“That’s all,” said Clementina. “Or if it isn’t it ought to be.”
Quixtus made no reply. There was no reply possible, save the real explanation of his eccentric behaviour; and that he was not prepared to offer. But Clementina’s rough words sank deep in his mind. Judged by ordinary standards, his treatment of Tommy had been unqualifiable; Tommy’s behaviour all that was most meritorious. In Tommy’s case wherein lay the proof of the essential depravity of mankind? His gloomy faith received a shock which caused him exceeding discomfort. You see, if you take all the trouble of going mad for the sake of a gospel, you rather cling to it when you recover sanity. You are rather eager to justify to yourself the waste of time and energy. It is human nature.
After dinner she dismissed him. He must go out to a café and see the world. She had to look after the child’s slumbers, and write letters. Quixtus went out into the broad, busy streets. The Cannebière was crowded with gasping but contented citizens. On every side rose the murmur of mirth and cheerfulness. Solid burgesses strolled arm in arm with their solider wives. Youths and maidens laughed together. Swarthy workmen with open shirt-collars showing their hairy throats, bareheaded workgirls in giggling knots, little soldiers clinging amorously to sweethearts—all the crowd wore an air of gaiety, of love of their kind, of joy in comradeship. At the thronged cafés, too, men and women found comfort in the swelter of gregariousness. Night had fallen over the baking city, and the great thoroughfare blazed in light—from shop windows, cafés, street lamps, from the myriad whirling lamps of trams and motors. Above it all the full moon shone splendid from the intense sky of a summer night. Quixtus and the moon appeared to be the only lonely things in the Cannebière.
He wandered down to the quay and back again in ever-growing depression. He felt lost, an alien among this humanity that clung together for mutual happiness; he envied the little soldier and his girl gazing hungrily, their heads almost touching, into a cheap jeweller’s window. A sudden craving such as he had never known in his life, awoke within him; insistent, imperious—a craving for human companionship. Instinctively he walked back to the hotel, scarcely realising why he had come; until he saw Clementina in the vestibule. She had stuck on her crazy hat and was pulling on her white cotton gloves; evidently preparing to go out.
“Hullo! Back already?”
“I have come to ask you a favour, Clementina,” said he. “Would it bore you to come out with me—to give me the pleasure of your company?”
“It wouldn’t bore me,” replied Clementina. “Precious few things do. But what on earth can you want me for?”
“If I tell you, you won’t mock at me?”
“I only mock at you, as you call it, when you do idiotic things. Anyhow, I won’t now. What’s the matter?”
He hesitated. She saw that her brusqueness had checked something natural and spontaneous. At once she strove to make amends, and laid her hand on his sleeve.