Brought before the Inspector, he pulled himself together and pleaded his cause with an intensity that amused the officials. They could see nothing tragic in a “drunk and incapable.”
“Very well,” said the Inspector at last. “I see it was an accident. Call it heat-apoplexy. I sha’n’t charge you. You had better get home to bed.”
Joyce grew faint with the revulsion of feeling, and steadied himself by the iron railing. One of the men took him to the door, hailed a passing cab and helped him in. At first, ill and dizzy as he was, he felt the animal’s instinctive joy in suddenly regained liberty. The non-fulfilment of his agonising forebodings filled him with a wondering sense of relief. But this did not last long. Despair and self-abhorrence resumed their hold upon him, causing him to shiver in the cab as with an ague.
He crawled upstairs to his attic, and after having procured some food, of which he ate as much as he could swallow, he went to bed and fell into a heavy sleep. In the middle of the night he woke with a start. The recollection of his engagement with Yvonne Latour had penetrated through the sub-consciousness of half-awakening. He uttered a cry of dismay.
All the previous evening and all that morning he had thought of the promised visit. To sit in a lady’s room, to live for a moment a bit of the old life, to forget his pariahdom in Yvonne’s welcoming smile, to have the comfort of her exquisite pity—the prospect had rendered him almost buoyant during the early part of his round. But the pain and fever of after-events had driven her from his mind. Now, in his suffering state, it seemed as if he had lost an offered corner of Paradise, rejected the one hand that was stretched out to save him from perdition. He lay awake many hours. At last, toward dawn, he fell asleep again and did not wake till mid-day.
He rose, rang for his breakfast, which was brought him, as usual, on a tray, by the slatternly maid-of-all-work. He was still feeling prostrated in mind and body. Having eaten what he could, he drew up the blind to look at the day. The fine weather was still lasting. But he felt no desire to go out. What was the use? Judging by the lesson of yesterday it would be futile to continue his search for employment. As he turned away from the window, he caught sight of his white haggard face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror, and he shrank back, as though it revealed to him the miserable weakness of his soul. Then he threw himself half-dressed upon the bed, and there he remained, abandoning himself to the hopeless inaction of defeat, and eating his heart out in remorse for the shipwreck he had made of his life.
He did not pose before himself as a victim to circumstance. Could he have done so, he might have found some poor consolation. His criminal folly lay as much upon his soul as its punishment. Again, it had not been a grand stroke of villainy requiring for its execution a masterly coolness and genius for which he might at least have had an intellectual admiration. But it had been of the same petty sort as that of the shop-boy led astray by low turf associates, who pilfers day by day from his master’s till, hoping the luck will turn and enable him to replace the stolen shillings. The difference had been merely one of degree. His operations had been on a larger scale, his vices more fastidious, his circle of loose friends more aristocratic. But he had had the same contemptible motives for his crime, and the same contemptible excuses. He spared himself no arrow of self-scorn.
Latterly, through sheer weariness, he had grown apathetic, taking his self-abasement as one of the conditions of life. A man is not physiologically capable of continuous outburst. But now the iron had entered deep into his soul, causing him to writhe in torment.
What would be the end? The question haunted him, and yet it seemed scarcely worth consideration. There was no employment to be obtained by such as he. He would eke out his small capital as far as possible, and when that was exhausted, he could put an end to his worthless life. Or would his cowardice drag him down among the class of habitual criminals, lead him to crime as a means of livelihood? He shuddered, remembering his short spell of agony in the cell of yesterday.
The hours passed. Towards evening he dressed himself and went out to a dingy Italian restaurant near Victoria station, where he usually dined. On coming out again into the street he hesitated for some time as to what he should do next. He thought of Yvonne with wistful longing, but had not the courage to go and seek her. The sense of degradation was too strong upon him. He shrank with morbid sensitiveness from taking advantage of her guilelessness by bringing his contamination into her presence. For, paradoxical as it may seem, an instinctive pride still remained in the man. Had he chosen to lay it aside, doubtless more than one of his former friends would have consented to receive him on some sort of terms of acquaintanceship. But he had sought out none, and if chance brought him into sight of a familiar face in the street, he effaced himself and hurried on. Yvonne was the only figure out of the past with whom he had communicated. And now he had cut himself adrift from her.