eliminated as a rival, that this making sure of Terry betokened a rekindling of the old infatuation. A constraint grew up between them. It was not until they were standing on the top of the hotel steps, waiting for her car, that he ventured to correct the wrong impression. "Funny about Terry! If it hadn't been for her, we might never have been friends. The first day of my home-coming she drew my attention to you; it was too late—you had passed. You were driving with the Queen in the Park. I remember what Terry said. She called you Di and spoke of you as the most beautiful woman in England."
She gave no sign that she had heard. As though she were unescorted, she passed before him down the steps. But the moment they were seated in the car, she turned to him. She looked her full age. Her face was pale with more than weariness. He noticed the threads of gray in her hair. Ever since he had seen Ann in her flushed shy exaltation, he had felt more keenly the pathos of Lady Dawn. It was a pathos that found an echo in his heart—the pathos of approaching separation. What purpose did it serve her to be beautiful, if she had no man of her own to admire her?