And that, so far as I could judge, was the solemn truth. He didn't care. He had let things go, and there was no more strength of mind in him. Yet all the time, nevertheless, his strength of body was returning. After two months at the Valley Hotel he was changed, physically, almost beyond recognition; his bronzed face and arms and the broadening out of his shoulders gave a splendid impression of recovery until he began to talk. For his talk—what little of it there was—betrayed the truth—that he was tired and sad and melancholy and uninterested. The days came one after the other, an endless dull procession; his body loved the sunlight and the long walks over the hills, but his mind loved nothing, desired nothing. And I, wanting all the time to help him, was powerless to light the fire that had gone out. I remember a Sunday evening when we climbed the long hill to the cross-roads and watched the Devil's Punch-Bowl fill slowly with a vast lake of twilight. I told him then that I had had a letter from June informing me that Severn was shortly to be taken home. "She says he's wonderfully cheerful and full of plans for the future. He's going to write a book about Disraeli."
It was good news (which was the reason I had communicated it), yet it seemed to stir him painfully. He cried, in a sudden rush of words: "Oh, I know—he sent me a letter the other day—said he wouldn't ever be able to walk again.... But he doesn't care about it—or about anything.... Neither do I—it's the only way—not caring.... But his not caring is somehow like bright sunlight, whereas mine's like a heavy cloud pressing down on me.... Do you know what I mean?"
"Perhaps," I said, "you mean that not caring comes naturally to him, but not to you?"
He wouldn't, or couldn't, think that out. "I don't care, anyway," he almost shouted. "I've done enough caring.... If I could change places with him and take his injury, I'd do so gladly, but I can't, so what's the good of caring? It won't help him, or me either."
"And is it helping you not to care?" I asked, but his burst of confidence was over, and all he gave me was a doubtful shake of the head. We walked back to the hotel with hardly another word, and later on, as I strolled down the lane to post a letter, I caught sight of him whisky-drinking in the bar.
VI
Severn was taken home at the beginning of September, and a few days later a letter from him invited me to dinner at the End House. He wrote that he had stood the journey very well, and was delighted to be back in his own home.
Helen and June were both in the drawing-room when I arrived, and if Helen's attitude was a shade cool, June's was a shade warm to make up for it. I did not see Severn himself till we went into the dining-room; the butler then wheeled him in on a specially-constructed chair and placed him at the angle of the table that was most convenient. He was a good deal paler than I had seen him before, but his spirits were high as ever. He said that of the two occupations, walking and talking, he very much preferred the latter, which was lucky, in view of what had happened. "Fortunately, also," he added, "I was always extremely lazy, and never walked an inch when I could possibly find a vehicle of any sort to ride in. Now I can even ride in and out of my own dining-room...."
The dinner itself was quite up to Severn's usual high standard. He and I lingered over our coffee while the others took theirs on the verandah. His peculiar pose (the only unusual feature of him) suited the informal stage of the meal and made him seem almost his old self again; even when he discussed his changed future with me I found it hard to believe in the tragic reality that was behind it all. He said that the accident had settled one thing, at any rate; it had put the veto on his political career. "I might fight the next election as a tour-de-force, but I could never dream of taking office—that goes without saying.... Anyhow, since he who runs may read, I suppose he who cannot run may write. There are a few much-maligned characters in history I've always had a fancy to defend, so now's my chance.... Disraeli for one ... and Machiavelli, and Robert Walpole ... and perhaps even Pontius Pilate...."
He went on: "There's another matter which has perhaps been settled by those scoundrelly French railways ... I mean—about Helen."