“Of course, he has ruined himself,” she said cheerfully. “Nobody will go to be painted by him now. And consider his relation to Philip! Why, he was his best friend. I haven’t dared to see Madge’s mother yet, but I understand she is mad with rage, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. And they were married, I hear, on Saturday, and have left London. How can people be such fools!”
This last remark was a genuine cri du cœur, for Gladys was absolutely unable to perceive how any interior impulse could possibly prove too strong for discretion, for savoir faire—she was fond of scraps of French—for any rending of or throwing out of window those social pads and cushions which alone ensure a passage through life that will be free from succession of bumps and jars. That was why she was almost universally considered so charming: she always said the pleasant thing, and did the agreeable one (for everybody had to assist the pads and cushions), unless she was quite safe from detection. Then, it is true, the sheathed claws occasionally popped out, when it was quite dark, but before the return of light they were always sheathed again, and the velvet touch was in evidence.
“Imagine the marriage!” she went on. “A sexton and a sextoness were probably the witnesses, and they probably came—the happy pair, I mean—in a hansom and went away in a four-wheeler. Such nonsense to wreck your life like that. And a wreck is a crime; it is a danger to other shipping unless it is blown up.”
Now what Gladys said so directly, all London was thinking, if not with the same precision, at any rate with the same general trend. There had been a violation of its social codes, flagrant and open, and for the time, at any rate, it was disposed to visit the offence with the full severity of its displeasure. As Gladys had remarked: “How could they be such fools!” and the children of this world, being wiser in their generation than the children of light, are the first to punish folly. And it is very foolish to openly break the rules which Society has laid down if you wish to continue to occupy your usual arm-chair in that charming club. For the rules are so few, and so very easy to remember, and Evelyn and Madge had quite distinctly broken one of the most elementary of them. And Society, however accommodating in many lines, never forgives, at once anyhow, any such open violation of its laws as this. But just at present neither of the sinners cared nearly so much for all these laws as they cared for a single moment of this blue, fresh-winded day.
They had been married, as Gladys had said, on a Saturday, and had left England that same afternoon to spend a fortnight on the coast of Normandy, and there at this moment they were, on the very coast itself, with the blue, crisp ripples of the English Channel hissing gently on the sand. Evelyn had spent most of the morning constructing a huge sand-castle of Gothic design, but the rising tide half an hour ago had driven him from the last of its fortifications, and he was now sitting on the sand with Madge by his side. All this week he had been in the most irresponsible, irrepressible spirits, which any thought of the unhappiness that had been caused seemed powerless to dull; any suggestion of it passed in a moment like breath off a mirror. With the huge egotism of his nature he had determined quite satisfactorily to himself that what had happened was inevitable. He knew how ardent was his own love for Madge, he knew it was returned, he knew too, for she had told him how different was this from the quiet, sober affection she felt for Philip. Her marriage with him could not have taken place: she felt that herself, whereas nothing in the world was strong enough to pull them apart. And with the great good sense that so often characterises egotism, Evelyn, though he was very sorry for Philip, could not either be ashamed of himself, or on the other hand be sorry for Philip long. He faded from his mind almost the moment he thought of him. He could not bring his mind to bear on Philip when Madge was with him.
He had been wading during the building and the subsequent occupation of the Gothic sand-castle, and his feet were still bare, and his flannel trousers rolled up to his knees. Also a dead bee had been washed ashore in the foam of the ripples, and search must be made for a suitable coffin, since burial with all possible honour must be given to a honey-maker from those on the honey-moon. A pink bivalve shell was eventually discovered, which he considered worthy of containing the honoured corpse. Its grave was dug above high-water mark, a mound of sand in pyramid form raised over it, and the sides of this decorated with concentric circles of pebbles. A small passage constructed of shell, and flat stones led to the tomb-chamber itself, and the door of this was hermetically sealed. In front a small stone altar was raised, and offerings of sea-weed laid on it.
“And so,” said Evelyn, in conclusion of the short panegyric which, in capacity of preacher as well as architect, undertaker, and mason, he pronounced when the rites were over, “we commit to rest this follower of the fragrant life, who made his living among the flowers, and extracted honey and nothing less sweet than that from the summer of his days. My brethren, may we constantly follow this example of the perfect life. Amen. Say ‘Amen,’ Madge.”
Madge laughed.
“I don’t think I ever saw anyone so ridiculous,” she said; “and it appears you can go on being ridiculous all the time.”
“All the time I am happy,” said he.