And so went on.  And the stolid Georgian door closed with a hard metallic click, setting its teeth against him.

“Now you see how it happens, Robert Stonehouse!”

5

But he came out of a night of fever and hallucination with very little left but the will to keep on.  Apathy, like a thin protecting skin, had grown over him, shielding him from further hurt.  He did not want to feel or care any more.  The very memory of that “scene” with Francey made him shrink with a kind of physical disgust.  Only no more of that.  Back to work—­back to reason.  If she wished to go in pursuit of Howard and Gertie she would have to go.  It seemed strange to him now that he should have minded so desperately.

Christine called to him as he passed her door.

“Is that you, Robert?  Have you had your breakfast?  Wait, dear—­I’ll get it for you.”

But he crept down the stairs as though he had not heard.  Only not so much caring—­if only he could forget that he cared.

“Good-bye, dearest, good-bye!”

Her voice followed him, plaintive and clear.  It seemed to lodge itself in his heart so that ever afterwards he had only to think of her to hear it like the echo of a small, sad bell.  He went on stubbornly, in silence.

He did not try to see Francey.  They met inevitably in the wake of the surgeon on whose post they worked, but they did not speak.  Their eyes avoided one another.  Yet he could not forget her.  It was not the old consciousness that had been full of mystery and delight.  It hurt.  He felt her unsapped joyous living like a blow on his own aching weariness.  He thought bitterly of her.  How easy life had been for her!  She played at living.  Her airy fancies, her belief in God, her vagrant tenderness for the rag and bobtail of the earth were all part of that same thing.  She had never suffered.  Her people had died, but they had died in the odour of sanctity and wealth.  She had never had to ask herself:  “If I fall out, what will become of us?” She saw pain and poverty through the softening veil of her own well-being.  Nothing could really hurt her.

(And yet how lovable she was!  He watched her covertly as she stood at the surgeon’s elbow—­a little graver than usual—­a little paler.  To-day there was no warm glance with a flicker of a smile in its serene depths to greet him.  Her hands were thrust boyishly into the pockets of her white coat, and there was an air of austere earnestness about her that sat quaintly, charmingly upon her youth.  He loved the businesslike simplicity of her dress—­the dark, tailored skirt and white silk shirt—­immaculate—­expressive of her real ability, an accustomed wealth.  He flaired and hated its expensiveness.)

Money.  That lay at the root of everything.  If she were ill—­what would it matter?  A mere set-back.  Her work would wait for her.  Money would wave anxiety from her door.  So she was never ill.  Even though she loved him and they had quarrelled she had kept her fresh skin and clear eyes.  Even if she had worried a little, in the end she had slept peacefully.  (He felt his own shabbiness, his exhaustion, his burning hands and eyes, his dry and bitter mouth like a sort of uncleanliness.)