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By Root 5713 0

something else came to nothing, when one more of his hopeful letters was unanswered, when yet another iron went stone cold, when he faced that the money was running out. He gave signs that he constantly thought of them. Does it make one more nearly good and happy to be thought good and happy? The policy of pity might keep Anna from ever point-blank disappointing him. He was the appendix to the finished story of Robert. Useless, useless to wish they had never met—they had been bound to, apparently. In a sort of sense, Major Brutt had been legated to her by Robert. Or, was it that she felt she found in him the last of Robert's hurting, hurting because never completely bitter, jokes—one of those hurting exposures of her limitations, to obtain which he seemed able to hire fate?

Major Brutt outstayed the Peppinghams—thus giving her no chance to sing his merits in private, to say that whoever got him would be lucky, or to repeat that he was a D.S.O. Ready to say goodbye after a few minutes, he stood up and looked round the drawingroom.

"Those were lovely carnations you sent me the other day. I got Portia to send you a line because I was tired, and because I hoped I should see you soon. You know how one feels when one gets back. But that makes it all the nicer to find flowers."

He beamed. "Oh, good," he said. "If they cheered you up—"

Some obscure wish to bestir herself, to be human, made her say:

"You did not, I suppose, hear any more of Pidgeon since we've been away?"

"Now it's funny your asking that—"

"Funny?" said Anna.

"Not that I heard from him—that's the devil, you know, about not having a fixed address. People soon give up buzzing letters along. Of course, I've got an address, at this hotel, but when I write from there it never looks permanent. People take it you'll have moved on—at least, so I find. But if I'd had an address I might not have heard from Pidgeon. He never was one to write."

"No, he never was—But what were you going to say?"

"Oh yes. Now that really was very funny. It's the sort of thing that's always happening to me. About a fortnight ago, I missed Pidgeon by about three minutes—literally, by just about that. A most extraordinary thing—I mean, only missing him by about an inch when I didn't know he was in the country at all."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, I happened to go into a fellow's club—with the fellow, I mean—and run into another fellow (I hadn't seen him for years, either) who'd been talking to Pidgeon about three minutes ago. Talking to Pidgeon in that very club. 'By Jove,' I said, 'that's funny. Is he in the club still?' But the other fellow said not. He said he'd gone. I said, which way did he go?—having some idea that I might make after him—but the other fellow of course had no idea. It seemed to me an amazing coincidence and I made up my mind I must tell you about it. If I had got there three minutes earlier... It's simply chance, after all. You can't foresee anything. Look, for instance, how I ran into you. In a book, that would sound quite improbable."

"Well, it was improbable, really. I never run into people."

Major Brutt drove his hands down slowly into his pocket, considering something rather uncertainly. He said: "And of course, that week you were abroad."

"Which week?"

"The week I just missed Pidgeon."

"Oh yes, I was abroad. You—you heard no more? He's not in London still?"

"That I can't tell; I wish I could. It's the very devil. He might be anywhere. But this other fellow seemed to get the idea that Pidgeon was just off somewhere—'on the wing', as we always used to say. He's generally just off somewhere. He never liked London much."

"No, he never liked London much."

"And yet, do you know, though I cursed missing him, it seemed better than nothing. When he's once turned up, he may turn up again."

"Yes, I do hope he'll turn up—But not where I ever am."

Fatalistically, she faced having got this out at last. She looked at herself in the glass with enormous calm. Major Brutt, meanwhile, turning his shoulder against the mantelpiece, investigated a boat-shaped glass of roses,