Immediately afterwards, walking towards the terminus of the Montmartre omnibus, he realized that he was well in the path that led away, as he had not done while still with her. He was glad and sorry, doing homage to her and the future together. She had a fascination as a moribund Bertha. The immobile short sunset of their friendship should be enjoyed. A rich throwing up and congesting of souvenirs on this threshold were all the better for the weak and silly sun. Oh what a delightful, imperturbable clockwork orb! The next day he again made his way across Paris from Montmartre at a rather earlier hour. He invited himself to tea with her. They talked as though posing for their late personalities. He took up deliberately one or two controversial points. In a spirit of superfluous courtesy he went back to the subject of several of their old typical disputes, and argued against himself. All their difficulties seemed swept away in a relaxed humid atmosphere, most painful and disagreeable to her. He agreed entirely with her, now agreeing no longer meant anything! But the key was elsewhere. Enjoyment of and acquiescence in everything Berthaesque and Teutonic was where it was to be found. Just as now he went to see Bertha’s very German friends, and said “How delightful” to himself, so he appeared to be resolved to come back for a week or two and to admire everything formerly he had found most irritating in Bertha herself. Before retiring definitely, like a man who hears that the rind of the fruit he has just been eating is good, and comes back to his plate to devour the part he had discarded, Tarr returned to have a last tankard of German beer. Or still nearer the figure, his claim in the unexceptionable part of her now lapsed, he had returned demanding to be allowed to live _just a little while longer_ on the absurd and disagreeable section. Bertha suffered, on her side, more than all the rest of the time she had spent with him put together. To tell the whole Kreisler story might lead to a fight. It was too late now. She could not, she felt, in honour, seek to re-entangle Tarr, nor could she disown Kreisler. She had been found with Kreisler: she had no means of keeping him away for good. An attempt at suppressing him might produce any result. Should she have been able, or desired to resume her relations with Tarr, Kreisler would not have left him uninformed of things that had happened, shown in the most uncongenial light. If left alone, and not driven away like a dog, he might gradually quiet down and disappear. Sorbert would be gone, too, by that time! Their grand, never-to-be-forgotten friendship was ending in shabby shallows. Tarr had the best rôle, and did not deserve it. Kreisler was the implacable remote creditor of the situation. CHAPTER IV