CHAPTER XIX
IN COUNCIL
There were five of them assembled in Margaret Wallace's sitting-room. Margaret herself, in a linen gown of cornflower-blue, the product of her own deft fingers, which became her hugely. Miss Dorothy Johnson, from the rooms below, who indulged her fondness for unconventional attitudes by perching herself on the back of one chair and her feet on the seat of another. Bertram Winton, one of the handsomest of our actors, tall and dark, with big eyes and curly hair, whose clothes fitted him with a creaseless perfection which won the admiration of that considerable feminine public which bought his photographs and wrote for his autograph. Frank Staines, who was something of a mystery. He wrote a little, and painted a little, and drew a little, and sang a little, and played a little, and talked so much that there were people who said that he could do that better than he could do anything else. He had money. The exact quantity was not generally known, but there appeared to be enough of it to enable him to live in very considerable comfort, without rendering it necessary for him, to adopt his own phraseology, to descend into the market-place and "huckster" his brain. Between Miss Johnson and him there was a state of continual war, tempered by peaceful intervals of the briefest duration. It was commonly understood that he was very much in love with her, had frequently proposed to her and had been accepted several times, but that on each occasion a rupture had followed before they were able to make an interesting announcement to their friends and acquaintances.
Miss Johnson made a remark to Harry Talfourd, who stood leaning against the window with an air of almost sombre gloom, which caused hostilities to break out upon the spot.
"Let's get to the bed-rock of common-sense. It always seems to me that in matters of this sort commonsense is the one thing needed. Harry, what is it you want? You want your play to be successful-that is, you want it to bring you cash and kudos; and that is all you want. The question, therefore, which you have to ask yourself is, if Mrs. Lamb produces 'The Gordian Knot' will it bring me those two things? To that question you have only to supply a simple yes or no, and the problem's solved."
To which Mr. Staines replied-
"That is exactly the sort of remark one expects you to make-utilitarian, material, sordid. I opine that the one thing Harry requires you have not mentioned-that is, satisfaction for his artistic soul."
"Artistic tommy-rot."
"My dear Dollie, it is not necessary for you to be vulgar in order to inform us that you know nothing about the soul-we are aware of it."
"My dear Frankie, don't be under the delusion that you need open your mouth to let the world know that you drivel-it is written on your countenance."
"Thank you, Miss Johnson."
"Don't mention it, Mr. Staines."
Margaret interposed.
"While those two are thinking of some more nice things to say to each other, I should like to know, Mr. Winton, what you really think."
"I am afraid, Miss Wallace, that my point of view would be described by Staines as utilitarian. I propose to conduct my theatre-when I get it-on a commercial basis."
"One takes it for granted that an actor-manager is commercial or nothing."
"If he isn't commercial, my dear Staines, he's less than nothing-he's a bankrupt. No one loves a bankrupt, not even your artistic soul. My intention is to get a theatre; to have it properly equipped; to give the public as good plays as I can get; to have them as well acted as circumstances permit. If Mrs. Lamb is willing to place me in a position to carry out my intention-on my own terms-I don't know that I have any serious objection to her playing a part in my initial venture, particularly as that happens to be a part which, as Talfourd is aware, I have not hitherto been able to fit with a quite adequate representative. I realise that the position is not so simple as it appears, and am conscious that I run the risk of being overshadowed by the lady's personality. But that is certainly my risk rather than Talfourd's, and I am willing to run it in order to gain the end I have in view."
"Then you say, let Mrs. Lamb play Lady Glover?"
"I do, since I incline to the opinion that she would not play it in a fashion which would militate against the success of the piece."
"You hear, Harry?"
"I do; I have heard Winton on the point before."
"Then why don't you leave matters entirely in his hands, and let him arrange everything?"
Harry exchanged glances with the actor. He said, dryly-
"I am willing. If I am allowed to-say, run abroad, or remove myself into the country well out of reach, until, at any rate, the play's produced, I am content to let Winton do just as he pleases."
"I doubt if that would meet Mrs. Lamb's views. I imagine that she might regard your withdrawal as a personal affront. Talfourd, will you allow me to explain to Miss Wallace what I imagine is your exact position in this matter?"
Miss Johnson addressed a question to Mr. Staines before Margaret could reply.
"Frank, you can be honest sometimes, and you can be sensible. Try to be both of them now. What do you think of Mrs. Lamb?"
"It is a delicate subject, on which I should not presume to offer an opinion."
"That means that you don't love her."
"I have only loved one person in my life, and it certainly was not her."
Miss Johnson looked straight in front of her, as if she desired to convey the impression that she had no idea that any allusion was intended. Margaret urged Mr. Winton.
"Come, tell me what Harry's position really is, since I am quite unable to get it out of him."
"Shall I, Talfourd?"
"You may say what you choose, only give me leave to doubt if you are so well informed as you yourself imagine. I don't understand myself as well as I should like to."
"I fancy I understand pretty well. The truth is, Miss Wallace, Mrs. Lamb is fonder of Talfourd than he is of her."
"I am quite aware of that."
"I don't think you altogether appreciate my meaning. If there were no Mr. Lamb, Mrs. Lamb would not object to being Mrs. Talfourd-which is why she wants to produce 'The Gordian Knot,' and why Talfourd doesn't want her to."
"Do you mean that she's in love with him? Harry! is this true? You told me that she had never said anything to you she ought not to have done."
"Nor has she. Winton speaks crudely. I don't know what is his authority for his statement, he certainly has had none from me."
"Is it simply because-she feels for you like that-that she wants to produce your play?"
"Honestly, Meg, I don't know what her reasons are. I wish I did."
"Does she know that you're-engaged?"
"Not that I am aware of. So far as possible I have carefully avoided speaking to her of myself. Frankly, Meg, it's no use blinking the fact that as Mrs. Lamb's private secretary there's nothing for me to do; that she has not the slightest real need for such a functionary; and that I am very much exercised in my mind as to the motives which would actuate her in the production of 'The Gordian Knot'. Although I am quite aware that he meant well, I should have been obliged to Winton if he hadn't said a word to her about the thing."
"At that time I had no actual knowledge of how the land was lying."
"But you guessed." This was Margaret.
"Well, if you will permit me to be quite plain, Miss Wallace, I don't know that I regarded it as a drawback even if I did guess. An actor depends for his existence on personal favour. He has to please the public in the mass, and, also, as individuals. When a woman tells me she admires me I expect her to take a stall to see me act; if she admires me very much, I expect her to take two or three, or a box. There have been women who have admired me so much that they have booked seats for an entire season. Now proceed a step farther. I can conceive of it as possible that a woman might provide me with the means to take a theatre because her admiration for me was so great. I shouldn't stop to ask myself trivial questions as to whether she was married or single, I should regard the matter as purely one of business-one proof of my success-and take the good the gods provided, while, at the same time, my position in the affair would be entirely a platonic one. I want Talfourd to treat the matter from my point of view, but it seems he can't."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not sorry!" The first remark came from Harry, the second from Margaret. She went on: "Now I begin to understand. Of course it's quite inconceivable, Harry, how any one could fall in love with you; but supposing any woman to be so foolish, I certainly don't want you to trade on her affection. I'm not saying it with any desire to wound you, Mr. Winton."
"Don't be afraid, I'm not easily wounded."
"But, you see, in this case there are other circumstances to be considered-there's me. I'm a factor in the question. And shall I tell you to what conclusion I'm drifting?"
"Let's have it."
"I should like to see Mrs. Lamb. You men know her, but I don't. She hasn't even come within range of my vision, and though I've the highest respect for you, as men, when it comes to your opinion of a woman, I don't think a man's opinion worth anything."
"You're quite right-it isn't." This was Miss Johnson.
"I used to have a high opinion of you." This was Mr. Staines.
"You used to have! – that I should ever have been so belittled!"
Miss Johnson turned disdainfully from Mr. Staines to Margaret.
"What you say is perfectly correct, my dear, only a woman's opinion of a woman is of the slightest value."
"The other day I heard a woman express her opinion of you in terms which, if I repeated them to you, might cause you to change your views."
"Some women!"
"I don't know that I go quite so far as Dollie, and there is something in what Mr. Staines hints, for, of course, there are women whose opinions of each other are merely so many libels."
"Hear! hear!"
"Do be still! Will somebody sit on Mr. Staines?"
"But this appears to be a case in which a woman's opinion should be the only thing which ought to count-especially if I'm the woman; and, lest you accuse me of overweening conceit, let me hasten to explain. Mrs. Lamb is, I presume, a lady of beauty-"
"She's not bad-looking." This was Mr. Staines to, of course, Dolly.
"Much you know about a woman's looks!"
"I used to admire yours."
"Pooh!"
"Apparently of fortune, conceivably of taste. She is supposed to entertain certain sentiments towards a certain gentleman which she ought not to entertain. Actuated by those sentiments she proposes to play the part of a feminine Mæcenas and pose as a patron of the drama. These are the allegations which are made against her. Introduce me to her; let me talk to her for half an hour, and I will engage to settle there and then-and finally! – the question as to whether she is a fit and proper person to produce 'The Gordian Knot' and play Lady Glover."
"I'm content!" cried Harry.
Mr. Winton was more deliberate.
"Well, under ordinary circumstances, I should be inclined to do more than hesitate before accepting a lady as arbitrator in such a matter, but I have such a high opinion of Miss Wallace, though she herself appraises a masculine estimate of such a subject at less than nothing-"
"I make an exception in your case, Mr. Winton-thank you very much."
"If she will allow me to say so, I esteem her wide-minded liberality so greatly, and set such value on her keen-sighted appreciation of character-"
"Dear! dear! Margaret, bow!"
"Dollie! don't interrupt!"
"That I am quite willing to go so far as this: If, after talking the matter over with Mrs. Lamb, fully and frankly, and weighing all the pros and cons, you tell me that you think it would be better, for all parties interested, that she should have nothing to do with the play, then, so far as I am concerned, the question will be settled-she shan't."
"The point is," struck in Dollie, "how is the poor dear child to become acquainted with this wonderful woman, who ought to be immensely flattered if she knows how much you have her in your thoughts?"
"There will be no difficulty about that. The lady has an 'At Home' to-morrow evening, to which, practically, all the world is welcome. I'll tell her, Meg, that you'd like to make her acquaintance, and ask her permission to bring you."
"You'll ask her?"
Mr. Staines looked at Mr. Talfourd with, in his glance, a satirical intention which the other ignored.
"Why not? Nothing could be simpler."
"No-nothing could be simpler-only I thought you said she didn't know you were engaged. Do you propose to tell her in what relation Miss Wallace stands to you?"
"Certainly! Why do you look at me like that?"
"I should like to see her face when she receives the communication, and, again, when she meets Miss Wallace. I know something of Mrs. Gregory Lamb. I fancy they may both of them be rather dramatic moments."
Margaret told him, laughing-
"Dear Mr. Staines, you may study the expression of her countenance when she meets me to your heart's content, if you choose. Suppose we all of us go together?"
Mr. Winton rose from his chair.
"Thank you; that is a proposal which I am afraid I must decline. Mrs. Lamb might suspect us of conspiracy if we bore down on her in force. I will be in Connaught Square to-morrow evening, but perhaps a little late, when I think it possible, Miss Wallace, that one glance at your countenance will be sufficient to tell me exactly how the matter stands. Remember the arbitrament of my fate-as a manager, an issue of no slight consequence-is in your hands."
"Poor, innocent, ignorant Mrs. Lamb!" exclaimed Miss Johnson. "Meg, if she only knew what issues of life and death you are bringing with you, I don't believe she'd let you into her house-however nicely Harry might ask her permission to bring you."
The young lady spoke much truer than she knew.
CHAPTER XX
THE IMPENDING SWORD
"I must have ten thousand pounds, and" – Mrs. J. Lamb paused-"within a week."
"Must!"
Mr. Isaac Luker folded his hands together with a gesture which suggested the act of prayer. He seemed singularly out of place in his environment. They were in the apartment which Mrs. Lamb called her boudoir, a word which has a different meaning in the mouths of different women. In this case it stood for a room which represented what was possibly the last word in gorgeous decoration. Everything was of the costliest. If the result was a trifle vivid, it was not altogether unpleasing. It was a room in which one could be very much at one's ease-in certain moods-if one were of a certain constitution. There was something in its atmosphere which made a not ineffective appeal to the senses, not so much to the sense of beauty or of intellect, as to that of physical well-being. In some subtle way the owner's strong personality impregnated the whole place. On crossing the threshold a person of delicate perception might have become immediately conscious of something which could scarcely have been called healthy.
But the prevailing note was gorgeousness, and anything less gorgeous than Mr. Isaac Luker one could hardly conceive. Mrs. Lamb's costume harmonised with the apartment, it was so evidently the product of one of those artists in dress to whom expense is no object. And it became her very well. In it she looked not only a handsome woman, but almost a real great lady. Mr. Luker's apparel, on the other hand, was not only unbecoming and ill-fitting, but it was apparently in the last stage of decay. None of the garments seemed to have been made for him, and they were all of them odd ones. He was tall and thin. He wore an old pair of black-and-white checked trousers, which were too short in the leg and too big everywhere else; an old black frock-coat, which he kept closely buttoned, and which must certainly have been intended for some one who was both shorter and broader. His long thin neck was surrounded by a suspicious-looking collar, which was certainly not made of linen, and he wore by way of a necktie something which might have once done duty as a band on a bowler hat. One understood, after a very cursory inspection, why a gentleman who had such a keen regard for appearances as Mr. Andrew McTavish should object to being brought into involuntary, and unsatisfactory, professional contact with Mr. Isaac Luker.
Yet those who knew had reason to believe that Mr. Luker did a considerable business of a kind-though it was emphatically of a kind. He had one or two peculiarities. He was an habitual gin drinker, and though he could seldom be said to be positively drunk, he could just as rarely be called entirely sober. To all intents and purposes he lived on gin. He had it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and for afternoon tea and supper, and he did not seem to find it a very nourishing food. Then, perhaps partially owing to the monotonous regularity of his diet, he seemed to be incapable of saying what he meant, while his yeas and his nays were as worthless as his oaths. For a solicitor to be a notorious liar and drunkard one would suppose would be a serious handicap in his profession. Oddly enough, with Mr. Luker it was, if anything, the other way. The sort of clients he courted wanted just the sort of man he was. He, speaking generally, never did any clean business; he was only at home when dealing with what was unclean; and as there is more of that kind of commerce about than might be imagined-and some of it is amazingly lucrative-he did tolerably well. Indeed, there were those who declared that, although he did not look it, he was uncommonly well-off, it being one of his characteristics that he was as incapable of spending money as he was of telling the truth or giving up gin.
As he stood there, with his hands folded in front of him in an attitude of prayer, Mrs. Lamb regarded him with what could hardly be regarded as glances of admiration. When she addressed him it was with a frankness which was hardly in keeping with her rôle of great lady, and which is not usual when one deals with one's legal adviser.
"Listen to me, Luker. I want none of your humbug, and I want none of your lies. I want ten thousand pounds inside a week-and you've got to get them. I'll give fifteen thousand for the ten, so there won't be a bad profit for some one."
"How long do you want the money for?"
"Oh-three months."
"On what security?"
"What security? On the security of my property."
"Your property?" Mr. Luker did not smile-a smile was probably another thing of which he was incapable-but his wizened features assumed a curious aspect. "Of what does your property consist?"
"None of your nonsense. To begin with, there are those ten thousand shares in the Hardwood Company. As you know very well, they're worth over fifty thousand pounds at the present moment."
"They would be if you had them-but you haven't."
"McTavish & Brown have got them, and you're going to make them disgorge."
"We've first of all to prove that they've got them."
"Oh no, we haven't; they have to prove that they handed them over to Cuthbert Grahame, which is a very different thing, as you know very well."
"My dear Isabel, you're a very clever woman; your fault is that, if anything, you're too clever."
"I've heard you called too clever before to-day."
"My dear-"
"Don't you call me your dear! I won't have it."
"Very well, although it is possible that few men have a better right-"
"Right! Don't you dare to talk to me about right! – you! – don't you talk to me like that, Mr. Luker! You just simply listen to me. I want ten thousand pounds before this day week, and you've got to get it. No one in London knows better than you from whom and how to get it."
"Mrs. Lamb-by the way, how is your worthy husband?"
"Never mind my worthy husband-you keep to the point."
"Even supposing we are able to saddle McTavish & Brown with the responsibility for the Hardwood shares-which is problematical-it'll take a good deal more than three months to do it. It is not to be supposed that they'll accept an adverse decision without taking the case through every court available. That may take years. If in the end it is decided that they will have to pay, it is not by any means certain that they will be able to. Costs will have swollen the original total enormously; it all will have to come from them. There is nothing to show that they are in a position to pay such a huge sum as that will be."
"Oh yes, there is; they're rolling in money; I've seen enough of them to know so much."
"You think you have. I doubt if that is a matter on which your judgment can be trusted. If the case ultimately goes against them, the possibilities-I should say the probabilities-are that they will declare themselves bankrupt. Then where will you be? You will have to pay your own costs, and, instead of getting the amount adjudged, after another interval of dreary waiting, you may receive, as a final quittance, perhaps sixpence, or a shilling, in the pound. And in the meantime, you must remember, you will have to live."
"You old croaker!"
"Let me make a suggestion."
"Your suggestions!"
She brought her fist down on the back of an armchair with an emphasis which almost suggested that she would have liked that chair to have been some portion of his body.
"Let me lay the whole case before a friend of mine, and, after he has given it careful consideration, it is possible that he may make you a proposition."
"What sort of proposition?"
"That I cannot tell you-the best he can."
"You understand that I must have ten thousand pounds within a week?"
"I hear you say so. If my friend can see his way no doubt he will let you have them."
"Mind he does see his way!"
"As to that-"
Mr. Gregory Lamb's sudden appearance in the doorway perhaps allowed to serve as an excuse for his sentence to remain unfinished.
"You here!" exclaimed Mr. Lamb, as if he were not too well pleased to see him. "I didn't know."
Mr. Luker's greeting, although well meant, was a little peculiar.
"My dear Mr. Lamb, how well you are always looking! – and always so beautifully dressed. What a lovely pin you have in your pretty necktie! Now I know a friend who would give you-"
"I don't want to know what your friend would give me! Confound it, Luker, I never see you but you tell me what some one you know would give me for something I have on. You might be a marine store-dealer."
"There are worse trades, Mr. Lamb-there are worse trades. Now with regard to that exquisite pair of trousers-"
"Look here, Luker, if you're going to tell me what some one you know will give me for my trousers, I'll throw something at you."
"You mustn't do that, Mr. Lamb, it might be something worth money-everything in the room is so very beautiful. Mrs. Lamb, I wish you good-morning."
"Now, no nonsense, Luker. I want that within a week-and you've got to see I have it-if you don't want trouble!"
"I understand perfectly, and will bear what you have said well in mind. You shall hear from me again very shortly."
"I will see I do!"
"I have had clients, Mr. Lamb, who would have conveyed that pin without paying for it-it presents such temptations to an honest man. I do hope it's properly secured. Good-morning!"
When Mr. Luker had retired Mr. Lamb turned to his wife, with knitted brows.
"Isabel, it's beyond my comprehension why you have anything to do with that animal. He's got scoundrel written large all over him."
"I shouldn't have thought that would have prejudiced him in your eyes."
"I suppose you think that's smart. I know there was a time when we both of us had to sail pretty close to the wind, but I thought that time had gone for ever. You've told me so over and over again. You're a woman of large fortune, of assured position, a person of importance. I should have thought that from the point of view of policy alone it would have been worth your while to have dealings with solicitors of standing only, and to have nothing to do with such a brute as that. Aren't you ashamed to have him seen going in and out of the house, or to have the servants know that he is here?"
"I'm not easily ashamed-you ought to know that. Is that all you've come for? – to tell me what you think about what is no concern of yours?"
"What's this I hear about your bringing out a play, and acting in it yourself?"
"Who told you that?"
"Winton-to my amazement!"
"What did he tell you?"
"Something about your producing a play of Talfourd's-Talfourd's, of all people in the world! My hat! he said that you proposed to act one of the principal parts in it yourself. Isabel, that's going too far; I won't stand it."
"You won't what?"
There was something in the lady's tone and in her attitude before which he obviously quailed.
"I don't think that it's becoming in a woman of your position, as-as my wife."
"It's not my fault that I'm your wife."
"Still the fact remains that you are. By the way, has Talfourd been saying anything to you about me?"
"What should he say? – except to advise me to sew you in a sack and drop you into the river."
"That's just what he'd like-he's that sort of man."
"Is he? He's what you never were, never will be, never could be-a gentleman. Why you don't even begin to understand what a gentleman is."
"'Pon my word, I wonder that I let you talk to me like this. I don't want to quarrel with you-I hate quarrelling! – I really do. You couldn't treat me worse if I were a shoeblack."
"I never met any one yet whose shoes you were worthy to black. Why, Luker's a man compared to you. He doesn't sponge upon a woman."
"It's not fair of you to speak to me like this-it is not! I know you're not fond of me-"
"Fond of you! – fond!"
The lady flung out her arm, as if the idea of her entertaining any feeling of that kind for her husband was a grotesque one, and she laughed. As he continued his tone suggested a snarl.
"I don't know that I'm particularly fond of you. You don't go out of your way to make yourself agreeable to a fellow. You've only got to say the word to be rid of me for-well, at any rate, a good long time."
"What's the word? L.S.D.?"
Mr. Lamb coughed.
"A fellow can't go away with empty pockets."
"I thought so. Out with it! What are you at?"
"The truth is, Isabel, I'm not feeling very well."
"If you were feeling as I'd like you to feel you'd be feeling very much worse."
"That's frank! A nice thing for a wife to say to her husband! I believe you're capable of anything."
"I am-I always have been-and I always shall be, you bear that constantly in mind. Why can't you say what you want? If it is prussic acid to use upon yourself I'll give you money enough to buy a barrelful."
The expression of Mr. Lamb's countenance was sullen, so also was the tone of his voice, which perhaps on the whole was not to be wondered at.
"I want to go to the Riviera."
"That means Monte Carlo. Well go-at once-and never come back again."
"If you'll give me the coin I'll start in a jiffy."
"How much do you want?"
"I daresay I could manage with a thousand. I've hit upon a system."
"You've hit upon a system!"
"If you'll only keep still for a moment I'll tell you what it is, and then you'll see for yourself it's an absolute cert. I'll turn the thou. into fifty in less than no time. I can't help doing it! – you see! – and then I'll give you half."
"You'll give me half! Then am I to understand that you won't go unless I give you a thousand pounds?"
"I couldn't do it on less-the system I mean. I've worked out all the details and I really couldn't. I'll show you if you like. It's want of capital that wrecks a man in a thing like this. If you haven't got the proper amount-the lowest possible amount that's absolutely necessary-you might as well throw your money into the sea."
"Then you'll never go at all, because I haven't a thousand pounds to give you."
"What do you mean?"
"It's simple. I don't think I've fifty pounds at my bankers, and I'm pretty sure that they won't honour my cheque if I overdraw."
"Isabel!"
"You owe money, don't you?"
"I daresay I owe a bit here and there."
"So I've been given to understand. I also owe a bit. And my creditors, like yours, won't wait."
"Mine will have to."
"Will they? I thought that was just what they wouldn't do."
"Who's been telling you tales about me?"
"A little bird. So you see, Gregory, I'm more in want of a thousand pounds, because you can't carry on a house like this for long on fifty pounds, even if I have so much at the bank, which, as I say, I doubt."
"Fifty pounds! You're playing the fool with me-it's a favourite game of yours. What's become of the quarter of a million you told me that man Grahame had left you?"
"That's what I should like to know."
"You don't mean you've spent it? You can't have done-not in the time."
"I've never had it to spend."
"What rot are you talking? What game are you playing? Have you all along been telling me nothing but lies?"
"Cuthbert Grahame told me himself that he was worth more than a quarter of a million; soon after he died I told you that only a small portion of the money could be found."
"You told me nothing of the kind-you've never told me anything. Whenever I asked you a question you've always shut me up. You've kept me all along in the dark."
"Then I tell you now. Only a small sum was ever found, and that's been spent-and more than spent."
"Then am I to understand that he was fooling you when he talked about his quarter of a million?"
"I don't believe that he was. I believe he was telling the truth; that he was worth what he said; only it's never been found, and no one seems to know where it is." She held out her clenched fists in front of her, shaking them, as if she were endeavouring, by the exercise of sheer physical force, to assist her mental process. "Sometimes I feel that I know-that I am very near to knowing-that if I could do something I should know quite. It's as if I'd been told something in a dream, and, on waking, had forgotten what it was. I don't like to think of the time he died-I can't." She looked about her, as if unconscious of his presence, with something on her face, in her eyes, which startled him. "Yet if I could-if I could! I believe it would all come back to me what I have forgotten, and I should know where the money is. But I can't! I can't! Since-since the pillow slipped from under him, I-I've never been the same."