THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

       The seedy 'bus, of the type not yet quite extinct, with straw on the bottom of it, proved to be sent for them and they proceeded over cobbled streets, half deafened by the clatter of ill-fitting windows. After a minute or two of this Seymour firmly declined to continue, for he said the straw got up his trousers and tickled his legs, and the drums of his ears were bursting. So he got delicately out, in order to take a proper conveyance, and promised to meet the rest of them at the west door of the cathedral. Here he sat very comfortably for ten minutes till they arrived, and entering in the manner of a storming party, they literally stumbled over an astonished archdeacon who was superintending some measurement of paving stone immediately inside, and proved to be a cousin of Lady Ayr's. This fact was not elicited without pomp, for the cathedral was not open to visitors at this hour, as he informed them, on which Lady Ayr said, "I suppose there will be no difficulty in the way of the Marquis of Ayr—Ayr, this is an archdeacon—and his wife and family seeing it." Upon which "an" archdeacon said, "Oh, are you Susie Ayr?" Explanations of cousinship—luckily satisfactory—followed, and they were conducted round the cathedral by him free of all expense, and dined with him in the evening, at a quarter to eight, returning home at ten in order to get a grip of all they were going to see next day, by a diligent perusal of the guide-books.

      They were staying at an ancient hostelry called the "Goat and Compasses," a designation the origin of which John very obligingly explained to them, but Seymour, still perhaps suffering from the straw at the bottom of the 'bus, thought that the "Flea and Compasses" would be a more descriptive title. No room was on the level with any other room or with the passage outside it, and short obscure flights of steps designed to upset the unwary communicated between them. A further trap was laid down for unsuspicious guests in the matter of doors and windows, for the doors were not quite high enough to enable the person of average height to pass through them without hitting his forehead against the jamb, and the windows, when induced to open, descended violently again in the manner of a guillotine. The floors were as wavy as the pavement of St. Mark's at Venice, the looking-glasses seemed like dusky wells, at the bottom of which the gazer darkly beheld his face, and the beds had feather mattresses on them. Altogether, it was quite in the right style, except that it was not a "temperance hotel," for the accommodation of Lady Ayr on a tour of family culture, and she and John, after a short and decisive economical interview with the proprietor, took possession of the largest table in the public drawing-room, ejecting therefrom two nervous spinsters who had been looking forward to playing Patience on it, and spreading their maps of the town over it, read to each other out of guide-books, while Lord Ayr propped himself up dejectedly in a corner, where he hoped to drop asleep unperceived. The troublesome interview with the proprietor had been on the subject of making a deduction from the agreed terms, since they had all dined out. He was finally routed by a short plain statement of the case by Lady Ayr.

      "If you can afford to take us in for so much, dinner included," she said, "you can afford to take us in for less without dinner. I think there is no more to be said on the subject. Breakfast, please, at a quarter past eight punctually and I shall require a second candle in my bedroom. I think your terms, which I do not say are excessive, included lights? Thank you!"

       Seymour had declined to take part in this guide-book conference, saying with truth that he felt sure it would all be very completely explained to him next day, and let himself out into the streets of the town which were already growing empty of passengers. Above the sky was lucent with many stars, and the moon which had risen an hour before, cleared the house-roofs and shone down into the street with a very white light, making the gas-lamps look red. Last night it had been full, and from the terrace at Winston they had all watched it rise, full-flaring, over the woods below the house. Then he and Nadine had strolled away together, and in that luminous solitude with her, he had felt himself constrained and tongue-tied. He had no longer at command the talk that usually rose so glibly to his lips, that gay, witty, inconsequent gabble that had truthfully represented what went on in his quick discerning brain. His brain now was taken up with one topic only, and it was as hard for him to speak to her of that, as it was for him to speak of anything else. He knew that she had entered into her engagement with him, in the same spirit in which he had proposed to her. They liked each other; each found the other a stimulating companion; by each no doubt the attraction of the other's good looks was felt. She, he was certain, regarded him now as she had regarded him then, while for him the whole situation had undergone so complete a change, that he felt that the very fortress of his identity had been stormed and garrisoned by the besieging host. And what was the host? That tall girl with the white slim hands, who, without intention, had picked up a key and, cursorily, so it seemed, had unlocked his heart, so that it stood open to her. Honestly, he did not know that it was made to unlock: he had thought of it always as some toy Swiss châlet, not meant to be opened. But she had opened it, and gone inside.

      The streets grew emptier: lights appeared behind blinds in upper windows, and only an occasional step sounded on the pavements. He had come to an open market place, and from where he paused and stood the western towers of the cathedral rose above the intervening roofs, and aspired whitely into the dark velvet of the night. Hitherto, Seymour would have found nothing particular to say about moonlight, in which he took but the very faintest interest, except that it tended to provoke an untimely loquaciousness in cats. But to-night he found his mind flooded with the most hackneyed and commonplace reflections. It reminded him of Nadine; it was white and chaste and aloof like her ... he wanted her, and he was going to get her, and yet would she really be his in the sense that he was hers? Then for a moment habit asserted itself, and he told himself he was being common, that he was dropping to the level of plain and barbarous Hugh. It was very mortifying, yet he could not keep off that level. He kept on dropping there, as he stared at the moonlit towers of the cathedral, unsatisfied and longing. But it may be doubted whether he would have felt better satisfied, if he had known how earnestly Nadine had tried to drop, or rise, to the moonlit plane, or how sincerely, even with tears, she had deplored her inability to do so. For it was not he whom she had sought to join there.