So the male-nurse threw a professional glance round the scene of his activities, noted the perfection of orderliness, and went his way.
Boucicault continued to stare upwards. The shadows were massed against the ceiling like sultry, motionless clouds. They loomed over the withering body stretched out beneath them in the rigidity of death, their stifling intensity loaded with an overpowering perfume. There were flowers everywhere—on the table, at the foot of the bed, on the chest of drawers, on the shelves, lighting the room's barren simplicity with fierce, burning colour. Their vividness seemed a part of the music that came light-footed into the sombre hush—an echo of the murmuring voices, the merry jangle of harness, the patter of naked feet, the clink of glasses. The room was like a white-cliffed, deserted island in the midst of a moonlit, tossing ocean of life. The wave slapped the walls, and rolled back from them as from something alien and repellent.
Or again, but for those eyes staring up at the ceiling, the place might have been a death-chamber. There was the same orderliness, the same white silence, the many flowers. And the long, shrivelled body outlined on the bed was quieter than any living thing.
A voice broke from the distant murmur and came nearer. It was a woman's voice, rather strained and high-pitched. Something white and shimmering fluttered against the darkness on the verandah.
"I'm sure it's awfully nice of you, Tristram. He'll be so pleased. I usually go in, but this evening I was too busy. Don't stay too long——"
The eyes distended and then closed. Perhaps the brain behind them became conscious of a vital change in the stillness, for a moment later they opened again and rested full and direct on the man standing at the foot of the bed. They stared at each other dumbly. The eyes became ironic and cruel in their knowledge of power. But, as the man moved and came nearer, they followed him, showing the whites like those of a sick animal.
Tristram sat down on the edge of the bed. The light from behind the bed drifted on to his face. He looked weary and composed, and there was no trace of discomfort under that watching enmity.
"I had to come, Boucicault," he said quietly. "It got on my nerves—the thought of your being alone like this. You may not want to see me, but, on the other hand, it may give you some satisfaction. I don't carry my secret very well, do I?" He spoke without bitterness or sarcasm, and the eyes gleamed. "And then there are things I have to talk to you about," he added.
The regimental band glided into a Viennese waltz, and the intoxicating measure came swaying through the silence. The eyes winced, and then steadied angrily, scornfully. Tristram stretched out his hand and touched the coverlet. There was something groping and passionately seeking in the movement—an articulate appeal.
"Boucicault—it's rotten perhaps to come and preach—don't let it eat into you—all this. Don't judge harshly. I'm not speaking of myself, you know that. I'm thinking of your wife. You lie there dumb and helpless—I don't know what's going on in your mind. I can't understand. Well, it's like that with most of us. Words and actions don't matter much. We just hide behind them. But if we could get down to the motive of each other's cruelty, there would be neither hatred nor condemnation—at the worst, pity." He was silent an instant, his strong hands clasped between his knees. He had spoken sadly and with a certain abstraction and unconsciousness of his hearer, which lent his appeal force and took from it all hint of patronage and mockery. "I say all this because you must think a great deal—lying there—a great deal of the past. For your own peace, it would be better to judge gently a woman you must have cared for. Sometimes, behind our worst frivolity, there is a great bitterness——"