formed the weekly papers into ranks and went out again noiselessly. Oswald Ashcraft took a step forward so as to see the clock. Not yet quarter to four! He would wait, have tea before he went home, tea and a muffin-though that would be bad for his figure-still-! He sighed, drew his waist under him and expanded his chest. Yes, he'd been putting on flesh a good deal lately and he ought to cut tea out altogether. But, if he wasn't going to have any he might just as well go back at once. There was nothing to do in the club. Yes, he might as well be strolling along home. He fetched his coat and hat, slipped his neat, gold-headed umbrella under his arm and left the club. In passing he frowned, as he always did, at the plebeian tea-shop which in the last decade had inserted itself with unreasonably bad taste into London's last leisurely street. He scanned the windows of the artdealers, reached Piccadilly and took his way up Bond Street. Outside the picture shop he paused and once more examined the painting of the two macaws. Hetty had improved. There was less dash in that stuff but there was maturity, and drawing. Had her portraits improved in proportion. They must be rather interesting. He had half a mind to go in and ask if by any chance they had one of hers inside the shop. After a moment's indecision he did so. The young man in charge had a thin face, horn-rimmed spectacles and dark hair brushed from its parting toward his ears. Yes, that pair of macaws was rather jolly-a little traditional, of course—but very suitable for-well, hanging in a dining-room. Exactly, exactly! No, he hadn't any portraits by that lady; indeed he had never heard that she did any. It was for her parrots she was known. There was not exactly a demand for them; but one could count on selling them-pretty steadily. Portraits by her-no-but he was quite sure that, if she had any, she would be very pleased indeed to show them. She lived in He consulted a note-book, produced a trade card, wrote on it. Oswald Ashcraft took the card and read the address, frowned a little and nodded. So she still lived in the same place. For some reason he did not analyze, it seemed odd to him that she should. Twenty-four years had gone by, he had done all sorts of things since then: had entered his uncle's business, had inherited it, had raised it to its present position, had married, had taken up politics, had developed many new interests, had lived in several different houses. And Hetty was still living in the same studio, and was still painting the same macaws as if nothing had happened. For some reason it seemed almost annoying of her. With a nod of thanks he pocketed the card and left the shop. Outside it he paused, hesitated again and then instead of going up the street he turned and retraced his steps to Piccadilly. Why shouldn't he go to see her? Why not? He had nothing to do. At home the house would be empty, as the club had been. He felt a sudden disinclination for its spacious, centrally heated silence. He did not want to sit in front of an unnecessary and ornamental fire with thin yellow flames. He won to What would she think of him? Had he changed much in appearance? He must have. He was three stone heavier, quite that; his hair had grown thin on top; his cheeks were fuller, with a tendency droop; his mustache was quite different, thicker, more wiry, closely cropped. His mouth was firmer. He had not that elasticity of stepnaturally not. How could he be expected to have? With hands on the knob of his umbrella he watched half-consciously the traffic and the streets flowing by. Yes, the firmness of his mouth was about the only improvement he had to show; but, after all, he had come to an age when it was not on physical appearance that a man banks. He had assurance now, and the knowledge of having achieved something in the world, of being respected by a good many people and very likely envied by as many or more! He smiled. No, he had not lost his sense of humor! The cab turning out of the Kings Road brought him back from his thoughts. He stared out at the street. It looked just the same, as though it had not been painted since those days. Leaning forward he Leaning forward he caught sight of the building. The cab drew up. He alighted and entered the open passage, climbed the bare stairs, went down the forlorn, familiar passage, patterned with and doors, stopped before one knocked. His rap sounded hollow. Perhaps she was out. He listened attentively. A feeling of depression rose, swept over him. Supposing she was out? He had come all the way to see her and after all these years --it would be too bad. He knocked again, louder this time, and heard some one moving inside. The door opened slowly and showed a small, middle-aged woman in a blue overall. She wore no hat and her hair which was bobbed and grew prettily was faded to the color of string. Oswald Ashcraft took a step forward. The picture he had of Hetty shivered, broke, whirled in dizzy fragments, slowed down; the fragments rearranged themselves like the morsels of glass in a kaleidoscope and settled into a new design. "Hetty," he said. The woman drew back and regarded him with curiosity. She was as slight as ever she had been, but the roundness of her shoulders had sharpened into angularity. She was very small; he had forgotten how small she had been. With a tight amused smile but no recognition she looked him slowly up and down; her hand that had been spread on her chest dropped to her side, her eyes narrowed in an incredulous scrutiny, she caught her breath, her lips parted slowly and then suddenly her breath came again in a laugh. "Ashes! Ashes! It's you!" She backed against the partition which hid the rest of the studio and with her head on one side regarded him earnestly, as though determined to gage every change in him. Oswald Ashcraft smiled. Ashes! He had forgotten that he had ever been called that. The name did not seem to fit him now. It may have then. He had been lean, loose-jointed, ambling, with a pale face and a thatch of almost neutral-colored hair. Ashes! The very sound seemed to call up scenes he had long forgotten, to draw him back into a world he had left. "You. Yes, it's you," the little woman affirmed as if she were readmitting him into that world of her own. "Come in, come in." She caught his sleeve, pushed the door shut and walked him into the studio. Then she drew back, leaned against the arm of a chair and considered him again. For some moments neither of them spoke. The man, one hand holding his bowler hat and the other on the gold knob of his rolled umbrella, looked about him. The studio had been altered. It seemed more encumbered and far smaller. At the end of the gallery, where Langley used to sit amongst piled rubbish, and play his banjo, a fixed washbasin had been installed. On the easel stood a half finished picture on which she had been working, a gaudy macaw perched on a branch of orange azalea. On the gray walls were some unframed portraits and the study of a naked negress, remorselessly done. "Hetty," he said, "the place hasn't changed so much-nor have you." She swung forward from the chair. "Don't be silly, Ashes dear. This is nice. Take off your coat. No, give it to me and your hat-and that thing." She snatched the umbrella and regarded it and him with amusement. "Now," she went on, "sit He had been studying her. Her eyes seemed to him paler; her cheeks were more hollow; her lips were thinner and twisted by an ironic humor. The grimness which he had noticed before she had recognized him was now gone; of course she was lined but there was in the wrinkles about her eyes a suggestion of kindly wisdom which he found delightful. It was a keen face, a sensitive and clever one; and her hair now that it was bobbed and had faded was actually prettier than in the old days when the weight and richness of it had rather overpowered her small head. Yet she had changed surprisingly little. He would have known her anywhere. But she had not recognized him. "I saw one of your macaw pictures in a Bond Street window this afternoon," he explained. "So I went in, found out where you lived-and here I am.' With her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands she watched him. "Ashes, Ashes," she said, "I'm so glad to see you. So, so glad—you here again! Fancy, fancy, and after all these years." "Just like old times." She shook her head imperceptibly now," she said and rising went with and smiled. "You've grown fat." quick businesslike steps to the corner in which the gas-stove and sink were "I have put on weight a little. I hidden. live rather a sedentary life." "I know. I've read about you. Parliament, contributing to Mansion House funds. I've seen snap-shots of you in the papers, speaking on platforms and all sorts of grand things." "You have scarcely altered." "Don't be silly. I'm an old woman -scraggy! Look." She stretched out a thin arm, bare to the elbow, and turned it over. "Scraggy!" "You've changed so little I mean -so much less than I'd have thought possible." Her fingers were clasped under her thin chin. "I've had nothing to change me. I live just as I always did," she said. "There's been nothing to change me except time and that never does. It makes one bud, bloom and wither; it makes one grow; it makes one die; it doesn't change one.' "You're still wise." "I'm wiser now." "In what way?" He was growing more at ease each moment. To him it seemed as if the years were being withdrawn layer by layer. He crossed his knees and leaned back. "In what way are you wiser now, Hetty?" "I know how to be happy." "The devil you do." His arms were folded. A certain formality which marked his tone of voice had been discarded. "Yes, I know now." "Shall I help?" he called, nursing his ankle. "No, stay where you are," came the answer from behind the curtain. Alone, he looked once more around the room. The portrait of that old sailor was good, he thought, deuced good. He got up and examined it. On the left of it was a charcoal portrait of a girl drawn with great decision and with the same ruthlessness which he had recognized in the oil-painting of the negress. They were all strong meat, very greatly developed from what Hetty used to do, yet with a certain emphasis of vertical arrangement which recalled for him the work she had done in those remote days. He passed on to the next canvas. He knew none of them. That sketch of the Rochers de Concale had gone from over the door, the head of the priest of Labervac too. Whatever used to hang over the stove—he had forgotten what it had been—had been replaced. No, nothing was the same. How should anything beafter all those years? Hetty had become a woman, a middle-aged woman, almost an old womanand he, too, was past his prime. They had had happy days together long ago, as happy as any he had known since, happier, perhaps. He had been more careless then. Every incident had been an adventure: now each occurrence was classified; a few were useful, more were inopportune, the "I'm going to make tea for us majority had no significance-none was an adventure. All that belonged to youth, to the past. He turned and saw Hetty emerging from behind the curtain. She carried the tea-things upon a japanned tray. "Ready!" she announced. They sat down. She gave him two lumps of sugar-he had none at home and handed him his cup. For the first time for years he ate hot toast spread with anchovy paste. It was delicious. Memories closed in and crowded his mind. He looked toward his companion. "What's Langley doing now?" "He went to the war. He died of wounds in Mesopotamia." Oswald Ashcraft felt as though space were pressing in upon his ears. "I didn't know," he said. The woman in the blue overall Ismiled at him as he munched his toast. "I'm so glad to see you here again," she told him. "And Jos Tait?" he asked. "I haven't the time." He set down his cup. "Poor old Ashes." For a moment he felt himself stiffen; then he met the shrewd, kindly gaze of her eyes. "All right," he said. "Is it all right?" There was a half-hidden concern in her voice. "Yes." "I'm so glad." They talked on. She understood him, he knew; and he did not set up barriers against her as he did against the world, against-against-every one. Time passed. He looked through portfolios of her sketches. They found a few dating from the old times. There was a sketch of himself with a too small straw hat perched too far forward. It was clever; it gave him a shock. He had not realized how his chin had now lost its angularity. gave him a shock. "Time, only time," she told him, guessing his thoughts. She tapped his shoulders as she used to years "He went to Paris years ago. He ago. Presently he closed the port |