CHAPTER XXIV

A

NTHONY had known moments in the year of his captivity when he had let himself go in a sudden compulsion of happiness. He had shut out by an effort of the will all sense of his imprisonment, and enjoyed as separate things the sight and smell of summer fields. He realized that he and Kitty were doing the same thing now; they had their single sunny hour, and behind and in front of it were monstrous experiences. It was a green space, with idelweiss growing between precipices. They had had to climb up, and they still had the dangers of the descent before them; but for a little while they stood safe and triumphant among the flowers.

Kitty managed their precarious footing better than Anthony; her pleasure was not invaded by thought or by the conscious effort of her own will. She had the strange humility of those who have not set themselves free by moral struggles. She could be happy because she expected nothing of herself and very little of others. She knew no more than that it was a fine day and she had Anthony.

Kitty loved her lunch in the oldfashioned dark dining-room at Richmond, and when she reached Kew she loved the gardens more. She caught sight of a squirrel making a brief excursion between the trees in an open avenue, and she held out her bare hands and laughed at the feeling of the warm sunshine touching them. Without a sign of fatigue, she drew Anthony on and on, across the lawn, where in the spring the azaleas bloom, and on into the leafless, empty bluebell wood.

"It's like a sea," Kitty told him, "when they're out; not the big, clumsy sea, full of water, but a string of clear blue pools left behind by a tide. You look and look till the blueness closes over your head. I think the light today is a ghost light, for I can almost see the bluebells. We must come here together one day next spring." She broke off suddenly, and said she wanted to see the palace where Henry VIII's wives spent the gayer intervals of their precarious existences.

bare. She voiced her very thoughts for him, and then, with a sudden little shiver of discontent, she said:

"I hate the water reeds. They all shuffle and chatter so-like a crowd of underbred women in church. It's cold, too.

After all, I think I like hothouses best. Do you know the blue lotus? Let

's go there. I like blue lotuses. They lie in a pool and do nothing but stare at you-awfully nice, lazy, well-dressed flowers."

They walked back to the blue-lotus house. Kitty flung off her furs and gazed down into the pool. Palms and tropical foliage surrounded them, and in the distance there was the broad back of a discreet custodian.

"Funny old thing!" said Kitty, looking down at the blue lotus. "It looks just the same as the one I saw ages ago. I wonder how long the flower lives." Anthony told her, but Kitty did not listen to him. She said suddenly: "I got into an awful row after you left Rochetts. I suppose Jim must have said something to Daphne. When I went back to the lawn to say good-by, they both got up and walked into the house without speaking to me. It's funny the way married people act in lumps, is n't it? Your poor mother did n't understand. She was awfully bothered and kind, and kept saying she was sure Daphne could n't be well. Finally I said:

"It's quite all right, Mrs. Arden, really. Daphne thinks I 'm not fit to speak to and I 'm not, you know. Your mother put her hand on my arm and said:

"My dear, I'm so sorry.' Was n't it sweet of her? I think it was the nicest thing anybody ever said to me. Papa was examining a rose-tree through his eye-glass. I don't know what he heard or thought about it; what he said was: "We must really get a Mabel Vernon.' Then we went home. The nicest part of papa is he never says anything unless you do."

sorts of things she need n't ever have known. It was so silly, for I was n't even going on with them. I knew I'd come to a stop. You can't be ill and gay beyond a certain point, can you? Besides, I did n't want to very much.

"Of course, I 'm as gay as I can be now, but nothing Peckham need have minded. I always think confessions are worse than sins. Don't you? Usually you only upset yourself by your sins, but you upset other people by your confessions."

Anthony drew Kitty to a seat.

"Tell me," he asked her gently, "what made you make that scene there at Rochetts if you don't believe in confessions and don't like upsetting people?" Kitty stared at him.

"Oh, that," she said. "Don't you know? I had to; I did n't want you to get dragged into all this. I knew something or other was coming, and I meant you not to have the bother of it. I thought you would n't go on caring for me if I was nasty enough and you got clean away. Heaps of people have got over caring for me beautifully. Of course I see you have n't now; so it 's different. I can't keep you out of things if you really care. I suppose I shall just have to do what you like."

I

Anthony looked down at her eagerly. "Will you really, Kitty?" he asked. "There is something else I want. I want it awfully, more than I can ever tell you; I've been thinking about it all night, hoping I could ask you, but afraid of being a bother, too. It makes the whole thing simpler if you can do it. I want you to marry me at once, in three days, before the operation. want the right of taking care of you. If you give it to me, you need n't have any nursing homes or nurses. I'll take a furnished house, and look after you myself with Peckham. Whatever we have to go through, we can go through solidly together. It was my being such a fool as not to share everything with you that left you alone with this-this

"I think I must have been mad that night," she added reflectively, "for I did such an absurd thing! I worked myself up into telling dear old Peckham all

Kitty laughed.

"Silly old thing!" she said. "It was I that did n't want to share anything.

It 's awfully sweet of you to think about marriage, but why need we be married? If you want so awfully to take care of me, I'll let you do it; but marriage seems to me rather off the point."

"It is n't," said Anthony, passionately; "it matters tremendously to me. I want the right, the sanction, whatever you like to call it; I want our lives held together before the world as well as in our hearts. I want every one to know that we 've hit on something that lasts."

Kitty looked at him consideringly. "Marriage does n't always last," she said a little dryly, then she slipped her hand over Anthony's. "You want nobody to say anything horrid," she said gently, "but I don't care any more what people say."

"I care," Anthony said desperately, "and, O Kitty, I want you for myself. I don't want any one else to interfere or speak or think between us. We 've had so much of that already. Let's fall in with the world, if it's the only way to keep out of the world."

Kitty moved a little restlessly.

"It is n't the world," she said; "it's your mother and Daphne. Those are the people I don't want to come across. They 've been good and dear and kind, but it has n't been possible-and it 's I, not they, who have made it impossible. Because I'm ill, does n't make me good, you know, Tony."

Anthony bent his head and kissed her hands passionately, one after the other; he held them to his lips as if he could not let them go.

"I can't stand any more, Kitty," he said quietly. "I'd like to stop and think of them if you want me to, but I can't. I think only of you. I need you as I never needed you. Don't shut me out for anything on earth."

Kitty watched him with bright, unshrinking eyes.

"How long would it be for, Tony?" she asked.

"Always, always," he cried brokenly. "I hope so-I believe so, Kitty. I will have your life. It'll be all right, if you can stand for a time having to be ill-”

Kitty put her hand up to check the words on his lips.

"No, no," she said; "don't say doctors' things, Tony. I don't need to be reassured. Besides, it would n't have the effect you want. If I thought marriage would really be for long, you see, I would n't do it. I'd do anything else you want, but not tie you up-and hurt them. I'd think it boring; but if it 's for just a little while and you awfully wanted to, we could explain to them, and then they would n't mind so much. But I must know the truth; is it only for a little while?"

Anthony bowed his head. The words that had stood outside his mind like armed sentries all the day rushed in and took possession: "She may live a year after the operation if her strength holds out."

"Not awfully long," he said thickly. Kitty got up and peered down at the blue lotus.

"All right," she said quietly. "Won't it be fun being married? We'll ask papa to give us lunch afterward at the Carlton. Will you see him for me, Tony, and tell him about it? Dear old thing! He'll like ordering lunch."

The shadows in the lotus-house had changed; the custodian approached them, jingling his keys significantly.

"It'll be nicer in the air," Kitty said, taking Anthony's arm. They're rather stuffy things, blue lotuses, after all."

Anthony became suddenly aware of how exhausted Kitty had become. Without a word they turned toward the gates. The garden was deserted, and the short winter day was drawing to a close. It seemed an eternity before the long road yielded them a taxi. Anthony lifted Kitty into it and held her in his

arms.

She gave herself up to pain without resistance, in the same spirit in which she had given herself up to pleasure, only more quietly. The pain beat down on her as rain beats on a flower. Anthony was baffled by his separation from her suffering. His imagination struck and struck against it as the sea fumbles and strikes against the walls of iron cliffs, seeking an entrance. He could not get in to share her pain with her, and Kitty could not let him in.

When they reached Trevor Road, the fire was burning brightly, and Peck