XXI. AT BOGNOR

That seductive gentleman, Bechamel, had been working up to a crisis.

He had started upon this elopement in a vein of fine romance, immensely

proud of his wickedness, and really as much in love as an artificial

oversoul can be, with Jessie. But either she was the profoundest of

coquettes or she had not the slightest element of Passion (with a large

P) in her composition. It warred with all his ideas of himself and the

feminine mind to think that under their flattering circumstances she

really could be so vitally deficient. He found her persistent coolness,

her more or less evident contempt for himself, exasperating in the

highest degree. He put it to himself that she was enough to provoke

a saint, and tried to think that was piquant and enjoyable, but the

blisters on his vanity asserted themselves. The fact is, he was, under

this standing irritation, getting down to the natural man in himself for

once, and the natural man in himself, in spite of Oxford and the junior

Reviewers' Club, was a Palaeolithic creature of simple tastes and

violent methods. "I'll be level with you yet," ran like a plough through

the soil of his thoughts.

Then there was this infernal detective. Bechamel had told his wife

he was going to Davos to see Carter. To that he had fancied she

was reconciled, but how she would take this exploit was entirely

problematical. She was a woman of peculiar moral views, and she measured

marital infidelity largely by its proximity to herself. Out of her

sight, and more particularly out of the sight of the other women of her

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The Wheels of Chance