Alma drove home by herself in a hansom. She liked this disregard of conventionalities; all the more because Harvey, who, of course, had sat up for her, seemed a trifle anxious. Her spirits were exuberant; she gave a merry, mocking account of the evening, but it included no mention of Cyrus Redgrave.
At the end of June her friends the Leaches moved from their old house in Elgin Road to a new one out at Kingsbury-Neasden, and when the removal was completed Alma went there to make a call, taking her husband. Harvey had never been beyond Swiss Cottage on this extension of the Metropolitan Railway; he looked with interest at the new districts springing up towards Harrow, and talked of them with Mrs. Leach. A day or two after, he travelled by himself to a greater distance on the same line, making a survey of the country from Harrow to Aylesbury. At his next meeting with Hugh Carnaby, which took place about the middle of July, he threw out a suggestion that for anyone who wished to live practically in London and yet away from its frenzy, the uplands towards Buckinghamshire were convenient ground.
'I wish you were thinking of it yourself,' replied Hugh. 'Your wife is about the only woman Sibyl cares to see much of, and the only woman I know that she'll get any good from.'
The strong man did not look very cheerfully on the world just now, and it was evident that he felt some sort of trouble with regard to his wife. For her sake solely he had returned to England, where he was less than ever at his ease. He wished Sibyl to live in her own way, grudged her nothing, admired and cherished her with undiminished fervour; but in Oxford and Cambridge Mansions it cost him a great effort to pretend to be at home. The years of wandering had put him hopelessly out of touch with what Sibyl called society. Little as he understood about manufactures, or cared for the details of commerce, he preferred to stay down at Coventry with his partner Mackintosh, living roughly, smoking his pipe and drinking his whisky in the company of men who had at least a savour of sturdy manhood. His days of sport were gone by; he was risking the solid remnant of his capital; and if it vanished—But of that possibility he would not speak, even with Harvey Rolfe. As he meditated, his teeth were set, his eyes darkened. And it appeared to Harvey that the good fellow drank a little more whisky than was needful, even in these warm days.
'I want to see the little chap, my namesake,' he said. 'Why don't you have him up here? Doesn't your wife feel she wants him?'
'Alma will think more of him in a year or two,' Harvey replied.
'Yes. I've noticed that women—one sort of women—don't care much about babies nowadays. I dare say they're right. The fewer children people have, the better. It's bad to see the poor little squalling brats in the filth and smoke down yonder, and worse still in this damned London. Great God! when there's so much of the world clean and sweet, here we pack and swelter together, a million to the square mile! What eternal fools we are!'
Harvey growled his heartiest agreement. None the less, a day or two after, he was holding a conversation with Alma which encouraged her secret weariness of the clean and sweet places of the earth. They had come home from a Richter concert, and Alma uttered a regret that she had not her violin here. A certain cadenza introduced by a certain player into a certain violin solo did not please her; why, she could extemporise a cadenza far more in keeping with the spirit of the piece. After listening, with small attention to the matter, but much to the ardent speech and face of enthusiasm, Harvey made a quiet remark.
'I want you to decide very soon what we are going to do.'
'Going to do?'