So powerful, in this case, that he was less than ever ready for the sphere of pink and green illumination and dance-music, just becoming self-assertive. Of course!—those young monkeys were hanging about in the suburbs merely in order to be fetched. They knew their value, bless you! So Challis thought to himself as he lit another cigar, sauntering among the cut yew-hedges of a side-garden. A wing of the house was between him and the dancers, and their sounds were dim. But from a back-window of the room he had left a quarter of an hour since still came such noise as is inevitable when a number of close reasoners with strong lungs go seriously to work on the Nature of Things, and point out each other's fallacies. "Word-changers in the Temple of the Inscrutable," thought Challis to himself, as he turned to seek congenial silence farther afield.
He would find it, he knew, if it were nowhere else in the world, in the sweet little rose-garden called, for no sane reason, "Tophet."
He and Judith had walked there more than once on his previous visit, and he had surmised that its most inapt name might be connectable with the now common word toff, meaning a person of birth and position—a descendant of ancestors. Judith had asked why, and he had told her she would never be an etymologist at that rate. Bother why!
It was a very exclusive little garden certainly—if that would make a reason—with four high stone walls and a very small door with a very large key. Perhaps this was locked. It was sometimes. But no one had ever confessed to having locked it. And the large key always hung on a hook almost in the lock's pocket, so to speak. A very old gardener had told Challis it was done on the understanding it might be used. "I see," said Challis. "'Locke on the Understanding.'" And the old gardener had said "Ah!" with perfect unsuspicion.
This night it seemed that someone had taken advantage of the understanding, for the key was in the lock, and the door stood partly open. Someone must be inside. There was an unaccountable little grating in the door one could look through. Challis did so, and saw who it was—the woman in the moonlight.
It was strange how his relations with this woman had changed since their walk by the river two days since; when, mind you!—not a word had been spoken to which either ascribed a meaning that could have changed them. A few days ago theirs was a normal friendship enough, bearing in mind difference of age and social standards; always factors in human problems all the world over, shut our eyes to them as we may! Now, the weft of his consciousness at least was hot with a new disturbing tint. Why, in Heaven's name, else, need his first instinct be to turn and run? And all because, forsooth, he had come on Judith Arkroyd walking in a garden! Surely all the circumstances were vociferous enough of detachment and independence, for both, to make a start and a quickened pulse enormously illogical. Why will emotions never be logical?
One thing is certain, that he did all but turn and slip quietly away. He accounted to the upper stratum of his consciousness for this by referring it to a strong desire to be alone and "think over things." But he had to ignore a mind-flash that had crossed its lower stratum—one the story should almost apologize for recording, as too improbable—a sudden image of his odious neighbour, John Eldridge; which he knew, without hearing anything, had said: "You can't stand that, Master Titus—never do!—never do at all!" Again, this story is compelled to disclaim all responsibility for Challis's mental oddities. But they have to be recorded, for all that.
Perhaps that speech of Sibyl's, in the garden just now, had something to answer for. What had she been protesting against? Not the stage; that was all over and done with. Challis never detected his own absurdity in jumping to the conclusion that the protest must have related to himself! What right had he to infer, from a tone of Judith's voice, that she spoke about him?
He did not run, though he went near it. Self-contempt stepped in. What imbecile cowardice! What a miserable fear that he would lose the whip-hand of a fool's passion he was not even prepared to admit the existence of! He—Alfred Challis—who but half-an-hour ago had been moved to a puny heartache over that memory of the pearl and its wanderings and recovery! And then, to stagger in a fraction of time all sane contemplation of past and present, came the clash between that memory and his moment of shame, a short while since, that "poor Kate's" place in his heart had so soon been filled by poor slow Marianne. His wife now!—how his brain reeled to think of it all! There was that home of his, and the children, and Bob; the thought of the boy as good as stung him. What should he—what could he—say to Bob hereafter, if...?