Somerset maughan

petit déjeuner
of the 
morning, and she was faint with hunger. But she had not the heart 
to make herself tea. At last he came. He entered joyfully and looked 
around. 
'Is Margaret not here yet?' he asked, with surprise. 
'Won't you sit down?' 
He did not notice that her voice was strange, nor that she kept her 
eyes averted. 
'How lazy you are,' he cried. 'You haven't got the tea.' 
'Mr Burdon, I have something to say to you. It will cause you very 
great pain.' 
He observed now the hoarseness of her tone. He sprang to his feet, 
and a thousand fancies flashed across his brain. Something horrible 
had happened to Margaret. She was ill. His terror was so great that 
he could not speak. He put out his hands as does a blind man. Susie 
had to make an effort to go on. But she could not. Her voice was 
choked, and she began to cry. Arthur trembled as though he were 
seized with ague. She gave him the letter. 

---

'What does it mean?' 
He looked at her vacantly. Then she told him all that she had done 
that day and the places to which she had been. 
'When you thought she was spending every afternoon with Mrs 
Bloomfield, she was with that man. She made all the arrangements 
with the utmost care. It was quite premeditated.' 
Arthur sat down and leaned his head on his hand. He turned his 
back to her, so that she should not see his face. They remained in 
perfect silence. And it was so terrible that Susie began to cry quietly. 
She knew that the man she loved was suffering an agony greater 
than the agony of death, and she could not help him. Rage flared up 
in her heart, and hatred for Margaret. 
'Oh, it's infamous!' she cried suddenly. 'She's lied to you, she's been 
odiously deceitful. She must be vile and heartless. She must be 
rotten to the very soul.' 
He turned round sharply, and his voice was hard. 
'I forbid you to say anything against her.' 
Susie gave a little gasp. He had never spoken to her before in anger. 
She flashed out bitterly. 
'Can you love her still, when she's shown herself capable of such 
vile treachery? For nearly a month this man must have been making 
love to her, and she's listened to all we said of him. She's pretended 
to hate the sight of him, I've seen her cut him in the street. She's 
gone on with all the preparations for your marriage. She must have 
lived in a world of lies, and you never suspected anything because 
you had an unalterable belief in her love and truthfulness. She owes 
everything to you. For four years she's lived on your charity. She 
was only able to be here because you gave her money to carry out a 
foolish whim, and the very clothes on her back were paid for by 
you.' 
'I can't help it if she didn't love me,' he cried desperately. 

---

'You know just as well as I do that she pretended to love you. Oh, 
she's behaved shamefully. There can be no excuse for her.' 
He looked at Susie with haggard, miserable eyes. 
'How can you be so cruel? For God's sake don't make it harder.' 
There was an indescribable agony in his voice. And as if his own 
words of pain overcame the last barrier of his self-control, he broke 
down. He hid his face in his hands and sobbed. Susie was horribly 
conscience-stricken. 
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean to say such hateful things. 
I didn't mean to be unkind. I ought to have remembered how 
passionately you love her.' 
It was very painful to see the effort he made to regain his self-
command. Susie suffered as much as he did. Her impulse was to 
throw herself on her knees, and kiss his hands, and comfort him; but 
she knew that he was interested in her only because she was 
Margaret's friend. At last he got up and, taking his pipe from his 
pocket, filled it silently. She was terrified at the look on his face. The 
first time she had ever seen him, Susie wondered at the possibility of 
self-torture which was in that rough-hewn countenance; but she had 
never dreamed that it could express such unutterable suffering. Its 
lines were suddenly changed, and it was terrible to look upon. 
'I can't believe it's true,' he muttered. 'I can't believe it.' 
There was a knock at the door, and Arthur gave a startled cry. 
'Perhaps she's come back.' 
He opened it hurriedly, his face suddenly lit up by expectation; but 
it was Dr Porhoët. 
'How do you do?' said the Frenchman. 'What is happening?' 
He looked round and caught the dismay that was on the faces of 
Arthur 
and 
Susie. 

---

'Where is Miss Margaret? I thought you must be giving a party.' 
There was something in his manner that made Susie ask why. 
'I received a telegram from Mr Haddo this morning.' 
He took it from his pocket and handed it to Susie. She read it and 
passed it to Arthur. It said: 
Come to the studio at five. High jinks. 
Oliver Haddo 
'Margaret was married to Mr Haddo this morning,' said Arthur, 
quietly. 'I understand they have gone to England.' 
Susie quickly told the doctor the few facts they knew. He was as 
surprised, as distressed, as they. 
'But what is the explanation of it all?' he asked. 
Arthur shrugged his shoulders wearily. 
'She cared for Haddo more than she cared for me, I suppose. It is 
natural enough that she should go away in this fashion rather than 
offer explanations. I suppose she wanted to save herself a scene she 
thought might be rather painful.' 
'When did you see her last?' 
'We spent yesterday evening together.' 
'And did she not show in any way that she contemplated such a 
step?' 
Arthur shook his head. 
'You had no quarrel?' 
'We've never quarrelled. She was in the best of spirits. I've never 
seen her more gay. She talked the whole time of our house in 
London, and of the places we must visit when we were married.' 

---

Another contraction of pain passed over his face as he remembered 
that she had been more affectionate than she had ever been before. 
The fire of her kisses still burnt upon his lips. He had spent a night 
of almost sleepless ecstasy because he had been certain for the first 
time that the passion which consumed him burnt in her heart too. 
Words were dragged out of him against his will. 
'Oh, I'm sure she loved me.' 
Meanwhile Susie's eyes were fixed on Haddo's cruel telegram. She 
seemed to hear his mocking laughter. 
'Margaret loathed Oliver Haddo with a hatred that was almost 
unnatural. It was a physical repulsion like that which people 
sometimes have for certain animals. What can have happened to 
change it into so great a love that it has made her capable of such 
villainous acts?' 
'We mustn't be unfair to him,' said Arthur. 'He put our backs up, 
and we were probably unjust. He has done some very remarkable 
things in his day, and he's no fool. It's possible that some people 
wouldn't mind the eccentricities which irritated us. He's certainly of 
very good family and he's rich. In many ways it's an excellent match 
for Margaret.' 
He was trying with all his might to find excuses for her. It would not 
make her treachery so intolerable if he could persuade himself that 
Haddo had qualities which might explain her infatuation. But as his 
enemy stood before his fancy, monstrously obese, vulgar, and 
overbearing, a shudder passed through him. The thought of 
Margaret in that man's arms tortured him as though his flesh were 
torn with iron hooks. 
'Perhaps it's not true. Perhaps she'll return,' he cried. 
'Would you take her back if she came to you?' asked Susie. 
'Do you think anything she can do has the power to make me love 
her less? There must be reasons of which we know nothing that 
caused her to do all she has done. I daresay it was inevitable from 
the beginning.' 

---

Dr Porhoët got up and walked across the room. 
'If a woman had done me such an injury that I wanted to take some 
horrible vengeance, I think I could devise nothing more subtly cruel 
than to let her be married to Oliver Haddo.' 
'Ah, poor thing, poor thing!' said Arthur. 'If I could only suppose 
she would be happy! The future terrifies me.' 
'I wonder if she knew that Haddo had sent that telegram,' said 
Susie. 
'What can it matter?' 
She turned to Arthur gravely. 
'Do you remember that day, in this studio, when he kicked 
Margaret's dog, and you thrashed him? Well, afterwards, when he 
thought no one saw him, I happened to catch sight of his face. I 
never saw in my life such malignant hatred. It was the face of a 
fiend of wickedness. And when he tried to excuse himself, there was 
a cruel gleam in his eyes which terrified me. I warned you; I told 
you that he had made up his mind to revenge himself, but you 
laughed at me. And then he seemed to go out of our lives and I 
thought no more about it. I wonder why he sent Dr Porhoët here 
today. He must have known that the doctor would hear of his 
humiliation, and he may have wished that he should be present at 
his triumph. I think that very moment he made up his mind to be 
even with you, and he devised this odious scheme.' 
'How could he know that it was possible to carry out such a horrible 
thing?' said Arthur. 
'I wonder if Miss Boyd is right,' murmured the doctor. 'After all, if 
you come to think of it, he must have thought that he couldn't hurt 
you more. The whole thing is fiendish. He took away from you all 
your happiness. He must have known that you wanted nothing in 
the world more than to make Margaret your wife, and he has not 
only prevented that, but he has married her himself. And he can 
only have done it by poisoning her mind, by warping her very 

---

character. Her soul must be horribly besmirched; he must have 
entirely changed her personality.' 
'Ah, I feel that,' cried Arthur. 'If Margaret has broken her word to 
me, if she's gone to him so callously, it's because it's not the 
Margaret I know. Some devil must have taken possession of her 
body.' 
'You use a figure of speech. I wonder if it can possibly be a reality.' 
Arthur and Dr Porhoët looked at Susie with astonishment. 
'I can't believe that Margaret could have done such a thing,' she 
went on. 'The more I think of it, the more incredible it seems. I've 
known Margaret for years, and she was incapable of deceit. She was 
very kind-hearted. She was honest and truthful. In the first moment 
of horror, I was only indignant, but I don't want to think too badly 
of her. There is only one way to excuse her, and that is by supposing 
she acted under some strange compulsion.' 
Arthur clenched his hands. 
'I'm not sure if that doesn't make it more awful than before. If he's 
married her, not because he cares, but in order to hurt me, what life 
will she lead with him? We know how heartless he is, how 
vindictive, how horribly cruel.' 
'Dr Porhoët knows more about these things than we do,' said Susie. 
'Is it possible that Haddo can have cast some spell upon her that 
would make her unable to resist his will? Is it possible that he can 
have got such an influence over her that her whole character was 
changed?' 
'How can I tell?' cried the doctor helplessly. 'I have heard that such 
things may happen. I have read of them, but I have no proof. In 
these matters all is obscurity. The adepts in magic make strange 
claims. Arthur is a man of science, and he knows what the limits of 
hypnotism are.' 
'We know that Haddo had powers that other men have not,' 
answered Susie. 'Perhaps there was enough truth in his extravagant 

---

pretensions to enable him to do something that we can hardly 
imagine.' 
Arthur passed his hands wearily over his face. 
'I'm so broken, so confused, that I cannot think sanely. At this 
moment everything seems possible. My faith in all the truths that 
have supported me is tottering.' 
For a while they remained silent. Arthur's eyes rested on the chair in 
which Margaret had so often sat. An unfinished canvas still stood 
upon the easel. It was Dr Porhoët who spoke at last. 
'But even if there were some truth in Miss Boyd's suppositions, I 
don't see how it can help you. You cannot do anything. You have no 
remedy, legal or otherwise. Margaret is apparently a free agent, and 
she has married this man. It is plain that many people will think she 
has done much better in marrying a country gentleman than in 
marrying a young surgeon. Her letter is perfectly lucid. There is no 
trace of compulsion. To all intents and purposes she has married 
him of her own free-will, and there is nothing to show that she 
desires to be released from him or from the passion which we may 
suppose enslaves her.' 
What he said was obviously true, and no reply was possible. 
'The only thing is to grin and bear it,' said Arthur, rising. 
'Where are you going?' said Susie. 
'I think I want to get away from Paris. Here everything will remind 
me of what I have lost. I must get back to my work.' 
He had regained command over himself, and except for the 
hopeless woe of his face, which he could not prevent from being 
visible, he was as calm as ever. He held out his hand to Susie. 
'I can only hope that you'll forget,' she said. 
'I don't wish to forget,' he answered, shaking his head. 'It's possible 
that you will hear from Margaret. She'll want the things that she has 
left here, and I daresay will write to you. I should like you to tell her 

---

that I bear her no ill-will for anything she has done, and I will never 
venture to reproach her. I don't know if I shall be able to do 
anything for her, but I wish her to know that in any case and always 
I will do everything that she wants.' 
'If she writes to me, I will see that she is told,' answered Susie 
gravely. 
'And now goodbye.' 
'You can't go to London till tomorrow. Shan't I see you in the 
morning?' 
'I think if you don't mind, I won't come here again. The sight of all 
this rather disturbs me.' 
Again a contraction of pain passed across his eyes, and Susie saw 
that he was using a superhuman effort to preserve the appearance of 
composure. She hesitated a moment. 
'Shall I never see you again?' she said. 'I should be sorry to lose sight 
of you entirely.' 
'I should be sorry, too,' he answered. 'I have learned how good and 
kind you are, and I shall never forget that you are Margaret's friend. 
When you come to London, I hope that you will let me know.' 
He went out. Dr Porhoët, his hands behind his back, began to walk 
up and down the room. At last he turned to Susie. 
'There is one thing that puzzles me,' he said. 'Why did he marry 
her?' 
'You heard what Arthur said,' answered Susie bitterly. 'Whatever 
happened, he would have taken her back. The other man knew that 
he could only bind her to him securely by going through the 
ceremonies of marriage.' 
Dr Porhoët shrugged his shoulders, and presently he left her. When 
Susie was alone she began to weep broken-heartedly, not for herself, 
but because Arthur suffered an agony that was hardly endurable. 

---

11 
Arthur went back to London next day. 
Susie felt it impossible any longer to stay in the deserted studio, and 
accepted a friend's invitation to spend the winter in Italy. The good 
Dr Porhoët remained in Paris with his books and his occult studies. 
Susie travelled slowly through Tuscany and Umbria. Margaret had 
not written to her, and Susie, on leaving Paris, had sent her friend's 
belongings to an address from which she knew they would 
eventually be forwarded. She could not bring herself to write. In 
answer to a note announcing her change of plans, Arthur wrote 
briefly that he had much work to do and was delivering a new 
course of lectures at St. Luke's; he had lately been appointed visiting 
surgeon to another hospital, and his private practice was increasing. 
He did not mention Margaret. His letter was abrupt, formal, and 
constrained. Susie, reading it for the tenth time, could make little of 
it. She saw that he wrote only from civility, without interest; and 
there was nothing to indicate his state of mind. Susie and her 
companion had made up their minds to pass some weeks in Rome; 
and here, to her astonishment, Susie had news of Haddo and his 
wife. It appeared that they had spent some time there, and the little 
English circle was talking still of their eccentricities. They travelled 
in some state, with a courier and a suite of servants; they had taken 
a carriage and were in the habit of driving every afternoon on the 
Pincio. Haddo had excited attention by the extravagance of his 
costume, and Margaret by her beauty; she was to be seen in her box 
at the opera every night, and her diamonds were the envy of all 
beholders. Though people had laughed a good deal at Haddo's 
pretentiousness, and been exasperated by his arrogance, they could 
not fail to be impressed by his obvious wealth. But finally the pair 
had disappeared suddenly without saying a word to anybody. A 
good many bills remained unpaid, but these, Susie learnt, had been 
settled later. It was reported that they were now in Monte Carlo. 
'Did they seem happy?' Susie asked the gossiping friend who gave 
her this scanty information. 

---

'I think so. After all, Mrs Haddo has almost everything that a 
woman can want, riches, beauty, nice clothes, jewels. She would be 
very unreasonable not to be happy.' 
Susie had meant to pass the later spring on the Riviera, but when 
she heard that the Haddos were there, she hesitated. She did not 
want to run the risk of seeing them, and yet she had a keen desire to 
find out exactly how things were going. Curiosity and distaste 
struggled in her mind, but curiosity won; and she persuaded her 
friend to go to Monte Carlo instead of to Beaulieu. At first Susie did 
not see the Haddos; but rumour was already much occupied with 
them, and she had only to keep her ears open. In that strange place, 
where all that is extravagant and evil, all that is morbid, insane, and 
fantastic, is gathered together, the Haddos were in fit company. 
They were notorious for their assiduity at the tables and for their 
luck, for the dinners and suppers they gave at places frequented by 
the very opulent, and for their eccentric appearance. It was a 
complex picture that Susie put together from the scraps of 
information she collected. After two or three days she saw them at 
the tables, but they were so absorbed in their game that she felt 
quite safe from discovery. Margaret was playing, but Haddo stood 
behind her and directed her movements. Their faces were 
extraordinarily intent. Susie fixed her attention on Margaret, for in 
what she had heard of her she had been quite unable to recognize 
the girl who had been her friend. And what struck her most now 
was that there was in Margaret's expression a singular likeness to 
Haddo's. Notwithstanding her exquisite beauty, she had a curiously 
vicious look, which suggested that somehow she saw literally with 
Oliver's eyes. They had won great sums that evening, and many 
persons watched them. It appeared that they played always in this 
fashion, Margaret putting on the stakes and Haddo telling her what 
to do and when to stop. Susie heard two Frenchmen talking of them. 
She listened with all her ears. She flushed as she heard one of them 
make an observation about Margaret which was more than coarse. 
The other laughed. 
'It is incredible,' he said. 
'I assure you it's true. They have been married six months, and she is 
still only his wife in name. The superstitious through all the ages 

---

have believed in the power of virginity, and the Church has made 
use of the idea for its own ends. The man uses her simply as a 
mascot.' 
The men laughed, and their conversation proceeded so grossly that 
Susie's cheeks burned. But what she had heard made her look at 
Margaret more closely still. She was radiant. Susie could not deny 
that something had come to her that gave a new, enigmatic savour 
to her beauty. She was dressed more gorgeously than Susie's 
fastidious taste would have permitted; and her diamonds, splendid 
in themselves, were too magnificent for the occasion. At last, 
sweeping up the money, Haddo touched her on the shoulder, and 
she rose. Behind her was standing a painted woman of notorious 
disreputability. Susie was astonished to see Margaret smile and nod 
as she passed her. 
Susie learnt that the Haddos had a suite of rooms at the most 
expensive of the hotels. They lived in a whirl of gaiety. They knew 
few English except those whose reputations were damaged, but 
seemed to prefer the society of those foreigners whose wealth and 
eccentricities made them the cynosure of that little world. 
Afterwards, she often saw them, in company of Russian Grand-
Dukes and their mistresses, of South American women with 
prodigious diamonds, of noble gamblers and great ladies of 
doubtful fame, of strange men overdressed and scented. Rumour 
was increasingly busy with them. Margaret moved among all those 
queer people with a cold mysteriousness that excited the curiosity of 
the sated idlers. The suggestion which Susie overheard was 
repeated more circumstantially. But to this was joined presently the 
report of orgies that were enacted in the darkened sitting-room of 
the hotel, when all that was noble and vicious in Monte Carlo was 
present. Oliver's eccentric imagination invented whimsical 
festivities. He had a passion for disguise, and he gave a fancy-dress