The Moon and Sixpence

parting reference to a girl from a tea-shop. I lied.
“She didn’t say anything about his going with
anyone?”
“ N o . ”
“That’s all I wanted to know. ”
I was a little puzzled, but at all events I under-
stood that I might now take my leave. When I
shook hands with Mrs. Strickland I told her that
if I could be of any use to her I should be very
glad. She smiled wanly.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know that any-
body can do anything for me.”
Too shy to express my sympathy, I turned to
say good-bye to the Colonel. He did not take my
hand.
“I’m just coming. If you’re walking up Victoria
Street, I’ll come along with you.”
“All right,” I said. “Come on.”
Chapter IX
“ T
HIS
IS
A
TERRIBLE
THING
, ” he said, the moment
we got out into the street.
I realised that he had come away with me in
order to discuss once more what he had been
already discussing for hours with his sister-in-law.
“ We don’t know who the woman is, you know, ”
he said. “All we know is that the blackguard’s
gone to Paris.”
“I thought they got on so well.”
“So they did. Why, just before you came in Amy
said they’d never had a quarrel in the whole of
their married life. You know Amy. There never
was a better woman in the world.”
Since these confidences were thrust on me, I
saw no harm in asking a few questions.
“But do you mean to say she suspected noth-
ing?”
“Nothing. He spent August with her and the
children in Norfolk. He was just the same as he’d

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34
The Moon and Sixpence
always been. We went down for two or three
days, my wife and I, and I played golf with him.
He came back to town in September to let his
partner go away, and Amy stayed on in the coun-
try. They’d taken a house for six weeks, and at
the end of her tenancy she wrote to tell him on
which day she was arriving in London. He an-
swered from Paris. He said he’d made up his
mind not to live with her any more.”
“What explanation did he give?”
“My dear fellow, he gave no explanation. I’ve
seen the letter. It wasn’t more than ten lines.”
“But that’s extraordinary. ”
We happened then to cross the street, and the
traffic prevented us from speaking. What Colo-
nel MacAndrew had told me seemed very im-
probable, and I suspected that Mrs. Strickland,
for reasons of her own, had concealed from him
some part of the facts. It was clear that a man
after seventeen years of wedlock did not leave
his wife without certain occurrences which must
have led her to suspect that all was not well with
their married life. The Colonel caught me up.
“Of course, there was no explanation he could
give except that he’d gone off with a woman. I
suppose he thought she could find that out for
herself. That’s the sort of chap he was.”
“What is Mrs. Strickland going to do?”
“ Well, the first thing is to get our proofs. I’m
going over to Paris myself.”
“And what about his business?”
“That’s where he’s been so artful. He’s been
drawing in his horns for the last year. ”
“Did he tell his partner he was leaving?”
“Not a word.”
Colonel MacAndrew had a very sketchy knowl-
edge of business matters, and I had none at all,
so I did not quite understand under what condi-
tions Strickland had left his affairs. I gathered
that the deserted partner was very angry and
threatened proceedings. It appeared that when
everything was settled he would be four or five

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35
Somerset Maugham
hundred pounds out of pocket.
“It’s lucky the furniture in the flat is in Amy’s
name. She’ll have that at all events.”
“Did you mean it when you said she wouldn’t
have a bob?”
“Of course I did. She’s got two or three hun-
dred pounds and the furniture.”
“But how is she going to live?”
“God knows.”
The affair seemed to grow more complicated,
and the Colonel, with his expletives and his in-
dignation, confused rather than informed me. I
was glad that, catching sight of the clock at the
Army and Navy Stores, he remembered an en-
gagement to play cards at his club, and so left
me to cut across St. James Park.