Because first he had to catch his boy....
Presently, as Captain Douglas fretted at the continued eclipse of Madeleine, his thumb went into his waistcoat pocket and found a piece of paper. He drew it out and looked at it. It was a little piece of stiff note-paper cut into the shape of a curved V rather after the fashion of a soaring bird. It must have been there for months. He looked at it. His care-wrinkled brow relaxed. He glanced over his shoulder at the house and then held this little scrap high over his head and let go. It descended with a slanting flight curving round to the left and then came about and swept down to the ground to the right.... Now why did it go like that? As if it changed its mind. He tried it again. Same result.... Suppose the curvature of the wings was a little greater? Would it make a more acute or a less acute angle? He did not know.... Try it.
He felt in his pocket for a piece of paper, found Lady Laxton’s letter, produced a stout pair of nail scissors in a sheath from a waistcoat pocket, selected a good clear sheet, and set himself to cut out his improved V....
As he did so his eyes were on V number one, on the ground. It would be interesting to see if this thing turned about to the left again. If in fact it would go on zig-zagging. It ought, he felt, to do so. But to test that one ought to release it from some higher point so as to give it a longer flight. Stand on the chair?...
Not in front of the whole rotten hotel. And there was a beastly looking man in a green apron coming out of the house,—the sort of man who looks at you. He might come up and watch; these fellows are equal to anything of that sort. Captain Douglas replaced his scissors and scraps in his pockets, leaned back with an affectation of boredom, got up, lit a cigarette—sort of thing the man in the green apron would think all right—and strolled off towards a clump of beech trees, beyond which were bushes and a depression. There perhaps one might be free from observation. Just try these things for a bit. That point about the angle was a curious one; it made one feel one’s ignorance not to know that....
§ 10
The ideal King has a careworn look, he rules, he has to do things, but the ideal Queen is radiant happiness, tall and sweetly dignified, simply she has to be things. And when at last towards midday Queen Madeleine dispelled the clouds of the morning and came shining back into the world that waited outside her door, she was full of thankfulness for herself and for the empire that was given her. She knew she was a delicious and wonderful thing, she knew she was well done, her hands, the soft folds of her dress as she held it up, the sweep of her hair from her forehead pleased her, she lifted her chin but not too high for the almost unenvious homage in the eyes of the housemaid on the staircase. Her descent was well timed for the lunch gathering of the hotel guests; there was “Ah!—here she comes at last!” and there was her own particular court out upon the verandah before the entrance, Geedge and the Professor and Mrs. Bowles—and Mrs. Geedge coming across the lawn,—and the lover?
She came on down and out into the sunshine. She betrayed no surprise. The others met her with flattering greetings that she returned smilingly. But the lover—?
He was not there!
It was as if the curtain had gone up on almost empty stalls.