W. MAUGHAM - The Razor's Edge

'I didn't do it. You did it yourself.'

Isabel went to change and meanwhile Gray and I drank a cocktail. Though it was plain that Larry did not wish it, Gray insisted on talking of what had just happened. He couldn't make it out at all.

'I didn't believe you could do a thing, you know,' he said. 'I just gave in because I felt too lousy to argue.'

He went on to describe the onset of his headaches, the anguish he endured, and the wreck he was when the attack subsided. He could not understand how it was that just then he felt his usual robust self. Isabel came back. She was wearing a dress I had not seen before; it reached to the ground, a white sheath of what I think is called marocain, with a flare of black tulle, and I could not but think she would be a credit to us.

It was very gay at the Chateau de Madrid and we were in high spirits. Larry talked amusing nonsense in a way I had not heard him do before and he made us laugh. I had a notion he was doing this with the idea of diverting our minds from the exhibition of his unexpected power. But Isabel was a determined woman. She was prepared to play ball with him as long as it suited her convenience, but she did not lose sight of her desire to satisfy her curiosity. When we had finished dinner and were drinking coffee and liqueurs and she might well have supposed that the good food, the one glass of wine he drank, and the friendly talk had weakened his defences she fixed her bright eyes on Larry.

'Now tell us how you cured Gray's headache.'

'You saw for yourself,' he answered, smiling.

'Did you learn to do that sort of thing in India?'

'Yes.'

'He suffers agonies. D'you think you could cure him permanently?'

'I don't know. I might be able to.'

'It would make a difference to his whole life. He couldn't expect to hold a decent job when he may be incapacitated for forty-eight hours. He'll never be happy till he's at work again.'

'I can't work miracles, you know.'

'But it was a miracle. I saw it with my own eyes.'

'No, it wasn't. I merely put an idea in old Gray's head and he did the rest himself.' He turned to Gray. 'What are you doing tomorrow?'

'Playing golf.'

'I'll look in at six and we'll have a talk.' Then, giving Isabel his winning smile: 'I haven't danced with you for ten years, Isabel. Would you care to see if I still know how to?'

After that we saw a good deal of Larry. For the next week he came to the apartment every day and for half an hour shut himself up with Gray in the library. It appeared that he wanted to persuade him - that was how he smilingly put it - out of having those shattering megrims, and Gray conceived a childlike trust in him. From the little Gray said I got the idea that he was trying besides to restore his broken confidence in himself. About ten days later Gray had another headache, and it so happened that Larry was not to come till the evening. It was not a very bad one, but Gray was so confident now in Larry's odd power that he thought if Larry could be got hold of he could take it away in a few minutes. But neither I, whom Isabel called on the phone, nor they knew where he lived. When Larry at last came and relieved Gray of his pain, Gray asked him for his address so that in case of need he could summon him at once. Larry smiled.

'Call the American Express and leave a message. I'll call them every morning.'

Isabel asked me later why Larry made a secret of his address. He had done that before and then it had turned out that he lived without any mystery in a third-rate hotel in the Latin Quarter.

'I haven't a notion,' I said in answer. 'I can only suggest something very fanciful and there's probably nothing in it. It may be that some queer instinct urges him to carry over to his dwelling-place some privacy of his spirit.'

'What in God's name d'you mean by that?' she cried irritably.

'Hasn't it struck you that when he's with us, easy as he is to get on with, friendly and sociable, one's conscious of a sort of detachment in him, as though he weren't giving all of himself, but withheld in some hidden part of his soul something, I don't know what it is - a tension, a secret, an aspiration, a knowledge - that sets him apart?'

'I've known Larry all my life,' she said impatiently.

'Sometimes he reminds me of a great actor playing perfectly a part in a trumpery play. Like Eleanora Duse in La Locandiera.'

Isabel pondered over this for a moment.

'I suppose I know what you mean. One's having fun, and one thinks he's just like one of us, just like everybody else, and then suddenly you have the feeling that he's escaped you like a smoke ring that you try to catch in your hands. What do you think it can be that makes him so queer?'

'Perhaps something so commonplace that one simply doesn't notice it.'

'Such as?'

'Well, goodness, for instance.'

Isabel frowned.

'I wish you wouldn't say things like that. It gives me a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach.'

'Or is it a little pain in the depth of your heart?'

Isabel gave me a long look as though she were trying to read my thoughts. She took a cigarette from the table beside her and, lighting it, leant back in her chair. She watched the smoke curl up into the air.

'Do you want me to go?' I asked.

'No.'

I was silent for a moment, watching her, and I took my pleasure in the contemplation of her shapely nose and the exquisite line of her jaw.

'Are you very much in love with Larry?'

'God damn you, I've never loved anyone else in all my life.'

'Why did you marry Gray?'

'I had to marry somebody. He was mad about me and Mamma wanted me to marry him. Everybody told me I was well rid of Larry. I was very fond of Gray; I'm very fond of him still. You don't know how sweet he is. No one in the world could be so kind and so considerate. He looks as though he had an awful temper, doesn't he? With me he's always been angelic. When we had money, he wanted me to want things so that he could have the pleasure of giving them to me. Once I said it would be fun if we could have a yacht and go round the world, and if the crash hadn't come he'd have bought one.'

'He sounds almost too good to be true,' I murmured.

'We had a grand time. I shall always be grateful to him for that. He made me very happy.'

I looked at her but did not speak.

'I suppose I didn't really love him, but one can get on all right without love. At the bottom of my heart I hankered for Larry, but as long as I didn't see him it didn't really bother me. D'you remember saying to me that with three thousand miles of ocean between, the pangs of love become quite tolerable? I thought it a cynical remark then, but of course it's true.'

'If it's a pain to see Larry, don't you think it would be wiser not to see him?'

'But it's a pain that's heaven. Besides, you know what he is. Any day he may vanish like a shadow when the sun goes in and we may not see him again for years.'

'Have you never thought of divorcing Gray?'

'I've got no reason for divorcing him.'

'That doesn't prevent your countrywomen from divorcing their husbands when they have a mind to.'

She laughed.

'Why d'you suppose they do it?'

'Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.'

Isabel gave her head such a haughty toss that I wondered she didn't get a crick in the neck.

'Because Gray isn't articulate you think there's nothing to him.'

'You're wrong there,' I interrupted quickly. 'I think there's something rather moving about him. He has a wonderful faculty of love. One has only to glance at his face when he's looking at you to see how deeply, how devotedly he's attached to you. He loves his children much more than you do.'