Across the Stream

by E. F. Benson

"Think of what?" he said.

"Ah, you force me to say it, do you? Of our marriage."

He was adorable in her eyes just then; she could hardly realize that so few months ago she had definitely put him from her. His warm, smooth face, his crisp, curling hair, the youthful roughness and ardour of his embrace, inflamed and ravished her.

He looked at her still inquiringly a moment, then threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh, you're delicious!" he said. "But marriage? What do you mean? A cousinly kiss, a little sympathy, a few dear little surrenders of each of us to the other: that's all I intended. Well, I must be off. Good-bye!"

Next moment, still choking with laughter, he was downstairs and out into the street. He could not resist looking up at the window, and waving a gay hand towards it. Something within him, that seemed the very essence of his being, shouted and sang with glee.

* * * * *

The house in Grosvenor Square, where his mother had become housekeeper and Jessie kitchen-maid, had at present in it only a few wounded officers from France, and during these two or three days in town Archie could still occupy his own bedroom, while his servant slept in the dressing-room adjoining. He was out very late that night, for the completeness of his revenge on Helena ran like a feeding fire through his veins, and both nourished and burned him.

Dawn had already broken when he let himself in, and went very quietly upstairs, not intending to go to bed till he had had an interview with Martin. All night he had felt as if Martin was bursting to come forth again; he was already intensely present, even though Archie had not yet sunk his conscious self and opened the door of mystic communication. That controlling spirit foamed and simmered within him; he could all but break open the door himself, and project himself without invitation. He was still just confined, but only just; it seemed that at any minute he might assert himself. But Archie, with the gourmand instinct that delays an actual fulfilment, teasing itself, while it knows the fulfilment is assured, lingered over his undressing, and planned to make himself cool and comfortable in his pyjamas, before he abandoned the fortress of his normal self. He brushed his teeth, he sponged face and neck with cold water, he arranged his chair in the window, and put on the table by his bed the moonstone stud on which he would focus his eyes, and stretched himself long and luxuriously till he heard his shoulder joints crack. Martin seemed in a great hurry to come to-night, but Martin must just wait till he was ready. And then, all of a sudden, he heard a tremendous noise of rapping. He knew that Martin had come, and an awful terror seized his soul, for Martin had come without being called.

At that precise moment his servant next door started up, wide awake, with some loud sound in his ears that seemed to come from Archie's bedroom. He tapped at his door, but, getting no answer, went in. He found Archie lying on the floor, curled up together, like some twisted root of a tree, foaming at the mouth. He ran downstairs to get help, and brought up one of the nurses who was on duty. She instantly telephoned for a doctor, and woke Lady Tintagel.