For Stuart was nauseated by the rose-path.
And the pride of them was like wind sweeping through the hair. Pride of youth and good looks and active limb. Pride in their need of one another, and their power to stand alone withal. Most of all, pride of brain, that could leap from point to point, nor ever lose a foothold; propound subtlety upon subtlety, each of the three eager to give the corkscrew its final twist, till towards the seventh evolution they would laughingly give up, and slowly unwind again. Brains that could be adapted to any circumstances and any company; wring enjoyment from the most unpromising material; brains that forgot not, so that reference became a language, incomprehensible save to those who had invented the cipher. Brains responsive, electric, in perfect working order. Pride of brain, surely as splendid a thing as the more usual pride of body that waits on youth.
The trio, definitely established, possessed a spirit of its own; its actions were wilful and indeterminate, and none could know its soul save by inspiration. It was built of cross-moods, cross-stimulations; and it owned no leader nor follower, but changed its several parts from moment to moment. A thing of fine complexity, the trio, that could adjust itself to the shock of any outside problem or weariness,—in fact, take unto and into itself these same problems and wearinesses, and make of them part of the whole, subjugated to its domination. And its god was the unknown, and its fear the Inevitable, and retrospect its recreation, and in the Hairpin Vision lay its safety, and in sex its slumbering danger.
The Spanish waiter, of a romantic disposition, took interest in the Señor and two Señoritas who came so frequently to the Billet-doux; and wondered when the former would begin to evince a preference. The Spanish waiter, only human, went so far as to rejoice in the sight of Peter and Stuart supping alone; since himself had begun to regard Merle with a more than waiterly eye. He was both puzzled and furious, two nights later, at the entrance of Stuart and Merle. And his bewilderment knew no bounds, when, having at last decided the Señoritas were at deadly enmity for their love of the capricious Señor, Peter and Merle shattered this most plausible theory by lunching together in perfect harmony of spirit. The Spanish waiter might stand as the first of a collection of persons convinced of the madness of the trio: collection of incidentals to their daily progress, such as railway-porters, policemen, telephone operators, grocers, boatmen, parents, rustics and Baldwin. Collection which Stuart proposed leaving to the Nation on his death: “each individual to be labelled with date and circumstance concurrent with his or her initiation to the belief of our complete insanity.”
Peter found an instance: “Specimen 41: Respectable Old Gentleman. March 2nd, 1913. On accidentally catching sight of Trio solemnly smashing egg at the end of Euston.”
“You know,” said Merle, “I don’t think he would have been so bewildered if Stuart hadn’t explained to him that we always smash eggs at supreme moments of our career; that we regard it as a religious ceremony; and that our accompanying chant is taken from Scene I of Macbeth: “When shall we three meet again?”—ending:
“Fare is fowl, and fowl is broke;
Take the white and leave for us the yolk.”
“It was an impromptu effort,” the author apologized. “And then he didn’t see why the discovery of the End of Euston should be a supreme moment, even in the life of a lunatic.”
Peter could best have enlightened the Respectable Old Gentleman, to whom stations were stations, neither more nor less. Euston was her terminus for Thatch Lane; and on the many occasions that Stuart had accompanied her thither, they had taken to their hearts the grim portals and endless echoing approach, the labyrinth of platform and grey mystery of booking-hall, the infinite possibilities in its stretching regions and sinister corners. Very much less than station, when their whim was to treat it as a nursery of toys; and how much more than station, when its oppressive personality foredoomed it as a backcloth for the day when their mood should be of tragedy. Peter and Stuart viewed Euston with respect; but regarded it nevertheless as theirs by virtue of understanding, a kingdom into which even Merle could not stray.