Rei-iew of Revieics, 1/1)11)6. 



In the Days of the Gomet. 



625 



diiy in Shaphambury, and I was making use of the 

 opportunity to seek the owner of a valuable feather 

 boa, which had been left behind in the hotel of my 

 uncle at \\'\\em by a young lady, travelling with a 

 young gentleman — no doubt a youthful married 

 coupie. They had reached Shaphambury sometime 

 on Thursday. I went over the story many times, 

 and gave my imaginary uncle and his hotel plausible 

 names. At any rate, this yarn would serve as a 

 complete justification for all the questions I miglit 

 wish to ask. 



I settled that; but I still sat for a time, wanting 

 the energy to begin. Then I turned toward the big 

 hotel. Its gorgeous magnificence seemed to my in- 

 expert judgment to indicate the very place a rich 

 vr.ung man of good family would select. 



Huge, draught-proof doors were swung round for 

 mi" by ,an ironically-polite under porter in a magni- 

 ficent green uniform, who looked at my clothes as 

 he listened to my question, and then, with a Ger- 

 man accent, referred me to a gorgeous head porter, 

 who directed me to a princely young man behind a 

 counter of brass and polish, like a bank — like several 

 banks. This young man, while he answered me, 

 kept his eye on my collar and tie, and I knew they 

 were abominable. 



" [ want to find a lady and gentleman who came 

 to Shaphambury on Thursday," I said. 



" Friends of yours ?" he asked, with a terrible 

 fineness of irony. 



I made out at last that here, at any rate, the young 

 people had not been. They might have lunched 

 here, but they had had no room. But I went out — 

 door opened again for me obsequiously — in a state 

 of social discomfiture, and did not attack any other 

 establishment that afternoon. 



My resolution had come to a sort of ebb. More 

 people were promenading, and their Sunday smart- 

 ness abashed me. I forgot my purpose in an acute 

 sense of myself. I felt that the bulge of my pocket 

 caused by the revolver was conspicuous, and I was 

 ashamed. T went along the sea front away from the 

 town, and presently lay down among the pebbles 

 and sea poppies. This mood of reaction prevailed 

 with me all tlint afternoon. In the evening, about 

 sundown. I went to the station and asked questions 

 of the outporters there. But outporters, I found, 

 were a class of men who remembered luggage rather 

 than people, and T had no sort of idea what luggage 

 voung Verrall and Nettie were likely to have with 

 them. 



Then I fell into conversation with a salacious, 

 wooden-legged old man with a silver ring, who swept 

 the steps that went down to the beach from the 

 parade. He knew much about young couples, but 

 onlv in general terms, and nothing of the particular 

 voung couple T sought. He reminded me, in the 

 most disagreeable way, of the sensuous aspects of 

 life, and T was not sorrv when pre.sently a gunboat 

 appeared in the offing signalling the coast guard 



and camp, and cut short his observations upon holi- 

 days, beaches, and morals. 



I went, and now I was past my ebb, and sat in 

 a seat upon the parade, and watched the brighten- 

 ing of those rising clouds of chilly fire that made 

 the ruddy west seem tame. My midday lassitude 

 was going, my blood was running warmer again. 

 And as the twilight and that filmy brightness re- 

 placed the dusty sunlight and robbed this unfamiliar 

 place of all its matter-of-fact queerness, and its 

 sense of aimless materialism, romance returned to 

 me, and passion, and my thoughts of honour and 

 revenge. I remember that change of mood as oc- 

 curring very vividly on this occasion, but I fancy 

 that, less distinctly. I had felt this many 'times be- 

 fore. In the old times, night and the starlight had 

 an effect of intimate reality the daytime did not pos- 

 sess. 



I had a queer illusion that night, that Nettie and 

 her lover were close at hand, that suddenly I should 

 come on them. I have already told how I went 

 through the dusk seeking them in every couple that 

 drew near. And I dropped asleep, at last, in an 

 unfamiliar bedroom hung with gaudily-decorated 

 texts, cursing myself for having wasted a day. 



III. 



I sought them in vain the next morning, but after 

 midday I came in quick succession on a perplexing 

 multitude of clues. After failing to find any young 

 couple that corresponded to yoimg Verrall and Net- 

 tie, I presently discovered an unsatisfactory quar- 

 tette of couples. 



Any of these four couples might have been the 

 one I sought ; with regard to none of them was tliere 

 conviction. They had all arrived on either Wednes- 

 day or Thursday. Two couples were still in occu- 

 pation of their rooms, but neither of these were at 

 home. Late in the afternoon I reduced my list by 

 eliminating a young man in drab, with side-whiskers 

 and long cuffs, accompanied by a lady, of thirty or 

 more, of unconsciously ladylike type. I was dis- 

 gusted at the sight of them. The other two young 

 people had gone for a long walk, and, though I 

 watched their boarding-house until the fiery cloud 

 shone out above, sharing and mingling in an un- 

 usually splendid sunset, I missed them. Then I dis- 

 covered them dining at a separate table in the bow 

 window, with red-shaded candles between them, 

 peering out ever and again at this splendour that 

 was neither night nor day., The girl in iier pink 

 evening dress looked very light and pretty to me, 

 prettv enough to enrage me; she had well-shaped 

 arms and white, well-modelled shoulders, and the 

 turn of her cheek and the fair hair about her eai-s 

 were full of subtle delights. But she was not Net- 

 tie; and the happy man with her was that odd, de- 

 generate type our old aristocracy produced with such 

 odd frequencv — chinless, large, bony nose, small, 

 fair head, languid expression, and a neck that had 



