"What is it, Hector, what's the matter?" she said, looking anxiously at the drawn haggard face and tired eyes.
"Nothing's the matter, Lucy. What should there be? I'm a bit done, that's all."
"But I saw you reel; it was just after Mr. Ferrers scored that last goal, I thought for a moment you were going to fall. Oh, this polo's too much for you, Hector."
"Fit of giddiness, that's all, I used to be subject to them, you know. I'm all right now; let's go home. What did you think of the game?"
"You played splendidly, all of you did."
"What about Ferrers' play?"
"He was wonderful, Hector, but then of course he's an old hand. When you've played as long as he has you'll be quite as good, much better, I think. But here we are at the house, I'll just ask for a brandy and soda, and then we'll go up to dress. There's a big dinner on to-night, you know. I wish there was not, I should like you to go to bed, oh, why not, Hector? I can easily arrange it with Lady Wilford."
Graeme, however, though anathematising the dinner-party, refused to retire, and an hour afterwards was seated at Sir Reginald's hospitable board, where a large and festive company was assembled, all chattering of polo and the great contest of the afternoon. Hector took little part in the conversation, but sat silent and moody, the efforts of his partner, a light-hearted grass-widow, being wholly powerless to rouse him to the smallest semblance of interest. Even Lucy, watching him in the intervals of lively play with Mr. Carruthers, at length grew indignant, as she noted his air of deep abstraction. She felt sorry for Mrs. Loveall, whose face by this time wore a look of boredom and chagrin, though it is true she would equally have hated that flirtatious lady, had Hector responded in the slightest degree to her overtures.
If he was tired, why had he not gone to bed, as she suggested? That would have been infinitely better than putting in an appearance with the sole object, it seemed, of acting as damper on the general enjoyment. The other men were no doubt tired also, but they had the manners to disguise the fact; why could not Hector be like the rest, and make an effort as they were doing? There, he was yawning; she would like to have shaken him. Graeme, however, persisted in his offence, and if he had succeeded in boring his partner, she in return had well-nigh maddened him. In fact, an almost irresistible impulse to flee was rapidly coming over him; a wild longing to escape from the lights and chattering crowd and calm his shattered nerves in the cool night air. A few minutes more, and he would have done so, but fortunately for his own and Lucy's credit the signal for release came at length; whereupon Hector sprang up, and, leaving Mrs. Loveall to find her handkerchief and other fallen trifles as best she might, made for the open window and fled out into the night, where he stood breathing deep sighs of relief. At his feet slept the now deserted Murg, glistening like some great lake in the light of the full moon. At its edge the huts and tents looked white against the background of shadowy forest and gloomy pine-clad hill, while far away a vision of unearthly beauty glittered faintly, the white splendour of the snows, a spirit city of minarets and spires in a setting of blue. Over all lay the spell of a dead world, that strange haunting influence breathed by the moon wherein two elements are commingled, seemingly apart yet inextricably interfused, the one death and the other love. For, though from a perished universe it comes, it is not gloom but passion it stirs in most human hearts, and in this alliance of Azrael and Eros can be read the great secret of the world—that death is but the passing to another birth, and, without love, birth cannot be.
It was not of the latter that Hector was thinking now, but of that something within him, revealed that afternoon—though but in a paltry game. He knew now, ignore it though he might, that he was not quite as others were, that his was that strange gift of nature—will-power, personal magnetism, call it what you please—the possession of which marks the difference between those who lead and the herd which follows. And as he stood there, with the majesty of sleeping mountain and plumed forest around him, their greatness spoke to that something within him, reproaching it, and at its voice the curious restlessness and discontent born of the afternoon's awakening swelled to a flood of bitter self-contempt. How great was all this, and how very small he and his present aims. Vague longings came over him, a desire for the unattainable, for that it surely was. He, a married man, whose course of life was chosen—a life devoted to games and sport.