In his own view, however, he was not old. Sixty-nine was an interesting age--an age of infinite possibilities--an age when at last the experience of a lifetime was beginning to tell. But to feel old--that was different--a tired, discouraged state of mind when one was inclined to ask oneself depressing questions. What was he, after all? A little dried-up, elderly man, with neither chick nor child, with no human belongings, only a valuable art collection which seemed at the moment strangely unsatisfying. No one to care whether he lived or died--
At this point in his meditations Mr. Satterthwaite pulled himself up short. What he was thinking was morbid and unprofitable. He knew well enough, who better, that the chances were that a wife would have hated him or, alternatively, that he would have hated her, that children would have been a constant source of worry and anxiety and that demand upon his time and affection would have worried him considerably.
To be safe and comfortable, said Mr. Satterthwaite firmly--that was the thing.
The last thought reminded him of a letter he had received that morning. He drew it from his pocket and reread it, savoring its contents pleasurably. To begin with, it was from a duchess, and Mr. Satterthwaite liked hearing from duchesses. It is true that the letter began by demanding a large subscription for charity and but for that would probably never have been written, but the terms in which it was couched were so agreeable that Mr. Satterthwaite was able to gloss over the first fact.
_So you've deserted the Riviera. What is this island of yours like? Cheap? Cannotti put up his prices shamefully this year, and I shan't go to the Riviera again. I might try your island next year if you report favorably, though I should hate five days on a boat. Still, anywhere you recommend is sure to be pretty comfortable--too much so. You'll get to be one of those people who do nothing but coddle themselves and think of their comfort. There's only one thing that will save you, Satterthwaite, and that is your inordinate interest in other people's affairs--_
As Mr. Satterthwaite folded the letter, a vision came up vividly before him of the duchess. Her meannesses, her unexpected and alarming kindness, her caustic tongue, her indomitable spirit.
Spirit! Everyone needed spirit. He drew out another letter with a German stamp upon it--written by a young singer in whom he had interested himself. It was a grateful, affectionate letter.
_How can I thank you, dear Mr. Satterthwaite? It seems too wonderful to think that in a few days I shall be singing Isolde.--_
A pity that she was to make her debut as Isolde. A charming, hard-working child, Olga, with a beautiful voice, but no temperament. He hummed to himself. "_Nay, order him! Pray understand it! I command it. I, Isolde._" No, the child hadn't got it in her--the spirit--the indomitable will--all expressed in that final "_Ich, Isolde!_"
Well, at any rate he had done something for somebody. This island depressed him--why, oh! why had he deserted the Riviera which he knew so well, and where he was so well known? Nobody here took any interest in him. Nobody seemed to realize that here was _the_ Mr. Satterthwaite--the friend of duchesses and countesses and singers and writers. No one in the island was of any social importance or of any artistic importance either. Most people had been there seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years running, and valued themselves and were valued accordingly.
With a deep sigh Mr. Satterthwaite proceeded down from the hotel to the small, straggling harbor below. His way lay along an avenue of bougainvillea--a vivid mass of flaunting scarlet, that made him feel older and grayer than ever.
"I'm getting old," he murmured. "I'm getting old and tired."
He was glad when he had passed the bougainvillea and was walking down the white street with the blue sea at the end of it. A disreputable dog was standing in the middle of the road, yawning and stretching himself in the sun. Having prolonged his stretch to the utmost limits of ecstasy, he sat down and treated himself to a really good scratch. He then rose, shook himself, and looked round for any other good things that life might have to offer.
There was a dump of rubbish by the side of the road and to this he went sniffing in pleasurable anticipation. True enough, his nose had not deceived him! A smell of such rich putrescence that it surpassed even his anticipations! He sniffed with growing appreciation, then, suddenly abandoning himself, he lay on his back and rolled frenziedly on the delicious dump. Clearly the world this morning was a dog paradise!
Tiring at last, he regained his feet and strolled out once more into the middle of the road. And then, without the least warning, a ramshackle car careened wildly round the corner, caught him full and square, and passed on unheeding.
The dog rose to his feet, stood a minute regarding Mr. Satterthwaite, a vague dumb reproach in its eyes, then fell over. Mr. Satterthwaite went up to him and bent down. The dog was dead. He went on his way, wondering at the sadness and cruelty of life. What a queer dumb look of reproach had been in the dog's eyes. "Oh! world," it seemed to say. "Oh! Wonderful world in which I have trusted. Why have you done this to me?"
Mr. Satterthwaite went on, past the palm trees and the straggling white houses, past the black lava beach where the surf thundered and where once, long ago, a well-known English swimmer had been carried out to sea and drowned, past the rock pools where children and elderly ladies bobbed up and down and called it bathing, along the steep road that winds upward to the top of the cliff. For there on the edge of the cliff was a house, appropriately named La Paz. A white house with faded green shutters tightly closed, a tangled beautiful garden, and a walk between cypress trees that led to a plateau on the edge of the cliff where you looked down--down--down--to the deep blue sea below.
It was to this spot that Mr. Satterthwaite was bound. He had developed a great love for the garden of La Paz. He had never entered the villa. It seemed always to be empty. Manuel, the Spanish gardener, wished one good morning with a flourish, and gallantly presented ladies with a bouquet and gentlemen with a single flower as a buttonhole, his dark face wreathed in smiles.
Sometimes Mr. Satterthwaite made up stories in his own mind about the owner of the villa. His favorite was a Spanish dancer, once world-famed for her beauty, who hid herself here so that the world should never know that she was no longer beautiful.
He pictured her coming out of the house at dusk and walking through the garden. Sometimes he was tempted to ask Manuel for the truth, but he resisted the temptation. He preferred his fancies.
After exchanging a few words with Manuel and graciously accepting an orange rosebud, Mr. Satterthwaite passed on down the cypress walk to the sea. It was rather wonderful sitting there--on the edge of nothing--with that sheer drop below one. It made him think of _Tristan and Isolde_, of the beginning of the third act with Tristan and Kurwenal--that lonely waiting, and of Isolde rushing up from the sea and Tristan dying in her arms. (No, little Olga would never make an Isolde. Isolde of Cornwall, that royal hater and royal lover--) He shivered. He felt old, chilly, alone. What had he had out of life? Nothing--nothing. Not as much as that dog in the street.
It was an unexpected sound that roused him from his reverie. Footsteps coming along the cypress walk were inaudible; the first he knew of somebody's presence was the English monosyllable "Damn."
He looked round to find a young man staring at him in obvious surprise and disappointment. Mr. Satterthwaite recognized him at once as an arrival of the day before who had more or less intrigued him. Mr. Satterthwaite called him a young man--because in comparison to most of the die-hards in the hotel he _was_ a young man, but he would certainly never see forty again and was probably drawing appreciably near to his half century. Yet, in spite of that, the term young man fitted him--Mr. Satterthwaite was usually right about such things--there was an impression of immaturity about him. As there is a touch of puppyhood about many a full-grown dog, so it was with the stranger.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought, _This chap has really never grown up--not properly, that is_.
And yet there was nothing Peter Pannish about him. He was sleek--almost plump, he had the air of one who has always done himself exceedingly well in the material sense and denied himself no pleasure or satisfaction. He had brown eyes--rather round--fair hair turning gray--a little mustache and rather a florid face.
The thing that had puzzled Mr. Satterthwaite was what had brought him to the island. He could imagine him shooting things, hunting things, playing polo or golf or tennis, making love to pretty women. But in the island there was nothing to hunt or shoot, no games except golf croquet, and the nearest approach to a pretty woman was represented by elderly Miss Baba Kindersley. There were, of course, artists, to whom the beauty of the scenery made appeal, but Mr. Satterthwaite was quite certain that the young man was not an artist. He was clearly marked with the stamp of the Philistine.