Mrs. Storm could have been no more than nineteen or twenty at the time of that tragedy at Deauville. And I suppose I must have remarked, probably apropos of nothing but Hilary’s passing me the matches, how very terrible it must have been for a young girl, for Hilary passed, through one of those pregnant pauses which seem always to preface the cruelties of kind people, his Gargantuan brandy-glass round about his nose. “And,” he said thoughtfully, “rather more terrible for him, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” I said in all innocence, “that he was tipsy or something, to fall out like that....”
Hilary looked at me through his glass, for the rim reached his eyebrows as he sipped, in that way which is supposed, I believe, to make noisy Labour interruptors feel such fools as even a clown must despise.
“But, Hilary,” I couldn’t help crying out, “you’re not implying that he threw himself out!”
Hilary, because I had given way to a moment’s emphasis, gained instantly in leisured calm. “Hm,” he said. Gently he put down his huge glass. “Hm,” he said. He considered the stump of his cigar and decided that it was not worth while relighting it. “Hm,” he said, and took another from the box, pinching it. I passed him the matches. “Hm,” he said. But not I to be provoked! I did to him what Mr. Beerbohm once so notably did to the late Mr. James Pethick in the Casino at Dieppe: I plied the spur of silence.
“Boy Fenwick,” said Hilary, lighting his cigar, “was a young man of quality. I don’t mean the word in the flashy sense in which you use it in your stories. But of quality—in mind and spirit. And yet,” in a volume of white smoke he smothered the failing light of the match, “he chucked himself out of that window.”
And, you know, just at that moment I saw him doing that, and Iris lying in bed....
Hilary was angry. The very thought of that buried tragedy seemed to wrench that inside tap a little looser, but still the savage, hurt bewilderment would not quite reach his skin.
“Of course,” I said, “they just said it was an accident, then....”
“Naturally,” murmured Hilary.