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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14755 ***
+
+FATHER STAFFORD
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."
+
+F. TENNYSON NEELY
+PUBLISHER
+CHICAGO  NEW YORK
+1895
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I.     Eugene Lane and his Guests
+
+II.    New Faces and Old Feuds
+
+III.   Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views
+
+IV.    Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece
+
+V.     How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best
+
+VI.    Father Stafford Keeps Vigil
+
+VII.   An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement
+
+VIII.  Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action
+
+IX.    The Battle of Baden
+
+X.     Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation
+
+XI.    Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+XII.   Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind
+
+XIII.  A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel
+
+XIV.   Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be
+
+XV.    An End and a Beginning
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Eugene Lane and his Guests.
+
+
+The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.
+
+Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the _rôle_ with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.
+
+He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,--though
+at this moment rather a bored one,--large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.
+
+Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.
+
+As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.
+
+"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."
+
+"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.
+
+"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from _The Universe_) will
+begin."
+
+"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.
+
+Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.
+
+"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his _fiancée_.
+
+"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."
+
+Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:
+
+"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"
+
+"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."
+
+"Can't, my dear Kate--not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."
+
+"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."
+
+"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."
+
+"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.
+
+"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."
+
+Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."
+
+"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.
+
+"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.
+
+"The fifth is--" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is--Father Stafford."
+
+Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.
+
+"Why, where did you pick _him_ up?" asked Lady Claudia.
+
+"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."
+
+"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.
+
+"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"
+
+"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"
+
+"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."
+
+"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."
+
+"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"
+
+"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."
+
+"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.
+
+Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:
+
+"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"
+
+"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."
+
+"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."
+
+"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."
+
+"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.
+
+"No, Doctor."
+
+"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.
+
+"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.
+
+"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."
+
+"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"
+
+"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."
+
+"Who says he can?"
+
+"Why, the Bishop!"
+
+"Well, then, of course he can."
+
+"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women--very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."
+
+"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"
+
+"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.
+
+The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.
+
+"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."
+
+"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits--I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."
+
+"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.
+
+"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."
+
+Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of mediævalism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.
+
+"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.
+
+"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."
+
+"Dashed if I do," said Bob.
+
+"He steals other birds' nests--eggs and all."
+
+"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."
+
+"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."
+
+"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"
+
+"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"
+
+"Oh! come and play billiards."
+
+"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."
+
+"By Jove, does she make you do that?"
+
+Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.
+
+"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."
+
+Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+_fait accompli_, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement--an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.
+
+It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.
+
+"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."
+
+Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.
+
+"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.
+
+"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.
+
+Kate rose with dignity.
+
+"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."
+
+"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."
+
+"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.
+
+"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."
+
+"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.
+
+A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.
+
+"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.
+
+"Oh, Tennyson--always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."
+
+"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"
+
+Eugene smiled complacently.
+
+"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."
+
+Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:
+
+"So am I."
+
+"Thank you! You need not be afraid."
+
+"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."
+
+A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.
+
+Eugene looked away toward the horizon.
+
+"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.
+
+"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have--a great many."
+
+"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"
+
+"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."
+
+"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.
+
+"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.
+
+"Do you know why?"
+
+"My modesty forbids me to think."
+
+"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."
+
+"Claudia!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent--and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"
+
+Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+New Faces and Old Feuds.
+
+
+There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring--and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane--that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.
+
+Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.
+
+"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.
+
+"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."
+
+"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.
+
+"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."
+
+"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.
+
+Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.
+
+"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father--the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."
+
+"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."
+
+"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.
+
+Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:
+
+"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."
+
+"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."
+
+Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."
+
+"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"
+
+"A little knocked up."
+
+"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.
+
+He saw the glance.
+
+"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."
+
+Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:
+
+"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"
+
+The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.
+
+"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.
+
+"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"
+
+"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."
+
+"I take it because I like it."
+
+"And I don't take it because I like it."
+
+Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.
+
+Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.
+
+"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.
+
+"I am so sorry--but--but I thought you looked so ill."
+
+Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.
+
+Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject--not being a new one--might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:
+
+"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
+
+The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.
+
+"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."
+
+"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,--or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,--they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
+
+"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
+
+"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
+
+"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.
+
+Morewood directed a glance at him.
+
+"He's mad!" he said briefly.
+
+"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."
+
+"You don't believe all he does?"
+
+"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."
+
+Morewood looked at him for a moment.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."
+
+"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.
+
+Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.
+
+Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.
+
+Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."
+
+Absolute silence.
+
+"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.
+
+Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.
+
+"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"
+
+Kate smiled bitterly.
+
+"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."
+
+"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"
+
+Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.
+
+"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.
+
+"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"
+
+"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."
+
+"_How_ annoying! What's he doing there?"
+
+"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."
+
+"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."
+
+Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.
+
+Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.
+
+"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.
+
+"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."
+
+"And you think you can stand it?"
+
+"Stand what, my dear fellow?"
+
+"Why, the life you lead--a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."
+
+"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very mediæval? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."
+
+"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"
+
+"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."
+
+"You think it right for a good many people, though?"
+
+"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."
+
+"No; tell me now."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+"Of course! I take that for granted."
+
+"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"
+
+"I could never do it," said Eugene.
+
+"Perhaps not--or, at least, not yet."
+
+"Too late or too early, is it?"
+
+"It may be so, but I will not say so."
+
+"You know I think you're all wrong?"
+
+"I know."
+
+"You will fail."
+
+"God forbid! but if he pleases--"
+
+"After all, what are meat, wine, and--and so on for?"
+
+"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."
+
+"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."
+
+Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.
+
+"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"
+
+"I am glad to say he is not."
+
+"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."
+
+"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."
+
+"What was it particularly about?"
+
+"An immaterial matter."
+
+"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"
+
+"No. What do you mean?"
+
+"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."
+
+"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is--well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"
+
+"Haddington didn't like it."
+
+"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.
+
+Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.
+
+
+For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.
+
+"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."
+
+"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.
+
+Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if
+others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close _rapprochement_ between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.
+
+Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.
+
+The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart--which is not usually the
+case--easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.
+
+It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+_chevaux-de-frise_ of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington--a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.
+
+She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.
+
+Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a _tête-à-tête_
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.
+
+Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."
+
+Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.
+
+"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington--breakfast, lunch,
+tea--"
+
+"I mean when you are alone."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And yet you must know my great--my only object in being here is to see
+you."
+
+"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.
+
+"You must have noticed my--my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"
+
+This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.
+
+"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known--how, I do not
+know--to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."
+
+"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet--but in
+time, surely?"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you--which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a _pis-aller_.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.
+
+"A _pis-aller_! What in the world do you mean?"
+
+"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been--had appeared to be out of reach?"
+
+This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.
+
+"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."
+
+"It is a great blow to me--a great blow."
+
+Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."
+
+Haddington was a little at loss.
+
+"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."
+
+"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"
+
+"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another--she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"
+
+"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"
+
+"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me--forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"
+
+"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."
+
+"Why do you say that? If you only knew--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Of course. They're _engaged_!"
+
+"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."
+
+"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."
+
+"If you ask me, I will try to stay."
+
+"Yes, yes, stay--but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other--about them, I mean. You will stay?"
+
+"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.
+
+"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"
+
+"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing--but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."
+
+"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as--as a second string!"
+
+"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.
+
+"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."
+
+"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"
+
+"It was you who put it in my head."
+
+"Oh, what have I done!"
+
+Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.
+
+Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.
+
+Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.
+
+Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's _fiancée_ that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.
+
+He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.
+
+"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."
+
+"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.
+
+"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."
+
+"Did he say what it was about?"
+
+"No; I didn't ask him."
+
+A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.
+
+"And so you are alone?"
+
+"Yes, as you see."
+
+"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"
+
+"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."
+
+"I wish I could think so."
+
+"Why don't you think so?"
+
+"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.
+
+"Even to telegrams?"
+
+"Ah! poor Lane!"
+
+"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."
+
+"No--rather of envy."
+
+Kate did not look displeased.
+
+"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard--there, I am offending you again!"
+
+"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."
+
+"Do you think I don't mean it?"
+
+"That would be very discreditable--but not so bad."
+
+"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+_that_?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.
+
+Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:
+
+"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."
+
+"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.
+
+Kate rose.
+
+"You are not angry?"
+
+"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No--don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."
+
+Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.
+
+"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."
+
+It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.
+
+
+About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.
+
+"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"
+
+"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.
+
+"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.
+
+"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."
+
+"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"
+
+"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."
+
+"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"
+
+"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"
+
+"And how do you like your new neighbor?"
+
+"What new neighbor?"
+
+"Intellect."
+
+"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."
+
+"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.
+
+"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. _Apropos_, what are you doing
+down here?"
+
+"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."
+
+"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"
+
+"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."
+
+"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"
+
+"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"
+
+"Yes. Known her since she was a child."
+
+"She seems uncommonly appreciative."
+
+"Of Stafford?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since--"
+
+"Oh, I don't want their history--a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only--I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."
+
+"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.
+
+"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."
+
+"What do he and the rest of them think?"
+
+"I haven't shown it to any one."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Wait till you've seen it."
+
+"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that--"
+
+"Hush! Here he comes!"
+
+As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.
+
+"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She doesn't care for him?"
+
+"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"
+
+"Oh, you know he's booked."
+
+"Kate Bernard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you--"
+
+"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing--in its
+way--I ever did."
+
+"Going to exhibit it?"
+
+"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."
+
+"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"
+
+Whereto Morewood answered only:
+
+"Come and see."
+
+As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.
+
+"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"
+
+"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"
+
+"Yes, there's a picture to be seen--Morewood's latest."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."
+
+"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"
+
+"Stafford," said Ayre.
+
+"The Pope in full canonicals?"
+
+"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."
+
+They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.
+
+"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"
+
+"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."
+
+"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.
+
+Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.
+
+"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.
+
+It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.
+
+Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:
+
+"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"
+
+"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but--fine, isn't it?"
+
+The two men nodded.
+
+"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."
+
+"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,--we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,--and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."
+
+He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.
+
+It was merely a head--nothing more--standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.
+
+The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.
+
+"The finest thing I ever did--on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"
+
+"No," said Eugene.
+
+Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.
+
+"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"
+
+"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."
+
+"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"
+
+"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."
+
+"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.
+
+The others looked keenly at him for a moment.
+
+"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."
+
+"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.
+
+"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.
+
+Morewood's face was a study.
+
+"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."
+
+"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Burn it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."
+
+"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."
+
+"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."
+
+"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."
+
+"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.
+
+"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.
+
+"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."
+
+Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.
+
+"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."
+
+"I shan't. It will be interesting."
+
+"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."
+
+"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."
+
+The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.
+
+"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.
+
+"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."
+
+"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.
+
+"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.
+
+Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.
+
+"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."
+
+"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."
+
+"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."
+
+"And I shall be a change?"
+
+"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."
+
+"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.
+
+"She means no harm," said Morewood.
+
+"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"
+
+"No--not our business if we could," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.
+
+"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"
+
+Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.
+
+"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Yes. Why are you moping here?"
+
+"Where's Stafford?"
+
+"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"
+
+Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.
+
+"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"
+
+She got up and came close to him.
+
+"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"
+
+"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."
+
+"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+_sociable_."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A sociable."
+
+"Do you mean a tricycle?"
+
+"Yes--for two."
+
+"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun?"
+
+"On the road?"
+
+"N--no, perhaps not; round the park."
+
+"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"
+
+"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."
+
+"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."
+
+"Be quiet. But will you?"
+
+"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."
+
+"I must go and put on an old frock."
+
+"All right; be quick."
+
+"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well--if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."
+
+A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?
+
+It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:
+
+"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.
+
+Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.
+
+"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" she asked.
+
+Eugene was struggling with laughter.
+
+"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"
+
+Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
+
+Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.
+
+
+The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.
+
+"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and--no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"
+
+Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."
+
+Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.
+
+"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"
+
+"Is he in the dark?"
+
+"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,--they say women are that way,--but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."
+
+"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"
+
+"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to."
+
+"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."
+
+"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."
+
+"Yes, but you see, Lane--"
+
+"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"
+
+Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.
+
+"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and--well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"
+
+"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.
+
+"Hang it! a man has some feelings."
+
+"You're a humbug, Ayre!"
+
+"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It would be a very interesting problem."
+
+"It would."
+
+"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"
+
+"Utter nonsense!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."
+
+"No more should I."
+
+"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"
+
+"Of course he would. No one could help it."
+
+"Will you let him see it?"
+
+Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."
+
+"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"
+
+"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."
+
+"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's--still more of a
+lady's--education."
+
+Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.
+
+"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.
+
+Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering--a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.
+
+"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it--or, rather, it forced upon us?"
+
+Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.
+
+"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"
+
+"I agree--at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."
+
+Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.
+
+"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."
+
+"You'd better leave me out."
+
+"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."
+
+"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."
+
+"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be a shock to him."
+
+"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."
+
+"It won't make him happier to be refused."
+
+Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"
+
+"I don't know. How should I know?"
+
+"Do you think it likely?"
+
+"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."
+
+"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"
+
+It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.
+
+"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness--and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"
+
+Eugene did not wince.
+
+"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."
+
+"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:
+
+"You could say nothing else."
+
+"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."
+
+"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"
+
+"God knows!" groaned Eugene.
+
+Morewood returned.
+
+"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"
+
+"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."
+
+"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."
+
+Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:
+
+"It is my face?"
+
+"You see it is."
+
+"You did it?"
+
+"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few days ago."
+
+"On your oath--no, you don't believe that--on your honor, is it truth?"
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"You saw it--just as it is there?"
+
+"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."
+
+"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But--yes,
+it is true. God help me!"
+
+"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."
+
+"Time, indeed!"
+
+"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.
+
+"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"
+
+"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."
+
+Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.
+
+"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No--I won't hurt it."
+
+"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you--"
+
+"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"
+
+He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.
+
+"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"
+
+"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."
+
+"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"
+
+"No. Of course I shall write to you."
+
+"Thank you--I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"
+
+"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And--oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."
+
+"Isn't Haddington staying here?"
+
+"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."
+
+"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."
+
+"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"
+
+"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."
+
+"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."
+
+This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.
+
+"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."
+
+"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"An opportunity for quarreling."
+
+"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."
+
+"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."
+
+"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."
+
+"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."
+
+"And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself
+bound."
+
+"I have never proposed anything else."
+
+"Your conduct with Claudia--"
+
+"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."
+
+"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.
+
+"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"
+
+Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.
+
+Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.
+
+"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.
+
+"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a
+terrible time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."
+
+"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."
+
+"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"
+
+"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"
+
+"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."
+
+"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."
+
+"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.
+
+"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.
+
+"In his room--at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."
+
+"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."
+
+"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.
+
+"You're a very rude _old_ gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same--against Bob and Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."
+
+"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."
+
+"Oh! Is it a question that no one else--say Kate, for instance--could
+help you with?"
+
+"It's not about myself."
+
+"Is it about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."
+
+"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."
+
+But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:
+
+"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"
+
+With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.
+
+"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.
+
+"He looked it."
+
+"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."
+
+"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.
+
+
+Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.
+
+"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."
+
+"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.
+
+"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."
+
+"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.
+
+"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.
+
+"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."
+
+"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.
+
+"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."
+
+"Take care they don't make you a peer!"
+
+"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."
+
+"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."
+
+"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.
+
+Ayre put up his eyeglass.
+
+"_Après?_"
+
+"It's all affectation."
+
+"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."
+
+"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."
+
+"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."
+
+"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."
+
+"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"
+
+"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.
+
+"By all means," said he.
+
+"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."
+
+"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.
+
+Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:
+
+"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious--especially in women."
+
+There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.
+
+"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm--gush, in fact--as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"
+
+Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.
+
+"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"
+
+"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."
+
+This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:
+
+"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"
+
+"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.
+
+So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment--more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.
+
+Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark--uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his--victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.
+
+In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.
+
+But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly--yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.
+
+So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.
+
+The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.
+
+From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life--not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate--was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.
+
+It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator--the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction--oh! what a tiny fraction--of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much--whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly--aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."
+
+Eugene gently laughed.
+
+"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."
+
+"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose--a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."
+
+"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.
+
+"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."
+
+Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world--except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.
+
+Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.
+
+
+It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go--go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.
+
+At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.
+
+"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going--this lady and gentleman."
+
+Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.
+
+"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry--never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"
+
+He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:
+
+"You are determined on this, Kate?"
+
+"On what?" she asked coldly.
+
+"Why, to go like this--to bolt--it almost comes to that--leaving things
+as they are between us?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"And with Haddington?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me?"
+
+"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."
+
+Eugene could not resist a smile.
+
+"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.
+
+"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"
+
+"I have left a note for you."
+
+"That will explain?"
+
+"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."
+
+"How fagged you look!"
+
+"Yes, I am tired."
+
+"You must go now, and like this?"
+
+"I think that is less bad than anything else."
+
+"You can't tell me?"
+
+"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."
+
+"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"
+
+"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."
+
+The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.
+
+"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now--"
+
+But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.
+
+"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."
+
+"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"
+
+"Oh, you know that?"
+
+"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"
+
+"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"
+
+"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."
+
+"You can guess?"
+
+"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.
+
+"He's given it up, apparently."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."
+
+"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the _fons et origo mali_."
+
+Morewood joined them.
+
+"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."
+
+"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."
+
+Eugene rose.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."
+
+"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"
+
+"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."
+
+"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.
+
+"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Oh! not _simpliciter_, you know. _Secundum quid_."
+
+"_Secundum feminam_, in fact?"
+
+"Yes; and I brought him up, too."
+
+"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."
+
+"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."
+
+"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."
+
+"I think they must be--a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."
+
+Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.
+
+"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.
+
+"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"
+
+"I meant Father Stafford, of course."
+
+"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."
+
+"Did he tell you why he had to go?"
+
+"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.
+
+"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."
+
+"You don't like unaccountable people?"
+
+Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.
+
+"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."
+
+"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.
+
+"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford--"
+
+"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."
+
+This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.
+
+"I thought you might know."
+
+"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.
+
+Claudia gave a little laugh.
+
+"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? _I_
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.
+
+"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.
+
+"I accept that as a diplomatic advance--not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."
+
+"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one--"
+
+"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.
+
+He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.
+
+"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."
+
+"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."
+
+Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.
+
+"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.
+
+"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."
+
+"Why, you don't go killing birds?"
+
+"No, I don't kill birds."
+
+"There'll be only a pack of men there."
+
+"That's all. But I don't mind that--if the scenery is good."
+
+"I believe you're trying to make me angry."
+
+"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."
+
+"Have you no heart, Claudia?"
+
+"I don't know. But I have a prefix."
+
+"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"
+
+Claudia laughed.
+
+"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"
+
+"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"
+
+"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that would imply you were serious."
+
+"Would it be wrong if I were?"
+
+"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."
+
+"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"
+
+"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."
+
+"See what?" she said.
+
+"Why, that--that--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"
+
+"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, you seemed--perhaps you didn't mean it--to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept _us_ apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you--"
+
+"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"
+
+Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I see. I must congratulate you."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"On having bagged a brace--without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."
+
+And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.
+
+Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:
+
+"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"
+
+And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.
+
+Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.
+
+"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."
+
+"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.
+
+"How a coincidence!"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Oh, I wanted to know."
+
+Ayre looked at her.
+
+"Where's Eugene?"
+
+"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."
+
+Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.
+
+"Did you want him?"
+
+"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."
+
+"You would if you'd come a little sooner."
+
+"Ah! I'll go and find him."
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+And off he went.
+
+"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit--and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."
+
+And perhaps it was about time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.
+
+
+When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself--a surprise that now took
+the place of shame--he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.
+
+No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that--and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead--but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.
+
+It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet--time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.
+
+Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.
+
+"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."
+
+"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.
+
+The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.
+
+Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?--strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?--strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.
+
+While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.
+
+The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great _éclat_; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it--to use the
+technical term--and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.
+
+For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M. P., had also "proceeded" thither.
+
+"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and--[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with--[more irrelevant matter]."
+
+Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.
+
+"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"
+
+And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.
+
+"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"
+
+Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.
+
+"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."
+
+"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"
+
+Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.
+
+In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie--a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.
+
+It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.
+
+"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"
+
+"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."
+
+"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"
+
+This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.
+
+"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."
+
+"You might influence him."
+
+"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"
+
+Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.
+
+"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."
+
+And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.
+
+In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.
+
+Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.
+
+"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."
+
+He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.
+
+"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"
+
+"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."
+
+"With Kate?"
+
+"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"
+
+"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.
+
+"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."
+
+"Will she, do you think?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny--a fancy bet."
+
+"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"
+
+"She wouldn't suit Eugene."
+
+"No; lead him the devil of a life."
+
+"She don't care for him."
+
+"Not a straw."
+
+"Then, why don't she break it off?"
+
+"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"
+
+"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+_verbot_ here--penalty one mark--see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."
+
+"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."
+
+"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.
+
+"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."
+
+"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her--yes or no."
+
+"Why? it's not my funeral!"
+
+"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."
+
+"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+_him_ shamefully."
+
+"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"
+
+"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"
+
+"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.
+
+"Do you think you won't bungle it?"
+
+"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."
+
+Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.
+
+"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."
+
+"Do you think I might lie a bit?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."
+
+"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."
+
+Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.
+
+What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:
+
+"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."
+
+"Did he bite?"
+
+"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."
+
+"Will he stand up to her?"
+
+"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."
+
+"I wonder what she'll say?"
+
+"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."
+
+Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside--one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+_rubesco referens_, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.
+
+"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.
+
+"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's--it's
+not respectful."
+
+"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"
+
+"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.
+
+"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"
+
+Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.
+
+"I will not break my engagement."
+
+"That is no answer."
+
+"I can't help it. I have been taught--"
+
+"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady--"
+
+"You're very unkind."
+
+"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"
+
+"Won't you be patient?"
+
+"Ah, you admit--"
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."
+
+The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.
+
+"Well, I will wait--I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"
+
+A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.
+
+"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."
+
+"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.
+
+"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's very wrong."
+
+"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"
+
+The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.
+
+"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or--"
+
+"Then I have your promise, dear?"
+
+"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."
+
+"You won't let him win you over?"
+
+"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."
+
+They had risen by now.
+
+"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.
+
+"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"
+
+"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."
+
+Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.
+
+"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.
+
+"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But--no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Battle of Baden.
+
+
+Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from _ennui_ for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.
+
+He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.
+
+He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.
+
+"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.
+
+"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."
+
+"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."
+
+"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.
+
+"It concerns you."
+
+"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"
+
+"In order to serve a friend, I did a--well--a doubtful thing."
+
+Kate was puzzled.
+
+"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"
+
+"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."
+
+"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"
+
+"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."
+
+"We have known one another some time."
+
+Ayre smiled at the implied correction.
+
+"Do you object to plain speaking?"
+
+"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."
+
+"You mean I should have no right?"
+
+"I certainly don't see on what ground."
+
+"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."
+
+"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"
+
+"As an old friend of his--"
+
+"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."
+
+"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.
+
+"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."
+
+"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and--pardon
+me--you must hear it."
+
+"And what if I refuse?"
+
+"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."
+
+Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:
+
+"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"
+
+"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."
+
+Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.
+
+"Did he send you to tell me this?"
+
+"You know he didn't."
+
+"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"
+
+"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia--a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean you must release Eugene."
+
+"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.
+
+"Because it is not usual--and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right--it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."
+
+"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."
+
+"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Then I must tell Eugene?"
+
+"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.
+
+"You are engaged to Eugene?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."
+
+"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"
+
+"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise--an absolute promise."
+
+"That is not a happy guess."
+
+"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."
+
+"How dare you accuse me of such things?"
+
+"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."
+
+"Absolute knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.
+
+"You listened!"
+
+"Yes, I listened."
+
+"Is that what a gentleman does?"
+
+"As a rule, it is not."
+
+"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."
+
+"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."
+
+"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"
+
+"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."
+
+"What could you tell him?"
+
+"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him--keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"
+
+Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.
+
+"You see I could--if you'll allow me the metaphor--blow you out of the
+water."
+
+"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."
+
+Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.
+
+"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"
+
+"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this--well, this
+is a little strong."
+
+"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.
+
+"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."
+
+"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.
+
+"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"
+
+"If I don't, what will you do?"
+
+"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."
+
+"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."
+
+"That's another point."
+
+"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."
+
+"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Eugene."
+
+Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.
+
+"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"
+
+"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"
+
+"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."
+
+"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."
+
+"Certainly--with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."
+
+"Won't you give me a week?"
+
+"Not a day!"
+
+Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.
+
+"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.
+
+"But you promise?"
+
+"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"
+
+Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.
+
+"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort--fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it--I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."
+
+Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+_fiancée_ would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond--whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.
+
+As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.
+
+It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made--indeed, he was brimming over
+with it--was:
+
+"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"
+
+What with one thing--packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles--Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.
+
+"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.
+
+"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."
+
+"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.
+
+"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."
+
+"Well, what do you mean?"
+
+"No; never mind! It doesn't matter--all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder--eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.
+
+"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.
+
+"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."
+
+Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.
+
+"I don't see any fun in that," she said.
+
+Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.
+
+The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other _impedimenta_, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.
+
+Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.
+
+"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"
+
+"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."
+
+"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.
+
+He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.
+
+"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost--"
+
+"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."
+
+"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."
+
+"Is it really true?
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.
+
+The brothers looked at one another.
+
+"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.
+
+"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."
+
+"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."
+
+"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.
+
+Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:
+
+"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"
+
+"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."
+
+"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"
+
+"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."
+
+"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"
+
+"She didn't tell him so--not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."
+
+"She can't take him."
+
+"Good Lord! no."
+
+Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.
+
+"Think Lane'll write to her?"
+
+"He ought to, right off."
+
+"Queer girl, ain't she?"
+
+"Deuced!"
+
+"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."
+
+"What? with Kate?"
+
+"No; the other business."
+
+And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.
+
+
+When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.
+
+This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:
+
+"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"
+
+The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:
+
+"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."
+
+"Why, how in the world did you come here?"
+
+The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:
+
+"I am staying near here."
+
+"For health, eh?"
+
+"Yes--for health."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."
+
+Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.
+
+"Have some lunch?"
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"There's only enough for one," he said.
+
+"Nonsense, man!"
+
+"No, really; I never take it."
+
+A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:
+
+"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sent for?"
+
+"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."
+
+"I am not thin-skinned--not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."
+
+"That head?"
+
+"Yes; you did me a service."
+
+"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.
+
+Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+_regimen_ at the Retreat was no doubt severe.
+
+"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"
+
+"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love--barring a
+sound reason against it."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"
+
+"I don't bore you about it?"
+
+"No, I like jawing."
+
+"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."
+
+"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."
+
+"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that--"
+
+"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"
+
+"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry--there were even more stringent terms--but that's
+enough."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."
+
+"No. I think I could manage the first sort."
+
+"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."
+
+"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."
+
+"You're advising me to make one now."
+
+"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."
+
+"That's because you don't believe in anything?"
+
+"Yes, probably."
+
+"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You believed what a priest believes--in heaven and hell--the gaining
+God and the losing him--in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him--had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others--a baseness, a treason, a desertion--more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight--as base as a thief's purloining--meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"
+
+He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.
+
+"All that," he went on, "it meant to me--all that and more--the triumph
+of the beast in me--passion and desire rampant--man forsaken and God
+betrayed--my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"
+
+Morewood rose and paced up and down.
+
+"Now--now can you judge? You say you knew--did you know that?"
+
+"Do you still believe all that?"
+
+"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment--a day--perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt--I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."
+
+"If you break this vow you think you will be--?"
+
+"The creature I have said? Yes--and worse."
+
+"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.
+
+"But if you thought as I think, then would your love--yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"
+
+Morewood stood still.
+
+"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But--"
+
+"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.
+
+"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"
+
+Morewood was touched with pity.
+
+"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."
+
+"Get over it?"
+
+"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."
+
+Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.
+
+"You have never felt belief?" he asked.
+
+"Not for many years. That's all gone."
+
+"You think you have been in love?"
+
+"Of course I have--half a dozen times."
+
+"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.
+
+Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:
+
+"I have told you what belief is--I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."
+
+A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.
+
+"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Still?"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."
+
+"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."
+
+Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.
+
+"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.
+
+Stafford laughed outright.
+
+"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"
+
+"Well--after a time."
+
+"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference--as if the result mattered!"
+
+"I suppose you are right there."
+
+"Of course. But she will have me."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"Pardon me; I dare say you do."
+
+"You don't want to talk about that?"
+
+"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."
+
+"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"
+
+Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."
+
+"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.
+
+"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.
+
+"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"
+
+"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."
+
+"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."
+
+He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.
+
+He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.
+
+"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:
+
+     "DEAR AYRE:
+
+     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief--which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.
+
+     "Yours,
+
+     "A. MOREWOOD."
+
+This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.
+
+"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad--if he is mad--must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."
+
+He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.
+
+"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"
+
+He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.
+
+"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."
+
+"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"
+
+Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.
+
+"Well, how's everybody?"
+
+Ayre waited for a more definite question.
+
+"Seen the Territons lately?"
+
+"Not very. Haven't you?"
+
+"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"
+
+"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"
+
+"I haven't--not a line. We don't correspond: not _comme il faut_."
+
+"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"
+
+"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."
+
+"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"
+
+"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."
+
+"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."
+
+"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers--not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."
+
+"What on earth are you driving at?"
+
+"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."
+
+Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.
+
+"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."
+
+Eugene sat very quiet.
+
+"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"
+
+"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"
+
+"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."
+
+"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.
+
+"I say, does Claudia know?"
+
+"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."
+
+"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."
+
+"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"
+
+"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."
+
+"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"
+
+A shadow fell on Eugene's face.
+
+"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."
+
+Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.
+
+"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."
+
+Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.
+
+"So Morewood seems to think."
+
+"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."
+
+"It's kind of you to pity him."
+
+"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"
+
+"Anything in it?"
+
+"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"
+
+"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.
+
+Eugene looked very perturbed.
+
+"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."
+
+"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."
+
+"And she knew--of course she knew--you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"
+
+"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."
+
+"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.
+
+"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."
+
+"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"
+
+"Fact is, I don't show up over well."
+
+"You don't; that is a fact."
+
+"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."
+
+"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone--no girl could stand up against it."
+
+"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."
+
+"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well--"
+
+"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.
+
+"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."
+
+"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."
+
+"Pooh! she knows."
+
+"She doesn't, I tell you."
+
+"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."
+
+"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."
+
+"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."
+
+"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."
+
+"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"
+
+And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the _Times_ as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+
+Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability--not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen--Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely--but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.
+
+Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town--on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast--he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.
+
+Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.
+
+He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy--an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"--his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,--Claudia would rescue him from that,--but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.
+
+With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.
+
+This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,--decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,--and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.
+
+Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.
+
+"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.
+
+"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."
+
+"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ should let her alone."
+
+Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover--even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene--ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop--when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do--he
+reconsidered the situation.
+
+The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him _hors de combat_. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other--that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship--only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.
+
+He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.
+
+After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.
+
+Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.
+
+With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.
+
+"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.
+
+
+Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws--it
+is more interesting to be peculiar--and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.
+
+Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.
+
+"I have been so completely out of the world--out of my own world--for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."
+
+"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"I wish I had now."
+
+Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.
+
+"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."
+
+"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.
+
+"It was from Miss Bernard."
+
+"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"
+
+"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."
+
+"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."
+
+"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."
+
+"I want you to know that I didn't know."
+
+"Really you are very kind."
+
+"I was afraid you would think--"
+
+"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.
+
+Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.
+
+"Why, that--why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."
+
+Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.
+
+"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"
+
+"Of course I don't mean--"
+
+"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."
+
+Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"
+
+This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.
+
+"You come and tell a girl--all but in words tell her--she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."
+
+"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us--"
+
+"Passed between us?"
+
+"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."
+
+"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"
+
+Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.
+
+"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."
+
+"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."
+
+"Won't you listen to me?"
+
+"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."
+
+"Oh, but do listen just a little--"
+
+Claudia suddenly changed her tone--indeed, her whole demeanor.
+
+"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."
+
+"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"
+
+"So it seems. What is that?"
+
+"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.
+
+"May I come again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.
+
+"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"
+
+"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."
+
+Claudia looked daggers.
+
+"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."
+
+"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."
+
+"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."
+
+"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."
+
+"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be--charming--to you. Sit down. What is it?"
+
+"It's about Stafford."
+
+"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"
+
+"He's coming down here."
+
+"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref--resource."
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"Don't mind saying what you mean--or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."
+
+"You're making me angry again."
+
+"But what do you think he's coming for?"
+
+"To see you, I suppose."
+
+"On the contrary. To see you."
+
+"Pray don't be absurd."
+
+"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No--wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+"No other."
+
+"But he--he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."
+
+"Yes. He's going to break it--if you'll help him."
+
+"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"
+
+"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."
+
+"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"
+
+"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."
+
+"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he--is he very
+unhappy about it?"
+
+"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."
+
+"You think that strange?"
+
+Eugene shook his head with a smile.
+
+    "'A man had given all other bliss
+    And all his worldly worth,'"
+
+he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"
+
+"To-day, I expect."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.
+
+"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.
+
+So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear--certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.
+
+When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.
+
+"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.
+
+"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.
+
+"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"
+
+"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."
+
+"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.
+
+"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."
+
+"You play up, old man," said Bob.
+
+"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."
+
+"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"
+
+"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."
+
+"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done--"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."
+
+"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.
+
+"I expect he'd be rather glad."
+
+"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."
+
+It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.
+
+He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:
+
+"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."
+
+"More? How?"
+
+"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."
+
+"No, no; that would have been too much."
+
+He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.
+
+"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."
+
+"Why no time?"
+
+"I must go straight over and see her."
+
+"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"
+
+"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said--we needn't be enemies."
+
+"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."
+
+"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."
+
+"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."
+
+Stafford nodded.
+
+"Well, did you?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"I tried to--I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you--you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."
+
+"I thought she wouldn't."
+
+Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.
+
+"I must try and make him understand," he thought.
+
+"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."
+
+"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.
+
+"And she didn't stop me in--in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."
+
+Stafford said nothing.
+
+"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."
+
+"Do you tell me not to go?"
+
+"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."
+
+"She said nothing of the sort?"
+
+"No--nothing explicit."
+
+"Merely declined to listen?"
+
+"Yes--but in a way."
+
+"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"
+
+"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."
+
+They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.
+
+"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."
+
+"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"
+
+Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.
+
+"I should be cut up," he said. "But no--not that."
+
+Stafford smiled sadly.
+
+"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.
+
+"You will come back?"
+
+"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."
+
+"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"
+
+"That depends," said Stafford.
+
+Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.
+
+
+It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.
+
+"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."
+
+Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.
+
+"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."
+
+"Dear old Eugene!"
+
+"But I hoped you would not."
+
+"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"
+
+"I was rather surprised at the way you went."
+
+"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"
+
+"Perhaps I did."
+
+"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood--"
+
+"Please, Father Stafford--"
+
+"Say Mr. Stafford."
+
+"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."
+
+"As you will--for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you--no, I am going on--and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."
+
+"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."
+
+"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"
+
+"As nothing more than a possibility--and a very unhappy possibility."
+
+"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.
+
+"To begin with: you could never love any one."
+
+"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."
+
+"How can it be over? You had sworn."
+
+"Yes; but it is over."
+
+"Dare you break your vow?"
+
+"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"
+
+"Nothing can make it right."
+
+"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."
+
+"You destroy all my esteem for you."
+
+"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."
+
+"Ah! don't say that!"
+
+"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."
+
+"I never thought of you as making love."
+
+"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love--and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."
+
+"Did you think I was in love with you?"
+
+"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"
+
+"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."
+
+"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"
+
+"Why, that I don't love you--I never did--oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.
+
+Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.
+
+"You never loved me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you will. You must, when you know my love--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are--"
+
+"No, I never can."
+
+"Is it true? Why?"
+
+"Because--oh! don't you see?"
+
+"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"
+
+No answer seemed possible but the truth.
+
+"Yes," she said, bowing her head.
+
+"And playing with me?"
+
+"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was beyond hurt?"
+
+"I suppose so. You set up to be."
+
+"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.
+
+"And the truth--in God's name let us have truth--is that you love him?"
+
+"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"
+
+"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is final--no hope? Think what it means to me."
+
+"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"
+
+"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."
+
+"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"
+
+Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.
+
+"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."
+
+"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost--all lost--and for nothing!"
+
+Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.
+
+"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"Where? I don't know yet."
+
+"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try--you must forget about it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, I must forget about it."
+
+"You will be yourself again--your old self--not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."
+
+"Yes," he said again, humoring her.
+
+"Surely you can do it--you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."
+
+"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.
+
+"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"
+
+He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:
+
+"Now I am going. You must forget--or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I--"
+
+"Yes, and you?"
+
+"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.
+
+"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"
+
+She started a step forward, but stopped again.
+
+"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"
+
+And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.
+
+And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.
+
+Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.
+
+"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"
+
+We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.
+
+Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the child.
+
+"Then I'll give you something to take to him."
+
+He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.
+
+He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.
+
+He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened--as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?
+
+Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.
+
+"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.
+
+It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.
+
+After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him--and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.
+
+He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.
+
+"A gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+"To see me? Who is it?"
+
+"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."
+
+"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?
+
+But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.
+
+"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."
+
+Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.
+
+Ayre took the chair his host gave him.
+
+"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"
+
+"How did you know I was here?"
+
+"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."
+
+"Has Eugene any news?"
+
+"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"
+
+"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"
+
+"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"
+
+"No, not now. You could have done no good before."
+
+"I could have told you it was no use."
+
+"I shouldn't have believed you."
+
+"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."
+
+"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"That's not the only thing with you."
+
+"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.
+
+"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."
+
+"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."
+
+"I don't know. But, yes--I expect so. You're hard hit."
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."
+
+"You're quite right."
+
+"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."
+
+"I really think you do. It surprises me."
+
+"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"
+
+"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"
+
+"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"
+
+"It's the old fellow's love for me."
+
+Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I have hardly had time to look round yet."
+
+"Why should it make any difference to you?"
+
+Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?
+
+"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"
+
+"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.
+
+"You think you're utterly smashed, of course--I know what a facer it can
+be--and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.
+
+Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.
+
+"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."
+
+"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."
+
+"I expected you'd say that."
+
+"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense--a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"
+
+"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."
+
+"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."
+
+"I don't see that. May I smoke?"
+
+He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.
+
+"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"
+
+"Certainly; that is--yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."
+
+"Ah! but you think it's true?"
+
+"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth--only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."
+
+It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.
+
+"You don't follow that?"
+
+"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"
+
+"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."
+
+"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"
+
+"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.
+
+Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.
+
+"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."
+
+"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Yes, I say--in all essentials."
+
+"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."
+
+"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"
+
+Stafford looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit--I don't know how you sit--in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."
+
+Stafford listened.
+
+"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."
+
+"In the Church?"
+
+"Yes--that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."
+
+"I've been very near trying it before now."
+
+"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."
+
+Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.
+
+"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.
+
+"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."
+
+"I doubt that motive."
+
+"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."
+
+Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's all misery," he said.
+
+"Now, yes. But not always."
+
+"And it's not what I meant."
+
+"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."
+
+"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."
+
+Ayre looked at him curiously.
+
+"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."
+
+"Is that a compliment?"
+
+"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."
+
+Stafford rose to show him out.
+
+"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.
+
+"You will think of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"
+
+"You were afraid of that?"
+
+"Yes. Was I wrong?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"
+
+"No; I promise."
+
+Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.
+
+"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night--and a life
+worth saving."
+
+And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.
+
+
+Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.
+
+It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.
+
+"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."
+
+"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."
+
+"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."
+
+"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."
+
+"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."
+
+Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.
+
+Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.
+
+"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."
+
+And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.
+
+"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.
+
+"I don't know. It's--but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.
+
+"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Not artists."
+
+"Dear me! no!"
+
+"Whom, then?"
+
+"Oh, the nobility and gentry."
+
+"And clergy?"
+
+A shadow passed across her face--but a fleeting shadow.
+
+"You paint very slowly," she said.
+
+"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."
+
+"Oh! Why?"
+
+"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."
+
+"Does the one exclude the other?"
+
+"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.
+
+"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.
+
+"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.
+
+"Surely tea is _compris_?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."
+
+Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and--well, she was amusing.
+
+Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.
+
+"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."
+
+"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.
+
+Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.
+
+"You've got her very well."
+
+"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."
+
+"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.
+
+"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl--but not
+overmuch, you know."
+
+"There's all I want."
+
+"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"
+
+"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."
+
+"A queer combination."
+
+"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"
+
+Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.
+
+"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.
+
+"I told you I didn't want to see you."
+
+"I know. But that was a month ago."
+
+"I was very much upset."
+
+"So was I, awfully!"
+
+"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."
+
+"How yours?"
+
+"Well, you see, he thought--"
+
+"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore--"
+
+"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"
+
+"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"
+
+"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"It would be death!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"
+
+"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."
+
+"I never intended any harm."
+
+"You never do."
+
+"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."
+
+"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."
+
+"Ah! that wasn't my reason."
+
+"Claudia, you must give me an answer."
+
+Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:
+
+"May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.
+
+"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.
+
+"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."
+
+"I don't."
+
+But it is very possible he did.
+
+The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.
+
+"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.
+
+Claudia was looking grave.
+
+"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"
+
+Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.
+
+"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."
+
+"So it does, in a way."
+
+"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"
+
+"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."
+
+"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"
+
+"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."
+
+"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.
+
+"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."
+
+"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."
+
+"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too _point-de-vice_ in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."
+
+"I am not the man that Stafford is--save for my lady's favor."
+
+"And you came in confidence?"
+
+"You had let me hope."
+
+"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"
+
+"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."
+
+"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"
+
+"With lucid intervals?"
+
+"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray--dynastic
+considerations--a suitable cousin."
+
+"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."
+
+"_Pereant quae ante te!_ You know a little Latin?"
+
+"I think I'd better not just now."
+
+"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."
+
+"I wasn't joking."
+
+"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."
+
+"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"
+
+"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"
+
+"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."
+
+"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."
+
+"A lofty function!"
+
+"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."
+
+"I will," she said; "and I am happy."
+
+"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"
+
+"I will brave the danger."
+
+"There is none. I have found my goddess."
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.
+
+"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"
+
+"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"
+
+"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"
+
+Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."
+
+And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+An End and a Beginning.
+
+
+When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.
+
+He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.
+
+"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."
+
+"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."
+
+"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very--well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"
+
+"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"
+
+"Probably. I told him to."
+
+"Well, that's all."
+
+"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"
+
+"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."
+
+"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"
+
+"I think he will."
+
+"Did you advise him to do that?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."
+
+"He spoke to me as if--as if he had no religion left."
+
+"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."
+
+"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"
+
+"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll never say anything to a lover again."
+
+"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends--for ambition,
+and so on?"
+
+"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up--I had to tide him over a bad hour."
+
+"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."
+
+"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."
+
+"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"
+
+"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?
+
+"His was once!"
+
+"Before he met--you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."
+
+"I would rather--"
+
+"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."
+
+"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."
+
+"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"
+
+"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."
+
+"Now he is well quit of me?"
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't like it."
+
+"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."
+
+"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"
+
+"I don't know; he has very good manners."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."
+
+"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."
+
+Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.
+
+Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself--it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the _rôle_ he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.
+
+Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there--Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.
+
+The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:
+
+"I have heard from Stafford."
+
+"Ah! what does he say?"
+
+"He has joined the Church of Rome."
+
+"I thought he would."
+
+Morewood grunted angrily.
+
+"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.
+
+"No; I think I referred to it."
+
+"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.
+
+"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"
+
+Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.
+
+"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."
+
+"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."
+
+"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"
+
+"I doubt it," said Ayre.
+
+"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."
+
+"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"
+
+"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"
+
+"Everything but the truth."
+
+"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"
+
+"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."
+
+Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the _odium
+theologicum_ imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.
+
+"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.
+
+"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps; will you show it me?"
+
+"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."
+
+He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:
+
+     "DEAR EUGENE:
+
+     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for ῆστ᾽ ἀγαυοφροϛὑῃ καὶ σοἱϛ ἀγανῖϛ
+     ἐπἑεσσιυ.
+
+     "Yours always,
+
+     "C.S.K."
+
+"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"
+
+"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."
+
+Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.
+
+She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because you are most likely to know."
+
+"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think--"
+
+"Yes?" she said impatiently.
+
+"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14755 ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope.
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14755 ***</div>
+
+<h1>FATHER STAFFORD</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ANTHONY HOPE</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><span>AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."</span></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="center"><span>F. TENNYSON NEELY</span><br />
+<span>PUBLISHER</span><br />
+<span>CHICAGO&nbsp;&nbsp;NEW YORK</span><br />
+<span>1895</span></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td align='left'>Eugene Lane and his Guests</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td align='left'>New Faces and Old Feuds</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td align='left'>Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td align='left'>Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td align='left'>How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td align='left'>Father Stafford Keeps Vigil</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td align='left'>An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td align='left'>Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td align='left'>The Battle of Baden</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td align='left'>Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td align='left'>Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td align='left'>Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td align='left'>A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a></td><td align='left'>Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a></td><td align='left'>An End and a Beginning</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FATHER_STAFFORD" id="FATHER_STAFFORD" />FATHER STAFFORD.</h2>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>Eugene Lane and his Guests.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.</p>
+
+<p>Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.</p>
+
+<p>He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,&mdash;though
+at this moment rather a bored one,&mdash;large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.</p>
+
+<p>As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from <i>The Universe</i>) will
+begin."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his <i>fianc&eacute;e</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."</p>
+
+<p>Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't, my dear Kate&mdash;not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."</p>
+
+<p>"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.</p>
+
+<p>"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"The fifth is&mdash;" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is&mdash;Father Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, where did you pick <i>him</i> up?" asked Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."</p>
+
+<p>"Who says he can?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the Bishop!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, of course he can."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women&mdash;very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"</p>
+
+<p>"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits&mdash;I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.</p>
+
+<p>"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of medi&aelig;valism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.</p>
+
+<p>"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"Dashed if I do," said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"He steals other birds' nests&mdash;eggs and all."</p>
+
+<p>"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! come and play billiards."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, does she make you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."</p>
+
+<p>Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+<i>fait accompli</i>, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement&mdash;an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."</p>
+
+<p>Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.</p>
+
+<p>Kate rose with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tennyson&mdash;always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:</p>
+
+<p>"So am I."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you! You need not be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."</p>
+
+<p>A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked away toward the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have&mdash;a great many."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why?"</p>
+
+<p>"My modesty forbids me to think."</p>
+
+<p>"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent&mdash;and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II" />CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>New Faces and Old Feuds.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring&mdash;and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane&mdash;that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father&mdash;the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little knocked up."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the glance.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.</p>
+
+<p>"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.</p>
+
+<p>"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."</p>
+
+<p>"I take it because I like it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't take it because I like it."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Father Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry&mdash;but&mdash;but I thought you looked so ill."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject&mdash;not being a new one&mdash;might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:</p>
+
+<p>"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."</p>
+
+<p>"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,&mdash;or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,&mdash;they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.</p>
+
+<p>"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood directed a glance at him.</p>
+
+<p>"He's mad!" he said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe all he does?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood looked at him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.</p>
+
+<p>Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.</p>
+
+<p>Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Absolute silence.</p>
+
+<p>"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"</p>
+
+<p>Kate smiled bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>How</i> annoying! What's he doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.</p>
+
+<p>Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think you can stand it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stand what, my dear fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the life you lead&mdash;a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very medi&aelig;val? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it right for a good many people, though?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."</p>
+
+<p>"For me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."</p>
+
+<p>"No; tell me now."</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! I take that for granted."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"I could never do it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not&mdash;or, at least, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late or too early, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so, but I will not say so."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I think you're all wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>"You will fail."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid! but if he pleases&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"After all, what are meat, wine, and&mdash;and so on for?"</p>
+
+<p>"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to say he is not."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it particularly about?"</p>
+
+<p>"An immaterial matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."</p>
+
+<p>"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is&mdash;well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haddington didn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.</p>
+
+<p>Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III" />CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.</h3>
+
+
+<p>For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.</p>
+
+<p>Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed&mdash;and wondered if
+others did&mdash;that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close <i>rapprochement</i> between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.</p>
+
+<p>The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart&mdash;which is not usually the
+case&mdash;easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+<i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington&mdash;a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.</p>
+
+<p>She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i>
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington&mdash;breakfast, lunch,
+tea&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean when you are alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you must know my great&mdash;my only object in being here is to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have noticed my&mdash;my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"</p>
+
+<p>This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known&mdash;how, I do not
+know&mdash;to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet&mdash;but in
+time, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you&mdash;which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a <i>pis-aller</i>.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>pis-aller</i>! What in the world do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been&mdash;had appeared to be out of reach?"</p>
+
+<p>This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great blow to me&mdash;a great blow."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Haddington was a little at loss.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another&mdash;she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me&mdash;forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that? If you only knew&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. They're <i>engaged</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."</p>
+
+<p>"If you ask me, I will try to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, stay&mdash;but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other&mdash;about them, I mean. You will stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing&mdash;but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as&mdash;as a second string!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was you who put it in my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what have I done!"</p>
+
+<p>Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's <i>fianc&eacute;e</i> that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.</p>
+
+<p>"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say what it was about?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I didn't ask him."</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you are alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, as you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Even to telegrams?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! poor Lane!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;rather of envy."</p>
+
+<p>Kate did not look displeased.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard&mdash;there, I am offending you again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I don't mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be very discreditable&mdash;but not so bad."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+<i>that</i>?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.</p>
+
+<p>Kate rose.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No&mdash;don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."</p>
+
+<p>Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."</p>
+
+<p>It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV" />CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.</h3>
+
+
+<p>About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."</p>
+
+<p>"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you like your new neighbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"What new neighbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Intellect."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."</p>
+
+<p>"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. <i>Apropos</i>, what are you doing
+down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Known her since she was a child."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems uncommonly appreciative."</p>
+
+<p>"Of Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't want their history&mdash;a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only&mdash;I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do he and the rest of them think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't shown it to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you've seen it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Here he comes!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know he's booked."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing&mdash;in its
+way&mdash;I ever did."</p>
+
+<p>"Going to exhibit it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereto Morewood answered only:</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see."</p>
+
+<p>As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's a picture to be seen&mdash;Morewood's latest."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stafford," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pope in full canonicals?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."</p>
+
+<p>"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but&mdash;fine, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."</p>
+
+<p>"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,&mdash;we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,&mdash;and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."</p>
+
+<p>He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.</p>
+
+<p>It was merely a head&mdash;nothing more&mdash;standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.</p>
+
+<p>The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.</p>
+
+<p>"The finest thing I ever did&mdash;on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.</p>
+
+<p>The others looked keenly at him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood's face was a study.</p>
+
+<p>"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.</p>
+
+<p>"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't. It will be interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall be a change?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"She means no harm," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not our business if we could," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why are you moping here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.</p>
+
+<p>"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"</p>
+
+<p>She got up and came close to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."</p>
+
+<p>"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+<i>sociable</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+
+<p>"A sociable."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean a tricycle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;for two."</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it be fun?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no, perhaps not; round the park."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet. But will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."</p>
+
+<p>"I must go and put on an old frock."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; be quick."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well&mdash;if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.</p>
+
+<p>"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with her?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was struggling with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V" />CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.</p>
+
+<p>"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and&mdash;no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"</p>
+
+<p>Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is he in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,&mdash;they say women are that way,&mdash;but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you'd like to."</p>
+
+<p>"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."</p>
+
+<p>"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you see, Lane&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.</p>
+
+<p>"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and&mdash;well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it! a man has some feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a humbug, Ayre!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a very interesting problem."</p>
+
+<p>"It would."</p>
+
+<p>"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utter nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."</p>
+
+<p>"No more should I."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he would. No one could help it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let him see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's&mdash;still more of a
+lady's&mdash;education."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering&mdash;a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it&mdash;or, rather, it forced upon us?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.</p>
+
+<p>"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree&mdash;at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.</p>
+
+<p>"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better leave me out."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."</p>
+
+<p>"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it will be a shock to him."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't make him happier to be refused."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it likely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."</p>
+
+<p>"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness&mdash;and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene did not wince.</p>
+
+<p>"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."</p>
+
+<p>"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:</p>
+
+<p>"You could say nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."</p>
+
+<p>"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows!" groaned Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood returned.</p>
+
+<p>"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."</p>
+
+<p>"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"It is my face?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see it is."</p>
+
+<p>"You did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"A few days ago."</p>
+
+<p>"On your oath&mdash;no, you don't believe that&mdash;on your honor, is it truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw it&mdash;just as it is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But&mdash;yes,
+it is true. God help me!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."</p>
+
+<p>"Time, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No&mdash;I won't hurt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.</p>
+
+<p>"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Of course I shall write to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And&mdash;oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't Haddington staying here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."</p>
+
+<p>This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"An opportunity for quarreling."</p>
+
+<p>"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."</p>
+
+<p>"And whatever my feelings may be&mdash;and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were&mdash;I shall consider myself
+bound."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never proposed anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"Your conduct with Claudia&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that&mdash;but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.</p>
+
+<p>"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too&mdash;we have been here a
+terrible time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."</p>
+
+<p>"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."</p>
+
+<p>"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"In his room&mdash;at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very rude <i>old</i> gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same&mdash;against Bob and Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is it a question that no one else&mdash;say Kate, for instance&mdash;could
+help you with?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not about myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."</p>
+
+<p>But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"He looked it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."</p>
+
+<p>"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI" />CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."</p>
+
+<p>"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."</p>
+
+<p>"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care they don't make you a peer!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."</p>
+
+<p>"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre put up his eyeglass.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Apr&egrave;s?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all affectation."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."</p>
+
+<p>"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."</p>
+
+<p>"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious&mdash;especially in women."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm&mdash;gush, in fact&mdash;as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."</p>
+
+<p>This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:</p>
+
+<p>"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment&mdash;more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark&mdash;uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his&mdash;victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.</p>
+
+<p>In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly&mdash;yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.</p>
+
+<p>So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.</p>
+
+<p>The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.</p>
+
+<p>From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life&mdash;not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate&mdash;was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.</p>
+
+<p>It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator&mdash;the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction&mdash;oh! what a tiny fraction&mdash;of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much&mdash;whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly&mdash;aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene gently laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose&mdash;a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world&mdash;except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.</p>
+
+<p>Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII" />CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go&mdash;go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going&mdash;this lady and gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry&mdash;never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"You are determined on this, Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"On what?" she asked coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to go like this&mdash;to bolt&mdash;it almost comes to that&mdash;leaving things
+as they are between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"And with Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to insult me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene could not resist a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have left a note for you."</p>
+
+<p>"That will explain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."</p>
+
+<p>"How fagged you look!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am tired."</p>
+
+<p>"You must go now, and like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that is less bad than anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."</p>
+
+<p>The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.</p>
+
+<p>"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."</p>
+
+<p>"You can guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.</p>
+
+<p>"He's given it up, apparently."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the <i>fons et origo mali</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."</p>
+
+<p>"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not <i>simpliciter</i>, you know. <i>Secundum quid</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Secundum feminam</i>, in fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I brought him up, too."</p>
+
+<p>"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."</p>
+
+<p>"I think they must be&mdash;a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.</p>
+
+<p>"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant Father Stafford, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you why he had to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like unaccountable people?"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."</p>
+
+<p>This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you might know."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, rather."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? <i>I</i>
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>"I accept that as a diplomatic advance&mdash;not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."</p>
+
+<p>"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."</p>
+
+<p>Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't go killing birds?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't kill birds."</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be only a pack of men there."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. But I don't mind that&mdash;if the scenery is good."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you're trying to make me angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no heart, Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But I have a prefix."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because that would imply you were serious."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be wrong if I were?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."</p>
+
+<p>"See what?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you seemed&mdash;perhaps you didn't mean it&mdash;to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept <i>us</i> apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I see. I must congratulate you."</p>
+
+<p>"On what?"</p>
+
+<p>"On having bagged a brace&mdash;without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"</p>
+
+<p>And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."</p>
+
+<p>"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"How a coincidence!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wanted to know."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you want him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."</p>
+
+<p>"You would if you'd come a little sooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I'll go and find him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should."</p>
+
+<p>And off he went.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit&mdash;and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."</p>
+
+<p>And perhaps it was about time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII" />CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself&mdash;a surprise that now took
+the place of shame&mdash;he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.</p>
+
+<p>No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that&mdash;and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead&mdash;but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.</p>
+
+<p>It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet&mdash;time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.</p>
+
+<p>"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.</p>
+
+<p>The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?&mdash;strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?&mdash;strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.</p>
+
+<p>While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.</p>
+
+<p>The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great <i>&eacute;clat</i>; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it&mdash;to use the
+technical term&mdash;and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M.&nbsp;P., had also "proceeded" thither.</p>
+
+<p>"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and&mdash;[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with&mdash;[more irrelevant matter]."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"</p>
+
+<p>And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"</p>
+
+<p>Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."</p>
+
+<p>"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie&mdash;a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.</p>
+
+<p>"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"You might influence him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."</p>
+
+<p>And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.</p>
+
+<p>In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.</p>
+
+<p>Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."</p>
+
+<p>He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."</p>
+
+<p>"With Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."</p>
+
+<p>"Much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny&mdash;a fancy bet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"</p>
+
+<p>"She wouldn't suit Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"No; lead him the devil of a life."</p>
+
+<p>"She don't care for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a straw."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, why don't she break it off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+<i>verbot</i> here&mdash;penalty one mark&mdash;see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."</p>
+
+<p>"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.</p>
+
+<p>"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."</p>
+
+<p>"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her&mdash;yes or no."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? it's not my funeral!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+<i>him</i> shamefully."</p>
+
+<p>"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"</p>
+
+<p>"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"</p>
+
+<p>"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you won't bungle it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I might lie a bit?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.</p>
+
+<p>What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:</p>
+
+<p>"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he bite?"</p>
+
+<p>"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he stand up to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what she'll say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside&mdash;one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+<i>rubesco referens</i>, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's&mdash;it's
+not respectful."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not break my engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"That is no answer."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it. I have been taught&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're very unkind."</p>
+
+<p>"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you be patient?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you admit&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will wait&mdash;I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"</p>
+
+<p>A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.</p>
+
+<p>"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's very wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"</p>
+
+<p>The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I have your promise, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't let him win you over?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."</p>
+
+<p>They had risen by now.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.</p>
+
+<p>"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But&mdash;no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX" />CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Battle of Baden.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from <i>ennui</i> for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.</p>
+
+<p>He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.</p>
+
+<p>He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.</p>
+
+<p>"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.</p>
+
+<p>"It concerns you."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In order to serve a friend, I did a&mdash;well&mdash;a doubtful thing."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."</p>
+
+<p>"We have known one another some time."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre smiled at the implied correction.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you object to plain speaking?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I should have no right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly don't see on what ground."</p>
+
+<p>"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."</p>
+
+<p>"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As an old friend of his&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and&mdash;pardon
+me&mdash;you must hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what if I refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."</p>
+
+<p>Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."</p>
+
+<p>Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he send you to tell me this?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know he didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia&mdash;a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean you must release Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is not usual&mdash;and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right&mdash;it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must tell Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.</p>
+
+<p>"You are engaged to Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise&mdash;an absolute promise."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not a happy guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you accuse me of such things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolute knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, last night."</p>
+
+<p>Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.</p>
+
+<p>"You listened!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I listened."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what a gentleman does?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a rule, it is not."</p>
+
+<p>"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"</p>
+
+<p>"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."</p>
+
+<p>"What could you tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him&mdash;keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.</p>
+
+<p>"You see I could&mdash;if you'll allow me the metaphor&mdash;blow you out of the
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this&mdash;well, this
+is a little strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't, what will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"That's another point."</p>
+
+<p>"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"</p>
+
+<p>"To whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you give me a week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a day!"</p>
+
+<p>Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.</p>
+
+<p>"But you promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort&mdash;fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it&mdash;I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+<i>fianc&eacute;e</i> would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond&mdash;whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made&mdash;indeed, he was brimming over
+with it&mdash;was:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"</p>
+
+<p>What with one thing&mdash;packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles&mdash;Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.</p>
+
+<p>"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; never mind! It doesn't matter&mdash;all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder&mdash;eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.</p>
+
+<p>"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any fun in that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.</p>
+
+<p>The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other <i>impedimenta</i>, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it really true?</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers looked at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.</p>
+
+<p>Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."</p>
+
+<p>"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't tell him so&mdash;not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't take him."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! no."</p>
+
+<p>Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.</p>
+
+<p>"Think Lane'll write to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to, right off."</p>
+
+<p>"Queer girl, ain't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Deuced!"</p>
+
+<p>"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."</p>
+
+<p>"What? with Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; the other business."</p>
+
+<p>And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X" />CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.</p>
+
+<p>This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"</p>
+
+<p>The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how in the world did you come here?"</p>
+
+<p>The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I am staying near here."</p>
+
+<p>"For health, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;for health."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Have some lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"There's only enough for one," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, man!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, really; I never take it."</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:</p>
+
+<p>"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sent for?"</p>
+
+<p>"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not thin-skinned&mdash;not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"That head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you did me a service."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+<i>regimen</i> at the Retreat was no doubt severe.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love&mdash;barring a
+sound reason against it."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't bore you about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I like jawing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry&mdash;there were even more stringent terms&mdash;but that's
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I think I could manage the first sort."</p>
+
+<p>"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."</p>
+
+<p>"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're advising me to make one now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you don't believe in anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, probably."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You believed what a priest believes&mdash;in heaven and hell&mdash;the gaining
+God and the losing him&mdash;in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him&mdash;had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others&mdash;a baseness, a treason, a desertion&mdash;more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight&mdash;as base as a thief's purloining&mdash;meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"</p>
+
+<p>He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"All that," he went on, "it meant to me&mdash;all that and more&mdash;the triumph
+of the beast in me&mdash;passion and desire rampant&mdash;man forsaken and God
+betrayed&mdash;my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood rose and paced up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;now can you judge? You say you knew&mdash;did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still believe all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment&mdash;a day&mdash;perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt&mdash;I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."</p>
+
+<p>"If you break this vow you think you will be&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The creature I have said? Yes&mdash;and worse."</p>
+
+<p>"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.</p>
+
+<p>"But if you thought as I think, then would your love&mdash;yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood stood still.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.</p>
+
+<p>"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was touched with pity.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Get over it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"You have never felt belief?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for many years. That's all gone."</p>
+
+<p>"You think you have been in love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have&mdash;half a dozen times."</p>
+
+<p>"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you what belief is&mdash;I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."</p>
+
+<p>A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Still?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;after a time."</p>
+
+<p>"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference&mdash;as if the result mattered!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are right there."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. But she will have me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me; I dare say you do."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want to talk about that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."</p>
+
+<p>"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."</p>
+
+<p>"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."</p>
+
+<p>"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.</p>
+
+<p>He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"DEAR AYRE:</p>
+
+<p>     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief&mdash;which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.</p>
+
+<p>     "Yours,</p>
+
+<p>     "A. MOREWOOD."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad&mdash;if he is mad&mdash;must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."</p>
+
+<p>He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how's everybody?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre waited for a more definite question.</p>
+
+<p>"Seen the Territons lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very. Haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't&mdash;not a line. We don't correspond: not <i>comme il faut</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."</p>
+
+<p>"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers&mdash;not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth are you driving at?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene sat very quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."</p>
+
+<p>"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, does Claudia know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."</p>
+
+<p>"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"</p>
+
+<p>A shadow fell on Eugene's face.</p>
+
+<p>"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.</p>
+
+<p>"So Morewood seems to think."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."</p>
+
+<p>"It's kind of you to pity him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked very perturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"And she knew&mdash;of course she knew&mdash;you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."</p>
+
+<p>"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fact is, I don't show up over well."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't; that is a fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone&mdash;no girl could stand up against it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! she knows."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't, I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"</p>
+
+<p>And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the <i>Times</i> as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI" />CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure</h3>
+
+
+<p>Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability&mdash;not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen&mdash;Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely&mdash;but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining&mdash;a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain&mdash;this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town&mdash;on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast&mdash;he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy&mdash;an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"&mdash;his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,&mdash;Claudia would rescue him from that,&mdash;but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.</p>
+
+<p>With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.</p>
+
+<p>This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,&mdash;decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,&mdash;and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You can if you like. <i>I</i> should let her alone."</p>
+
+<p>Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover&mdash;even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene&mdash;ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop&mdash;when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do&mdash;he
+reconsidered the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him <i>hors de combat</i>. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other&mdash;that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship&mdash;only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.</p>
+
+<p>With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII" />CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws&mdash;it
+is more interesting to be peculiar&mdash;and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been so completely out of the world&mdash;out of my own world&mdash;for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had now."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.</p>
+
+<p>"It was from Miss Bernard."</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."</p>
+
+<p>"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to know that I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Really you are very kind."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you would think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that&mdash;why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.</p>
+
+<p>"This is too much!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I don't mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"You come and tell a girl&mdash;all but in words tell her&mdash;she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Passed between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."</p>
+
+<p>"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you listen to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but do listen just a little&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia suddenly changed her tone&mdash;indeed, her whole demeanor.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"</p>
+
+<p>"So it seems. What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.</p>
+
+<p>"May I come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia looked daggers.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."</p>
+
+<p>"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."</p>
+
+<p>"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."</p>
+
+<p>"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be&mdash;charming&mdash;to you. Sit down. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming down here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref&mdash;resource."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mind saying what you mean&mdash;or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"You're making me angry again."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you think he's coming for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To see you, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary. To see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't be absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No&mdash;wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Father Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"No other."</p>
+
+<p>"But he&mdash;he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He's going to break it&mdash;if you'll help him."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he&mdash;is he very
+unhappy about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that strange?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene shook his head with a smile.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>"'A man had given all other bliss<br /></span>
+<span>And all his worldly worth,'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear&mdash;certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.</p>
+
+<p>When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."</p>
+
+<p>"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"You play up, old man," said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he'd be rather glad."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."</p>
+
+<p>It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."</p>
+
+<p>"More? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; that would have been too much."</p>
+
+<p>He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why no time?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go straight over and see her."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said&mdash;we needn't be enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."</p>
+
+<p>"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought not."</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to&mdash;I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you&mdash;you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>"I must try and make him understand," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And she didn't stop me in&mdash;in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you tell me not to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"She said nothing of the sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;nothing explicit."</p>
+
+<p>"Merely declined to listen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I should be cut up," he said. "But no&mdash;not that."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," said Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII" />CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old Eugene!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I hoped you would not."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was rather surprised at the way you went."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Father Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say Mr. Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will&mdash;for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you&mdash;no, I am going on&mdash;and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As nothing more than a possibility&mdash;and a very unhappy possibility."</p>
+
+<p>"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.</p>
+
+<p>"To begin with: you could never love any one."</p>
+
+<p>"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."</p>
+
+<p>"How can it be over? You had sworn."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but it is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Dare you break your vow?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can make it right."</p>
+
+<p>"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."</p>
+
+<p>"You destroy all my esteem for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! don't say that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of you as making love."</p>
+
+<p>"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love&mdash;and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think I was in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that I don't love you&mdash;I never did&mdash;oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"You never loved me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will. You must, when you know my love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I never can."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;oh! don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer seemed possible but the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, bowing her head.</p>
+
+<p>"And playing with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I was beyond hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so. You set up to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"And the truth&mdash;in God's name let us have truth&mdash;is that you love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is final&mdash;no hope? Think what it means to me."</p>
+
+<p>"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost&mdash;all lost&mdash;and for nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."</p>
+
+<p>"Go where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where? I don't know yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try&mdash;you must forget about it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must forget about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be yourself again&mdash;your old self&mdash;not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said again, humoring her.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you can do it&mdash;you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am going. You must forget&mdash;or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"</p>
+
+<p>She started a step forward, but stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"</p>
+
+<p>And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.</p>
+
+<p>And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.</p>
+
+<p>"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"</p>
+
+<p>We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll give you something to take to him."</p>
+
+<p>He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.</p>
+
+<p>He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened&mdash;as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.</p>
+
+<p>"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.</p>
+
+<p>After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him&mdash;and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.</p>
+
+<p>He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"To see me? Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?</p>
+
+<p>But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre took the chair his host gave him.</p>
+
+<p>"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know I was here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Eugene any news?"</p>
+
+<p>"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not now. You could have done no good before."</p>
+
+<p>"I could have told you it was no use."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have believed you."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not the only thing with you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But, yes&mdash;I expect so. You're hard hit."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think you do. It surprises me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the old fellow's love for me."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have hardly had time to look round yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it make any difference to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?</p>
+
+<p>"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you're utterly smashed, of course&mdash;I know what a facer it can
+be&mdash;and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."</p>
+
+<p>"I expected you'd say that."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense&mdash;a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that. May I smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; that is&mdash;yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! but you think it's true?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth&mdash;only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't follow that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."</p>
+
+<p>"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Never again."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I say&mdash;in all essentials."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at him inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit&mdash;I don't know how you sit&mdash;in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford listened.</p>
+
+<p>"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."</p>
+
+<p>"In the Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been very near trying it before now."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.</p>
+
+<p>"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt that motive."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all misery," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, yes. But not always."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's not what I meant."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre looked at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a compliment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford rose to show him out.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were afraid of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Was I wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I promise."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.</p>
+
+<p>"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night&mdash;and a life
+worth saving."</p>
+
+<p>And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV" />CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.</p>
+
+<p>"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."</p>
+
+<p>"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."</p>
+
+<p>"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."</p>
+
+<p>And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. It's&mdash;but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"Not artists."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whom, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the nobility and gentry."</p>
+
+<p>"And clergy?"</p>
+
+<p>A shadow passed across her face&mdash;but a fleeting shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"You paint very slowly," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."</p>
+
+<p>"Does the one exclude the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely tea is <i>compris</i>?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and&mdash;well, she was amusing.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.</p>
+
+<p>"You've got her very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl&mdash;but not
+overmuch, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"There's all I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."</p>
+
+<p>"A queer combination."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.</p>
+
+<p>"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you I didn't want to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. But that was a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I was very much upset."</p>
+
+<p>"So was I, awfully!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."</p>
+
+<p>"How yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, he thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"To you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."</p>
+
+<p>"I never intended any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"You never do."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."</p>
+
+<p>"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that wasn't my reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, you must give me an answer."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"May I call to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't."</p>
+
+<p>But it is very possible he did.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was looking grave.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."</p>
+
+<p>"So it does, in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too <i>point-de-vice</i> in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not the man that Stafford is&mdash;save for my lady's favor."</p>
+
+<p>"And you came in confidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had let me hope."</p>
+
+<p>"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."</p>
+
+<p>"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"</p>
+
+<p>"With lucid intervals?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray&mdash;dynastic
+considerations&mdash;a suitable cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pereant quae ante te!</i> You know a little Latin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better not just now."</p>
+
+<p>"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't joking."</p>
+
+<p>"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."</p>
+
+<p>"A lofty function!"</p>
+
+<p>"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."</p>
+
+<p>"I will," she said; "and I am happy."</p>
+
+<p>"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will brave the danger."</p>
+
+<p>"There is none. I have found my goddess."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"</p>
+
+<p>Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."</p>
+
+<p>And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV" />CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>An End and a Beginning.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."</p>
+
+<p>"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very&mdash;well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."</p>
+
+<p>"Say on."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably. I told him to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he will."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you advise him to do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke to me as if&mdash;as if he had no religion left."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never say anything to a lover again."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends&mdash;for ambition,
+and so on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up&mdash;I had to tide him over a bad hour."</p>
+
+<p>"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."</p>
+
+<p>"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."</p>
+
+<p>"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?</p>
+
+<p>"His was once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Before he met&mdash;you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."</p>
+
+<p>"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."</p>
+
+<p>"Now he is well quit of me?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; he has very good manners."</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself&mdash;it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there&mdash;Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard from Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! what does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has joined the Church of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he would."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood grunted angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I think I referred to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything but the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the <i>odium
+theologicum</i> imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; will you show it me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."</p>
+
+<p>He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"DEAR EUGENE:</p>
+
+<p>     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for &#8134;&#963;&#964;&#8125; &#7936;&#947;&#945;&#965;&#959;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#987;&#8017;&#8131; &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#963;&#959;&#7985;&#987; &#7936;&#947;&#945;&#957;&#8150;&#987;
+     &#7952;&#960;&#7953;&#949;&#963;&#963;&#953;&#965;.</p>
+
+<p>     "Yours always,</p>
+
+<p>     "C.S.K."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.</p>
+
+<p>She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are most likely to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she said impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14755 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14755 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14755)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Father Stafford
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER STAFFORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."
+
+F. TENNYSON NEELY
+PUBLISHER
+CHICAGO  NEW YORK
+1895
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I.     Eugene Lane and his Guests
+
+II.    New Faces and Old Feuds
+
+III.   Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views
+
+IV.    Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece
+
+V.     How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best
+
+VI.    Father Stafford Keeps Vigil
+
+VII.   An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement
+
+VIII.  Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action
+
+IX.    The Battle of Baden
+
+X.     Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation
+
+XI.    Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+XII.   Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind
+
+XIII.  A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel
+
+XIV.   Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be
+
+XV.    An End and a Beginning
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Eugene Lane and his Guests.
+
+
+The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.
+
+Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the _rôle_ with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.
+
+He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,--though
+at this moment rather a bored one,--large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.
+
+Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.
+
+As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.
+
+"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."
+
+"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.
+
+"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from _The Universe_) will
+begin."
+
+"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.
+
+Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.
+
+"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his _fiancée_.
+
+"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."
+
+Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:
+
+"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"
+
+"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."
+
+"Can't, my dear Kate--not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."
+
+"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."
+
+"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."
+
+"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.
+
+"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."
+
+Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."
+
+"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.
+
+"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.
+
+"The fifth is--" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is--Father Stafford."
+
+Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.
+
+"Why, where did you pick _him_ up?" asked Lady Claudia.
+
+"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."
+
+"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.
+
+"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"
+
+"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"
+
+"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."
+
+"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."
+
+"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"
+
+"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."
+
+"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.
+
+Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:
+
+"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"
+
+"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."
+
+"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."
+
+"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."
+
+"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.
+
+"No, Doctor."
+
+"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.
+
+"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.
+
+"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."
+
+"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"
+
+"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."
+
+"Who says he can?"
+
+"Why, the Bishop!"
+
+"Well, then, of course he can."
+
+"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women--very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."
+
+"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"
+
+"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.
+
+The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.
+
+"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."
+
+"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits--I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."
+
+"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.
+
+"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."
+
+Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of mediævalism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.
+
+"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.
+
+"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."
+
+"Dashed if I do," said Bob.
+
+"He steals other birds' nests--eggs and all."
+
+"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."
+
+"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."
+
+"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"
+
+"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"
+
+"Oh! come and play billiards."
+
+"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."
+
+"By Jove, does she make you do that?"
+
+Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.
+
+"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."
+
+Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+_fait accompli_, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement--an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.
+
+It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.
+
+"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."
+
+Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.
+
+"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.
+
+"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.
+
+Kate rose with dignity.
+
+"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."
+
+"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."
+
+"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.
+
+"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."
+
+"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.
+
+A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.
+
+"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.
+
+"Oh, Tennyson--always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."
+
+"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"
+
+Eugene smiled complacently.
+
+"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."
+
+Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:
+
+"So am I."
+
+"Thank you! You need not be afraid."
+
+"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."
+
+A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.
+
+Eugene looked away toward the horizon.
+
+"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.
+
+"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have--a great many."
+
+"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"
+
+"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."
+
+"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.
+
+"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.
+
+"Do you know why?"
+
+"My modesty forbids me to think."
+
+"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."
+
+"Claudia!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent--and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"
+
+Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+New Faces and Old Feuds.
+
+
+There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring--and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane--that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.
+
+Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.
+
+"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.
+
+"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."
+
+"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.
+
+"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."
+
+"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.
+
+Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.
+
+"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father--the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."
+
+"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."
+
+"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.
+
+Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:
+
+"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."
+
+"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."
+
+Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."
+
+"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"
+
+"A little knocked up."
+
+"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.
+
+He saw the glance.
+
+"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."
+
+Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:
+
+"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"
+
+The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.
+
+"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.
+
+"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"
+
+"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."
+
+"I take it because I like it."
+
+"And I don't take it because I like it."
+
+Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.
+
+Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.
+
+"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.
+
+"I am so sorry--but--but I thought you looked so ill."
+
+Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.
+
+Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject--not being a new one--might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:
+
+"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
+
+The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.
+
+"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."
+
+"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,--or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,--they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
+
+"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
+
+"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
+
+"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.
+
+Morewood directed a glance at him.
+
+"He's mad!" he said briefly.
+
+"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."
+
+"You don't believe all he does?"
+
+"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."
+
+Morewood looked at him for a moment.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."
+
+"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.
+
+Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.
+
+Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.
+
+Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."
+
+Absolute silence.
+
+"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.
+
+Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.
+
+"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"
+
+Kate smiled bitterly.
+
+"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."
+
+"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"
+
+Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.
+
+"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.
+
+"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"
+
+"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."
+
+"_How_ annoying! What's he doing there?"
+
+"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."
+
+"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."
+
+Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.
+
+Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.
+
+"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.
+
+"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."
+
+"And you think you can stand it?"
+
+"Stand what, my dear fellow?"
+
+"Why, the life you lead--a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."
+
+"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very mediæval? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."
+
+"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"
+
+"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."
+
+"You think it right for a good many people, though?"
+
+"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."
+
+"No; tell me now."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+"Of course! I take that for granted."
+
+"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"
+
+"I could never do it," said Eugene.
+
+"Perhaps not--or, at least, not yet."
+
+"Too late or too early, is it?"
+
+"It may be so, but I will not say so."
+
+"You know I think you're all wrong?"
+
+"I know."
+
+"You will fail."
+
+"God forbid! but if he pleases--"
+
+"After all, what are meat, wine, and--and so on for?"
+
+"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."
+
+"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."
+
+Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.
+
+"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"
+
+"I am glad to say he is not."
+
+"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."
+
+"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."
+
+"What was it particularly about?"
+
+"An immaterial matter."
+
+"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"
+
+"No. What do you mean?"
+
+"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."
+
+"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is--well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"
+
+"Haddington didn't like it."
+
+"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.
+
+Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.
+
+
+For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.
+
+"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."
+
+"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.
+
+Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if
+others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close _rapprochement_ between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.
+
+Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.
+
+The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart--which is not usually the
+case--easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.
+
+It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+_chevaux-de-frise_ of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington--a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.
+
+She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.
+
+Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a _tête-à-tête_
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.
+
+Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."
+
+Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.
+
+"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington--breakfast, lunch,
+tea--"
+
+"I mean when you are alone."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And yet you must know my great--my only object in being here is to see
+you."
+
+"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.
+
+"You must have noticed my--my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"
+
+This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.
+
+"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known--how, I do not
+know--to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."
+
+"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet--but in
+time, surely?"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you--which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a _pis-aller_.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.
+
+"A _pis-aller_! What in the world do you mean?"
+
+"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been--had appeared to be out of reach?"
+
+This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.
+
+"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."
+
+"It is a great blow to me--a great blow."
+
+Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."
+
+Haddington was a little at loss.
+
+"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."
+
+"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"
+
+"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another--she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"
+
+"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"
+
+"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me--forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"
+
+"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."
+
+"Why do you say that? If you only knew--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Of course. They're _engaged_!"
+
+"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."
+
+"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."
+
+"If you ask me, I will try to stay."
+
+"Yes, yes, stay--but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other--about them, I mean. You will stay?"
+
+"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.
+
+"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"
+
+"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing--but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."
+
+"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as--as a second string!"
+
+"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.
+
+"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."
+
+"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"
+
+"It was you who put it in my head."
+
+"Oh, what have I done!"
+
+Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.
+
+Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.
+
+Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.
+
+Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's _fiancée_ that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.
+
+He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.
+
+"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."
+
+"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.
+
+"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."
+
+"Did he say what it was about?"
+
+"No; I didn't ask him."
+
+A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.
+
+"And so you are alone?"
+
+"Yes, as you see."
+
+"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"
+
+"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."
+
+"I wish I could think so."
+
+"Why don't you think so?"
+
+"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.
+
+"Even to telegrams?"
+
+"Ah! poor Lane!"
+
+"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."
+
+"No--rather of envy."
+
+Kate did not look displeased.
+
+"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard--there, I am offending you again!"
+
+"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."
+
+"Do you think I don't mean it?"
+
+"That would be very discreditable--but not so bad."
+
+"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+_that_?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.
+
+Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:
+
+"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."
+
+"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.
+
+Kate rose.
+
+"You are not angry?"
+
+"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No--don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."
+
+Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.
+
+"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."
+
+It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.
+
+
+About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.
+
+"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"
+
+"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.
+
+"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.
+
+"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."
+
+"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"
+
+"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."
+
+"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"
+
+"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"
+
+"And how do you like your new neighbor?"
+
+"What new neighbor?"
+
+"Intellect."
+
+"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."
+
+"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.
+
+"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. _Apropos_, what are you doing
+down here?"
+
+"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."
+
+"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"
+
+"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."
+
+"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"
+
+"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"
+
+"Yes. Known her since she was a child."
+
+"She seems uncommonly appreciative."
+
+"Of Stafford?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since--"
+
+"Oh, I don't want their history--a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only--I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."
+
+"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.
+
+"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."
+
+"What do he and the rest of them think?"
+
+"I haven't shown it to any one."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Wait till you've seen it."
+
+"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that--"
+
+"Hush! Here he comes!"
+
+As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.
+
+"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She doesn't care for him?"
+
+"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"
+
+"Oh, you know he's booked."
+
+"Kate Bernard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you--"
+
+"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing--in its
+way--I ever did."
+
+"Going to exhibit it?"
+
+"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."
+
+"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"
+
+Whereto Morewood answered only:
+
+"Come and see."
+
+As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.
+
+"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"
+
+"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"
+
+"Yes, there's a picture to be seen--Morewood's latest."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."
+
+"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"
+
+"Stafford," said Ayre.
+
+"The Pope in full canonicals?"
+
+"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."
+
+They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.
+
+"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"
+
+"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."
+
+"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.
+
+Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.
+
+"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.
+
+It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.
+
+Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:
+
+"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"
+
+"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but--fine, isn't it?"
+
+The two men nodded.
+
+"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."
+
+"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,--we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,--and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."
+
+He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.
+
+It was merely a head--nothing more--standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.
+
+The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.
+
+"The finest thing I ever did--on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"
+
+"No," said Eugene.
+
+Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.
+
+"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"
+
+"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."
+
+"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"
+
+"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."
+
+"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.
+
+The others looked keenly at him for a moment.
+
+"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."
+
+"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.
+
+"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.
+
+Morewood's face was a study.
+
+"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."
+
+"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Burn it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."
+
+"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."
+
+"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."
+
+"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."
+
+"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.
+
+"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.
+
+"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."
+
+Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.
+
+"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."
+
+"I shan't. It will be interesting."
+
+"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."
+
+"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."
+
+The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.
+
+"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.
+
+"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."
+
+"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.
+
+"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.
+
+Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.
+
+"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."
+
+"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."
+
+"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."
+
+"And I shall be a change?"
+
+"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."
+
+"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.
+
+"She means no harm," said Morewood.
+
+"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"
+
+"No--not our business if we could," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.
+
+"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"
+
+Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.
+
+"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Yes. Why are you moping here?"
+
+"Where's Stafford?"
+
+"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"
+
+Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.
+
+"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"
+
+She got up and came close to him.
+
+"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"
+
+"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."
+
+"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+_sociable_."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A sociable."
+
+"Do you mean a tricycle?"
+
+"Yes--for two."
+
+"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun?"
+
+"On the road?"
+
+"N--no, perhaps not; round the park."
+
+"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"
+
+"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."
+
+"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."
+
+"Be quiet. But will you?"
+
+"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."
+
+"I must go and put on an old frock."
+
+"All right; be quick."
+
+"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well--if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."
+
+A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?
+
+It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:
+
+"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.
+
+Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.
+
+"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" she asked.
+
+Eugene was struggling with laughter.
+
+"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"
+
+Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
+
+Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.
+
+
+The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.
+
+"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and--no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"
+
+Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."
+
+Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.
+
+"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"
+
+"Is he in the dark?"
+
+"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,--they say women are that way,--but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."
+
+"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"
+
+"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to."
+
+"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."
+
+"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."
+
+"Yes, but you see, Lane--"
+
+"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"
+
+Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.
+
+"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and--well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"
+
+"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.
+
+"Hang it! a man has some feelings."
+
+"You're a humbug, Ayre!"
+
+"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It would be a very interesting problem."
+
+"It would."
+
+"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"
+
+"Utter nonsense!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."
+
+"No more should I."
+
+"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"
+
+"Of course he would. No one could help it."
+
+"Will you let him see it?"
+
+Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."
+
+"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"
+
+"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."
+
+"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's--still more of a
+lady's--education."
+
+Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.
+
+"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.
+
+Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering--a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.
+
+"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it--or, rather, it forced upon us?"
+
+Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.
+
+"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"
+
+"I agree--at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."
+
+Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.
+
+"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."
+
+"You'd better leave me out."
+
+"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."
+
+"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."
+
+"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be a shock to him."
+
+"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."
+
+"It won't make him happier to be refused."
+
+Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"
+
+"I don't know. How should I know?"
+
+"Do you think it likely?"
+
+"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."
+
+"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"
+
+It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.
+
+"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness--and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"
+
+Eugene did not wince.
+
+"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."
+
+"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:
+
+"You could say nothing else."
+
+"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."
+
+"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"
+
+"God knows!" groaned Eugene.
+
+Morewood returned.
+
+"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"
+
+"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."
+
+"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."
+
+Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:
+
+"It is my face?"
+
+"You see it is."
+
+"You did it?"
+
+"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few days ago."
+
+"On your oath--no, you don't believe that--on your honor, is it truth?"
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"You saw it--just as it is there?"
+
+"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."
+
+"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But--yes,
+it is true. God help me!"
+
+"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."
+
+"Time, indeed!"
+
+"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.
+
+"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"
+
+"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."
+
+Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.
+
+"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No--I won't hurt it."
+
+"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you--"
+
+"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"
+
+He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.
+
+"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"
+
+"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."
+
+"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"
+
+"No. Of course I shall write to you."
+
+"Thank you--I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"
+
+"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And--oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."
+
+"Isn't Haddington staying here?"
+
+"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."
+
+"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."
+
+"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"
+
+"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."
+
+"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."
+
+This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.
+
+"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."
+
+"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"An opportunity for quarreling."
+
+"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."
+
+"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."
+
+"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."
+
+"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."
+
+"And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself
+bound."
+
+"I have never proposed anything else."
+
+"Your conduct with Claudia--"
+
+"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."
+
+"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.
+
+"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"
+
+Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.
+
+Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.
+
+"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.
+
+"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a
+terrible time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."
+
+"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."
+
+"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"
+
+"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"
+
+"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."
+
+"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."
+
+"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.
+
+"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.
+
+"In his room--at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."
+
+"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."
+
+"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.
+
+"You're a very rude _old_ gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same--against Bob and Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."
+
+"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."
+
+"Oh! Is it a question that no one else--say Kate, for instance--could
+help you with?"
+
+"It's not about myself."
+
+"Is it about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."
+
+"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."
+
+But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:
+
+"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"
+
+With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.
+
+"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.
+
+"He looked it."
+
+"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."
+
+"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.
+
+
+Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.
+
+"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."
+
+"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.
+
+"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."
+
+"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.
+
+"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.
+
+"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."
+
+"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.
+
+"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."
+
+"Take care they don't make you a peer!"
+
+"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."
+
+"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."
+
+"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.
+
+Ayre put up his eyeglass.
+
+"_Après?_"
+
+"It's all affectation."
+
+"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."
+
+"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."
+
+"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."
+
+"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."
+
+"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"
+
+"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.
+
+"By all means," said he.
+
+"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."
+
+"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.
+
+Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:
+
+"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious--especially in women."
+
+There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.
+
+"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm--gush, in fact--as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"
+
+Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.
+
+"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"
+
+"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."
+
+This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:
+
+"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"
+
+"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.
+
+So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment--more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.
+
+Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark--uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his--victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.
+
+In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.
+
+But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly--yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.
+
+So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.
+
+The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.
+
+From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life--not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate--was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.
+
+It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator--the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction--oh! what a tiny fraction--of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much--whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly--aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."
+
+Eugene gently laughed.
+
+"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."
+
+"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose--a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."
+
+"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.
+
+"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."
+
+Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world--except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.
+
+Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.
+
+
+It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go--go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.
+
+At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.
+
+"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going--this lady and gentleman."
+
+Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.
+
+"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry--never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"
+
+He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:
+
+"You are determined on this, Kate?"
+
+"On what?" she asked coldly.
+
+"Why, to go like this--to bolt--it almost comes to that--leaving things
+as they are between us?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"And with Haddington?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me?"
+
+"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."
+
+Eugene could not resist a smile.
+
+"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.
+
+"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"
+
+"I have left a note for you."
+
+"That will explain?"
+
+"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."
+
+"How fagged you look!"
+
+"Yes, I am tired."
+
+"You must go now, and like this?"
+
+"I think that is less bad than anything else."
+
+"You can't tell me?"
+
+"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."
+
+"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"
+
+"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."
+
+The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.
+
+"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now--"
+
+But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.
+
+"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."
+
+"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"
+
+"Oh, you know that?"
+
+"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"
+
+"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"
+
+"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."
+
+"You can guess?"
+
+"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.
+
+"He's given it up, apparently."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."
+
+"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the _fons et origo mali_."
+
+Morewood joined them.
+
+"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."
+
+"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."
+
+Eugene rose.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."
+
+"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"
+
+"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."
+
+"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.
+
+"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Oh! not _simpliciter_, you know. _Secundum quid_."
+
+"_Secundum feminam_, in fact?"
+
+"Yes; and I brought him up, too."
+
+"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."
+
+"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."
+
+"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."
+
+"I think they must be--a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."
+
+Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.
+
+"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.
+
+"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"
+
+"I meant Father Stafford, of course."
+
+"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."
+
+"Did he tell you why he had to go?"
+
+"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.
+
+"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."
+
+"You don't like unaccountable people?"
+
+Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.
+
+"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."
+
+"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.
+
+"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford--"
+
+"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."
+
+This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.
+
+"I thought you might know."
+
+"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.
+
+Claudia gave a little laugh.
+
+"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? _I_
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.
+
+"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.
+
+"I accept that as a diplomatic advance--not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."
+
+"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one--"
+
+"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.
+
+He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.
+
+"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."
+
+"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."
+
+Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.
+
+"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.
+
+"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."
+
+"Why, you don't go killing birds?"
+
+"No, I don't kill birds."
+
+"There'll be only a pack of men there."
+
+"That's all. But I don't mind that--if the scenery is good."
+
+"I believe you're trying to make me angry."
+
+"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."
+
+"Have you no heart, Claudia?"
+
+"I don't know. But I have a prefix."
+
+"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"
+
+Claudia laughed.
+
+"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"
+
+"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"
+
+"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that would imply you were serious."
+
+"Would it be wrong if I were?"
+
+"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."
+
+"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"
+
+"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."
+
+"See what?" she said.
+
+"Why, that--that--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"
+
+"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, you seemed--perhaps you didn't mean it--to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept _us_ apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you--"
+
+"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"
+
+Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I see. I must congratulate you."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"On having bagged a brace--without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."
+
+And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.
+
+Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:
+
+"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"
+
+And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.
+
+Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.
+
+"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."
+
+"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.
+
+"How a coincidence!"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Oh, I wanted to know."
+
+Ayre looked at her.
+
+"Where's Eugene?"
+
+"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."
+
+Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.
+
+"Did you want him?"
+
+"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."
+
+"You would if you'd come a little sooner."
+
+"Ah! I'll go and find him."
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+And off he went.
+
+"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit--and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."
+
+And perhaps it was about time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.
+
+
+When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself--a surprise that now took
+the place of shame--he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.
+
+No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that--and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead--but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.
+
+It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet--time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.
+
+Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.
+
+"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."
+
+"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.
+
+The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.
+
+Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?--strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?--strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.
+
+While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.
+
+The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great _éclat_; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it--to use the
+technical term--and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.
+
+For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M. P., had also "proceeded" thither.
+
+"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and--[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with--[more irrelevant matter]."
+
+Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.
+
+"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"
+
+And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.
+
+"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"
+
+Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.
+
+"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."
+
+"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"
+
+Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.
+
+In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie--a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.
+
+It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.
+
+"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"
+
+"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."
+
+"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"
+
+This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.
+
+"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."
+
+"You might influence him."
+
+"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"
+
+Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.
+
+"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."
+
+And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.
+
+In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.
+
+Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.
+
+"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."
+
+He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.
+
+"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"
+
+"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."
+
+"With Kate?"
+
+"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"
+
+"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.
+
+"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."
+
+"Will she, do you think?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny--a fancy bet."
+
+"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"
+
+"She wouldn't suit Eugene."
+
+"No; lead him the devil of a life."
+
+"She don't care for him."
+
+"Not a straw."
+
+"Then, why don't she break it off?"
+
+"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"
+
+"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+_verbot_ here--penalty one mark--see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."
+
+"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."
+
+"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.
+
+"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."
+
+"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her--yes or no."
+
+"Why? it's not my funeral!"
+
+"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."
+
+"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+_him_ shamefully."
+
+"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"
+
+"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"
+
+"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.
+
+"Do you think you won't bungle it?"
+
+"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."
+
+Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.
+
+"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."
+
+"Do you think I might lie a bit?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."
+
+"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."
+
+Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.
+
+What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:
+
+"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."
+
+"Did he bite?"
+
+"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."
+
+"Will he stand up to her?"
+
+"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."
+
+"I wonder what she'll say?"
+
+"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."
+
+Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside--one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+_rubesco referens_, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.
+
+"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.
+
+"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's--it's
+not respectful."
+
+"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"
+
+"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.
+
+"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"
+
+Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.
+
+"I will not break my engagement."
+
+"That is no answer."
+
+"I can't help it. I have been taught--"
+
+"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady--"
+
+"You're very unkind."
+
+"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"
+
+"Won't you be patient?"
+
+"Ah, you admit--"
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."
+
+The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.
+
+"Well, I will wait--I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"
+
+A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.
+
+"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."
+
+"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.
+
+"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's very wrong."
+
+"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"
+
+The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.
+
+"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or--"
+
+"Then I have your promise, dear?"
+
+"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."
+
+"You won't let him win you over?"
+
+"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."
+
+They had risen by now.
+
+"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.
+
+"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"
+
+"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."
+
+Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.
+
+"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.
+
+"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But--no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Battle of Baden.
+
+
+Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from _ennui_ for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.
+
+He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.
+
+He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.
+
+"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.
+
+"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."
+
+"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."
+
+"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.
+
+"It concerns you."
+
+"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"
+
+"In order to serve a friend, I did a--well--a doubtful thing."
+
+Kate was puzzled.
+
+"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"
+
+"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."
+
+"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"
+
+"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."
+
+"We have known one another some time."
+
+Ayre smiled at the implied correction.
+
+"Do you object to plain speaking?"
+
+"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."
+
+"You mean I should have no right?"
+
+"I certainly don't see on what ground."
+
+"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."
+
+"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"
+
+"As an old friend of his--"
+
+"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."
+
+"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.
+
+"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."
+
+"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and--pardon
+me--you must hear it."
+
+"And what if I refuse?"
+
+"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."
+
+Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:
+
+"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"
+
+"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."
+
+Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.
+
+"Did he send you to tell me this?"
+
+"You know he didn't."
+
+"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"
+
+"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia--a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean you must release Eugene."
+
+"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.
+
+"Because it is not usual--and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right--it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."
+
+"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."
+
+"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Then I must tell Eugene?"
+
+"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.
+
+"You are engaged to Eugene?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."
+
+"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"
+
+"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise--an absolute promise."
+
+"That is not a happy guess."
+
+"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."
+
+"How dare you accuse me of such things?"
+
+"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."
+
+"Absolute knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.
+
+"You listened!"
+
+"Yes, I listened."
+
+"Is that what a gentleman does?"
+
+"As a rule, it is not."
+
+"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."
+
+"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."
+
+"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"
+
+"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."
+
+"What could you tell him?"
+
+"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him--keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"
+
+Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.
+
+"You see I could--if you'll allow me the metaphor--blow you out of the
+water."
+
+"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."
+
+Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.
+
+"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"
+
+"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this--well, this
+is a little strong."
+
+"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.
+
+"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."
+
+"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.
+
+"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"
+
+"If I don't, what will you do?"
+
+"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."
+
+"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."
+
+"That's another point."
+
+"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."
+
+"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Eugene."
+
+Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.
+
+"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"
+
+"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"
+
+"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."
+
+"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."
+
+"Certainly--with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."
+
+"Won't you give me a week?"
+
+"Not a day!"
+
+Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.
+
+"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.
+
+"But you promise?"
+
+"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"
+
+Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.
+
+"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort--fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it--I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."
+
+Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+_fiancée_ would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond--whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.
+
+As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.
+
+It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made--indeed, he was brimming over
+with it--was:
+
+"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"
+
+What with one thing--packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles--Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.
+
+"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.
+
+"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."
+
+"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.
+
+"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."
+
+"Well, what do you mean?"
+
+"No; never mind! It doesn't matter--all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder--eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.
+
+"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.
+
+"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."
+
+Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.
+
+"I don't see any fun in that," she said.
+
+Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.
+
+The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other _impedimenta_, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.
+
+Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.
+
+"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"
+
+"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."
+
+"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.
+
+He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.
+
+"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost--"
+
+"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."
+
+"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."
+
+"Is it really true?
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.
+
+The brothers looked at one another.
+
+"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.
+
+"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."
+
+"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."
+
+"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.
+
+Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:
+
+"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"
+
+"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."
+
+"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"
+
+"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."
+
+"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"
+
+"She didn't tell him so--not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."
+
+"She can't take him."
+
+"Good Lord! no."
+
+Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.
+
+"Think Lane'll write to her?"
+
+"He ought to, right off."
+
+"Queer girl, ain't she?"
+
+"Deuced!"
+
+"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."
+
+"What? with Kate?"
+
+"No; the other business."
+
+And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.
+
+
+When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.
+
+This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:
+
+"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"
+
+The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:
+
+"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."
+
+"Why, how in the world did you come here?"
+
+The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:
+
+"I am staying near here."
+
+"For health, eh?"
+
+"Yes--for health."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."
+
+Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.
+
+"Have some lunch?"
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"There's only enough for one," he said.
+
+"Nonsense, man!"
+
+"No, really; I never take it."
+
+A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:
+
+"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sent for?"
+
+"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."
+
+"I am not thin-skinned--not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."
+
+"That head?"
+
+"Yes; you did me a service."
+
+"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.
+
+Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+_regimen_ at the Retreat was no doubt severe.
+
+"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"
+
+"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love--barring a
+sound reason against it."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"
+
+"I don't bore you about it?"
+
+"No, I like jawing."
+
+"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."
+
+"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."
+
+"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that--"
+
+"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"
+
+"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry--there were even more stringent terms--but that's
+enough."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."
+
+"No. I think I could manage the first sort."
+
+"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."
+
+"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."
+
+"You're advising me to make one now."
+
+"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."
+
+"That's because you don't believe in anything?"
+
+"Yes, probably."
+
+"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You believed what a priest believes--in heaven and hell--the gaining
+God and the losing him--in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him--had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others--a baseness, a treason, a desertion--more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight--as base as a thief's purloining--meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"
+
+He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.
+
+"All that," he went on, "it meant to me--all that and more--the triumph
+of the beast in me--passion and desire rampant--man forsaken and God
+betrayed--my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"
+
+Morewood rose and paced up and down.
+
+"Now--now can you judge? You say you knew--did you know that?"
+
+"Do you still believe all that?"
+
+"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment--a day--perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt--I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."
+
+"If you break this vow you think you will be--?"
+
+"The creature I have said? Yes--and worse."
+
+"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.
+
+"But if you thought as I think, then would your love--yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"
+
+Morewood stood still.
+
+"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But--"
+
+"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.
+
+"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"
+
+Morewood was touched with pity.
+
+"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."
+
+"Get over it?"
+
+"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."
+
+Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.
+
+"You have never felt belief?" he asked.
+
+"Not for many years. That's all gone."
+
+"You think you have been in love?"
+
+"Of course I have--half a dozen times."
+
+"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.
+
+Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:
+
+"I have told you what belief is--I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."
+
+A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.
+
+"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Still?"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."
+
+"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."
+
+Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.
+
+"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.
+
+Stafford laughed outright.
+
+"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"
+
+"Well--after a time."
+
+"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference--as if the result mattered!"
+
+"I suppose you are right there."
+
+"Of course. But she will have me."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"Pardon me; I dare say you do."
+
+"You don't want to talk about that?"
+
+"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."
+
+"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"
+
+Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."
+
+"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.
+
+"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.
+
+"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"
+
+"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."
+
+"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."
+
+He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.
+
+He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.
+
+"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:
+
+     "DEAR AYRE:
+
+     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief--which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.
+
+     "Yours,
+
+     "A. MOREWOOD."
+
+This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.
+
+"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad--if he is mad--must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."
+
+He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.
+
+"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"
+
+He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.
+
+"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."
+
+"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"
+
+Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.
+
+"Well, how's everybody?"
+
+Ayre waited for a more definite question.
+
+"Seen the Territons lately?"
+
+"Not very. Haven't you?"
+
+"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"
+
+"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"
+
+"I haven't--not a line. We don't correspond: not _comme il faut_."
+
+"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"
+
+"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."
+
+"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"
+
+"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."
+
+"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."
+
+"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers--not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."
+
+"What on earth are you driving at?"
+
+"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."
+
+Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.
+
+"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."
+
+Eugene sat very quiet.
+
+"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"
+
+"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"
+
+"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."
+
+"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.
+
+"I say, does Claudia know?"
+
+"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."
+
+"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."
+
+"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"
+
+"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."
+
+"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"
+
+A shadow fell on Eugene's face.
+
+"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."
+
+Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.
+
+"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."
+
+Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.
+
+"So Morewood seems to think."
+
+"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."
+
+"It's kind of you to pity him."
+
+"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"
+
+"Anything in it?"
+
+"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"
+
+"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.
+
+Eugene looked very perturbed.
+
+"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."
+
+"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."
+
+"And she knew--of course she knew--you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"
+
+"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."
+
+"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.
+
+"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."
+
+"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"
+
+"Fact is, I don't show up over well."
+
+"You don't; that is a fact."
+
+"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."
+
+"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone--no girl could stand up against it."
+
+"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."
+
+"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well--"
+
+"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.
+
+"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."
+
+"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."
+
+"Pooh! she knows."
+
+"She doesn't, I tell you."
+
+"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."
+
+"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."
+
+"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."
+
+"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."
+
+"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"
+
+And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the _Times_ as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+
+Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability--not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen--Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely--but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.
+
+Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town--on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast--he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.
+
+Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.
+
+He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy--an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"--his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,--Claudia would rescue him from that,--but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.
+
+With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.
+
+This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,--decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,--and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.
+
+Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.
+
+"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.
+
+"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."
+
+"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ should let her alone."
+
+Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover--even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene--ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop--when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do--he
+reconsidered the situation.
+
+The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him _hors de combat_. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other--that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship--only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.
+
+He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.
+
+After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.
+
+Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.
+
+With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.
+
+"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.
+
+
+Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws--it
+is more interesting to be peculiar--and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.
+
+Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.
+
+"I have been so completely out of the world--out of my own world--for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."
+
+"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"I wish I had now."
+
+Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.
+
+"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."
+
+"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.
+
+"It was from Miss Bernard."
+
+"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"
+
+"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."
+
+"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."
+
+"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."
+
+"I want you to know that I didn't know."
+
+"Really you are very kind."
+
+"I was afraid you would think--"
+
+"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.
+
+Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.
+
+"Why, that--why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."
+
+Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.
+
+"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"
+
+"Of course I don't mean--"
+
+"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."
+
+Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"
+
+This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.
+
+"You come and tell a girl--all but in words tell her--she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."
+
+"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us--"
+
+"Passed between us?"
+
+"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."
+
+"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"
+
+Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.
+
+"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."
+
+"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."
+
+"Won't you listen to me?"
+
+"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."
+
+"Oh, but do listen just a little--"
+
+Claudia suddenly changed her tone--indeed, her whole demeanor.
+
+"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."
+
+"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"
+
+"So it seems. What is that?"
+
+"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.
+
+"May I come again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.
+
+"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"
+
+"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."
+
+Claudia looked daggers.
+
+"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."
+
+"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."
+
+"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."
+
+"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."
+
+"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be--charming--to you. Sit down. What is it?"
+
+"It's about Stafford."
+
+"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"
+
+"He's coming down here."
+
+"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref--resource."
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"Don't mind saying what you mean--or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."
+
+"You're making me angry again."
+
+"But what do you think he's coming for?"
+
+"To see you, I suppose."
+
+"On the contrary. To see you."
+
+"Pray don't be absurd."
+
+"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No--wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+"No other."
+
+"But he--he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."
+
+"Yes. He's going to break it--if you'll help him."
+
+"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"
+
+"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."
+
+"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"
+
+"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."
+
+"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he--is he very
+unhappy about it?"
+
+"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."
+
+"You think that strange?"
+
+Eugene shook his head with a smile.
+
+    "'A man had given all other bliss
+    And all his worldly worth,'"
+
+he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"
+
+"To-day, I expect."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.
+
+"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.
+
+So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear--certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.
+
+When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.
+
+"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.
+
+"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.
+
+"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"
+
+"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."
+
+"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.
+
+"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."
+
+"You play up, old man," said Bob.
+
+"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."
+
+"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"
+
+"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."
+
+"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done--"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."
+
+"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.
+
+"I expect he'd be rather glad."
+
+"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."
+
+It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.
+
+He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:
+
+"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."
+
+"More? How?"
+
+"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."
+
+"No, no; that would have been too much."
+
+He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.
+
+"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."
+
+"Why no time?"
+
+"I must go straight over and see her."
+
+"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"
+
+"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said--we needn't be enemies."
+
+"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."
+
+"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."
+
+"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."
+
+Stafford nodded.
+
+"Well, did you?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"I tried to--I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you--you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."
+
+"I thought she wouldn't."
+
+Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.
+
+"I must try and make him understand," he thought.
+
+"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."
+
+"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.
+
+"And she didn't stop me in--in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."
+
+Stafford said nothing.
+
+"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."
+
+"Do you tell me not to go?"
+
+"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."
+
+"She said nothing of the sort?"
+
+"No--nothing explicit."
+
+"Merely declined to listen?"
+
+"Yes--but in a way."
+
+"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"
+
+"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."
+
+They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.
+
+"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."
+
+"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"
+
+Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.
+
+"I should be cut up," he said. "But no--not that."
+
+Stafford smiled sadly.
+
+"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.
+
+"You will come back?"
+
+"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."
+
+"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"
+
+"That depends," said Stafford.
+
+Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.
+
+
+It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.
+
+"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."
+
+Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.
+
+"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."
+
+"Dear old Eugene!"
+
+"But I hoped you would not."
+
+"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"
+
+"I was rather surprised at the way you went."
+
+"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"
+
+"Perhaps I did."
+
+"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood--"
+
+"Please, Father Stafford--"
+
+"Say Mr. Stafford."
+
+"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."
+
+"As you will--for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you--no, I am going on--and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."
+
+"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."
+
+"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"
+
+"As nothing more than a possibility--and a very unhappy possibility."
+
+"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.
+
+"To begin with: you could never love any one."
+
+"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."
+
+"How can it be over? You had sworn."
+
+"Yes; but it is over."
+
+"Dare you break your vow?"
+
+"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"
+
+"Nothing can make it right."
+
+"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."
+
+"You destroy all my esteem for you."
+
+"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."
+
+"Ah! don't say that!"
+
+"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."
+
+"I never thought of you as making love."
+
+"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love--and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."
+
+"Did you think I was in love with you?"
+
+"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"
+
+"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."
+
+"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"
+
+"Why, that I don't love you--I never did--oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.
+
+Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.
+
+"You never loved me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you will. You must, when you know my love--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are--"
+
+"No, I never can."
+
+"Is it true? Why?"
+
+"Because--oh! don't you see?"
+
+"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"
+
+No answer seemed possible but the truth.
+
+"Yes," she said, bowing her head.
+
+"And playing with me?"
+
+"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was beyond hurt?"
+
+"I suppose so. You set up to be."
+
+"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.
+
+"And the truth--in God's name let us have truth--is that you love him?"
+
+"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"
+
+"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is final--no hope? Think what it means to me."
+
+"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"
+
+"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."
+
+"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"
+
+Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.
+
+"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."
+
+"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost--all lost--and for nothing!"
+
+Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.
+
+"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"Where? I don't know yet."
+
+"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try--you must forget about it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, I must forget about it."
+
+"You will be yourself again--your old self--not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."
+
+"Yes," he said again, humoring her.
+
+"Surely you can do it--you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."
+
+"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.
+
+"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"
+
+He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:
+
+"Now I am going. You must forget--or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I--"
+
+"Yes, and you?"
+
+"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.
+
+"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"
+
+She started a step forward, but stopped again.
+
+"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"
+
+And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.
+
+And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.
+
+Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.
+
+"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"
+
+We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.
+
+Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the child.
+
+"Then I'll give you something to take to him."
+
+He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.
+
+He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.
+
+He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened--as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?
+
+Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.
+
+"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.
+
+It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.
+
+After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him--and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.
+
+He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.
+
+"A gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+"To see me? Who is it?"
+
+"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."
+
+"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?
+
+But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.
+
+"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."
+
+Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.
+
+Ayre took the chair his host gave him.
+
+"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"
+
+"How did you know I was here?"
+
+"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."
+
+"Has Eugene any news?"
+
+"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"
+
+"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"
+
+"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"
+
+"No, not now. You could have done no good before."
+
+"I could have told you it was no use."
+
+"I shouldn't have believed you."
+
+"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."
+
+"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"That's not the only thing with you."
+
+"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.
+
+"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."
+
+"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."
+
+"I don't know. But, yes--I expect so. You're hard hit."
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."
+
+"You're quite right."
+
+"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."
+
+"I really think you do. It surprises me."
+
+"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"
+
+"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"
+
+"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"
+
+"It's the old fellow's love for me."
+
+Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I have hardly had time to look round yet."
+
+"Why should it make any difference to you?"
+
+Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?
+
+"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"
+
+"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.
+
+"You think you're utterly smashed, of course--I know what a facer it can
+be--and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.
+
+Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.
+
+"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."
+
+"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."
+
+"I expected you'd say that."
+
+"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense--a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"
+
+"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."
+
+"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."
+
+"I don't see that. May I smoke?"
+
+He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.
+
+"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"
+
+"Certainly; that is--yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."
+
+"Ah! but you think it's true?"
+
+"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth--only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."
+
+It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.
+
+"You don't follow that?"
+
+"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"
+
+"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."
+
+"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"
+
+"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.
+
+Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.
+
+"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."
+
+"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Yes, I say--in all essentials."
+
+"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."
+
+"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"
+
+Stafford looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit--I don't know how you sit--in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."
+
+Stafford listened.
+
+"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."
+
+"In the Church?"
+
+"Yes--that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."
+
+"I've been very near trying it before now."
+
+"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."
+
+Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.
+
+"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.
+
+"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."
+
+"I doubt that motive."
+
+"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."
+
+Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's all misery," he said.
+
+"Now, yes. But not always."
+
+"And it's not what I meant."
+
+"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."
+
+"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."
+
+Ayre looked at him curiously.
+
+"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."
+
+"Is that a compliment?"
+
+"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."
+
+Stafford rose to show him out.
+
+"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.
+
+"You will think of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"
+
+"You were afraid of that?"
+
+"Yes. Was I wrong?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"
+
+"No; I promise."
+
+Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.
+
+"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night--and a life
+worth saving."
+
+And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.
+
+
+Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.
+
+It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.
+
+"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."
+
+"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."
+
+"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."
+
+"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."
+
+"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."
+
+Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.
+
+Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.
+
+"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."
+
+And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.
+
+"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.
+
+"I don't know. It's--but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.
+
+"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Not artists."
+
+"Dear me! no!"
+
+"Whom, then?"
+
+"Oh, the nobility and gentry."
+
+"And clergy?"
+
+A shadow passed across her face--but a fleeting shadow.
+
+"You paint very slowly," she said.
+
+"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."
+
+"Oh! Why?"
+
+"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."
+
+"Does the one exclude the other?"
+
+"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.
+
+"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.
+
+"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.
+
+"Surely tea is _compris_?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."
+
+Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and--well, she was amusing.
+
+Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.
+
+"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."
+
+"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.
+
+Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.
+
+"You've got her very well."
+
+"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."
+
+"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.
+
+"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl--but not
+overmuch, you know."
+
+"There's all I want."
+
+"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"
+
+"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."
+
+"A queer combination."
+
+"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"
+
+Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.
+
+"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.
+
+"I told you I didn't want to see you."
+
+"I know. But that was a month ago."
+
+"I was very much upset."
+
+"So was I, awfully!"
+
+"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."
+
+"How yours?"
+
+"Well, you see, he thought--"
+
+"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore--"
+
+"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"
+
+"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"
+
+"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"It would be death!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"
+
+"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."
+
+"I never intended any harm."
+
+"You never do."
+
+"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."
+
+"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."
+
+"Ah! that wasn't my reason."
+
+"Claudia, you must give me an answer."
+
+Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:
+
+"May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.
+
+"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.
+
+"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."
+
+"I don't."
+
+But it is very possible he did.
+
+The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.
+
+"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.
+
+Claudia was looking grave.
+
+"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"
+
+Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.
+
+"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."
+
+"So it does, in a way."
+
+"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"
+
+"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."
+
+"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"
+
+"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."
+
+"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.
+
+"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."
+
+"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."
+
+"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too _point-de-vice_ in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."
+
+"I am not the man that Stafford is--save for my lady's favor."
+
+"And you came in confidence?"
+
+"You had let me hope."
+
+"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"
+
+"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."
+
+"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"
+
+"With lucid intervals?"
+
+"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray--dynastic
+considerations--a suitable cousin."
+
+"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."
+
+"_Pereant quae ante te!_ You know a little Latin?"
+
+"I think I'd better not just now."
+
+"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."
+
+"I wasn't joking."
+
+"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."
+
+"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"
+
+"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"
+
+"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."
+
+"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."
+
+"A lofty function!"
+
+"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."
+
+"I will," she said; "and I am happy."
+
+"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"
+
+"I will brave the danger."
+
+"There is none. I have found my goddess."
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.
+
+"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"
+
+"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"
+
+"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"
+
+Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."
+
+And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+An End and a Beginning.
+
+
+When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.
+
+He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.
+
+"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."
+
+"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."
+
+"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very--well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"
+
+"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"
+
+"Probably. I told him to."
+
+"Well, that's all."
+
+"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"
+
+"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."
+
+"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"
+
+"I think he will."
+
+"Did you advise him to do that?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."
+
+"He spoke to me as if--as if he had no religion left."
+
+"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."
+
+"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"
+
+"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll never say anything to a lover again."
+
+"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends--for ambition,
+and so on?"
+
+"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up--I had to tide him over a bad hour."
+
+"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."
+
+"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."
+
+"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"
+
+"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?
+
+"His was once!"
+
+"Before he met--you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."
+
+"I would rather--"
+
+"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."
+
+"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."
+
+"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"
+
+"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."
+
+"Now he is well quit of me?"
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't like it."
+
+"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."
+
+"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"
+
+"I don't know; he has very good manners."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."
+
+"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."
+
+Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.
+
+Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself--it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the _rôle_ he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.
+
+Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there--Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.
+
+The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:
+
+"I have heard from Stafford."
+
+"Ah! what does he say?"
+
+"He has joined the Church of Rome."
+
+"I thought he would."
+
+Morewood grunted angrily.
+
+"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.
+
+"No; I think I referred to it."
+
+"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.
+
+"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"
+
+Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.
+
+"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."
+
+"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."
+
+"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"
+
+"I doubt it," said Ayre.
+
+"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."
+
+"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"
+
+"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"
+
+"Everything but the truth."
+
+"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"
+
+"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."
+
+Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the _odium
+theologicum_ imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.
+
+"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.
+
+"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps; will you show it me?"
+
+"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."
+
+He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:
+
+     "DEAR EUGENE:
+
+     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for ῆστ᾽ ἀγαυοφροϛὑῃ καὶ σοἱϛ ἀγανῖϛ
+     ἐπἑεσσιυ.
+
+     "Yours always,
+
+     "C.S.K."
+
+"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"
+
+"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."
+
+Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.
+
+She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because you are most likely to know."
+
+"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think--"
+
+"Yes?" she said impatiently.
+
+"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Father Stafford
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER STAFFORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."
+
+F. TENNYSON NEELY
+PUBLISHER
+CHICAGO  NEW YORK
+1895
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I.     Eugene Lane and his Guests
+
+II.    New Faces and Old Feuds
+
+III.   Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views
+
+IV.    Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece
+
+V.     How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best
+
+VI.    Father Stafford Keeps Vigil
+
+VII.   An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement
+
+VIII.  Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action
+
+IX.    The Battle of Baden
+
+X.     Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation
+
+XI.    Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+XII.   Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind
+
+XIII.  A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel
+
+XIV.   Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be
+
+XV.    An End and a Beginning
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Eugene Lane and his Guests.
+
+
+The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.
+
+Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the _r�le_ with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.
+
+He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,--though
+at this moment rather a bored one,--large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.
+
+Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.
+
+As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.
+
+"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."
+
+"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.
+
+"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from _The Universe_) will
+begin."
+
+"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.
+
+Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.
+
+"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his _fianc�e_.
+
+"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."
+
+Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:
+
+"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"
+
+"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."
+
+"Can't, my dear Kate--not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."
+
+"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."
+
+"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."
+
+"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.
+
+"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."
+
+Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."
+
+"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.
+
+"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.
+
+"The fifth is--" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is--Father Stafford."
+
+Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.
+
+"Why, where did you pick _him_ up?" asked Lady Claudia.
+
+"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."
+
+"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.
+
+"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"
+
+"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"
+
+"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."
+
+"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."
+
+"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"
+
+"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."
+
+"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.
+
+Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:
+
+"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"
+
+"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."
+
+"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."
+
+"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."
+
+"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.
+
+"No, Doctor."
+
+"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.
+
+"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.
+
+"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."
+
+"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"
+
+"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."
+
+"Who says he can?"
+
+"Why, the Bishop!"
+
+"Well, then, of course he can."
+
+"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women--very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."
+
+"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"
+
+"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.
+
+The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.
+
+"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."
+
+"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits--I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."
+
+"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.
+
+"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."
+
+Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of medi�valism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.
+
+"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.
+
+"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."
+
+"Dashed if I do," said Bob.
+
+"He steals other birds' nests--eggs and all."
+
+"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."
+
+"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."
+
+"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"
+
+"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"
+
+"Oh! come and play billiards."
+
+"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."
+
+"By Jove, does she make you do that?"
+
+Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.
+
+"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."
+
+Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+_fait accompli_, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement--an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.
+
+It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.
+
+"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."
+
+Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.
+
+"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.
+
+"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.
+
+Kate rose with dignity.
+
+"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."
+
+"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."
+
+"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.
+
+"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."
+
+"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.
+
+A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.
+
+"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.
+
+"Oh, Tennyson--always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."
+
+"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"
+
+Eugene smiled complacently.
+
+"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."
+
+Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:
+
+"So am I."
+
+"Thank you! You need not be afraid."
+
+"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."
+
+A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.
+
+Eugene looked away toward the horizon.
+
+"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.
+
+"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have--a great many."
+
+"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"
+
+"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."
+
+"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.
+
+"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.
+
+"Do you know why?"
+
+"My modesty forbids me to think."
+
+"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."
+
+"Claudia!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent--and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"
+
+Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+New Faces and Old Feuds.
+
+
+There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring--and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane--that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.
+
+Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.
+
+"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.
+
+"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."
+
+"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.
+
+"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."
+
+"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.
+
+Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.
+
+"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father--the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."
+
+"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."
+
+"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.
+
+Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:
+
+"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."
+
+"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."
+
+Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."
+
+"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"
+
+"A little knocked up."
+
+"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.
+
+He saw the glance.
+
+"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."
+
+Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:
+
+"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"
+
+The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.
+
+"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.
+
+"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"
+
+"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."
+
+"I take it because I like it."
+
+"And I don't take it because I like it."
+
+Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.
+
+Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.
+
+"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.
+
+"I am so sorry--but--but I thought you looked so ill."
+
+Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.
+
+Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject--not being a new one--might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:
+
+"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
+
+The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.
+
+"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."
+
+"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,--or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,--they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
+
+"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
+
+"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
+
+"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.
+
+Morewood directed a glance at him.
+
+"He's mad!" he said briefly.
+
+"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."
+
+"You don't believe all he does?"
+
+"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."
+
+Morewood looked at him for a moment.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."
+
+"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.
+
+Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.
+
+Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.
+
+Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."
+
+Absolute silence.
+
+"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.
+
+Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.
+
+"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"
+
+Kate smiled bitterly.
+
+"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."
+
+"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"
+
+Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.
+
+"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.
+
+"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"
+
+"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."
+
+"_How_ annoying! What's he doing there?"
+
+"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."
+
+"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."
+
+Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.
+
+Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.
+
+"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.
+
+"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."
+
+"And you think you can stand it?"
+
+"Stand what, my dear fellow?"
+
+"Why, the life you lead--a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."
+
+"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very medi�val? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."
+
+"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"
+
+"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."
+
+"You think it right for a good many people, though?"
+
+"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."
+
+"No; tell me now."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+"Of course! I take that for granted."
+
+"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"
+
+"I could never do it," said Eugene.
+
+"Perhaps not--or, at least, not yet."
+
+"Too late or too early, is it?"
+
+"It may be so, but I will not say so."
+
+"You know I think you're all wrong?"
+
+"I know."
+
+"You will fail."
+
+"God forbid! but if he pleases--"
+
+"After all, what are meat, wine, and--and so on for?"
+
+"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."
+
+"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."
+
+Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.
+
+"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"
+
+"I am glad to say he is not."
+
+"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."
+
+"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."
+
+"What was it particularly about?"
+
+"An immaterial matter."
+
+"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"
+
+"No. What do you mean?"
+
+"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."
+
+"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is--well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"
+
+"Haddington didn't like it."
+
+"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.
+
+Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.
+
+
+For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.
+
+"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."
+
+"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.
+
+Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if
+others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close _rapprochement_ between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.
+
+Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.
+
+The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart--which is not usually the
+case--easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.
+
+It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+_chevaux-de-frise_ of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington--a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.
+
+She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.
+
+Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a _t�te-�-t�te_
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.
+
+Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."
+
+Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.
+
+"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington--breakfast, lunch,
+tea--"
+
+"I mean when you are alone."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And yet you must know my great--my only object in being here is to see
+you."
+
+"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.
+
+"You must have noticed my--my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"
+
+This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.
+
+"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known--how, I do not
+know--to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."
+
+"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet--but in
+time, surely?"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you--which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a _pis-aller_.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.
+
+"A _pis-aller_! What in the world do you mean?"
+
+"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been--had appeared to be out of reach?"
+
+This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.
+
+"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."
+
+"It is a great blow to me--a great blow."
+
+Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."
+
+Haddington was a little at loss.
+
+"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."
+
+"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"
+
+"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another--she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"
+
+"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"
+
+"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me--forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"
+
+"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."
+
+"Why do you say that? If you only knew--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Of course. They're _engaged_!"
+
+"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."
+
+"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."
+
+"If you ask me, I will try to stay."
+
+"Yes, yes, stay--but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other--about them, I mean. You will stay?"
+
+"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.
+
+"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"
+
+"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing--but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."
+
+"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as--as a second string!"
+
+"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.
+
+"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."
+
+"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"
+
+"It was you who put it in my head."
+
+"Oh, what have I done!"
+
+Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.
+
+Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.
+
+Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.
+
+Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's _fianc�e_ that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.
+
+He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.
+
+"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."
+
+"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.
+
+"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."
+
+"Did he say what it was about?"
+
+"No; I didn't ask him."
+
+A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.
+
+"And so you are alone?"
+
+"Yes, as you see."
+
+"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"
+
+"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."
+
+"I wish I could think so."
+
+"Why don't you think so?"
+
+"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.
+
+"Even to telegrams?"
+
+"Ah! poor Lane!"
+
+"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."
+
+"No--rather of envy."
+
+Kate did not look displeased.
+
+"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard--there, I am offending you again!"
+
+"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."
+
+"Do you think I don't mean it?"
+
+"That would be very discreditable--but not so bad."
+
+"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+_that_?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.
+
+Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:
+
+"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."
+
+"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.
+
+Kate rose.
+
+"You are not angry?"
+
+"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No--don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."
+
+Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.
+
+"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."
+
+It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.
+
+
+About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.
+
+"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"
+
+"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.
+
+"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.
+
+"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."
+
+"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"
+
+"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."
+
+"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"
+
+"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"
+
+"And how do you like your new neighbor?"
+
+"What new neighbor?"
+
+"Intellect."
+
+"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."
+
+"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.
+
+"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. _Apropos_, what are you doing
+down here?"
+
+"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."
+
+"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"
+
+"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."
+
+"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"
+
+"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"
+
+"Yes. Known her since she was a child."
+
+"She seems uncommonly appreciative."
+
+"Of Stafford?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since--"
+
+"Oh, I don't want their history--a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only--I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."
+
+"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.
+
+"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."
+
+"What do he and the rest of them think?"
+
+"I haven't shown it to any one."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Wait till you've seen it."
+
+"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that--"
+
+"Hush! Here he comes!"
+
+As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.
+
+"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She doesn't care for him?"
+
+"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"
+
+"Oh, you know he's booked."
+
+"Kate Bernard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you--"
+
+"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing--in its
+way--I ever did."
+
+"Going to exhibit it?"
+
+"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."
+
+"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"
+
+Whereto Morewood answered only:
+
+"Come and see."
+
+As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.
+
+"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"
+
+"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"
+
+"Yes, there's a picture to be seen--Morewood's latest."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."
+
+"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"
+
+"Stafford," said Ayre.
+
+"The Pope in full canonicals?"
+
+"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."
+
+They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.
+
+"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"
+
+"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."
+
+"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.
+
+Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.
+
+"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.
+
+It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.
+
+Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:
+
+"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"
+
+"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but--fine, isn't it?"
+
+The two men nodded.
+
+"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."
+
+"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,--we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,--and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."
+
+He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.
+
+It was merely a head--nothing more--standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.
+
+The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.
+
+"The finest thing I ever did--on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"
+
+"No," said Eugene.
+
+Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.
+
+"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"
+
+"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."
+
+"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"
+
+"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."
+
+"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.
+
+The others looked keenly at him for a moment.
+
+"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."
+
+"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.
+
+"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.
+
+Morewood's face was a study.
+
+"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."
+
+"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Burn it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."
+
+"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."
+
+"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."
+
+"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."
+
+"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.
+
+"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.
+
+"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."
+
+Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.
+
+"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."
+
+"I shan't. It will be interesting."
+
+"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."
+
+"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."
+
+The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.
+
+"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.
+
+"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."
+
+"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.
+
+"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.
+
+Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.
+
+"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."
+
+"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."
+
+"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."
+
+"And I shall be a change?"
+
+"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."
+
+"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.
+
+"She means no harm," said Morewood.
+
+"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"
+
+"No--not our business if we could," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.
+
+"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"
+
+Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.
+
+"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Yes. Why are you moping here?"
+
+"Where's Stafford?"
+
+"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"
+
+Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.
+
+"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"
+
+She got up and came close to him.
+
+"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"
+
+"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."
+
+"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+_sociable_."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A sociable."
+
+"Do you mean a tricycle?"
+
+"Yes--for two."
+
+"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun?"
+
+"On the road?"
+
+"N--no, perhaps not; round the park."
+
+"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"
+
+"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."
+
+"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."
+
+"Be quiet. But will you?"
+
+"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."
+
+"I must go and put on an old frock."
+
+"All right; be quick."
+
+"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well--if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."
+
+A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?
+
+It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:
+
+"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.
+
+Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.
+
+"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" she asked.
+
+Eugene was struggling with laughter.
+
+"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"
+
+Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
+
+Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.
+
+
+The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.
+
+"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and--no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"
+
+Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."
+
+Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.
+
+"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"
+
+"Is he in the dark?"
+
+"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,--they say women are that way,--but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."
+
+"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"
+
+"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to."
+
+"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."
+
+"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."
+
+"Yes, but you see, Lane--"
+
+"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"
+
+Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.
+
+"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and--well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"
+
+"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.
+
+"Hang it! a man has some feelings."
+
+"You're a humbug, Ayre!"
+
+"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It would be a very interesting problem."
+
+"It would."
+
+"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"
+
+"Utter nonsense!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."
+
+"No more should I."
+
+"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"
+
+"Of course he would. No one could help it."
+
+"Will you let him see it?"
+
+Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."
+
+"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"
+
+"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."
+
+"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's--still more of a
+lady's--education."
+
+Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.
+
+"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.
+
+Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering--a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.
+
+"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it--or, rather, it forced upon us?"
+
+Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.
+
+"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"
+
+"I agree--at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."
+
+Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.
+
+"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."
+
+"You'd better leave me out."
+
+"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."
+
+"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."
+
+"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be a shock to him."
+
+"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."
+
+"It won't make him happier to be refused."
+
+Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"
+
+"I don't know. How should I know?"
+
+"Do you think it likely?"
+
+"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."
+
+"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"
+
+It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.
+
+"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness--and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"
+
+Eugene did not wince.
+
+"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."
+
+"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:
+
+"You could say nothing else."
+
+"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."
+
+"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"
+
+"God knows!" groaned Eugene.
+
+Morewood returned.
+
+"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"
+
+"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."
+
+"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."
+
+Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:
+
+"It is my face?"
+
+"You see it is."
+
+"You did it?"
+
+"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few days ago."
+
+"On your oath--no, you don't believe that--on your honor, is it truth?"
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"You saw it--just as it is there?"
+
+"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."
+
+"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But--yes,
+it is true. God help me!"
+
+"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."
+
+"Time, indeed!"
+
+"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.
+
+"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"
+
+"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."
+
+Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.
+
+"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No--I won't hurt it."
+
+"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you--"
+
+"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"
+
+He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.
+
+"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"
+
+"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."
+
+"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"
+
+"No. Of course I shall write to you."
+
+"Thank you--I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"
+
+"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And--oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."
+
+"Isn't Haddington staying here?"
+
+"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."
+
+"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."
+
+"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"
+
+"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."
+
+"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."
+
+This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.
+
+"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."
+
+"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"An opportunity for quarreling."
+
+"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."
+
+"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."
+
+"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."
+
+"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."
+
+"And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself
+bound."
+
+"I have never proposed anything else."
+
+"Your conduct with Claudia--"
+
+"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."
+
+"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.
+
+"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"
+
+Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.
+
+Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.
+
+"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.
+
+"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a
+terrible time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."
+
+"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."
+
+"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"
+
+"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"
+
+"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."
+
+"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."
+
+"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.
+
+"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.
+
+"In his room--at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."
+
+"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."
+
+"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.
+
+"You're a very rude _old_ gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same--against Bob and Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."
+
+"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."
+
+"Oh! Is it a question that no one else--say Kate, for instance--could
+help you with?"
+
+"It's not about myself."
+
+"Is it about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."
+
+"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."
+
+But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:
+
+"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"
+
+With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.
+
+"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.
+
+"He looked it."
+
+"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."
+
+"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.
+
+
+Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.
+
+"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."
+
+"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.
+
+"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."
+
+"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.
+
+"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.
+
+"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."
+
+"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.
+
+"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."
+
+"Take care they don't make you a peer!"
+
+"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."
+
+"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."
+
+"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.
+
+Ayre put up his eyeglass.
+
+"_Apr�s?_"
+
+"It's all affectation."
+
+"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."
+
+"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."
+
+"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."
+
+"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."
+
+"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"
+
+"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.
+
+"By all means," said he.
+
+"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."
+
+"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.
+
+Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:
+
+"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious--especially in women."
+
+There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.
+
+"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm--gush, in fact--as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"
+
+Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.
+
+"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"
+
+"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."
+
+This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:
+
+"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"
+
+"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.
+
+So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment--more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.
+
+Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark--uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his--victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.
+
+In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.
+
+But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly--yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.
+
+So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.
+
+The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.
+
+From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life--not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate--was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.
+
+It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator--the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction--oh! what a tiny fraction--of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much--whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly--aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."
+
+Eugene gently laughed.
+
+"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."
+
+"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose--a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."
+
+"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.
+
+"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."
+
+Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world--except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.
+
+Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.
+
+
+It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go--go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.
+
+At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.
+
+"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going--this lady and gentleman."
+
+Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.
+
+"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry--never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"
+
+He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:
+
+"You are determined on this, Kate?"
+
+"On what?" she asked coldly.
+
+"Why, to go like this--to bolt--it almost comes to that--leaving things
+as they are between us?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"And with Haddington?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me?"
+
+"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."
+
+Eugene could not resist a smile.
+
+"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.
+
+"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"
+
+"I have left a note for you."
+
+"That will explain?"
+
+"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."
+
+"How fagged you look!"
+
+"Yes, I am tired."
+
+"You must go now, and like this?"
+
+"I think that is less bad than anything else."
+
+"You can't tell me?"
+
+"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."
+
+"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"
+
+"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."
+
+The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.
+
+"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now--"
+
+But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.
+
+"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."
+
+"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"
+
+"Oh, you know that?"
+
+"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"
+
+"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"
+
+"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."
+
+"You can guess?"
+
+"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.
+
+"He's given it up, apparently."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."
+
+"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the _fons et origo mali_."
+
+Morewood joined them.
+
+"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."
+
+"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."
+
+Eugene rose.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."
+
+"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"
+
+"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."
+
+"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.
+
+"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Oh! not _simpliciter_, you know. _Secundum quid_."
+
+"_Secundum feminam_, in fact?"
+
+"Yes; and I brought him up, too."
+
+"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."
+
+"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."
+
+"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."
+
+"I think they must be--a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."
+
+Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.
+
+"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.
+
+"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"
+
+"I meant Father Stafford, of course."
+
+"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."
+
+"Did he tell you why he had to go?"
+
+"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.
+
+"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."
+
+"You don't like unaccountable people?"
+
+Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.
+
+"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."
+
+"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.
+
+"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford--"
+
+"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."
+
+This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.
+
+"I thought you might know."
+
+"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.
+
+Claudia gave a little laugh.
+
+"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? _I_
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.
+
+"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.
+
+"I accept that as a diplomatic advance--not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."
+
+"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one--"
+
+"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.
+
+He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.
+
+"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."
+
+"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."
+
+Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.
+
+"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.
+
+"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."
+
+"Why, you don't go killing birds?"
+
+"No, I don't kill birds."
+
+"There'll be only a pack of men there."
+
+"That's all. But I don't mind that--if the scenery is good."
+
+"I believe you're trying to make me angry."
+
+"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."
+
+"Have you no heart, Claudia?"
+
+"I don't know. But I have a prefix."
+
+"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"
+
+Claudia laughed.
+
+"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"
+
+"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"
+
+"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that would imply you were serious."
+
+"Would it be wrong if I were?"
+
+"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."
+
+"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"
+
+"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."
+
+"See what?" she said.
+
+"Why, that--that--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"
+
+"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, you seemed--perhaps you didn't mean it--to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept _us_ apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you--"
+
+"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"
+
+Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I see. I must congratulate you."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"On having bagged a brace--without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."
+
+And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.
+
+Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:
+
+"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"
+
+And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.
+
+Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.
+
+"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."
+
+"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.
+
+"How a coincidence!"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Oh, I wanted to know."
+
+Ayre looked at her.
+
+"Where's Eugene?"
+
+"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."
+
+Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.
+
+"Did you want him?"
+
+"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."
+
+"You would if you'd come a little sooner."
+
+"Ah! I'll go and find him."
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+And off he went.
+
+"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit--and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."
+
+And perhaps it was about time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.
+
+
+When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself--a surprise that now took
+the place of shame--he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.
+
+No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that--and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead--but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.
+
+It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet--time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.
+
+Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.
+
+"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."
+
+"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.
+
+The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.
+
+Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?--strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?--strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.
+
+While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.
+
+The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great _�clat_; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it--to use the
+technical term--and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.
+
+For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M. P., had also "proceeded" thither.
+
+"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and--[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with--[more irrelevant matter]."
+
+Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.
+
+"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"
+
+And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.
+
+"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"
+
+Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.
+
+"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."
+
+"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"
+
+Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.
+
+In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie--a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.
+
+It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.
+
+"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"
+
+"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."
+
+"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"
+
+This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.
+
+"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."
+
+"You might influence him."
+
+"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"
+
+Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.
+
+"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."
+
+And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.
+
+In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.
+
+Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.
+
+"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."
+
+He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.
+
+"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"
+
+"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."
+
+"With Kate?"
+
+"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"
+
+"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.
+
+"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."
+
+"Will she, do you think?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny--a fancy bet."
+
+"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"
+
+"She wouldn't suit Eugene."
+
+"No; lead him the devil of a life."
+
+"She don't care for him."
+
+"Not a straw."
+
+"Then, why don't she break it off?"
+
+"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"
+
+"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+_verbot_ here--penalty one mark--see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."
+
+"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."
+
+"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.
+
+"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."
+
+"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her--yes or no."
+
+"Why? it's not my funeral!"
+
+"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."
+
+"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+_him_ shamefully."
+
+"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"
+
+"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"
+
+"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.
+
+"Do you think you won't bungle it?"
+
+"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."
+
+Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.
+
+"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."
+
+"Do you think I might lie a bit?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."
+
+"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."
+
+Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.
+
+What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:
+
+"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."
+
+"Did he bite?"
+
+"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."
+
+"Will he stand up to her?"
+
+"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."
+
+"I wonder what she'll say?"
+
+"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."
+
+Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside--one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+_rubesco referens_, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.
+
+"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.
+
+"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's--it's
+not respectful."
+
+"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"
+
+"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.
+
+"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"
+
+Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.
+
+"I will not break my engagement."
+
+"That is no answer."
+
+"I can't help it. I have been taught--"
+
+"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady--"
+
+"You're very unkind."
+
+"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"
+
+"Won't you be patient?"
+
+"Ah, you admit--"
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."
+
+The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.
+
+"Well, I will wait--I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"
+
+A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.
+
+"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."
+
+"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.
+
+"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's very wrong."
+
+"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"
+
+The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.
+
+"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or--"
+
+"Then I have your promise, dear?"
+
+"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."
+
+"You won't let him win you over?"
+
+"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."
+
+They had risen by now.
+
+"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.
+
+"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"
+
+"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."
+
+Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.
+
+"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.
+
+"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But--no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Battle of Baden.
+
+
+Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from _ennui_ for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.
+
+He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.
+
+He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.
+
+"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.
+
+"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."
+
+"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."
+
+"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.
+
+"It concerns you."
+
+"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"
+
+"In order to serve a friend, I did a--well--a doubtful thing."
+
+Kate was puzzled.
+
+"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"
+
+"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."
+
+"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"
+
+"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."
+
+"We have known one another some time."
+
+Ayre smiled at the implied correction.
+
+"Do you object to plain speaking?"
+
+"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."
+
+"You mean I should have no right?"
+
+"I certainly don't see on what ground."
+
+"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."
+
+"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"
+
+"As an old friend of his--"
+
+"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."
+
+"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.
+
+"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."
+
+"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and--pardon
+me--you must hear it."
+
+"And what if I refuse?"
+
+"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."
+
+Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:
+
+"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"
+
+"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."
+
+Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.
+
+"Did he send you to tell me this?"
+
+"You know he didn't."
+
+"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"
+
+"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia--a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean you must release Eugene."
+
+"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.
+
+"Because it is not usual--and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right--it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."
+
+"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."
+
+"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Then I must tell Eugene?"
+
+"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.
+
+"You are engaged to Eugene?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."
+
+"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"
+
+"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise--an absolute promise."
+
+"That is not a happy guess."
+
+"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."
+
+"How dare you accuse me of such things?"
+
+"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."
+
+"Absolute knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.
+
+"You listened!"
+
+"Yes, I listened."
+
+"Is that what a gentleman does?"
+
+"As a rule, it is not."
+
+"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."
+
+"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."
+
+"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"
+
+"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."
+
+"What could you tell him?"
+
+"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him--keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"
+
+Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.
+
+"You see I could--if you'll allow me the metaphor--blow you out of the
+water."
+
+"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."
+
+Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.
+
+"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"
+
+"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this--well, this
+is a little strong."
+
+"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.
+
+"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."
+
+"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.
+
+"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"
+
+"If I don't, what will you do?"
+
+"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."
+
+"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."
+
+"That's another point."
+
+"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."
+
+"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Eugene."
+
+Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.
+
+"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"
+
+"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"
+
+"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."
+
+"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."
+
+"Certainly--with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."
+
+"Won't you give me a week?"
+
+"Not a day!"
+
+Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.
+
+"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.
+
+"But you promise?"
+
+"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"
+
+Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.
+
+"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort--fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it--I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."
+
+Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+_fianc�e_ would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond--whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.
+
+As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.
+
+It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made--indeed, he was brimming over
+with it--was:
+
+"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"
+
+What with one thing--packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles--Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.
+
+"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.
+
+"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."
+
+"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.
+
+"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."
+
+"Well, what do you mean?"
+
+"No; never mind! It doesn't matter--all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder--eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.
+
+"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.
+
+"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."
+
+Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.
+
+"I don't see any fun in that," she said.
+
+Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.
+
+The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other _impedimenta_, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.
+
+Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.
+
+"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"
+
+"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."
+
+"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.
+
+He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.
+
+"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost--"
+
+"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."
+
+"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."
+
+"Is it really true?
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.
+
+The brothers looked at one another.
+
+"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.
+
+"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."
+
+"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."
+
+"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.
+
+Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:
+
+"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"
+
+"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."
+
+"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"
+
+"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."
+
+"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"
+
+"She didn't tell him so--not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."
+
+"She can't take him."
+
+"Good Lord! no."
+
+Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.
+
+"Think Lane'll write to her?"
+
+"He ought to, right off."
+
+"Queer girl, ain't she?"
+
+"Deuced!"
+
+"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."
+
+"What? with Kate?"
+
+"No; the other business."
+
+And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.
+
+
+When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.
+
+This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:
+
+"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"
+
+The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:
+
+"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."
+
+"Why, how in the world did you come here?"
+
+The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:
+
+"I am staying near here."
+
+"For health, eh?"
+
+"Yes--for health."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."
+
+Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.
+
+"Have some lunch?"
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"There's only enough for one," he said.
+
+"Nonsense, man!"
+
+"No, really; I never take it."
+
+A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:
+
+"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sent for?"
+
+"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."
+
+"I am not thin-skinned--not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."
+
+"That head?"
+
+"Yes; you did me a service."
+
+"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.
+
+Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+_regimen_ at the Retreat was no doubt severe.
+
+"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"
+
+"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love--barring a
+sound reason against it."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"
+
+"I don't bore you about it?"
+
+"No, I like jawing."
+
+"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."
+
+"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."
+
+"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that--"
+
+"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"
+
+"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry--there were even more stringent terms--but that's
+enough."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."
+
+"No. I think I could manage the first sort."
+
+"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."
+
+"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."
+
+"You're advising me to make one now."
+
+"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."
+
+"That's because you don't believe in anything?"
+
+"Yes, probably."
+
+"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You believed what a priest believes--in heaven and hell--the gaining
+God and the losing him--in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him--had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others--a baseness, a treason, a desertion--more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight--as base as a thief's purloining--meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"
+
+He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.
+
+"All that," he went on, "it meant to me--all that and more--the triumph
+of the beast in me--passion and desire rampant--man forsaken and God
+betrayed--my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"
+
+Morewood rose and paced up and down.
+
+"Now--now can you judge? You say you knew--did you know that?"
+
+"Do you still believe all that?"
+
+"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment--a day--perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt--I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."
+
+"If you break this vow you think you will be--?"
+
+"The creature I have said? Yes--and worse."
+
+"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.
+
+"But if you thought as I think, then would your love--yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"
+
+Morewood stood still.
+
+"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But--"
+
+"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.
+
+"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"
+
+Morewood was touched with pity.
+
+"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."
+
+"Get over it?"
+
+"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."
+
+Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.
+
+"You have never felt belief?" he asked.
+
+"Not for many years. That's all gone."
+
+"You think you have been in love?"
+
+"Of course I have--half a dozen times."
+
+"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.
+
+Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:
+
+"I have told you what belief is--I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."
+
+A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.
+
+"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Still?"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."
+
+"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."
+
+Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.
+
+"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.
+
+Stafford laughed outright.
+
+"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"
+
+"Well--after a time."
+
+"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference--as if the result mattered!"
+
+"I suppose you are right there."
+
+"Of course. But she will have me."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"Pardon me; I dare say you do."
+
+"You don't want to talk about that?"
+
+"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."
+
+"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"
+
+Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."
+
+"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.
+
+"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.
+
+"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"
+
+"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."
+
+"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."
+
+He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.
+
+He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.
+
+"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:
+
+     "DEAR AYRE:
+
+     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief--which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.
+
+     "Yours,
+
+     "A. MOREWOOD."
+
+This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.
+
+"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad--if he is mad--must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."
+
+He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.
+
+"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"
+
+He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.
+
+"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."
+
+"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"
+
+Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.
+
+"Well, how's everybody?"
+
+Ayre waited for a more definite question.
+
+"Seen the Territons lately?"
+
+"Not very. Haven't you?"
+
+"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"
+
+"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"
+
+"I haven't--not a line. We don't correspond: not _comme il faut_."
+
+"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"
+
+"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."
+
+"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"
+
+"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."
+
+"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."
+
+"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers--not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."
+
+"What on earth are you driving at?"
+
+"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."
+
+Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.
+
+"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."
+
+Eugene sat very quiet.
+
+"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"
+
+"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"
+
+"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."
+
+"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.
+
+"I say, does Claudia know?"
+
+"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."
+
+"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."
+
+"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"
+
+"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."
+
+"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"
+
+A shadow fell on Eugene's face.
+
+"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."
+
+Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.
+
+"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."
+
+Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.
+
+"So Morewood seems to think."
+
+"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."
+
+"It's kind of you to pity him."
+
+"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"
+
+"Anything in it?"
+
+"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"
+
+"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.
+
+Eugene looked very perturbed.
+
+"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."
+
+"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."
+
+"And she knew--of course she knew--you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"
+
+"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."
+
+"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.
+
+"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."
+
+"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"
+
+"Fact is, I don't show up over well."
+
+"You don't; that is a fact."
+
+"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."
+
+"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone--no girl could stand up against it."
+
+"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."
+
+"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well--"
+
+"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.
+
+"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."
+
+"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."
+
+"Pooh! she knows."
+
+"She doesn't, I tell you."
+
+"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."
+
+"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."
+
+"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."
+
+"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."
+
+"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"
+
+And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the _Times_ as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+
+Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability--not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen--Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely--but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.
+
+Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town--on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast--he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.
+
+Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.
+
+He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy--an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"--his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,--Claudia would rescue him from that,--but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.
+
+With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.
+
+This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,--decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,--and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.
+
+Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.
+
+"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.
+
+"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."
+
+"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ should let her alone."
+
+Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover--even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene--ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop--when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do--he
+reconsidered the situation.
+
+The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him _hors de combat_. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other--that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship--only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.
+
+He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.
+
+After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.
+
+Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.
+
+With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.
+
+"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.
+
+
+Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws--it
+is more interesting to be peculiar--and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.
+
+Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.
+
+"I have been so completely out of the world--out of my own world--for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."
+
+"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"I wish I had now."
+
+Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.
+
+"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."
+
+"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.
+
+"It was from Miss Bernard."
+
+"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"
+
+"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."
+
+"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."
+
+"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."
+
+"I want you to know that I didn't know."
+
+"Really you are very kind."
+
+"I was afraid you would think--"
+
+"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.
+
+Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.
+
+"Why, that--why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."
+
+Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.
+
+"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"
+
+"Of course I don't mean--"
+
+"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."
+
+Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"
+
+This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.
+
+"You come and tell a girl--all but in words tell her--she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."
+
+"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us--"
+
+"Passed between us?"
+
+"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."
+
+"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"
+
+Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.
+
+"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."
+
+"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."
+
+"Won't you listen to me?"
+
+"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."
+
+"Oh, but do listen just a little--"
+
+Claudia suddenly changed her tone--indeed, her whole demeanor.
+
+"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."
+
+"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"
+
+"So it seems. What is that?"
+
+"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.
+
+"May I come again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.
+
+"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"
+
+"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."
+
+Claudia looked daggers.
+
+"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."
+
+"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."
+
+"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."
+
+"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."
+
+"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be--charming--to you. Sit down. What is it?"
+
+"It's about Stafford."
+
+"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"
+
+"He's coming down here."
+
+"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref--resource."
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"Don't mind saying what you mean--or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."
+
+"You're making me angry again."
+
+"But what do you think he's coming for?"
+
+"To see you, I suppose."
+
+"On the contrary. To see you."
+
+"Pray don't be absurd."
+
+"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No--wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+"No other."
+
+"But he--he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."
+
+"Yes. He's going to break it--if you'll help him."
+
+"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"
+
+"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."
+
+"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"
+
+"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."
+
+"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he--is he very
+unhappy about it?"
+
+"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."
+
+"You think that strange?"
+
+Eugene shook his head with a smile.
+
+    "'A man had given all other bliss
+    And all his worldly worth,'"
+
+he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"
+
+"To-day, I expect."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.
+
+"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.
+
+So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear--certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.
+
+When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.
+
+"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.
+
+"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.
+
+"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"
+
+"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."
+
+"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.
+
+"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."
+
+"You play up, old man," said Bob.
+
+"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."
+
+"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"
+
+"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."
+
+"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done--"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."
+
+"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.
+
+"I expect he'd be rather glad."
+
+"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."
+
+It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.
+
+He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:
+
+"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."
+
+"More? How?"
+
+"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."
+
+"No, no; that would have been too much."
+
+He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.
+
+"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."
+
+"Why no time?"
+
+"I must go straight over and see her."
+
+"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"
+
+"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said--we needn't be enemies."
+
+"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."
+
+"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."
+
+"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."
+
+Stafford nodded.
+
+"Well, did you?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"I tried to--I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you--you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."
+
+"I thought she wouldn't."
+
+Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.
+
+"I must try and make him understand," he thought.
+
+"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."
+
+"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.
+
+"And she didn't stop me in--in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."
+
+Stafford said nothing.
+
+"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."
+
+"Do you tell me not to go?"
+
+"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."
+
+"She said nothing of the sort?"
+
+"No--nothing explicit."
+
+"Merely declined to listen?"
+
+"Yes--but in a way."
+
+"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"
+
+"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."
+
+They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.
+
+"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."
+
+"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"
+
+Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.
+
+"I should be cut up," he said. "But no--not that."
+
+Stafford smiled sadly.
+
+"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.
+
+"You will come back?"
+
+"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."
+
+"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"
+
+"That depends," said Stafford.
+
+Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.
+
+
+It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.
+
+"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."
+
+Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.
+
+"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."
+
+"Dear old Eugene!"
+
+"But I hoped you would not."
+
+"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"
+
+"I was rather surprised at the way you went."
+
+"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"
+
+"Perhaps I did."
+
+"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood--"
+
+"Please, Father Stafford--"
+
+"Say Mr. Stafford."
+
+"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."
+
+"As you will--for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you--no, I am going on--and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."
+
+"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."
+
+"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"
+
+"As nothing more than a possibility--and a very unhappy possibility."
+
+"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.
+
+"To begin with: you could never love any one."
+
+"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."
+
+"How can it be over? You had sworn."
+
+"Yes; but it is over."
+
+"Dare you break your vow?"
+
+"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"
+
+"Nothing can make it right."
+
+"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."
+
+"You destroy all my esteem for you."
+
+"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."
+
+"Ah! don't say that!"
+
+"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."
+
+"I never thought of you as making love."
+
+"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love--and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."
+
+"Did you think I was in love with you?"
+
+"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"
+
+"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."
+
+"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"
+
+"Why, that I don't love you--I never did--oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.
+
+Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.
+
+"You never loved me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you will. You must, when you know my love--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are--"
+
+"No, I never can."
+
+"Is it true? Why?"
+
+"Because--oh! don't you see?"
+
+"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"
+
+No answer seemed possible but the truth.
+
+"Yes," she said, bowing her head.
+
+"And playing with me?"
+
+"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was beyond hurt?"
+
+"I suppose so. You set up to be."
+
+"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.
+
+"And the truth--in God's name let us have truth--is that you love him?"
+
+"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"
+
+"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is final--no hope? Think what it means to me."
+
+"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"
+
+"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."
+
+"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"
+
+Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.
+
+"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."
+
+"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost--all lost--and for nothing!"
+
+Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.
+
+"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"Where? I don't know yet."
+
+"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try--you must forget about it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, I must forget about it."
+
+"You will be yourself again--your old self--not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."
+
+"Yes," he said again, humoring her.
+
+"Surely you can do it--you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."
+
+"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.
+
+"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"
+
+He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:
+
+"Now I am going. You must forget--or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I--"
+
+"Yes, and you?"
+
+"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.
+
+"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"
+
+She started a step forward, but stopped again.
+
+"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"
+
+And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.
+
+And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.
+
+Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.
+
+"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"
+
+We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.
+
+Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the child.
+
+"Then I'll give you something to take to him."
+
+He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.
+
+He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.
+
+He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened--as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?
+
+Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.
+
+"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.
+
+It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.
+
+After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him--and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.
+
+He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.
+
+"A gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+"To see me? Who is it?"
+
+"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."
+
+"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?
+
+But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.
+
+"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."
+
+Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.
+
+Ayre took the chair his host gave him.
+
+"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"
+
+"How did you know I was here?"
+
+"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."
+
+"Has Eugene any news?"
+
+"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"
+
+"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"
+
+"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"
+
+"No, not now. You could have done no good before."
+
+"I could have told you it was no use."
+
+"I shouldn't have believed you."
+
+"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."
+
+"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"That's not the only thing with you."
+
+"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.
+
+"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."
+
+"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."
+
+"I don't know. But, yes--I expect so. You're hard hit."
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."
+
+"You're quite right."
+
+"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."
+
+"I really think you do. It surprises me."
+
+"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"
+
+"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"
+
+"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"
+
+"It's the old fellow's love for me."
+
+Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I have hardly had time to look round yet."
+
+"Why should it make any difference to you?"
+
+Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?
+
+"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"
+
+"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.
+
+"You think you're utterly smashed, of course--I know what a facer it can
+be--and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.
+
+Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.
+
+"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."
+
+"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."
+
+"I expected you'd say that."
+
+"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense--a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"
+
+"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."
+
+"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."
+
+"I don't see that. May I smoke?"
+
+He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.
+
+"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"
+
+"Certainly; that is--yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."
+
+"Ah! but you think it's true?"
+
+"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth--only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."
+
+It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.
+
+"You don't follow that?"
+
+"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"
+
+"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."
+
+"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"
+
+"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.
+
+Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.
+
+"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."
+
+"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Yes, I say--in all essentials."
+
+"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."
+
+"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"
+
+Stafford looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit--I don't know how you sit--in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."
+
+Stafford listened.
+
+"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."
+
+"In the Church?"
+
+"Yes--that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."
+
+"I've been very near trying it before now."
+
+"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."
+
+Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.
+
+"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.
+
+"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."
+
+"I doubt that motive."
+
+"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."
+
+Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's all misery," he said.
+
+"Now, yes. But not always."
+
+"And it's not what I meant."
+
+"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."
+
+"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."
+
+Ayre looked at him curiously.
+
+"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."
+
+"Is that a compliment?"
+
+"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."
+
+Stafford rose to show him out.
+
+"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.
+
+"You will think of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"
+
+"You were afraid of that?"
+
+"Yes. Was I wrong?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"
+
+"No; I promise."
+
+Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.
+
+"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night--and a life
+worth saving."
+
+And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.
+
+
+Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.
+
+It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.
+
+"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."
+
+"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."
+
+"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."
+
+"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."
+
+"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."
+
+Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.
+
+Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.
+
+"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."
+
+And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.
+
+"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.
+
+"I don't know. It's--but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.
+
+"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Not artists."
+
+"Dear me! no!"
+
+"Whom, then?"
+
+"Oh, the nobility and gentry."
+
+"And clergy?"
+
+A shadow passed across her face--but a fleeting shadow.
+
+"You paint very slowly," she said.
+
+"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."
+
+"Oh! Why?"
+
+"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."
+
+"Does the one exclude the other?"
+
+"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.
+
+"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.
+
+"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.
+
+"Surely tea is _compris_?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."
+
+Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and--well, she was amusing.
+
+Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.
+
+"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."
+
+"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.
+
+Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.
+
+"You've got her very well."
+
+"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."
+
+"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.
+
+"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl--but not
+overmuch, you know."
+
+"There's all I want."
+
+"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"
+
+"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."
+
+"A queer combination."
+
+"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"
+
+Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.
+
+"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.
+
+"I told you I didn't want to see you."
+
+"I know. But that was a month ago."
+
+"I was very much upset."
+
+"So was I, awfully!"
+
+"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."
+
+"How yours?"
+
+"Well, you see, he thought--"
+
+"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore--"
+
+"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"
+
+"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"
+
+"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"It would be death!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"
+
+"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."
+
+"I never intended any harm."
+
+"You never do."
+
+"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."
+
+"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."
+
+"Ah! that wasn't my reason."
+
+"Claudia, you must give me an answer."
+
+Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:
+
+"May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.
+
+"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.
+
+"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."
+
+"I don't."
+
+But it is very possible he did.
+
+The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.
+
+"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.
+
+Claudia was looking grave.
+
+"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"
+
+Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.
+
+"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."
+
+"So it does, in a way."
+
+"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"
+
+"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."
+
+"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"
+
+"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."
+
+"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.
+
+"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."
+
+"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."
+
+"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too _point-de-vice_ in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."
+
+"I am not the man that Stafford is--save for my lady's favor."
+
+"And you came in confidence?"
+
+"You had let me hope."
+
+"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"
+
+"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."
+
+"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"
+
+"With lucid intervals?"
+
+"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray--dynastic
+considerations--a suitable cousin."
+
+"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."
+
+"_Pereant quae ante te!_ You know a little Latin?"
+
+"I think I'd better not just now."
+
+"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."
+
+"I wasn't joking."
+
+"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."
+
+"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"
+
+"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"
+
+"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."
+
+"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."
+
+"A lofty function!"
+
+"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."
+
+"I will," she said; "and I am happy."
+
+"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"
+
+"I will brave the danger."
+
+"There is none. I have found my goddess."
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.
+
+"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"
+
+"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"
+
+"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"
+
+Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."
+
+And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+An End and a Beginning.
+
+
+When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.
+
+He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.
+
+"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."
+
+"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."
+
+"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very--well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"
+
+"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"
+
+"Probably. I told him to."
+
+"Well, that's all."
+
+"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"
+
+"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."
+
+"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"
+
+"I think he will."
+
+"Did you advise him to do that?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."
+
+"He spoke to me as if--as if he had no religion left."
+
+"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."
+
+"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"
+
+"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll never say anything to a lover again."
+
+"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends--for ambition,
+and so on?"
+
+"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up--I had to tide him over a bad hour."
+
+"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."
+
+"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."
+
+"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"
+
+"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?
+
+"His was once!"
+
+"Before he met--you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."
+
+"I would rather--"
+
+"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."
+
+"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."
+
+"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"
+
+"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."
+
+"Now he is well quit of me?"
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't like it."
+
+"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."
+
+"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"
+
+"I don't know; he has very good manners."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."
+
+"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."
+
+Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.
+
+Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself--it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the _r�le_ he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.
+
+Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there--Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.
+
+The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:
+
+"I have heard from Stafford."
+
+"Ah! what does he say?"
+
+"He has joined the Church of Rome."
+
+"I thought he would."
+
+Morewood grunted angrily.
+
+"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.
+
+"No; I think I referred to it."
+
+"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.
+
+"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"
+
+Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.
+
+"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."
+
+"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."
+
+"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"
+
+"I doubt it," said Ayre.
+
+"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."
+
+"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"
+
+"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"
+
+"Everything but the truth."
+
+"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"
+
+"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."
+
+Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the _odium
+theologicum_ imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.
+
+"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.
+
+"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps; will you show it me?"
+
+"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."
+
+He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:
+
+     "DEAR EUGENE:
+
+     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
+     PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     STIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL
+     LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
+     LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
+     WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER STIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
+     WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
+     PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER STIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
+     WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
+     DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     UPSILON~}.
+
+     "Yours always,
+
+     "C.S.K."
+
+"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"
+
+"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."
+
+Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.
+
+She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because you are most likely to know."
+
+"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think--"
+
+"Yes?" she said impatiently.
+
+"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Father Stafford
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER STAFFORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>FATHER STAFFORD</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ANTHONY HOPE</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><span>AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."</span></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="center"><span>F. TENNYSON NEELY</span><br />
+<span>PUBLISHER</span><br />
+<span>CHICAGO&nbsp;&nbsp;NEW YORK</span><br />
+<span>1895</span></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td align='left'>Eugene Lane and his Guests</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td align='left'>New Faces and Old Feuds</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td align='left'>Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td align='left'>Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td align='left'>How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td align='left'>Father Stafford Keeps Vigil</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td align='left'>An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td align='left'>Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td align='left'>The Battle of Baden</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td align='left'>Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td align='left'>Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td align='left'>Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td align='left'>A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a></td><td align='left'>Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a></td><td align='left'>An End and a Beginning</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FATHER_STAFFORD" id="FATHER_STAFFORD" />FATHER STAFFORD.</h2>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>Eugene Lane and his Guests.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.</p>
+
+<p>Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.</p>
+
+<p>He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,&mdash;though
+at this moment rather a bored one,&mdash;large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.</p>
+
+<p>As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from <i>The Universe</i>) will
+begin."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his <i>fianc&eacute;e</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."</p>
+
+<p>Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't, my dear Kate&mdash;not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."</p>
+
+<p>"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.</p>
+
+<p>"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"The fifth is&mdash;" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is&mdash;Father Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, where did you pick <i>him</i> up?" asked Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."</p>
+
+<p>"Who says he can?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the Bishop!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, of course he can."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women&mdash;very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"</p>
+
+<p>"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits&mdash;I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.</p>
+
+<p>"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of medi&aelig;valism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.</p>
+
+<p>"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"Dashed if I do," said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"He steals other birds' nests&mdash;eggs and all."</p>
+
+<p>"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! come and play billiards."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, does she make you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.</p>
+
+<p>"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."</p>
+
+<p>Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+<i>fait accompli</i>, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement&mdash;an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."</p>
+
+<p>Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.</p>
+
+<p>Kate rose with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tennyson&mdash;always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:</p>
+
+<p>"So am I."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you! You need not be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."</p>
+
+<p>A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked away toward the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have&mdash;a great many."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why?"</p>
+
+<p>"My modesty forbids me to think."</p>
+
+<p>"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent&mdash;and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II" />CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>New Faces and Old Feuds.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring&mdash;and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane&mdash;that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father&mdash;the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little knocked up."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the glance.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.</p>
+
+<p>"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.</p>
+
+<p>"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."</p>
+
+<p>"I take it because I like it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't take it because I like it."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Father Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry&mdash;but&mdash;but I thought you looked so ill."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject&mdash;not being a new one&mdash;might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:</p>
+
+<p>"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."</p>
+
+<p>"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,&mdash;or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,&mdash;they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.</p>
+
+<p>"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood directed a glance at him.</p>
+
+<p>"He's mad!" he said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe all he does?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood looked at him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.</p>
+
+<p>Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.</p>
+
+<p>Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Absolute silence.</p>
+
+<p>"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"</p>
+
+<p>Kate smiled bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>How</i> annoying! What's he doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.</p>
+
+<p>Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think you can stand it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stand what, my dear fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the life you lead&mdash;a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very medi&aelig;val? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it right for a good many people, though?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."</p>
+
+<p>"For me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."</p>
+
+<p>"No; tell me now."</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! I take that for granted."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"I could never do it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not&mdash;or, at least, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late or too early, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so, but I will not say so."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I think you're all wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>"You will fail."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid! but if he pleases&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"After all, what are meat, wine, and&mdash;and so on for?"</p>
+
+<p>"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to say he is not."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it particularly about?"</p>
+
+<p>"An immaterial matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."</p>
+
+<p>"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is&mdash;well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haddington didn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.</p>
+
+<p>Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III" />CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.</h3>
+
+
+<p>For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.</p>
+
+<p>Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed&mdash;and wondered if
+others did&mdash;that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close <i>rapprochement</i> between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.</p>
+
+<p>The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart&mdash;which is not usually the
+case&mdash;easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+<i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington&mdash;a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.</p>
+
+<p>She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i>
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington&mdash;breakfast, lunch,
+tea&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean when you are alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you must know my great&mdash;my only object in being here is to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have noticed my&mdash;my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"</p>
+
+<p>This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known&mdash;how, I do not
+know&mdash;to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet&mdash;but in
+time, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you&mdash;which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a <i>pis-aller</i>.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>pis-aller</i>! What in the world do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been&mdash;had appeared to be out of reach?"</p>
+
+<p>This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great blow to me&mdash;a great blow."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Haddington was a little at loss.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another&mdash;she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me&mdash;forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that? If you only knew&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. They're <i>engaged</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."</p>
+
+<p>"If you ask me, I will try to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, stay&mdash;but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other&mdash;about them, I mean. You will stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing&mdash;but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as&mdash;as a second string!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was you who put it in my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what have I done!"</p>
+
+<p>Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's <i>fianc&eacute;e</i> that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.</p>
+
+<p>"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say what it was about?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I didn't ask him."</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you are alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, as you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Even to telegrams?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! poor Lane!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;rather of envy."</p>
+
+<p>Kate did not look displeased.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Haddington!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard&mdash;there, I am offending you again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I don't mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be very discreditable&mdash;but not so bad."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+<i>that</i>?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.</p>
+
+<p>Kate rose.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No&mdash;don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."</p>
+
+<p>Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."</p>
+
+<p>It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV" />CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.</h3>
+
+
+<p>About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."</p>
+
+<p>"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you like your new neighbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"What new neighbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Intellect."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."</p>
+
+<p>"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. <i>Apropos</i>, what are you doing
+down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Known her since she was a child."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems uncommonly appreciative."</p>
+
+<p>"Of Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't want their history&mdash;a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only&mdash;I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do he and the rest of them think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't shown it to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you've seen it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Here he comes!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know he's booked."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing&mdash;in its
+way&mdash;I ever did."</p>
+
+<p>"Going to exhibit it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereto Morewood answered only:</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see."</p>
+
+<p>As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's a picture to be seen&mdash;Morewood's latest."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stafford," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pope in full canonicals?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."</p>
+
+<p>"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but&mdash;fine, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."</p>
+
+<p>"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,&mdash;we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,&mdash;and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."</p>
+
+<p>He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.</p>
+
+<p>It was merely a head&mdash;nothing more&mdash;standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.</p>
+
+<p>The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.</p>
+
+<p>"The finest thing I ever did&mdash;on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.</p>
+
+<p>The others looked keenly at him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood's face was a study.</p>
+
+<p>"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.</p>
+
+<p>"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't. It will be interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall be a change?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"She means no harm," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not our business if we could," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why are you moping here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.</p>
+
+<p>"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"</p>
+
+<p>She got up and came close to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."</p>
+
+<p>"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+<i>sociable</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+
+<p>"A sociable."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean a tricycle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;for two."</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it be fun?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no, perhaps not; round the park."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet. But will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."</p>
+
+<p>"I must go and put on an old frock."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; be quick."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well&mdash;if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.</p>
+
+<p>"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with her?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was struggling with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V" />CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.</p>
+
+<p>"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and&mdash;no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"</p>
+
+<p>Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is he in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,&mdash;they say women are that way,&mdash;but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you'd like to."</p>
+
+<p>"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."</p>
+
+<p>"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you see, Lane&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.</p>
+
+<p>"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and&mdash;well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it! a man has some feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a humbug, Ayre!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a very interesting problem."</p>
+
+<p>"It would."</p>
+
+<p>"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utter nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."</p>
+
+<p>"No more should I."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he would. No one could help it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let him see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's&mdash;still more of a
+lady's&mdash;education."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering&mdash;a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it&mdash;or, rather, it forced upon us?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.</p>
+
+<p>"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree&mdash;at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.</p>
+
+<p>"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better leave me out."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."</p>
+
+<p>"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it will be a shock to him."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't make him happier to be refused."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it likely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."</p>
+
+<p>"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness&mdash;and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene did not wince.</p>
+
+<p>"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."</p>
+
+<p>"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:</p>
+
+<p>"You could say nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."</p>
+
+<p>"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows!" groaned Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood returned.</p>
+
+<p>"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."</p>
+
+<p>"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"It is my face?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see it is."</p>
+
+<p>"You did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"A few days ago."</p>
+
+<p>"On your oath&mdash;no, you don't believe that&mdash;on your honor, is it truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw it&mdash;just as it is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But&mdash;yes,
+it is true. God help me!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."</p>
+
+<p>"Time, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No&mdash;I won't hurt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.</p>
+
+<p>"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Of course I shall write to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And&mdash;oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't Haddington staying here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."</p>
+
+<p>This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"An opportunity for quarreling."</p>
+
+<p>"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."</p>
+
+<p>"And whatever my feelings may be&mdash;and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were&mdash;I shall consider myself
+bound."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never proposed anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"Your conduct with Claudia&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that&mdash;but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.</p>
+
+<p>"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too&mdash;we have been here a
+terrible time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."</p>
+
+<p>"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."</p>
+
+<p>"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"In his room&mdash;at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very rude <i>old</i> gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same&mdash;against Bob and Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is it a question that no one else&mdash;say Kate, for instance&mdash;could
+help you with?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not about myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."</p>
+
+<p>But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"He looked it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."</p>
+
+<p>"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI" />CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."</p>
+
+<p>"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."</p>
+
+<p>"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care they don't make you a peer!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."</p>
+
+<p>"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre put up his eyeglass.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Apr&egrave;s?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all affectation."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."</p>
+
+<p>"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."</p>
+
+<p>"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious&mdash;especially in women."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm&mdash;gush, in fact&mdash;as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."</p>
+
+<p>This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:</p>
+
+<p>"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment&mdash;more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark&mdash;uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his&mdash;victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.</p>
+
+<p>In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly&mdash;yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.</p>
+
+<p>So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.</p>
+
+<p>The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.</p>
+
+<p>From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life&mdash;not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate&mdash;was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.</p>
+
+<p>It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator&mdash;the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction&mdash;oh! what a tiny fraction&mdash;of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much&mdash;whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly&mdash;aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene gently laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose&mdash;a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world&mdash;except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.</p>
+
+<p>Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII" />CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go&mdash;go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going&mdash;this lady and gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry&mdash;never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"You are determined on this, Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"On what?" she asked coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to go like this&mdash;to bolt&mdash;it almost comes to that&mdash;leaving things
+as they are between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"And with Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to insult me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene could not resist a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have left a note for you."</p>
+
+<p>"That will explain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."</p>
+
+<p>"How fagged you look!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am tired."</p>
+
+<p>"You must go now, and like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that is less bad than anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."</p>
+
+<p>The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.</p>
+
+<p>"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."</p>
+
+<p>"You can guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.</p>
+
+<p>"He's given it up, apparently."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the <i>fons et origo mali</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."</p>
+
+<p>"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not <i>simpliciter</i>, you know. <i>Secundum quid</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Secundum feminam</i>, in fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I brought him up, too."</p>
+
+<p>"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."</p>
+
+<p>"I think they must be&mdash;a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.</p>
+
+<p>"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant Father Stafford, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you why he had to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like unaccountable people?"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."</p>
+
+<p>This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you might know."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, rather."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? <i>I</i>
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>"I accept that as a diplomatic advance&mdash;not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."</p>
+
+<p>"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."</p>
+
+<p>Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't go killing birds?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't kill birds."</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be only a pack of men there."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. But I don't mind that&mdash;if the scenery is good."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you're trying to make me angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no heart, Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But I have a prefix."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because that would imply you were serious."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be wrong if I were?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."</p>
+
+<p>"See what?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you seemed&mdash;perhaps you didn't mean it&mdash;to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept <i>us</i> apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I see. I must congratulate you."</p>
+
+<p>"On what?"</p>
+
+<p>"On having bagged a brace&mdash;without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"</p>
+
+<p>And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."</p>
+
+<p>"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"How a coincidence!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wanted to know."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you want him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."</p>
+
+<p>"You would if you'd come a little sooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I'll go and find him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should."</p>
+
+<p>And off he went.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit&mdash;and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."</p>
+
+<p>And perhaps it was about time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII" />CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself&mdash;a surprise that now took
+the place of shame&mdash;he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.</p>
+
+<p>No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that&mdash;and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead&mdash;but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.</p>
+
+<p>It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet&mdash;time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.</p>
+
+<p>"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.</p>
+
+<p>The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?&mdash;strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?&mdash;strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.</p>
+
+<p>While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.</p>
+
+<p>The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great <i>&eacute;clat</i>; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it&mdash;to use the
+technical term&mdash;and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M.&nbsp;P., had also "proceeded" thither.</p>
+
+<p>"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and&mdash;[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with&mdash;[more irrelevant matter]."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"</p>
+
+<p>And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"</p>
+
+<p>Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."</p>
+
+<p>"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie&mdash;a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.</p>
+
+<p>"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"You might influence him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."</p>
+
+<p>And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.</p>
+
+<p>In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.</p>
+
+<p>Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."</p>
+
+<p>He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."</p>
+
+<p>"With Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."</p>
+
+<p>"Much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny&mdash;a fancy bet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"</p>
+
+<p>"She wouldn't suit Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"No; lead him the devil of a life."</p>
+
+<p>"She don't care for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a straw."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, why don't she break it off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+<i>verbot</i> here&mdash;penalty one mark&mdash;see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."</p>
+
+<p>"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.</p>
+
+<p>"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."</p>
+
+<p>"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her&mdash;yes or no."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? it's not my funeral!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+<i>him</i> shamefully."</p>
+
+<p>"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"</p>
+
+<p>"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"</p>
+
+<p>"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you won't bungle it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I might lie a bit?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.</p>
+
+<p>What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:</p>
+
+<p>"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he bite?"</p>
+
+<p>"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he stand up to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what she'll say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside&mdash;one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+<i>rubesco referens</i>, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's&mdash;it's
+not respectful."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not break my engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"That is no answer."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it. I have been taught&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're very unkind."</p>
+
+<p>"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you be patient?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you admit&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will wait&mdash;I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"</p>
+
+<p>A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.</p>
+
+<p>"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's very wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"</p>
+
+<p>The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I have your promise, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't let him win you over?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."</p>
+
+<p>They had risen by now.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.</p>
+
+<p>"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But&mdash;no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX" />CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Battle of Baden.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from <i>ennui</i> for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.</p>
+
+<p>He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.</p>
+
+<p>He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.</p>
+
+<p>"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.</p>
+
+<p>"It concerns you."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In order to serve a friend, I did a&mdash;well&mdash;a doubtful thing."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."</p>
+
+<p>"We have known one another some time."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre smiled at the implied correction.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you object to plain speaking?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I should have no right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly don't see on what ground."</p>
+
+<p>"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."</p>
+
+<p>"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As an old friend of his&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and&mdash;pardon
+me&mdash;you must hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what if I refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."</p>
+
+<p>Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."</p>
+
+<p>Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he send you to tell me this?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know he didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia&mdash;a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean you must release Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is not usual&mdash;and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right&mdash;it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must tell Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.</p>
+
+<p>"You are engaged to Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise&mdash;an absolute promise."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not a happy guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you accuse me of such things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolute knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, last night."</p>
+
+<p>Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.</p>
+
+<p>"You listened!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I listened."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what a gentleman does?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a rule, it is not."</p>
+
+<p>"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"</p>
+
+<p>"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."</p>
+
+<p>"What could you tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him&mdash;keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.</p>
+
+<p>"You see I could&mdash;if you'll allow me the metaphor&mdash;blow you out of the
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this&mdash;well, this
+is a little strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't, what will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"That's another point."</p>
+
+<p>"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"</p>
+
+<p>"To whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you give me a week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a day!"</p>
+
+<p>Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.</p>
+
+<p>"But you promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort&mdash;fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it&mdash;I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+<i>fianc&eacute;e</i> would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond&mdash;whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made&mdash;indeed, he was brimming over
+with it&mdash;was:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"</p>
+
+<p>What with one thing&mdash;packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles&mdash;Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.</p>
+
+<p>"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; never mind! It doesn't matter&mdash;all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder&mdash;eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.</p>
+
+<p>"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any fun in that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.</p>
+
+<p>The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other <i>impedimenta</i>, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it really true?</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers looked at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.</p>
+
+<p>Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."</p>
+
+<p>"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't tell him so&mdash;not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't take him."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! no."</p>
+
+<p>Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.</p>
+
+<p>"Think Lane'll write to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to, right off."</p>
+
+<p>"Queer girl, ain't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Deuced!"</p>
+
+<p>"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."</p>
+
+<p>"What? with Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; the other business."</p>
+
+<p>And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X" />CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.</p>
+
+<p>This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"</p>
+
+<p>The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how in the world did you come here?"</p>
+
+<p>The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I am staying near here."</p>
+
+<p>"For health, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;for health."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Have some lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"There's only enough for one," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, man!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, really; I never take it."</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:</p>
+
+<p>"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sent for?"</p>
+
+<p>"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not thin-skinned&mdash;not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"That head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you did me a service."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+<i>regimen</i> at the Retreat was no doubt severe.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love&mdash;barring a
+sound reason against it."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't bore you about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I like jawing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry&mdash;there were even more stringent terms&mdash;but that's
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I think I could manage the first sort."</p>
+
+<p>"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."</p>
+
+<p>"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're advising me to make one now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you don't believe in anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, probably."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You believed what a priest believes&mdash;in heaven and hell&mdash;the gaining
+God and the losing him&mdash;in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him&mdash;had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others&mdash;a baseness, a treason, a desertion&mdash;more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight&mdash;as base as a thief's purloining&mdash;meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"</p>
+
+<p>He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"All that," he went on, "it meant to me&mdash;all that and more&mdash;the triumph
+of the beast in me&mdash;passion and desire rampant&mdash;man forsaken and God
+betrayed&mdash;my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood rose and paced up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;now can you judge? You say you knew&mdash;did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still believe all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment&mdash;a day&mdash;perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt&mdash;I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."</p>
+
+<p>"If you break this vow you think you will be&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The creature I have said? Yes&mdash;and worse."</p>
+
+<p>"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.</p>
+
+<p>"But if you thought as I think, then would your love&mdash;yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood stood still.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.</p>
+
+<p>"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was touched with pity.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Get over it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"You have never felt belief?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for many years. That's all gone."</p>
+
+<p>"You think you have been in love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have&mdash;half a dozen times."</p>
+
+<p>"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you what belief is&mdash;I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."</p>
+
+<p>A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Still?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;after a time."</p>
+
+<p>"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference&mdash;as if the result mattered!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are right there."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. But she will have me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me; I dare say you do."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want to talk about that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."</p>
+
+<p>"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."</p>
+
+<p>"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."</p>
+
+<p>"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.</p>
+
+<p>He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"DEAR AYRE:</p>
+
+<p>     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief&mdash;which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.</p>
+
+<p>     "Yours,</p>
+
+<p>     "A. MOREWOOD."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad&mdash;if he is mad&mdash;must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."</p>
+
+<p>He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how's everybody?"</p>
+
+<p>Ayre waited for a more definite question.</p>
+
+<p>"Seen the Territons lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very. Haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't&mdash;not a line. We don't correspond: not <i>comme il faut</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."</p>
+
+<p>"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers&mdash;not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth are you driving at?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene sat very quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."</p>
+
+<p>"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, does Claudia know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."</p>
+
+<p>"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"</p>
+
+<p>A shadow fell on Eugene's face.</p>
+
+<p>"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.</p>
+
+<p>"So Morewood seems to think."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."</p>
+
+<p>"It's kind of you to pity him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene looked very perturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"And she knew&mdash;of course she knew&mdash;you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."</p>
+
+<p>"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fact is, I don't show up over well."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't; that is a fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone&mdash;no girl could stand up against it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! she knows."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't, I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"</p>
+
+<p>And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the <i>Times</i> as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI" />CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure</h3>
+
+
+<p>Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability&mdash;not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen&mdash;Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely&mdash;but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining&mdash;a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain&mdash;this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town&mdash;on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast&mdash;he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy&mdash;an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"&mdash;his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,&mdash;Claudia would rescue him from that,&mdash;but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.</p>
+
+<p>With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.</p>
+
+<p>This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,&mdash;decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,&mdash;and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You can if you like. <i>I</i> should let her alone."</p>
+
+<p>Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover&mdash;even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene&mdash;ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop&mdash;when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do&mdash;he
+reconsidered the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him <i>hors de combat</i>. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other&mdash;that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship&mdash;only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.</p>
+
+<p>With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII" />CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws&mdash;it
+is more interesting to be peculiar&mdash;and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been so completely out of the world&mdash;out of my own world&mdash;for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had now."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.</p>
+
+<p>"It was from Miss Bernard."</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."</p>
+
+<p>"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to know that I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Really you are very kind."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you would think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that&mdash;why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.</p>
+
+<p>"This is too much!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I don't mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"You come and tell a girl&mdash;all but in words tell her&mdash;she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Passed between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."</p>
+
+<p>"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you listen to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but do listen just a little&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Claudia suddenly changed her tone&mdash;indeed, her whole demeanor.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"</p>
+
+<p>"So it seems. What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.</p>
+
+<p>"May I come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia looked daggers.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."</p>
+
+<p>"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."</p>
+
+<p>"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."</p>
+
+<p>"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be&mdash;charming&mdash;to you. Sit down. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming down here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref&mdash;resource."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mind saying what you mean&mdash;or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"You're making me angry again."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you think he's coming for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To see you, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary. To see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't be absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No&mdash;wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Father Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"No other."</p>
+
+<p>"But he&mdash;he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He's going to break it&mdash;if you'll help him."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he&mdash;is he very
+unhappy about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that strange?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene shook his head with a smile.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>"'A man had given all other bliss<br /></span>
+<span>And all his worldly worth,'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear&mdash;certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.</p>
+
+<p>When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."</p>
+
+<p>"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"You play up, old man," said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he'd be rather glad."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."</p>
+
+<p>It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."</p>
+
+<p>"More? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; that would have been too much."</p>
+
+<p>He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why no time?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go straight over and see her."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said&mdash;we needn't be enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."</p>
+
+<p>"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought not."</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to&mdash;I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you&mdash;you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>"I must try and make him understand," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And she didn't stop me in&mdash;in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you tell me not to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"She said nothing of the sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;nothing explicit."</p>
+
+<p>"Merely declined to listen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I should be cut up," he said. "But no&mdash;not that."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," said Stafford.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII" />CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old Eugene!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I hoped you would not."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was rather surprised at the way you went."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Father Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say Mr. Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will&mdash;for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you&mdash;no, I am going on&mdash;and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As nothing more than a possibility&mdash;and a very unhappy possibility."</p>
+
+<p>"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.</p>
+
+<p>"To begin with: you could never love any one."</p>
+
+<p>"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."</p>
+
+<p>"How can it be over? You had sworn."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but it is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Dare you break your vow?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can make it right."</p>
+
+<p>"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."</p>
+
+<p>"You destroy all my esteem for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! don't say that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of you as making love."</p>
+
+<p>"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love&mdash;and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think I was in love with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that I don't love you&mdash;I never did&mdash;oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"You never loved me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will. You must, when you know my love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I never can."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;oh! don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer seemed possible but the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, bowing her head.</p>
+
+<p>"And playing with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I was beyond hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so. You set up to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"And the truth&mdash;in God's name let us have truth&mdash;is that you love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is final&mdash;no hope? Think what it means to me."</p>
+
+<p>"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost&mdash;all lost&mdash;and for nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."</p>
+
+<p>"Go where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where? I don't know yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try&mdash;you must forget about it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must forget about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be yourself again&mdash;your old self&mdash;not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said again, humoring her.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you can do it&mdash;you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am going. You must forget&mdash;or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"</p>
+
+<p>She started a step forward, but stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"</p>
+
+<p>And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.</p>
+
+<p>And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.</p>
+
+<p>"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"</p>
+
+<p>We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll give you something to take to him."</p>
+
+<p>He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.</p>
+
+<p>He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened&mdash;as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.</p>
+
+<p>"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.</p>
+
+<p>After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him&mdash;and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.</p>
+
+<p>He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"To see me? Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?</p>
+
+<p>But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.</p>
+
+<p>Ayre took the chair his host gave him.</p>
+
+<p>"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know I was here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Eugene any news?"</p>
+
+<p>"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not now. You could have done no good before."</p>
+
+<p>"I could have told you it was no use."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have believed you."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not the only thing with you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But, yes&mdash;I expect so. You're hard hit."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think you do. It surprises me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the old fellow's love for me."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have hardly had time to look round yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it make any difference to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?</p>
+
+<p>"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you're utterly smashed, of course&mdash;I know what a facer it can
+be&mdash;and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."</p>
+
+<p>"I expected you'd say that."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense&mdash;a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that. May I smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; that is&mdash;yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! but you think it's true?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth&mdash;only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't follow that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."</p>
+
+<p>"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Never again."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I say&mdash;in all essentials."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at him inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit&mdash;I don't know how you sit&mdash;in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford listened.</p>
+
+<p>"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."</p>
+
+<p>"In the Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been very near trying it before now."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.</p>
+
+<p>"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt that motive."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all misery," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, yes. But not always."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's not what I meant."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre looked at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a compliment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford rose to show him out.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were afraid of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Was I wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I promise."</p>
+
+<p>Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.</p>
+
+<p>"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night&mdash;and a life
+worth saving."</p>
+
+<p>And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV" />CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.</p>
+
+<p>"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."</p>
+
+<p>"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."</p>
+
+<p>"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."</p>
+
+<p>Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."</p>
+
+<p>And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. It's&mdash;but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"Not artists."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whom, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the nobility and gentry."</p>
+
+<p>"And clergy?"</p>
+
+<p>A shadow passed across her face&mdash;but a fleeting shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"You paint very slowly," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."</p>
+
+<p>"Does the one exclude the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely tea is <i>compris</i>?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and&mdash;well, she was amusing.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.</p>
+
+<p>"You've got her very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl&mdash;but not
+overmuch, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"There's all I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."</p>
+
+<p>"A queer combination."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"</p>
+
+<p>Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.</p>
+
+<p>"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you I didn't want to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. But that was a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I was very much upset."</p>
+
+<p>"So was I, awfully!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."</p>
+
+<p>"How yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, he thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"To you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."</p>
+
+<p>"I never intended any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"You never do."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."</p>
+
+<p>"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that wasn't my reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Claudia, you must give me an answer."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"May I call to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't."</p>
+
+<p>But it is very possible he did.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Claudia was looking grave.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p>Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."</p>
+
+<p>"So it does, in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too <i>point-de-vice</i> in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not the man that Stafford is&mdash;save for my lady's favor."</p>
+
+<p>"And you came in confidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had let me hope."</p>
+
+<p>"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."</p>
+
+<p>"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"</p>
+
+<p>"With lucid intervals?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray&mdash;dynastic
+considerations&mdash;a suitable cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pereant quae ante te!</i> You know a little Latin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better not just now."</p>
+
+<p>"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't joking."</p>
+
+<p>"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."</p>
+
+<p>"A lofty function!"</p>
+
+<p>"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."</p>
+
+<p>"I will," she said; "and I am happy."</p>
+
+<p>"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will brave the danger."</p>
+
+<p>"There is none. I have found my goddess."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"</p>
+
+<p>Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."</p>
+
+<p>And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV" />CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>An End and a Beginning.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."</p>
+
+<p>"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very&mdash;well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."</p>
+
+<p>"Say on."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably. I told him to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he will."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you advise him to do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke to me as if&mdash;as if he had no religion left."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never say anything to a lover again."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends&mdash;for ambition,
+and so on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up&mdash;I had to tide him over a bad hour."</p>
+
+<p>"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."</p>
+
+<p>"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."</p>
+
+<p>"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?</p>
+
+<p>"His was once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Before he met&mdash;you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."</p>
+
+<p>"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."</p>
+
+<p>"Now he is well quit of me?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; he has very good manners."</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.</p>
+
+<p>Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself&mdash;it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there&mdash;Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard from Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! what does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has joined the Church of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he would."</p>
+
+<p>Morewood grunted angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I think I referred to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it," said Ayre.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything but the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the <i>odium
+theologicum</i> imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; will you show it me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."</p>
+
+<p>He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"DEAR EUGENE:</p>
+
+<p>     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for &#8134;&#963;&#964;&#8125; &#7936;&#947;&#945;&#965;&#959;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#987;&#8017;&#8131; &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#963;&#959;&#7985;&#987; &#7936;&#947;&#945;&#957;&#8150;&#987;
+     &#7952;&#960;&#7953;&#949;&#963;&#963;&#953;&#965;.</p>
+
+<p>     "Yours always,</p>
+
+<p>     "C.S.K."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."</p>
+
+<p>Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.</p>
+
+<p>She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are most likely to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she said impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
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+</html>
diff --git a/old/14755.txt b/old/14755.txt
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+++ b/old/14755.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Father Stafford
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER STAFFORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD
+
+BY
+
+ANTHONY HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "A MAN OF MARK," "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA."
+
+F. TENNYSON NEELY
+PUBLISHER
+CHICAGO  NEW YORK
+1895
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I.     Eugene Lane and his Guests
+
+II.    New Faces and Old Feuds
+
+III.   Father Stafford Changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views
+
+IV.    Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece
+
+V.     How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best
+
+VI.    Father Stafford Keeps Vigil
+
+VII.   An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement
+
+VIII.  Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action
+
+IX.    The Battle of Baden
+
+X.     Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation
+
+XI.    Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+XII.   Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind
+
+XIII.  A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel
+
+XIV.   Some People are as Fortunate as they Deserve to Be
+
+XV.    An End and a Beginning
+
+
+
+
+FATHER STAFFORD.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Eugene Lane and his Guests.
+
+
+The world considered Eugene Lane a very fortunate young man; and if
+youth, health, social reputation, a seat in Parliament, a large income,
+and finally the promised hand of an acknowledged beauty can make a man
+happy, the world was right. It is true that Sir Roderick Ayre had been
+heard to pity the poor chap on the ground that his father had begun life
+in the workhouse; but everybody knew that Sir Roderick was bound to
+exalt the claims of birth, inasmuch as he had to rely solely upon them
+for a reputation, and discounted the value of his opinion accordingly.
+After all, it was not as if the late Mr. Lane had ended life in the
+undesirable shelter in question. On the contrary, his latter days had
+been spent in the handsome mansion of Millstead Manor; and, as he lay on
+his deathbed, listening to the Rector's gentle homily on the vanity of
+riches, his eyes would wander to the window and survey a wide tract of
+land that he called his own, and left, together with immense sums of
+money, to his son, subject only to a jointure for his wife. It is hard
+to blame the tired old man if he felt, even with the homily ringing in
+his ears, that he had not played his part in the world badly.
+
+Millstead Manor was indeed the sort of place to raise a doubt as to the
+utter vanity of riches. It was situated hard by the little village of
+Millstead, that lies some forty miles or so northwest of London, in the
+middle of rich country. The neighborhood afforded shooting, fishing, and
+hunting, if not the best of their kind, yet good enough to satisfy
+reasonable people. The park was large and well wooded; the house had
+insisted on remaining picturesque in spite of Mr. Lane's improvements,
+and by virtue of an indelible stamp of antiquity had carried its point.
+A house that dates from Elizabeth is not to be entirely put to shame by
+one or two unblushing French windows and other trifling barbarities of
+that description, more especially when it is kept in countenance by a
+little church of still greater age, nestling under its wing in a manner
+that recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of
+the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed
+by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play
+the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene
+sustained the _role_ with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency
+that marked most of his doings.
+
+He stood one Saturday morning in the latter part of July on the steps
+that led from the terrace to the lawn, holding a letter in his hand and
+softly whistling. In appearance he was not, it must be admitted, an
+ideal Squire, for he was but a trifle above middle height, rather
+slight, and with the little stoop that tells of the man who is town-bred
+and by nature more given to indoor than outdoor exercises; but he was a
+good-looking fellow for all that, with a bright humorous face,--though
+at this moment rather a bored one,--large eyes set well apart, and his
+proper allowance of brown hair and white teeth. Altogether, it may
+safely be said that, not even Sir Roderick's nose could have sniffed the
+workhouse in the young master of Millstead Manor.
+
+Still whistling, Eugene descended the steps and approached a group of
+people sitting under a large copper-beech tree. A still, hot summer
+morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of
+them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in
+her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of
+reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only
+just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his
+sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in
+possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in
+flannels, with lawn-tennis racquets lying idle by them. A large jug of
+beer close to the elbow of one of them completed the luxurious picture
+that was framed in a light cloud of tobacco smoke, traceable to the
+person who also was obviously responsible for the beer.
+
+As Eugene approached, a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He stopped
+deliberately, and with great care lit a cigar.
+
+"Why wasn't I smoking, I wonder!" he said. "The sight of Bob Territon
+reminded me." Then as he reached them, raising his voice, he went on:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt you, and with bad news."
+
+"What is the matter, dear," asked Mrs. Lane, a gentle old lady, who
+having once had the courage to leave the calm of her father's country
+vicarage to follow the doubtful fortunes of her husband, was now reaping
+her reward in a luxury of which she had never dreamed.
+
+"With the arrival of the 4.15 this afternoon," Eugene continued, "our
+placid life will be interrupted, and one of Mr. Eugene Lane, M.P.'s,
+celebrated Saturday to Monday parties (I quote from _The Universe_) will
+begin."
+
+"Who's coming?" asked Miss Bernard.
+
+Miss Bernard was the acknowledged beauty referred to in the opening
+lines of this chapter, whose love Eugene had been lucky enough to
+secure. Had Eugene not been absurdly rich himself, he might have been
+congratulated further on the prospective enjoyment of a nice little
+fortune as well as the lady's favor.
+
+"Is Rickmansworth coming?" put in Lady Claudia, before Eugene had time
+to reply to his _fiancee_.
+
+"Be at peace," he said, addressing Lady Claudia; "your brother is not
+coming. I have known Rickmansworth a long while, and I never knew him to
+be polite. He inquired by telegram (reply not paid) who were to be here.
+When I wired him, telling him whom I had the privilege of entertaining,
+and requesting an immediate reply (not paid), he answered that he
+thought I must have enough Territons already, and he didn't want to make
+another."
+
+Neither Lady Claudia nor her brother Robert, who was the young man with
+the beer, seemed put out at this message. Indeed, the latter went so far
+as to say:
+
+"Good! Have some beer, Eugene?"
+
+"But who is coming?" repeated Miss Kate. "Really, Eugene, you might pay
+a little attention to me."
+
+"Can't, my dear Kate--not in public. It's not good form, is it, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+"Eugene," said Mrs. Lane, in a tone as nearly severe as she ever arrived
+at, "if you wish your guests to have either dinner or beds, you will at
+once tell me who and how many they are."
+
+"My dear mother, they are in number five, composed as follows: First,
+the Bishop of Bellminster."
+
+"A most interesting man," observed Miss Chambers.
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Aunt Jane," responded Eugene. "The Bishop is
+accompanied by his wife. That makes two; and then old Merton, who was at
+the Colonial Office you know, and Morewood the painter make four."
+
+"Sir George Merton is a Radical, isn't he?" asked Lady Claudia severely.
+
+"He tries to be," said Eugene. "Shall I order a carriage to take you to
+the station? I think, you know, you can stand it, with Haddington's
+help."
+
+Mr. Spencer Haddington, the other young man in flannels, was a very
+rising member of the Conservative party, of which Lady Claudia conceived
+herself to be a pillar. Identity of political views, in Mr. Haddington's
+opinion, might well pave the way to a closer union, and this hope
+accounted for his having consented to pair with Eugene, who sat on the
+other side, and spend the last week in idleness at Millstead.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Robert Territon, "it sounds slow, old man."
+
+"Candid family, the Territons," remarked Eugene to the copper-beech.
+
+"Who's the fifth? you've only told us four," said Kate, who always
+stuck to the point.
+
+"The fifth is--" Eugene paused a moment, as though preparing a
+sensation; "the fifth is--Father Stafford."
+
+Now it was a remarkable thing that all the ladies looked up quickly and
+re-echoed the name of the last guest in accents of awe, whereas the men
+seemed unaffected.
+
+"Why, where did you pick _him_ up?" asked Lady Claudia.
+
+"Pick him up! I've known Charley Stafford since we were both that high.
+We were at Harrow and at Oxford together. Rickmansworth knows him, Bob.
+You didn't come till he'd left."
+
+"Why is the gentleman called 'Father'?" said Bob.
+
+"Because he is a priest," Miss Chambers answered. "And really, Mr.
+Territon, you're very ignorant. Everybody knows Father Stafford. You do,
+Mr. Haddington?"
+
+"Yes," said Haddington, "I've heard of him. He's an Anglican Father,
+isn't he? Had a big parish somewhere down the Mile End Road?"
+
+"Yes," said Eugene. "He's an old and a great friend of mine. He's quite
+knocked up, poor old chap, and had to get leave of absence; and I've
+made him promise to come and stay here for a good part of the time, to
+rest."
+
+"Then he's not going off again on Monday?" asked Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Oh, I hope not. He's writing a book or something, that will keep him
+from being restless."
+
+"How charming!" said Lady Claudia. "Don't you dote on him, Kate? Please,
+Mr. Lane, may I stay too?"
+
+"By the way," said Eugene, "Stafford has taken a vow of celibacy."
+
+"I knew that," said Lady Claudia imperturbably.
+
+Eugene looked mournful; Bob Territon groaned tragically; but Lady
+Claudia was quite unmoved, and, turning to the Rector, who sat smiling
+benevolently on the young people, asked:
+
+"Do you know Father Stafford, Dr. Dennis?"
+
+"No. I should be much interested in meeting him. I've heard so much of
+his work and his preaching."
+
+"Yes," said Lady Claudia, "and his penances and fasting, and so on."
+
+"Poor old Stafford!" said Eugene. "It's quite enough for him that a
+thing's pleasant to make it wrong."
+
+"Not your philosophy, Master Eugene!" said the Rector.
+
+"No, Doctor."
+
+"But what's this vow?" asked Kate.
+
+"There's no such thing as a binding vow of celibacy in the Anglican
+Church," announced Miss Chambers.
+
+"Is that right, Doctor?" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"God bless me, my dear," said the Rector, "I don't know. There wasn't
+in my time."
+
+"But, Eugene, surely I'm right," persisted Aunt Jane. "His Bishop can
+dispense him from it, can't he?"
+
+"Don't know," answered Eugene. "He says he can."
+
+"Who says he can?"
+
+"Why, the Bishop!"
+
+"Well, then, of course he can."
+
+"All right," said Eugene; "only Stafford doesn't think so. Not that he
+wants to be released. He doesn't care a bit about women--very
+ungrateful, as they're all mad about him."
+
+"That's very rude, Eugene," said Kate, in reproving tones. "Admiration
+for a saint is not madness. Shall we go in, Claudia, and leave these men
+to pipes and beer?"
+
+"One for you, Rector!" chuckled Bob Territon, who knew no reverence.
+
+The two girls departed somewhat scornfully, arm in arm, and the Rector
+too rose with a sigh, and accompanied the elder ladies to the house,
+whither they were going to meet the pony carriage that stood at the hall
+door. A daily drive was part of Mrs. Lane's ritual.
+
+"By the way, you fellows," Eugene resumed, throwing himself on the
+grass, "I may as well mention that Stafford doesn't drink, or eat meat,
+or smoke, or play cards, or anything else."
+
+"What a peculiar beggar!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes, and he's peculiar in another way," said Eugene, a little dryly;
+"he particularly objects to any remark being made on his habits--I mean
+on what he eats and drinks and so on."
+
+"There I agree," said Bob; "I object to any remarks on what I eat and
+drink"; and he look a long pull at the beer.
+
+"You must treat him with respect, young man. Haddington, I know, will
+study him as a phenomenon. I can't protect him against that."
+
+Mr. Haddington smiled and remarked that such revivals of mediaevalism
+were interesting, if morbid; and having so delivered himself, he too
+went his way.
+
+"That chap's considered very clever, isn't he?" asked Bob of his host,
+indicating Haddington's retreating figure.
+
+"Very, I believe," said Eugene. "He's a cuckoo, you see."
+
+"Dashed if I do," said Bob.
+
+"He steals other birds' nests--eggs and all."
+
+"Your natural history is a trifle mixed, old fellow; kindly explain."
+
+"Well, he's a thief of ideas. Never was the father of one himself, and
+gets his living by kidnapping."
+
+"I never knew such a chap!" ejaculated Bob helplessly. "Why can't you
+say plainly that you think he's an ass?"
+
+"I don't," said Eugene. "He's by no means an ass. He's a very clever
+fellow. But he lives on other men's ideas!"
+
+"Oh! come and play billiards."
+
+"I can't," said Eugene gravely. "I'm going to read poetry to Kate."
+
+"By Jove, does she make you do that?"
+
+Eugene nodded sadly, and Bob went off into a fit of obtrusive chuckling.
+Eugene cast a large cushion dexterously at him and caught him just in
+the mouth, and, still sadly, rose and went in search of his lady-love.
+
+"Why the dickens does he marry that girl?" exclaimed Bob. "It beats me."
+
+Bob Territon was not the only person in whom Eugene's engagement to Kate
+Bernard inspired some surprise. But neither he nor any one else
+succeeded in formulating very definite reasons for the feeling. Kate was
+a beauty, and a beauty of a type undeniably orthodox and almost
+aristocratic. She was tall and slight, her nose was the least trifle
+arched, her fingers tapered, and so, it was believed, did her feet. Her
+hair was golden, her mouth was small, and her accomplishments
+considerable. From her childhood she had been considered clever, and had
+vindicated her reputation by gaining more than one certificate from the
+various examining bodies which nowadays go up and down seeking whom they
+may devour. All these varied excellences Eugene had had full
+opportunities of appreciating, for Kate was a distant cousin of his on
+the mother's side, and had spent a large part of the last few years at
+the Manor. It was, in fact, so obviously the duty of the two young
+people to fall in love with one another, that the surprise exhibited by
+their friends could only have been based on a somewhat cynical view of
+humanity. The cynics ought to have considered themselves confuted by the
+_fait accompli_, but they refused to do so, and, led by Sir Roderick
+Ayre, had been known to descend to laying five to four against the
+permanency of the engagement--an obviously coarse and improper
+proceeding.
+
+It is possible that the odds might have risen a point or two, had these
+reprehensible persons been present at the little scene which occurred on
+the terrace, whither the girls had betaken themselves, and Eugene in his
+turn repaired when he had armed himself with Tennyson. As he approached
+Claudia rose to go and leave the lovers to themselves.
+
+"Don't go, Lady Claudia," said Eugene. "I'm not going to read anything
+you ought not to hear."
+
+Of course it was the right thing for Claudia to go, and she knew it. But
+she was a mischievous body, and the sight of a cloud on Kate's brow had
+upon her exactly the opposite effect to what it ought to have had.
+
+"You don't really want me to stay, do you? Wouldn't you two rather be
+alone?" she asked.
+
+"Much rather have you," Eugene answered.
+
+Kate rose with dignity.
+
+"We need not discuss that," she said. "I have letters to write, and am
+going indoors."
+
+"Oh, I say, Kate, don't do that! I came out on purpose to read to you."
+
+"Lady Claudia is quite ready to make an audience for you," was the
+chilling reply, as Kate vanished through the open door.
+
+"There, you've done it now!" said Eugene. "You really ought not to
+insist on staying."
+
+"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lane. But it's all your fault." And Claudia tried to
+make her face assume a look of gravity.
+
+A pause ensued, and then they both smiled.
+
+"What were you going to read?" asked Claudia.
+
+"Oh, Tennyson--always read Tennyson. Kate likes it, because she thinks
+it's simple."
+
+"You flatter yourself that you see the deeper meaning?"
+
+Eugene smiled complacently.
+
+"And you mean Kate doesn't? I'm glad I'm not engaged to you, Mr. Lane,
+if that's the kind of thing you say."
+
+Eugene opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said blandly:
+
+"So am I."
+
+"Thank you! You need not be afraid."
+
+"If I were engaged to you, I mightn't like you so well."
+
+A slight blush became visible on Claudia's usually pale cheek.
+
+Eugene looked away toward the horizon.
+
+"I like the way quite pale people blush," he said.
+
+"What do you want, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Ah! I see you appreciate my character. I want many things I can't
+have--a great many."
+
+"No doubt," said Claudia, still blushing under the mournful gaze which
+accompanied those words. "Do you want anything you can have?"
+
+"Yes! I want you to stay several more weeks."
+
+"I'm going to stay." said Claudia.
+
+"How kind!" exclaimed Eugene.
+
+"Do you know why?"
+
+"My modesty forbids me to think."
+
+"I want, to see a lot of Father Stafford! Good-by, Mr. Lane. I'll leave
+you to your private and particular understanding of Tennyson."
+
+"Claudia!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," she whispered, in tones of exasperation. "It's very
+wicked and very impertinent--and the library door's open, and Kate's in
+there!"
+
+Eugene fell back in his chair with a horrified look, and Claudia rushed
+into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+New Faces and Old Feuds.
+
+
+There was, no doubt, some excuse for the interest that the ladies at
+Millstead Manor had betrayed on hearing the name of Father Stafford. In
+these days, when the discussion of theological topics has emerged from
+the study into the street, there to jostle persons engaged in their
+lawful business, a man who makes for himself a position as a prominent
+champion of any view becomes, to a considerable extent, a public
+character; and Charles Stafford's career had excited much notice.
+Although still a young man but little past thirty, he was adored by a
+powerful body of followers, and received the even greater compliment of
+hearty detestation from all, both within and without the Church, to whom
+his views seemed dangerous and pernicious. He had administered a large
+parish with distinction; he had written a treatise of profound patristic
+learning and uncompromising sacerdotal pretensions. He had defended the
+institution of a celibate priesthood, and was known to have treated the
+Reformation with even less respect than it has been of late accustomed
+to receive. He had done more than all this: he had impressed all who met
+him with a character of absolute devotion and disinterestedness, and
+there were many who thought that a successor to the saints might be
+found in Stafford, if anywhere in this degenerate age. Yet though he
+was, or was thought to be, all this, his friends were yet loud in
+declaring--and ever foremost among them Eugene Lane--that a better,
+simpler, or more modest man did not exist. For the weakness of humanity,
+it may be added that Stafford's appearance gave him fully the external
+aspect most suitable to the part his mind urged him to play; for he was
+tall and spare; his fine-cut face, clean shaven, displayed the
+penetrating eyes, prominent nose, and large mobile mouth that the memory
+associates with pictures of Italian prelates who were also statesmen.
+These personal characteristics, combined with his attitude on Church
+matters, caused him to be familiarly known among the flippant by the
+nickname of the Pope.
+
+Eugene Lane stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of
+Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an
+apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was
+naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been
+overheard. Claudia herself was listening to the conversation of Mr.
+Morewood, the well-known artist; and Stafford, who had only arrived
+just before dinner, was still busy in answering Mrs. Lane's questions
+about his health. Sir George Merton had failed at the last moment, "like
+a Radical," said Claudia.
+
+"I am extremely interested in meeting your friend Father Stafford," said
+the Bishop.
+
+"Well, he's a first-rate fellow," replied Eugene. "I'm sure you'll like
+him."
+
+"You young fellows call him the Pope, don't you?" asked his lordship,
+who was a genial man.
+
+"Yes. You don't mind, do you? It's not as if we called him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."
+
+"I shouldn't consider even that very personal," said the Bishop,
+smiling.
+
+Dinner was announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering
+to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady
+found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well
+pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt
+Jane. The Bishop, of course, escorted the hostess.
+
+"And who," said he, almost as soon as he was comfortably settled to his
+soup, "is the young lady sitting by our friend the Father--the one, I
+mean, with dark hair, not Miss Bernard? I know her."
+
+"That's Lady Claudia Territon," said Mrs. Lane. "Very pretty, isn't she?
+and really a very good girl."
+
+"Do you say 'really' because, unless you did, I shouldn't believe it?"
+he asked, with a smile.
+
+Mrs. Lane had been moved by this idea, but not consciously and, a little
+distressed at suspecting herself of an unkindness, entertained the
+Bishop with an entirely fanciful catalogue of Claudia's virtues, which,
+being overheard by Bob Territon, who had no lady, and was at liberty to
+listen, occasioned him immense entertainment.
+
+Claudia, meanwhile, was drifting into a state of some annoyance.
+Stafford was very courteous and attentive, but he drank nothing, and
+apparently proposed to dine off dry bread. When she began to question
+him about his former parish, instead of showing the gratitude that might
+be expected, he smiled a smile that she found pleasure in describing as
+inscrutable, and said:
+
+"Please don't talk down to me, Lady Claudia."
+
+"I have been taught," responded Claudia, rather stiffly, "to talk about
+subjects in which my company is presumably interested."
+
+Stafford looked at her with some surprise. It must be admitted that he
+had become used to more submission than Claudia seemed inclined to give
+him.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. Let us talk about it."
+
+"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
+Stafford?"
+
+"A little knocked up."
+
+"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
+was now furnished with a potato.
+
+He saw the glance.
+
+"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."
+
+Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:
+
+"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
+Bishop does?"
+
+The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.
+
+"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.
+
+"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"
+
+"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
+now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
+explain why."
+
+"I take it because I like it."
+
+"And I don't take it because I like it."
+
+Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was
+confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who
+sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits
+to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery
+that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known one another well
+in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her
+playfellow both famous and not forgetful.
+
+Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
+wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
+and yet was devoting himself to Kate.
+
+"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
+champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
+Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
+was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
+quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
+thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her
+opportunity, and said in the softest voice:
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
+eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.
+
+"I am so sorry--but--but I thought you looked so ill."
+
+Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
+wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes. Suffice
+it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene's
+glance with a look of triumph and scorn.
+
+Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
+Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if
+he had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of
+his own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always
+treated it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must
+be allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were
+known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
+sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
+started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
+and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
+ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and
+there, one would have thought the subject--not being a new one--might
+well have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:
+
+"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
+inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
+
+The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed
+to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to
+hold.
+
+"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
+Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
+the place I am."
+
+"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
+traced to?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
+
+"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
+imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
+will,--or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,--they subserve
+the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
+out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
+
+"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
+observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
+
+"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
+"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
+
+"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what
+do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering
+his voice, indicated Stafford.
+
+Morewood directed a glance at him.
+
+"He's mad!" he said briefly.
+
+"I wish there were a few more with the same mania about."
+
+"You don't believe all he does?"
+
+"Perhaps I can't see all he does," said the Bishop, with a touch of
+sadness.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I have been longer in the cave, and perhaps I have peered too much
+through cave-spectacles."
+
+Morewood looked at him for a moment.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been rude, Bishop," he said more quietly, "but a man
+must say what he thinks."
+
+"Not at all times," said the Bishop; and he turned pointedly to Mrs.
+Lane and began to discuss indifferent matters.
+
+Morewood looked round with a discontented air. Miss Chambers was
+mortally angry with him and had turned to Bob Territon, whom she was
+trying to persuade to come to a bazaar at Bellminster on the Monday. Bob
+was recalcitrant, and here too the atmosphere became a little disturbed.
+The only people apparently content were Kate and Haddington and Lady
+Claudia and Stafford. To the rest it was a relief when Mrs. Lane gave
+the signal to rise.
+
+Matters improved, however, in the drawing-room. The Bishop and Stafford
+were soon deep in conversation; and Claudia, thus deprived of her former
+companion, condescended to be very gracious to Mr. Morewood, in the
+secret hope that that eccentric genius would make her the talk of the
+studios next summer by painting her portrait. Haddington and Bob had
+vanished with cigars; and Eugene looking round and seeing that all was
+peace, said to himself in an access of dutifulness. "Now for it!" and
+crossed over to where Kate sat, and invited her to accompany him into
+the garden.
+
+Kate acquiesced, but showed little other sign of relaxing her attitude
+of lofty displeasure. She left Eugene to begin.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Kate, if you were vexed this morning."
+
+Absolute silence.
+
+"But, you see, as host here, I couldn't very well turn out Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Why don't you say Claudia?" asked Kate, in sarcastic tones.
+
+Eugene felt inclined to fly, but he recognized that his only chance lay
+in pretending innocence when he had it not.
+
+"Are we to quarrel about a trifle of that sort?" he asked; "a girl I've
+known like a sister for the last ten years!"
+
+Kate smiled bitterly.
+
+"Do you really suppose that deceives me? Of course I am not afraid of
+your falling in love with Claudia; but it's very bad taste to have
+anything at all like flirtation with her."
+
+"Quite right; it is. It shall not occur again. Isn't that enough?"
+
+Kate, in spite of her confidence, was not anxious to drive Eugene with
+too tight a rein, so, with a nearer approach to graciousness she allowed
+it to appear that it was enough.
+
+"Then come along," he said, passing his arm around her waist, and
+running her briskly along the terrace to a seat at the end, where he
+deposited her.
+
+"Really, Eugene, one would think you were a schoolboy. Suppose any one
+had seen us!"
+
+"Some one did," said Eugene composedly, lighting his cigar.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Haddington. He was sitting on the step of the sun-dial, smoking."
+
+"_How_ annoying! What's he doing there?"
+
+"If you ask me, I expect he's waiting on the chance of Lady Claudia
+coming out."
+
+"I should think it very unlikely," said Kate, with an impatient tap of
+her foot; "and I wish you wouldn't do such things."
+
+Eugene smiled; and having thus, as he conceived, partly avenged himself,
+devoted the next ten minutes to orthodox love-making, with the warmth of
+which Kate had no reason to be discontent. On the expiration of that
+time he pleaded his obligations as a host, and they returned to the
+house, Kate much mollified, Eugene with the peaceful but fatigued air
+that tells of duty done.
+
+Before going to bed, Stafford and Eugene managed to get a few words
+together. Leaving the other men, except the Bishop, who was already at
+rest, in the billiard-room, they strolled out together on to the
+terrace.
+
+"Well, old man, how are you getting on?" asked Eugene.
+
+"Capitally! stronger every day in body and happier in mind. I grumbled a
+great deal when I first broke down, but now I'm not sure a rest isn't
+good for me. You can stop and have a look where you are going to."
+
+"And you think you can stand it?"
+
+"Stand what, my dear fellow?"
+
+"Why, the life you lead--a life studiously emptied of everything that
+makes life pleasant."
+
+"Ah! you are like Lady Claudia!" said Stafford, smiling. "I can tell
+you, though, what I can hardly tell her. There are some men who can make
+no terms with the body. Does that sound very mediaeval? I mean men who,
+unless they are to yield utterly to pleasure, must have no dealings with
+it."
+
+"You boycott pleasure for fear of being too fond of it?"
+
+"Yes; I don't lay down that rule for everybody. For me it is the right
+and only one."
+
+"You think it right for a good many people, though?"
+
+"Well, you know, the many-headed beast is strong."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Wait till I get at you from the pulpit."
+
+"No; tell me now."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+"Of course! I take that for granted."
+
+"Well, then, old fellow," said he, laying a hand on Eugene's arm, with a
+slight gesture of caress not unusual with him, "in candor and without
+unkindness, yes!"
+
+"I could never do it," said Eugene.
+
+"Perhaps not--or, at least, not yet."
+
+"Too late or too early, is it?"
+
+"It may be so, but I will not say so."
+
+"You know I think you're all wrong?"
+
+"I know."
+
+"You will fail."
+
+"God forbid! but if he pleases--"
+
+"After all, what are meat, wine, and--and so on for?"
+
+"That argument is beneath you, Eugene."
+
+"So it is. I beg your pardon. I might as well ask what the hangman is
+for if nobody is to be hanged. However, I'm determined that you shall
+enjoy yourself for a week here, whether you like it or not."
+
+Stafford smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob
+Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.
+
+"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound
+of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"
+
+"I am glad to say he is not."
+
+"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."
+
+"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."
+
+"What was it particularly about?"
+
+"An immaterial matter."
+
+"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"
+
+"No. What do you mean?"
+
+"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into
+it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."
+
+"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about
+your sister is--well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"
+
+"Haddington didn't like it."
+
+"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.
+
+Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the
+silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.
+
+
+For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing
+like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by
+well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps
+particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a
+round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise
+tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the
+bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was
+unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had
+begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to
+everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully
+busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance,
+but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
+Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
+tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
+great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
+morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
+assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
+daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
+less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.
+
+"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
+after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
+him."
+
+"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
+whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
+himself down with them.
+
+Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
+Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if
+others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
+successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
+troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
+best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
+possible from any close _rapprochement_ between Claudia and Stafford.
+Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
+throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
+it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
+this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
+scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
+genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active
+efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant,
+was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and
+perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way
+with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob
+Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual
+frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.
+
+Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his
+youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than
+visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had
+but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found
+himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in
+the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted
+with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world,
+except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and
+cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never
+seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects.
+Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned
+away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this
+direction. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict
+his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out to
+the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
+their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now preparing
+a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of common
+prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself flung into the
+very center of the sort of life he had with such pains avoided. It may
+be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful swimmer, ignorant of
+his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able to search out his
+own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment, he would have
+found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to which he had been
+up till now a stranger. He would have discovered the birth of a new
+longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the sensuous side of things;
+or rather, he would have become convinced that temptations of this sort,
+which had previously been in the main creatures of his own brain,
+postulated in obedience to the doctrines and literature in which he had
+been bred, had become self-assertive realities; and that what had been
+set up only to be triumphantly knocked down had now taken a strong root
+of its own, and refused to be displaced by spiritual exercises or
+physical mortifications. Had he been able to pursue the analysis yet
+further, it may be that, even in these days, he would have found that
+the forces of this world were already beginning to personify themselves
+for him in the attractive figure of Claudia Territon. As it was,
+however, this discovery was yet far from him.
+
+The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
+juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
+blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
+weapons; and if they take the censure to heart--which is not usually the
+case--easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
+We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them. And
+it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
+excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by the
+thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with her.
+Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted, for she
+acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him. Her mind
+was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she imagined to be
+the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if untrained and
+erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that leaning toward the
+mysterious and visionary which is the common mark of an acute mind that
+has not been presented with any methodical course of training worthy of
+its abilities. Such a temperament could not fail to be powerfully
+influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and creditable explanation
+lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to probe deeper in the
+hope of coming to something less praiseworthy. Claudia herself certainly
+undertook no such research. It was not her habit to analyze her motives;
+and, if asked the reasons of her conduct, she would no doubt have
+replied that she sought Stafford because she liked him. Perhaps, if
+further pressed, she would have admitted that she found him occasionally
+a useful refuge against attentions from two other quarters which she
+found it necessary to avoid; in the one case because she would have
+liked them, in the other for exactly the opposite reason.
+
+It cannot, however, be supposed that this latter line of diplomacy could
+be permanently successful. When you only meet your suitor at dances or
+operas, it may be no hard task to be always surrounded by a
+_chevaux-de-frise_ of other admirers. We have all seen that maneuver
+brilliantly and patiently executed. But when you are staying at a
+country house with any man of average pertinacity, I make bold to say
+that nothing short of taking to bed can be permanently relied upon. If
+this is the case with the ordinary man, how much more does it hold good
+when the assailant is one like Haddington--a man of considerable
+address, unbounded persistence, and limitless complacency? There came a
+time when Claudia's forced marches failed her, and she had to turn and
+give battle. When the moment came she was prepared with an audacious
+plan of campaign.
+
+She had walked down to the village one morning, attended by Haddington
+and protected by Bob, to buy for Mrs. Lane a fresh supply of worsted
+wool, a commodity apparently necessary to sustain that lady's life, and
+was returning at peace, when Bob suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! Tobacco! Wait for me!" and, turning, fled back whence he came,
+at full speed.
+
+Claudia made an attempt at following him, but the weather was hot and
+the road dusty, and, confronted with the alternative of a _tete-a-tete_
+and a damaged personal appearance, she reluctantly chose the former.
+
+Haddington did not let the grass grow under his feet. "Well," he said,
+"it won't be unpleasant to rest a little while, will it? Here's a dry
+bank."
+
+Claudia never wasted time in dodging the inevitable. She sat down.
+
+"I am very glad of this opportunity," Haddington began, in such a tone
+as a man might use if he had just succeeded in moving the adjournment.
+"It's curious how little I have managed to see of you lately, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"We meet at least five times a day, Mr. Haddington--breakfast, lunch,
+tea--"
+
+"I mean when you are alone."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And yet you must know my great--my only object in being here is to see
+you."
+
+"The less I say the sooner it will be over," thought Claudia, whose
+experience was considerable.
+
+"You must have noticed my--my attachment. I hope it was without
+displeasure?"
+
+This clearly called for an answer, but Claudia gave none. She sighed
+slightly and put up her parasol.
+
+"Claudia, is there any hope for me? I love you more--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "this is a painful scene. I trust
+nothing in my conduct has misled you. [This was known--how, I do not
+know--to her brothers as "Claudia's formula," but it is believed not to
+be uncommon.] But what you propose is utterly impossible."
+
+"Why do you say that? Perhaps you do not know me well enough yet--but in
+time, surely?"
+
+"Mr. Haddington," said Claudia, "let me speak plainly. Even if I loved
+you--which I don't and never shall, for immense admiration for a man's
+abilities is a different thing from love [Haddington looked somewhat
+soothed], I could never consent to accept the position of a _pis-aller_.
+That is not the Territon way." And Lady Claudia looked very proud.
+
+"A _pis-aller_! What in the world do you mean?"
+
+"Girls are not supposed to see anything. But do you think I imagine you
+would ever have honored me in this way unless a greater prize had
+been--had appeared to be out of reach?"
+
+This was not fair; but it was near enough to the mark to make Haddington
+a little uneasy. Had Kate been free, he would certainly have been in
+doubt.
+
+"I bear no malice about that," she continued, smiling, "only you mustn't
+pretend to be broken-hearted, you know."
+
+"It is a great blow to me--a great blow."
+
+Claudia looked as if she would like to say "Fudge!" but restrained
+herself and, with the daring characteristic of her, placed her hand on
+his arm.
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Haddington. How it must gall you to see their
+happiness! I can understand you turning to me as if in self-protection.
+But you should not ask a lady to marry you because you're piqued with
+another lady. It isn't kind; it isn't, indeed."
+
+Haddington was a little at loss.
+
+"Indeed, you're wholly wrong. Lady Claudia. Indeed, if you come to that,
+I don't see that they are particularly rapturous."
+
+"You don't mean you think they're unhappy? Mr. Haddington, I am so
+grieved!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't agree with me?"
+
+"You mustn't ask me. But, oh! I'm so sorry you think so too. Isn't it
+strange? So suited to one another--she so beautiful, he so clever, and
+both rich!"
+
+"Miss Bernard is hardly rich, is she?"
+
+"Not as Mr. Lane is, of course. She seems rich to me--forty thousand
+pounds, I think. Ah, Mr. Haddington, if only you had met her sooner!"
+
+"I shouldn't have had much chance against Lane."
+
+"Why do you say that? If you only knew--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mustn't tell you. How sad that it's too late!"
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Of course. They're _engaged_!"
+
+"An engagement isn't a marriage. If I thought--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But I can't think of that now. Good-by, Claudia. We may not meet
+again."
+
+"Oh, you won't go away? You mustn't let me drive you away. Oh, please,
+Mr. Haddington! Think, if you go, it must all come out! I should be so
+very, very distressed."
+
+"If you ask me, I will try to stay."
+
+"Yes, yes, stay--but forget all this. And never think again of the
+other--about them, I mean. You will stay?"
+
+"Yes, I will stay," said Haddington.
+
+"Unless it makes you too unhappy to see Eugene's triumph in Kate's
+love?"
+
+"I don't believe much in that. If that's the only thing--but I must go.
+I see your brother coming up the hill."
+
+"Yes, go; and I'll never tell that you tried me as--as a second string!"
+
+"That's very unjust!" he protested, but more weakly.
+
+"No, it isn't. I know your heart, and I do pity you."
+
+"Perhaps I shall not ask for pity, Lady Claudia!"
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think of that!"
+
+"It was you who put it in my head."
+
+"Oh, what have I done!"
+
+Haddington smiled, and with a last squeeze of her hand turned and walked
+away.
+
+Claudia put her handkerchief into her pocket and went to meet her
+brother.
+
+Haddington returned alone to the house. Although suffering under a
+natural feeling of annoyance at discovering that he was not foremost in
+Claudia's heart, as he had led himself to suppose, he was yet keenly
+alive to the fact that the interview had its consolatory aspect. In the
+first place, there is a fiction that a lady who respects herself does
+not fall in love with a man whom she suspects to be in love with
+somebody else; and Haddington's mind, though of no mean order in some
+ways, was not of a sort to rise above fictions. He comforted his vanity
+with the thought that Claudia had, by a conscious effort, checked a
+nascent affection for him, which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would
+have developed into a passion. Again, that astute young lady had very
+accurately conjectured his state of mind, while her pledge of secrecy
+disposed of the difficulty in the way of a too rapid transfer of his
+attentions. If Claudia did not complain, nay, counseled such action, who
+had a right to object? It was true she had eagerly disclaimed any
+intention of inciting him to try to break the ties that now bound Miss
+Bernard. But, he reflected, the important point was not the view she
+took of the morality of such an attempt, on which her authority was
+nought, but her opinion of its chances of success, which was obviously
+not wholly unfavorable. He did not trouble himself to inquire closely
+into any personal motive she may have had. It was enough for him that
+she, a person likely to be well informed, had allowed him to see that,
+to her thinking, the relations between the engaged pair were of a
+character to inspire in the mind of another aspirant hope rather than
+despair.
+
+Having reached this conclusion, Haddington recognized that his first
+step must be to put Miss Bernard in touch with the position of affairs.
+It may seem a delicate matter to hint to your host's _fiancee_ that if
+she, on mature reflection, likes you better than him, there is still
+time; but Haddington was not afflicted with delicacy. After all, in such
+a case a great deal depends upon the lady, and Haddington, though
+doubtful how Kate would regard a direct proposal to break off her
+engagement, was yet tolerably confident that she would not betray him
+to Eugene.
+
+He found her seated on the terrace that was the usual haunt of the
+ladies in the forenoon and the scene of Eugene's dutiful labors as
+reader-aloud. Kate was not looking amiable; and scarce six feet from her
+there lay open on the ground a copy of the Laureate's works.
+
+"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Oh, no. You see, I am alone. Mr. Lane was here just now, but he's
+gone."
+
+"How's that?" asked Haddington, seating himself.
+
+"He got a telegram, read it, flung his book away, and rushed off."
+
+"Did he say what it was about?"
+
+"No; I didn't ask him."
+
+A pause ensued. It was a little difficult to make a start.
+
+"And so you are alone?"
+
+"Yes, as you see."
+
+"I am alone too. Shall we console one another?"
+
+"I don't want consolation, thanks," said Kate, a little ungraciously.
+"But," she added more kindly, "you know I'm always glad of your
+company."
+
+"I wish I could think so."
+
+"Why don't you think so?"
+
+"Well, Miss Bernard, engaged people are generally rather indifferent to
+the rest of the world.
+
+"Even to telegrams?"
+
+"Ah! poor Lane!"
+
+"I don't think Mr. Lane is in much need of pity."
+
+"No--rather of envy."
+
+Kate did not look displeased.
+
+"Still, a man is to be pitied if he does not appreciate--"
+
+"Mr. Haddington!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. But it is
+hard--there, I am offending you again!"
+
+"Yes, you must not talk like that. It's wrong; it would be wrong even if
+you meant it."
+
+"Do you think I don't mean it?"
+
+"That would be very discreditable--but not so bad."
+
+"You know I mean it," he said, in a low voice. "God knows I would have
+said nothing if--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"I shall offend you more than ever. But how can I stand by and see
+_that_?" and Haddington pointed with fine scorn to the neglected book.
+
+Kate was not agitated. She seldom was. In a tone of grave rebuke, she
+said:
+
+"You must never speak like this again. I thought I saw something of it.
+["Good!" thought Haddington.] But whatever may be my lot, I am now bound
+to it. Pledges are not to be broken."
+
+"Are they not being virtually broken?" he asked, growing bolder as he
+saw she listened to him.
+
+Kate rose.
+
+"You are not angry?"
+
+"I cannot be angry if it is as you say. But please understand I cannot
+listen. It is not honorable. No--don't say anything else. But you must
+go away."
+
+Haddington made no further effort to step her. He was well content. When
+a lady hears you hint that her betrothed is less devoted than you would
+be in his place, and merely says the giving of such a hint is wrong, it
+may be taken that her sole objection to it is on the score of morality;
+and it is to be feared that objections based on this ground are not the
+most efficacious in checking forward lovers. Perhaps Miss Bernard
+thought they were. Haddington didn't believe she did.
+
+"Go away?" he said to himself. "Hardly! The play is just beginning.
+Little Lady Claudia wasn't far out."
+
+It is very possible she was not far out in her estimation of Mr.
+Haddington's character, as well as in her forecast of his prospects. But
+the fruits of her shrewdness on this point were happily hid from the
+gentleman concerned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.
+
+
+About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were
+smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had
+arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom
+reference has been made.
+
+"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by
+him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"
+
+"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood,
+grinning.
+
+"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with
+languid indignation.
+
+"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."
+
+"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"
+
+"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."
+
+"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"
+
+"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why
+choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"
+
+"And how do you like your new neighbor?"
+
+"What new neighbor?"
+
+"Intellect."
+
+"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But
+we may take an overdose."
+
+"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.
+
+"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently
+unheedful.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be
+eradicated as it rises more in society. _Apropos_, what are you doing
+down here?"
+
+"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it
+doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint
+Stafford."
+
+"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"
+
+"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."
+
+"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's
+the other way. What's he doing down here?"
+
+"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"
+
+"Yes. Known her since she was a child."
+
+"She seems uncommonly appreciative."
+
+"Of Stafford?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons.
+They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever
+since--"
+
+"Oh, I don't want their history--a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all
+your old families. Only--I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head
+of Stafford I've done."
+
+"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.
+
+"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you
+think of it."
+
+"What do he and the rest of them think?"
+
+"I haven't shown it to any one."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Wait till you've seen it."
+
+"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just
+that--"
+
+"Hush! Here he comes!"
+
+As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to
+the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in
+conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with
+a look of amused mutiny on her face.
+
+"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She doesn't care for him?"
+
+"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"
+
+"Oh, you know he's booked."
+
+"Kate Bernard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you--"
+
+"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing--in its
+way--I ever did."
+
+"Going to exhibit it?"
+
+"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this
+one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."
+
+"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"
+
+Whereto Morewood answered only:
+
+"Come and see."
+
+As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
+looking immensely bored.
+
+"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but
+I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped
+down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my
+house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"
+
+"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the
+shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford
+in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob
+Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from
+Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can
+do?"
+
+"Yes, there's a picture to be seen--Morewood's latest."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."
+
+"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid.
+Who's it of?"
+
+"Stafford," said Ayre.
+
+"The Pope in full canonicals?"
+
+"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."
+
+They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the
+west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had
+extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.
+
+"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places
+with an arch-angel!"
+
+"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to
+make it likely the berth will be offered you."
+
+"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and
+some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.
+
+Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red
+beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.
+
+"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that
+leant against the wall.
+
+It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented
+Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the
+vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a
+devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution;
+and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the
+service and the contemplation of the Divine.
+
+Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:
+
+"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"
+
+"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of
+painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one
+morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I
+was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that
+for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through
+the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but--fine, isn't it?"
+
+The two men nodded.
+
+"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in
+church."
+
+"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul
+Pry,--we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,--and
+I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."
+
+He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing
+for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then
+he stepped aside in silence.
+
+It was merely a head--nothing more--standing out boldly from a dark
+background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed
+strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had
+not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place
+was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted
+up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a
+Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to
+be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object
+on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.
+
+The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half
+alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical
+amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession
+to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well
+content with their tacit homage.
+
+"The finest thing I ever did--on my life; one of the finest things any
+one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"
+
+"No," said Eugene.
+
+Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair,
+choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back.
+This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.
+
+"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"
+
+"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my
+doing; he looked like that."
+
+"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"
+
+"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."
+
+"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.
+
+The others looked keenly at him for a moment.
+
+"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
+reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
+reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
+down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
+gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
+every day."
+
+"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
+at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
+noticed nothing.
+
+"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.
+
+Morewood's face was a study.
+
+"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."
+
+"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Burn it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."
+
+"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."
+
+"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."
+
+"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."
+
+"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty
+soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path,
+like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a
+sharp glance.
+
+"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.
+
+"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not
+leave it about, at present at any rate."
+
+Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which
+he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with
+them, and they left him sitting there.
+
+"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer
+sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications!
+They're a bore! I think I shall go."
+
+"I shan't. It will be interesting."
+
+"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."
+
+"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."
+
+The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white
+dress.
+
+"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.
+
+"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in
+to write."
+
+"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.
+
+"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.
+
+Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know
+whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they
+were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.
+
+"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time
+on you."
+
+"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."
+
+"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and
+see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting
+low-spirited."
+
+"And I shall be a change?"
+
+"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."
+
+"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her
+way in the direction indicated.
+
+"She means no harm," said Morewood.
+
+"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"
+
+"No--not our business if we could," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with
+his head on his hand.
+
+"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for?
+There's nothing on it!"
+
+Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.
+
+"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Yes. Why are you moping here?"
+
+"Where's Stafford?"
+
+"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself
+after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know,
+Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing
+better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"
+
+Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.
+
+"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes
+of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"
+
+She got up and came close to him.
+
+"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"
+
+"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."
+
+"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a
+_sociable_."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A sociable."
+
+"Do you mean a tricycle?"
+
+"Yes--for two."
+
+"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fun?"
+
+"On the road?"
+
+"N--no, perhaps not; round the park."
+
+"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"
+
+"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."
+
+"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene
+tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."
+
+"Be quiet. But will you?"
+
+"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."
+
+"I must go and put on an old frock."
+
+"All right; be quick."
+
+"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may
+as well--if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a
+nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she
+spots us."
+
+A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia
+Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable,"
+presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park.
+Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick
+transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled
+and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very
+warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they
+came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they
+fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat,
+perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but
+unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What
+would she say?
+
+It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves,
+and she said nothing except:
+
+"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with
+ostentatious amiability.
+
+Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington,
+and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to
+convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss
+Bernard had only one glove on.
+
+"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went
+again, airily waving their hands.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" she asked.
+
+Eugene was struggling with laughter.
+
+"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"
+
+Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling
+face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't
+keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
+
+Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed,
+but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort
+to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr.
+Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable
+performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.
+
+
+The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with
+considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation
+showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a
+rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia
+and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in
+pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no
+longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The
+latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked,
+and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent
+avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of
+principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and
+Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed
+departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere
+opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on.
+Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his
+acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind
+that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their
+decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts.
+Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with
+Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to
+organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket
+club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector.
+Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been
+difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such
+a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision,
+had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the
+landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can
+learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford
+unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's
+society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he
+had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his
+old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction;
+perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the
+chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state
+if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even
+as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to
+study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He
+was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in
+force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him
+with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he
+might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But
+Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten
+his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without
+perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his
+friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor
+inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but
+he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be
+told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually
+so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's
+vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was
+no harm done.
+
+"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little
+witch grows old and--no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"
+
+Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough
+of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and
+wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot
+grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The
+parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a
+good fellow."
+
+Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his
+hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception
+from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with
+Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir
+Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there,
+and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this
+momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was
+outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the
+billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood
+on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented
+alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir
+Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth,
+indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him.
+But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he
+had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward
+it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.
+
+"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you
+think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"
+
+"Is he in the dark?"
+
+"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love
+before without knowing it,--they say women are that way,--but then I
+never met a 'Father' before."
+
+"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"
+
+"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the
+poor beggar."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to."
+
+"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties.
+You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."
+
+"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all,
+Lane's the man to do it."
+
+"Yes, but you see, Lane--"
+
+"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over
+it?"
+
+Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the
+prompter intervened.
+
+"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's
+in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always
+together, and--well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it
+does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if
+he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"
+
+"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.
+
+"Hang it! a man has some feelings."
+
+"You're a humbug, Ayre!"
+
+"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It would be a very interesting problem."
+
+"It would."
+
+"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"
+
+"Utter nonsense!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I
+shouldn't wonder if she took him."
+
+"No more should I."
+
+"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd
+see it for himself from the picture?"
+
+"Of course he would. No one could help it."
+
+"Will you let him see it?"
+
+Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue
+was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this,
+hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll
+leave it to Lane."
+
+"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"
+
+"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."
+
+"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral
+problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do
+that. It's now part of a gentleman's--still more of a
+lady's--education."
+
+Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to
+inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled
+into the billiard-room.
+
+"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre
+blandly.
+
+Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the
+last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived
+him of the sense of unmerited suffering--a most valuable consolation in
+time of trouble.
+
+"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the
+conclusion we drew from it--or, rather, it forced upon us?"
+
+Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.
+
+"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"
+
+"I agree--at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."
+
+Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.
+
+"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear
+about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."
+
+"You'd better leave me out."
+
+"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and
+you'll know best what will be for his good."
+
+"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."
+
+"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be a shock to him."
+
+"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not
+marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."
+
+"It won't make him happier to be refused."
+
+Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll
+refuse him?"
+
+"I don't know. How should I know?"
+
+"Do you think it likely?"
+
+"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I
+have no means of answering."
+
+"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave
+just now if you thought she'd take him?"
+
+It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably
+strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair
+to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no
+mercy for him.
+
+"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own
+happiness--and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"
+
+Eugene did not wince.
+
+"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of
+exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him
+immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I
+suppose there's always a chance of success."
+
+"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the
+painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:
+
+"You could say nothing else."
+
+"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting
+subject. You dig pretty deep."
+
+"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an
+ass?"
+
+"God knows!" groaned Eugene.
+
+Morewood returned.
+
+"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"
+
+"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the
+easel."
+
+"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.
+
+"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you
+know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's
+really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an
+Associate if Stafford will let you show it."
+
+Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of
+touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford
+come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture.
+He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he
+felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:
+
+"It is my face?"
+
+"You see it is."
+
+"You did it?"
+
+"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale
+as death, and trembling.
+
+"When?"
+
+"A few days ago."
+
+"On your oath--no, you don't believe that--on your honor, is it truth?"
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"You saw it--just as it is there?"
+
+"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."
+
+"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But--yes,
+it is true. God help me!"
+
+"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."
+
+"Time, indeed!"
+
+"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.
+
+"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"
+
+"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."
+
+Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.
+
+"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that
+picture. No--I won't hurt it."
+
+"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I
+say? And if she loves you--"
+
+"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in
+Heaven's name, and let me go!"
+
+He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other
+two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and
+appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated.
+Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to
+listen to what the latter couple were saying.
+
+"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"
+
+"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going
+to have a few days on the river before that."
+
+"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"
+
+"No. Of course I shall write to you."
+
+"Thank you--I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are
+to be your river party?"
+
+"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is
+to be there a day or two, if he can. And--oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I
+think."
+
+"Isn't Haddington staying here?"
+
+"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went
+on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."
+
+"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."
+
+"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"
+
+"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."
+
+"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."
+
+This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene
+lost his temper.
+
+"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your
+mind seems to me positively vulgar."
+
+"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"An opportunity for quarreling."
+
+"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
+and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
+might. But I dare say it's my fault."
+
+"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
+and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
+don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
+pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."
+
+"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."
+
+"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."
+
+"And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after
+your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself
+bound."
+
+"I have never proposed anything else."
+
+"Your conduct with Claudia--"
+
+"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but
+there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
+remember our manners, if nothing else."
+
+"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.
+
+"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
+conversation may as well end, may it not?"
+
+Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.
+
+Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
+accession of Bob Territon.
+
+"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.
+
+"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a
+terrible time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
+The match is fixed for next Wednesday."
+
+"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."
+
+"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"
+
+"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
+I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
+much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
+the deluge!"
+
+"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."
+
+"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
+birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
+long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
+rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."
+
+"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
+looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.
+
+"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.
+
+"In his room--at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."
+
+"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to
+play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."
+
+"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.
+
+"You're a very rude _old_ gentleman! But you must play, all the
+same--against Bob and Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady
+Claudia?"
+
+The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was
+left with him for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."
+
+"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask
+you a question."
+
+"Oh! Is it a question that no one else--say Kate, for instance--could
+help you with?"
+
+"It's not about myself."
+
+"Is it about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I
+can't stay for the cricket-match."
+
+"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."
+
+But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:
+
+"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"
+
+With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the
+interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.
+
+"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.
+
+"He looked it."
+
+"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."
+
+"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.
+
+
+Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair.
+Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict
+fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company
+in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt
+that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the
+pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried
+up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a
+relief.
+
+"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said
+Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one
+quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."
+
+"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.
+
+"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of
+would-be buyers."
+
+"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.
+
+"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.
+
+"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to
+titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders
+think he's a gentlemen."
+
+"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.
+
+"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while
+ago, and we've nearly lived it down."
+
+"Take care they don't make you a peer!"
+
+"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance.
+I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the
+fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my
+fortune. They don't make poor men peers."
+
+"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of
+Dives," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down
+below."
+
+"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.
+
+Ayre put up his eyeglass.
+
+"_Apres?_"
+
+"It's all affectation."
+
+"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk.
+That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not
+received enough attention."
+
+"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better
+than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such
+demands upon it."
+
+"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about
+it? As we grow old we grow charitable."
+
+"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of
+other people, but because you know more of yourself."
+
+"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an
+arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good
+opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In
+age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"
+
+"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.
+
+"By all means," said he.
+
+"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for
+it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was
+all affectation."
+
+"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate
+Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.
+
+Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side
+glance at Claudia on the way, he said:
+
+"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are
+the same kind of affectation, and are odious--especially in women."
+
+There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look
+straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.
+
+"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and
+enthusiasm--gush, in fact--as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really
+springing from the same root?"
+
+Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her
+head.
+
+"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps
+coquettishness?"
+
+"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which
+my mother used to say girls had better let alone."
+
+This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious
+humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who
+had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for
+interfering now, put in suavely:
+
+"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering
+from the point?"
+
+"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.
+
+So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and
+talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily,
+love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment--more especially
+other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.
+
+Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his
+own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through
+difficult paths in the dark--uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no
+serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is
+on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless
+morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's
+penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him.
+No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he
+would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would
+have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve
+the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man
+who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the
+power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him.
+His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts;
+he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its
+force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its
+effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the
+state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart
+and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her
+image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his
+pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he
+knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be
+his--victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found
+no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost
+without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.
+
+In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the
+scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was
+paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to
+do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would
+fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then
+this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he
+fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence.
+Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his
+vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that
+there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a
+moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace
+regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come
+through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his
+life set in the sky.
+
+But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so
+confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would
+not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come?
+He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had
+not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt
+that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so
+plainly--yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back
+on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed
+admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of
+his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the
+story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with
+her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her
+it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise
+counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all
+point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had
+brought woe and pain to her he loved.
+
+So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And
+then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame
+and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil,
+she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all
+Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for
+naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy
+what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of
+reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its
+satiety or hunger.
+
+The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked
+along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with
+her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in
+his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his
+broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his
+Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the
+common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he
+that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an
+immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He
+them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with
+the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and
+ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he
+should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was
+done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so,
+having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein
+were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.
+
+From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him
+many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn
+aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap
+his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham
+tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked
+passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped
+himself for it, it might be a worthy life--not the highest, but good for
+men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a
+glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his
+profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the
+other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by
+such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he
+sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no
+compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would
+be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he
+were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood.
+People would laugh at the converted celibate--was it that he feared? Had
+he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the
+dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his
+infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing
+good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as
+you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the
+prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his
+bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.
+
+It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford
+walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his
+hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still
+sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal
+of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing
+about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or
+souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator--the
+Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest
+points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human
+metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny
+fraction--oh! what a tiny fraction--of the picture, and the like little
+jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very
+much--whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly--aim a
+little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,
+Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems
+pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and
+giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our
+little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did
+none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will
+deprive many people of their only utility."
+
+Eugene gently laughed.
+
+"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."
+
+"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to
+fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are
+none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it,
+I suppose--a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a
+little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and
+so quietly go to help the cabbages."
+
+"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.
+
+"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."
+
+Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had
+read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the
+thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul
+for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once
+a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive
+and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture
+himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to
+have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the
+wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right,
+what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what
+an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer!
+If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world--except for
+Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He
+might throw one away and never find the other.
+
+Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell
+again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the
+clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray
+as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from
+thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole
+soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the
+sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to
+pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not
+bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his
+distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another;
+he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried
+to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the
+throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he
+loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost
+and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he
+fell on the floor and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.
+
+
+It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but
+with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the
+mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of
+unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake.
+"I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go--go and think. I
+dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for
+Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
+address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door
+just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
+station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had
+more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He
+sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and
+emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
+trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He
+found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by
+train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their
+carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his
+battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of
+amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought
+settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was
+surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's
+inharmonious bell.
+
+At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the
+station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.
+
+"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a
+portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going--this lady and gentleman."
+
+Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the
+platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.
+
+"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people
+will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always
+must be in a hurry--never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare
+time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"
+
+He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as
+Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said
+suddenly:
+
+"You are determined on this, Kate?"
+
+"On what?" she asked coldly.
+
+"Why, to go like this--to bolt--it almost comes to that--leaving things
+as they are between us?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"And with Haddington?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me?"
+
+"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you
+imagine my course must be?"
+
+"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course
+will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to
+fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."
+
+Eugene could not resist a smile.
+
+"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this
+moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter
+gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation,
+and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived,
+unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after
+her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just
+seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.
+
+"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"
+
+"I have left a note for you."
+
+"That will explain?"
+
+"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not
+explain."
+
+"How fagged you look!"
+
+"Yes, I am tired."
+
+"You must go now, and like this?"
+
+"I think that is less bad than anything else."
+
+"You can't tell me?"
+
+"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."
+
+"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford,
+nothing ever between us?"
+
+"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know
+there couldn't be."
+
+The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to
+his phaeton.
+
+"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling
+of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now--"
+
+But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would
+repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to
+think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man
+has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper
+and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to
+the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them
+from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious
+creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.
+
+Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of
+any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In
+regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for
+wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent
+exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate
+and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the
+station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.
+
+"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the
+after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."
+
+"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young
+man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"
+
+"Oh, you know that?"
+
+"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every
+morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"
+
+"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had
+gone?"
+
+"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."
+
+"You can guess?"
+
+"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.
+
+"He's given it up, apparently."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate
+and Haddington didn't see him."
+
+"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the _fons et origo mali_."
+
+Morewood joined them.
+
+"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid
+lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in
+his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the
+portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."
+
+"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."
+
+Eugene rose.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned
+young man."
+
+"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes
+we shall also go. What say you?"
+
+"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel
+sport."
+
+"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.
+
+"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that
+young man has no morals."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Oh! not _simpliciter_, you know. _Secundum quid_."
+
+"_Secundum feminam_, in fact?"
+
+"Yes; and I brought him up, too."
+
+"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."
+
+"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up;
+"Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning
+absolution, you know."
+
+"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the
+rats."
+
+"I think they must be--a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never
+admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."
+
+Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering
+Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and,
+turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy
+himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete
+idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.
+
+"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody,
+Mr. Lane?" she asked.
+
+"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or
+Haddington?"
+
+"I meant Father Stafford, of course."
+
+"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."
+
+"Did he tell you why he had to go?"
+
+"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.
+
+"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."
+
+"You don't like unaccountable people?"
+
+Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the
+conversation.
+
+"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly
+what you'll do."
+
+"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a
+little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.
+
+"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford--"
+
+"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's
+motives. I don't profess to understand him."
+
+This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.
+
+"I thought you might know."
+
+"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If
+the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if
+the other, you are simply tedious."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.
+
+Claudia gave a little laugh.
+
+"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully
+severe?"
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? _I_
+want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful
+glance.
+
+"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene
+politely.
+
+"I accept that as a diplomatic advance--not in its literal sense. After
+all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."
+
+"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do
+not. If the one--"
+
+"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.
+
+He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.
+
+"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're
+not here."
+
+"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's
+too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody
+else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."
+
+Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however,
+a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's
+attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to
+carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's
+hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a
+genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an
+irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's
+notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered,
+liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly
+incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was
+also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a
+sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation
+is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of
+graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else.
+Eugene wanted to know where he stood.
+
+"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.
+
+"My feelings will be mixed. You see, Rickmansworth has actually
+consented to take me with him to his moor, and that will be great fun."
+
+"Why, you don't go killing birds?"
+
+"No, I don't kill birds."
+
+"There'll be only a pack of men there."
+
+"That's all. But I don't mind that--if the scenery is good."
+
+"I believe you're trying to make me angry."
+
+"Oh, no! I know Sir Roderick doesn't let you be angry. It's not good
+form."
+
+"Have you no heart, Claudia?"
+
+"I don't know. But I have a prefix."
+
+"Have you, after ten years' friendship?"
+
+Claudia laughed.
+
+"You make me rather old. Were we friends when I was ten?"
+
+"Oh, bother dates! I don't count by time?"
+
+"Really, Mr. Lane, if you were anybody else I should call this absurd.
+It would be flattering you and myself to call it wrong."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that would imply you were serious."
+
+"Would it be wrong if I were?"
+
+"Well, it would be generally considered so, under the circumstances."
+
+"I don't care about that. I have endured it long enough. Oh, Claudia!
+don't you see?"
+
+"I suppose so," thought Claudia, "I ought to crush him at this point. I
+think I'll wait a little bit, though."
+
+"See what?" she said.
+
+"Why, that--that--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Hang it! why is it always so abominably absurd? Why, that I love the
+ground you tread on, Claudia? Is this wretched thing to keep us apart!"
+
+"Mr. Lane, you're magnificent; but isn't there a trifling assumption in
+your last remark?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, you seemed--perhaps you didn't mean it--to imply that only that
+'wretched thing' kept _us_ apart. That's rather taking me for granted,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Ah! you know I didn't mean it. But if things were different, could
+you--"
+
+"A conditional proposal is a new fashion. Is that one of Sir Roderick's
+ideas?"
+
+Eugene was at last angry. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I see. I must congratulate you."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"On having bagged a brace--without accident to yourself. But I have had
+enough of it."
+
+And without waiting for a reply to this very rude speech, he rose and
+flung himself across the lawn into the house.
+
+Claudia seemed less angry than she ought to have been. She sat with a
+little smile for a moment, then she threw her hat in the air and caught
+it, then lay back, sighed gently, and murmured:
+
+"Heigho! a brace means two, doesn't it? Who's the other? Oh! Mr.
+Haddington, I suppose. I didn't think he knew. Poor Eugene! He's very
+angry, or he'd never have been so rude. 'Bagged a brace!'"
+
+And she actually laughed again, and then said "Heigho!" again.
+
+Just at this moment Ayre came up the drive, looking very hot and very
+disgusted. Seeing Claudia, he came and sat down.
+
+"Bob's rat-hunting's a mere fraud," he said. "I was there half an hour,
+and we only bagged a brace."
+
+"What a curious coincidence!" exclaimed Claudia.
+
+"How a coincidence!"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Bagging a brace means killing two, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Oh, I wanted to know."
+
+Ayre looked at her.
+
+"Where's Eugene?"
+
+"He was here just now, but he's gone into the house."
+
+Ayre stroked his mustache meditatively.
+
+"Did you want him?"
+
+"No, not particularly. I thought I should find him here."
+
+"You would if you'd come a little sooner."
+
+"Ah! I'll go and find him."
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+And off he went.
+
+"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick
+finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me
+credit--and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive
+with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do
+something proper."
+
+And perhaps it was about time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.
+
+
+When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead
+Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in
+London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not
+knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to
+find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve?
+This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know
+whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford
+had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all
+questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance
+of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust
+of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no
+training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of
+self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it
+was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than
+a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name
+of conscience. With some surprise at himself--a surprise that now took
+the place of shame--he recognized that he was not ready to take
+everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from
+was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully
+believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted
+from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of
+Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter
+and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to
+go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely
+careless.
+
+No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his
+health still forbid that--and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to
+him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of
+Millstead--but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance
+of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
+would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
+language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
+that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
+Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
+ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
+mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
+leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
+spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
+might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
+not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
+to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
+to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
+refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
+Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
+a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
+Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
+for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
+the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
+man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
+hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
+office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
+to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
+forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
+his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
+nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
+with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
+he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
+one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
+hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
+away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
+Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
+Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
+struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
+negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and
+words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he
+comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the
+Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed
+that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail,
+whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.
+
+It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the
+Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples
+would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have
+repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men
+sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the
+place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the
+thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who
+were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred
+office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see
+the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the
+fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
+He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind,
+whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the
+Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him
+in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted
+quiet--time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or
+evil of the new ideas.
+
+Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left
+Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the
+journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the
+Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of
+questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an
+elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was
+suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would
+observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more
+strictly from his own inability to understand them.
+
+"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps
+it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."
+
+"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest,
+half humoring the genius of the place.
+
+The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the
+other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home
+in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living.
+Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of
+momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.
+
+Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible
+and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man,
+who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of
+his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had
+hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less
+strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before
+his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try
+the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?--strong enough
+to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?--strong enough to
+picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should
+he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him?
+Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and
+not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the
+impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready
+to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had
+misjudged his strength.
+
+While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that
+small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of
+the recluse.
+
+The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of
+the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The
+cricket-match came off with great _eclat_; in spite of a steady thirteen
+from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it--to use the
+technical term--and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was
+tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five
+wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre
+lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when
+the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand
+it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent,
+sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to
+Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.
+
+For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he
+hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but
+shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really
+he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind
+might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not
+he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission.
+This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received
+from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon
+got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob
+Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the
+writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an
+explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which
+is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to
+the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt,
+had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr.
+Haddington, M. P., had also "proceeded" thither.
+
+"They are at the Victoria," wrote Rickmansworth; "I am at the
+Badischerhof, and--[irrelevant matter]. I go about a good deal with
+them, but it's beastly slow. Haddington is all day in Kate's pocket, and
+Kate at best isn't amusing. But what's Lane up to? Do come out here, old
+fellow. I'll find you some amusement. Who do you think is here
+with--[more irrelevant matter]."
+
+Sir Roderick was influenced in part, no doubt, by the irrelevant matter.
+But he also felt that what concerns us concerned him. He had come to a
+very definite conclusion that Kate Bernard ought not to marry Eugene
+Lane. He was also sure that unless something was done the marriage would
+take place. Kate did not care for Eugene, but the match was too good to
+be given up. Eugene would never face the turmoil necessary to break it
+off.
+
+"I am the man," said Sir Roderick to himself. "I couldn't catch the
+parson, but if I can't catch Miss Kate, call me an ass!"
+
+And he took train to Baden, sending off a wire to Morewood to join him
+if he could, for a considerable friendship existed between them.
+Morewood, however, wouldn't come, and Ayre was forced to make the
+journey in solitude.
+
+"I thought I should bring him!" exclaimed Lord Rickmansworth
+triumphantly, as he received his friend on the platform, and conducted
+him to a very perfect drag which stood at the door. "Oh, you old thief!"
+
+Rickmansworth was a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial
+laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically
+humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect
+success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what
+he was, while shuddering at what he tried to be.
+
+"I didn't come on that account at all," he said, "I came to look after
+some business."
+
+"Get out!" said the Earl pleasantly; "do you think I don't know you?"
+
+Ayre allowed himself to yield in silence. His motives were a little
+mixed; and, anyhow, it was not at the moment desirable to explain them.
+His vindication would wait.
+
+In the afternoon he paid his call on Mrs. Welman. She was delighted to
+see him, not only as a man of social repute, but also because the good
+lady was in no little distress of mind. The arrangement between Kate and
+Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection. Mrs. Welman was
+not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches;
+like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate
+having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for
+her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent
+work of a more equal distribution of wealth. But Kate was undeniably
+willful. She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding
+and unbreakable tie--a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could
+almost be ignored. But she received any suggestion of a possible excess
+in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society,
+as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half
+the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking. Mrs. Welman
+was in a position exactly the reverse of the pleasant one; she had
+responsibility without power. It is true her responsibility was mainly
+a figment of her own brain, but its burden upon her was none the less
+heavy for that.
+
+It must be admitted that Ayre's dealings with her were wanting in
+candor. Under the guise of family friendship, he led her on to open her
+mind to him. He extracted from her detailed accounts of long excursions
+into the outskirts of the forest, of numberless walks in the shady
+paths, of an expedition to the races (where perfect solitude can always
+be obtained), and of many other diversions which Kate and Haddington had
+enjoyed together, while she was left to knit "clouds" and chew
+reflections in the Kurhaus garden. All this, Ayre recognized, with
+lively but suppressed satisfaction, was not as it should be.
+
+"I have spoken to Kate," she concluded, "but she takes no notice; will
+you do me a service?"
+
+"Of course," said Ayre; "anything I can."
+
+"Will you speak to Mr. Haddington?"
+
+This by no means suited Ayre's book. Moreover, it would very likely
+expose him to a snub, and he had no fancy for being snubbed by a man
+like Haddington.
+
+"I can hardly do that. I have no position. I'm not her father, or uncle,
+or anything of that sort."
+
+"You might influence him."
+
+"No, he'd tell me to mind my own business. To speak plainly, my dear
+lady, it isn't as if Kate couldn't take care of herself. She could stop
+his attentions to-morrow if she liked. Isn't it so?"
+
+Mrs. Welman sadly admitted it was.
+
+"The only thing I can do is to keep an eye on them, and act as I think
+best; that I will gladly do."
+
+And with this very ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be
+content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly
+fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was
+at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an
+emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this
+notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a
+good deal, and with Haddington alone a good deal more. Moreover, even
+when absent, he could generally have given a shrewd guess where they
+were and what they were doing. Without altogether neglecting the other
+claims at which Rickmansworth had hinted, and which resolved themselves
+into a long-standing and entirely platonic attachment, he yet devoted
+himself with zest and assiduity to his self-imposed task.
+
+In its prosecution he contrived to make use of Rickmansworth to some
+extent. The young man was a hospitable soul, delighting in parties and
+picnics. Only consent to sit with him on his four-in-hand and let him
+drive you, and he cheerfully feasted you and all your friends. His
+acquaintance was large, and not, perhaps, very select. But Ayre
+insisted on the proper distinctions being observed, and was indebted to
+Rickmansworth's parties for many opportunities of observation. He was
+sure Haddington meant to marry Kate if he could; the scruples which had
+in some degree restrained his actions, though not his designs, at
+Millstead, had vanished, and he was pushing his suit, firmly and
+daringly ignoring the fact of the engagement. Kate did nothing to remind
+him of it that Ayre could see, but her behavior, on the other hand,
+convinced him that Haddington was to her only a second string, and that,
+unless compelled, she would not let Eugene go. She took occasion more
+than once to show him that she regarded her relation to Eugene as fully
+existent. No doubt she thought there was a chance that such words might
+find their way to Eugene's ears. It is hardly necessary to say they did
+not.
+
+Watch as he might Ayre's chance was slow in coming. He knew very well
+that the fact of a young lady, deserted by him who ought to have been in
+attendance, consoling herself with a flirtation with somebody else, was
+not enough for him to go upon. He must have something more tangible than
+that. He did not, indeed, look for anything that would compel Eugene to
+act; he had no expectation and, to do him justice, no hope of that, for
+he knew Eugene would act on nothing but an extreme necessity. His hope
+lay in Kate herself. On her he was prepared to have small mercy;
+against her he felt justified in playing the very rigor of the game. But
+for a long while he had no opportunity of beginning the rubber. A
+fortnight wore away, and nothing was done. Ayre determined to wait on
+events no longer; he would try his hand at shaping them.
+
+"I wonder if Rick is too great a fool?" he said to himself meditatively
+one morning, as he crossed one of the little bridges, and took his way
+to the Kurhaus in search of his friend. "I must try him."
+
+He found Lord Rickmansworth alone, but quite content. It was one of his
+happy characteristics that he existed with delight under almost any
+circumstances. One of his team was lame, and a great friend of his was
+sulky and had sent him away, and yet he sat radiantly cheerful, with a
+large cigar in his mouth and a small terrier by his side, subjecting
+every lady who passed to a respectful and covert but none the less
+searching and severe examination.
+
+"I say, Rick, have you seen Haddington lately?"
+
+"Yes; he's gone down the road with Kate Bernard to play tennis, or some
+such foolery."
+
+"With Kate?"
+
+"Rather! Didn't expect anything else, did you?"
+
+"Does he mean to marry that girl?" asked Ayre, with a face of great
+innocence, much as if it had just occurred to him.
+
+"Well, he can't, unless she chucks old Eugene over."
+
+"Will she, do you think?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid not. I've got some money on that they're never
+married, but I don't see my way to handling it."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"Well, no; about twopence-halfpenny--a fancy bet."
+
+"I'm glad it's nothing, because I want you to help me, and you couldn't
+have if you had anything on; besides, you shouldn't bet on such things."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to meddle with the thing. It's enough work to prevent
+one's self getting married, without troubling about other people. But I
+rather like you telling me not to bet on it!"
+
+"She wouldn't suit Eugene."
+
+"No; lead him the devil of a life."
+
+"She don't care for him."
+
+"Not a straw."
+
+"Then, why don't she break it off?"
+
+"Ah, you innocent?" said Rickmansworth, with a broad grin. "Never heard
+of such a thing as money in the case, did you? Where have you been these
+last five-and-forty years?"
+
+"Your raillery's a little fatiguing, Rick, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+"Say anything you like, old chap, as long as it isn't swearing. That's
+_verbot_ here--penalty one mark--see regulations. You must go outside,
+if you want to curse, barring of course you're a millionaire and like to
+make a splash."
+
+"Rick, Rick, you do not amuse me. I do not belong to the Albatross
+Club."
+
+"No; over age," replied his companion blandly, and chuckled violently.
+
+"I like to score off old Ayre, you know," he said, in reporting the
+episode afterward. "He thinks himself smart."
+
+"But look here. I want you to do this: you go to Haddington and stir him
+up; tell him to bustle along; tell him Kate is fooling him, and make him
+put it to her--yes or no."
+
+"Why? it's not my funeral!"
+
+"Is that your latest American? I wish you'd find native slang; we used
+in my day; but I'll tell you why. It's because she's keeping him on till
+she sees what Eugene'll do. She's treating Eugene shamefully."
+
+"Oh, stow all that! Eugene is not so remarkably strict, you know." And
+Lord Rickmansworth winked.
+
+"Well, we'll leave that out," said Ayre smiling. "Tell him it's treating
+_him_ shamefully."
+
+"That's more the ticket. But what if she says 'No'?"
+
+"If she says 'No' right out, I'm done," said Ayre. "But will she?"
+
+"The devil only knows!" said Lord Rickmansworth.
+
+"Do you think you won't bungle it?"
+
+"Do you take me for an ass? I'll make him move, Ayre; he shall give her
+a chaste salute before the day's out. Old Eugene's no better than he
+should be, but I'll see him through."
+
+Ayre thought privately that his companion had perhaps other motives than
+love for Eugene: perhaps family feelings, generally dormant, had
+asserted themselves; but he had the wisdom not to hint at this.
+
+"If you can frighten him, he'll press it on."
+
+"Do you think I might lie a bit?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't lie. It's awkward. Besides, you know you wouldn't do
+it, and you couldn't if you tried."
+
+"I'll stir him up," reiterated Rickmansworth. "Give me my prayer-book
+and parasol, and I'll go and find him."
+
+Ayre ignored what he supposed to be the joke buried in this saying, and
+saw his friend off on his errand, repeating his instructions as he went.
+
+What Lord Rickmansworth said to Mr. Haddington has never, as the
+newspapers put it, transpired. But ever since that date Sir Roderick has
+always declared that Rick is not such a fool as he looks. Certainly the
+envoy was well pleased with himself when he rejoined his companion at
+dinner, and after imbibing a full glass of champagne, said:
+
+"To-night, my worthy old friend, you will see."
+
+"Did he bite?"
+
+"He bit. That fellow's no fool. He saw Kate's game when I pointed it
+out."
+
+"Will he stand up to her?"
+
+"Rather! going to hold a pistol to her head."
+
+"I wonder what she'll say?"
+
+"That's your lookout. I've done my stage."
+
+Ayre was nearer excitement than he had been for a long while. After
+dinner he could not rest. Refusing to accompany Rickmansworth to the
+entertainment the latter was bound for, he strolled out into the quiet
+walks outside the Kurhaus, which were deserted by visitors and peopled
+only by a few frugal natives, who saved their money and took the music
+of the band from a cheap distance. But surely some power was fighting
+for him, for before he had gone a hundred yards he saw on one of the
+seats in front of him two persons whom the light of the moon clearly
+displayed as Kate and Haddington. At Baden there is a little
+hillside--one path runs at the bottom, another runs along the side of
+the hill, halfway up. Ayre hastily diverted his steps into the upper
+path. A minute's walk brought him directly behind the pair. Trees hid
+him from them; a seat invited him. For a moment he struggled. Then,
+_rubesco referens_, he sat down and deliberately listened. With the
+sophisms by which he sought to justify this action, we have no concern;
+perhaps he was not in reality much concerned about them. But what he
+heard had its importance.
+
+"I have been more patient than most men," Haddington was saying.
+
+"You have no right to speak in that way," Kate protested; "it's--it's
+not respectful."
+
+"Kate, have we not got beyond respect?"
+
+"I hope not," said Sir Roderick to himself.
+
+"I mean," Haddington went on, "there is a point at which you must face
+realities. Kate, do you love me?"
+
+Ayre leant forward and peered through the bushes.
+
+"I will not break my engagement."
+
+"That is no answer."
+
+"I can't help it. I have been taught--"
+
+"Oh, taught! Kate, you know Lane; you know what he is. You saw him with
+Lady--"
+
+"You're very unkind."
+
+"And for his sake you throw away what I offer?"
+
+"Won't you be patient?"
+
+"Ah, you admit--"
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"But you can't deny it. Now you make me happy."
+
+The conversation here became so low in tone that Ayre, to his vast
+disgust, was unable to overhear it. The next words that reached his ear
+came again from Haddington.
+
+"Well, I will wait--I will wait three months. If nothing happens then,
+you will break it off?"
+
+A gentle "Yes" floated up to the eavesdropper.
+
+"Though why you want him to break it off rather than yourself, I don't
+know."
+
+"He doesn't appreciate her morality," reflected Ayre, with a chuckle.
+
+"Kate, we are promised to one another? secretly, if you like, but
+promised?"
+
+"I'm afraid it's very wrong."
+
+"Why, he deliberately insulted you!"
+
+The tones again became inaudible; but after a pause there came a sound
+that made Ayre almost jump.
+
+"By Jove!" he whispered in his excitement. "Confound these trees! Was it
+only her hand, or--"
+
+"Then I have your promise, dear?"
+
+"Yes; in three months. But I must go in. Aunt will be angry."
+
+"You won't let him win you over?"
+
+"He has treated me badly; but I don't want it said I jilted him."
+
+They had risen by now.
+
+"You ask such a lot of me," said Haddington.
+
+"Ah! I thought you said you loved me. Can't you wait three months?"
+
+"I suppose I must. But, Kate, you are sincere with me? Tell me you love
+me."
+
+Again Ayre leant forward. They had began to walk away, but now
+Haddington stopped, and laying his hand on Kate's arm, detained her.
+"Say you love me," he said again.
+
+"Yes, I love you!" said Kate, with commendable confusion, and they
+resumed their walk.
+
+"What is her game?" Ayre asked himself. "If she means to throw Eugene
+over, why doesn't she do it right out? I don't believe she does. She's
+afraid he'll throw her over. And, by Jove! she fobbed that fool off
+again! We're no further forward than we were. If he makes trouble about
+this she'll deny the whole thing. Miss Bernard is a lady of talent.
+But--no, can I? Yes, I will. Rather than let her win, I'll step in. I'll
+go and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
+reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
+she should get round him again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Battle of Baden.
+
+
+Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
+pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
+new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
+their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
+excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
+and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
+on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
+and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
+stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
+to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
+the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
+a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
+never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
+to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
+love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
+that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from _ennui_ for a considerable
+number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
+come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.
+
+He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
+expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
+Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
+taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
+devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
+is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
+strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
+by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
+Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
+upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
+and unprotected.
+
+He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
+offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
+graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
+keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his
+shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very
+same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either
+romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre
+accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a
+cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of
+mind. He was thinking how to begin.
+
+"Ought one ever to do evil that good may come?" he did begin, a long way
+off.
+
+"Dear me, Sir Roderick, what a curious question! I suppose not."
+
+"I'm sorry; because I did evil last night, and I want to confess."
+
+"I really don't want to hear," said Kate, in some alarm. There's no
+telling what men will say when they become confidential, and Kate's
+propriety was a tender plant.
+
+"It concerns you."
+
+"Me? Nonsense! How can it?"
+
+"In order to serve a friend, I did a--well--a doubtful thing."
+
+Kate was puzzled.
+
+"You are in a curious mood, Sir Roderick. Do you often ask moral
+counsel?"
+
+"I am not going to ask it. I am, with your kind permission, going to
+offer it."
+
+"You are going to offer me moral counsel?"
+
+"I thought of taking that liberty. You see, we are old friends."
+
+"We have known one another some time."
+
+Ayre smiled at the implied correction.
+
+"Do you object to plain speaking?"
+
+"That depends on the speaker. If he has a right, no; if not, yes."
+
+"You mean I should have no right?"
+
+"I certainly don't see on what ground."
+
+"If not an old friend of yours, as I had hoped to be allowed to rank
+myself, I am, anyhow, a very old friend of Eugene's."
+
+"What has Mr. Lane to do with it?"
+
+"As an old friend of his--"
+
+"Excuse me, Sir Roderick; you seem to forget that Mr. Lane is even more
+than an old friend to me."
+
+"He should be, no doubt," said Ayre blandly.
+
+"I shall not listen to this. No old friendship excuses impertinence, Sir
+Roderick."
+
+"Pray don't be angry. I have really something to say, and--pardon
+me--you must hear it."
+
+"And what if I refuse?"
+
+"True; I did wrong to say 'must.' You are at perfect liberty. Only, if
+you refuse, Eugene must hear it."
+
+Kate paused. Then, with a laugh, she said:
+
+"Perhaps I am taking it too gravely. What is this great thing I must
+hear?"
+
+"Ah! I hoped we could settle it amicably. It's merely this: you must
+release Eugene from his engagement."
+
+Kate did not trouble to affect surprise. She knew it would be useless.
+
+"Did he send you to tell me this?"
+
+"You know he didn't."
+
+"Then whose envoy are you? Ah! perhaps you are Claudia Territon's chosen
+knight?"
+
+"Not at all," said Ayre, still unruffled. "I have had no communication
+with Lady Claudia--a fact of which you have no right to affect doubt."
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean you must release Eugene."
+
+"Pray tell me why," asked she calmly, but with a calm only obtained
+after effort.
+
+"Because it is not usual--and in this matter it seems to me usage is
+right--it is not usual for a young lady to be engaged to two men at
+once."
+
+"You are merely insolent. I will wish you good-morning."
+
+"I am glad you understand my insinuation. Explanations are so tedious.
+Where are you going, Miss Bernard?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Then I must tell Eugene?"
+
+"Tell him what you like." But she sat down again.
+
+"You are engaged to Eugene?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You are also engaged to Spencer Haddington."
+
+"It's untrue; you know it's untrue. Are you an old woman, to think a
+girl can't speak to a man without being engaged to him?"
+
+"I must congratulate you on your liberality of view, Miss Bernard. I
+had hardly given you credit for it. But you know it isn't untrue. You
+are under a promise to give Haddington your hand in three months: not,
+mark you, a conditional promise--an absolute promise."
+
+"That is not a happy guess."
+
+"It's not a guess at all. No doubt you mean it to be conditional. He
+understood, and you meant him to understand, it as an absolute promise."
+
+"How dare you accuse me of such things?"
+
+"Nothing short of absolute knowledge would so far embolden me."
+
+"Absolute knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+Kate's rage carried her away. She turned on him in fury.
+
+"You listened!"
+
+"Yes, I listened."
+
+"Is that what a gentleman does?"
+
+"As a rule, it is not."
+
+"I despise you for a mean dastard! I have no more to say to you."
+
+"Come, Miss Bernard, let us be reasonable. We are neither of us
+blameless."
+
+"Do you think Eugene would listen to such a tale? And such a person?"
+
+"He might and he might not. But Haddington would."
+
+"What could you tell him?"
+
+"I could tell him that you're making a fool of him--keeping him
+dangling on till you have arranged the other affair one way or the
+other. What would he say then?"
+
+Kate knew that Haddington was already tried to the uttermost. She knew
+what he would say.
+
+"You see I could--if you'll allow me the metaphor--blow you out of the
+water."
+
+"You daren't confess how you got the knowledge."
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes," said Ayre, smiling. "When you're opening a blind
+man's eyes he doesn't ask after your moral character. You must consider
+the situation on the hypothesis that I am shameless."
+
+Kate was not strong enough to carry on the battle. She had fury, but not
+doggedness. She burst into tears.
+
+"If I were doing all you say, whose fault was it?" she sobbed. "Didn't
+Eugene treat me shamefully?"
+
+"If he flirted a little, it was in part your fault. If you had flirted a
+little with Haddington, I should have said nothing. But this--well, this
+is a little strong."
+
+"I am a very unhappy girl," said Kate.
+
+"It isn't as if you cared twopence for Eugene, you know."
+
+"No, I hate him!" said Kate, unwisely yielding to anger again.
+
+"I thought so. And you will do what I ask?"
+
+"If I don't, what will you do?"
+
+"I shall write to Eugene. I shall see Haddington; and I shall see your
+aunt. I shall tell them all that I know, and how I know it. Come, Miss
+Bernard, don't be foolish. You had better take Haddington."
+
+"I know it's all a plot. You're all fighting in that little creature's
+interest."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Claudia Territon. But if I can help it, Eugene shall never marry her."
+
+"That's another point."
+
+"His friend Father Stafford will have to be considered there."
+
+"Do not let us drift into that. Will you write?"
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Eugene."
+
+Kate looked at him with a healthy hatred.
+
+"And you will tell Haddington he needn't wait those three months?"
+
+"I suppose you're proud of yourself now!" she broke out. "First
+eavesdropping, and then bullying a girl!"
+
+"I'm not at all proud of myself, and I am, if you'd believe it, rather
+sorry for you."
+
+"I shall take care to let your friends know my opinion of you."
+
+"Certainly--with any details you think advisable. Have I your promise?
+Is it any use struggling any longer? This scene is so very unpleasant."
+
+"Won't you give me a week?"
+
+"Not a day!"
+
+Kate drew herself up with a sort of dignity.
+
+"I despise you and your schemes, and Eugene Lane, and Claudia Territon,
+and all your crew!" she allowed herself to say.
+
+"But you promise?"
+
+"Yes, I promise. There! Now, may I go?"
+
+Ayre courteously took off his hat, and stood on one side, holding it in
+his hand and bowing slightly as she swept indignantly by him.
+
+"I'll give her a day to tell Haddington, and three days to tell Eugene.
+Unless she does, I must go through it all again, and it's damnably
+fatiguing. She's not a bad sort--fought well when she was cornered. But
+I couldn't let Eugene do it--I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
+breakfast."
+
+Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
+also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
+was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
+_fiancee_ would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
+undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
+fulfill the letter of her bond--whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
+not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
+recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
+promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
+Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
+told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
+assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
+friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
+though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.
+
+As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
+Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.
+
+It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
+to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
+had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
+and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
+house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
+heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
+injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
+faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
+Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
+were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
+Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
+October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
+together, among the first remarks he made--indeed, he was brimming over
+with it--was:
+
+"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"
+
+What with one thing--packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
+obvious troubles--Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
+itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.
+
+"I never hear any news," she answered shortly.
+
+"Well, here's some for you," replied the Earl, grinning. "Kate has
+chucked Eugene over."
+
+"Nonsense!" But she started and colored, all the same.
+
+"I suppose you were at Baden and saw it all, and I wasn't!" said
+Rickmansworth, with ponderous satire. "So we won't say any more about
+it."
+
+"Well, what do you mean?"
+
+"No; never mind! It doesn't matter--all a mistake. I'm always making
+some beastly blunder--eh, Bob?" and he winked gently at his appreciative
+brother.
+
+"Yes, you're an ass, of course!" said Bob, entering into the family
+humor.
+
+"Good thing I've got a sister to keep me straight!" pursued the Earl,
+who was greatly amused with himself. "Might have gone about believing
+it, you know."
+
+Claudia was annoyed. Brothers are annoying at times.
+
+"I don't see any fun in that," she said.
+
+Lord Rickmansworth drank some beer (beer was the Territon drink), and
+maintained silence.
+
+The butler came in with his satellite, swept away the beer and the
+other _impedimenta_, and put on dessert. The servants disappeared, but
+silence still reigned unbroken.
+
+Claudia arose, and went round to her brother's chair. He was
+ostentatiously busy with a large plum.
+
+"Rick, dear, won't you tell me?"
+
+"Tell you! Why, it's all nonsense, you know."
+
+"Rick, dear!" said Claudia again, with her arm around his neck.
+
+He was going to carry on his jest a little further, when he happened to
+look at her.
+
+"Why, Clau, you look as if you were almost--"
+
+"Never mind that," she said quickly. "Oh! do tell me."
+
+"It is quite true. She's written breaking it off, and has accepted
+Haddington. But it's a secret, you know, till they've heard from Eugene,
+at all events. Must hear in a day or two."
+
+"Is it really true?
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+Claudia kissed him, and suddenly ran out of the room.
+
+The brothers looked at one another.
+
+"I hope that's all right?" said the elder questioningly.
+
+"I expect so," answered the younger. "But, you see, you don't quite know
+where to have Eugene."
+
+"I shall know where to have him, if necessary."
+
+"You'd better keep your hoof out of it, old man," said Bob candidly.
+
+Pursuing his train of thought, Rickmansworth went on:
+
+"Must have been rather a queer game at Millstead?"
+
+"Yes. There was Eugene and Kate, and Claudia and the parson, and old
+Ayre sticking his long nose into it."
+
+"Trust old Ayre for that; and is it a case?"
+
+"Well, now Kate's out of it, I expect it is, only you don't know where
+to have Eugene. And there's the parson."
+
+"Yes; Ayre told us a bit about him. But she doesn't care for him?"
+
+"She didn't tell him so--not by any means," said Bob; "and I bet he's
+far gone on her."
+
+"She can't take him."
+
+"Good Lord! no."
+
+Though how they proposed to prevent it did not appear.
+
+"Think Lane'll write to her?"
+
+"He ought to, right off."
+
+"Queer girl, ain't she?"
+
+"Deuced!"
+
+"Old Ayre! I say, Bob, you should have seen the old sinner at Baden."
+
+"What? with Kate?"
+
+"No; the other business."
+
+And they plunged into matters with which we need not concern ourselves,
+and proceeded to rend and destroy the character of that most
+respectable, middle-aged gentleman, Sir Roderick Ayre. The historian
+hastens to add that their remarks were, as a rule, entirely devoid of
+truth, with which general comment we may leave them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Mr. Morewood is Moved to Indignation.
+
+
+When Morewood was at work he painted portraits, and painted them
+uncommonly well. Of course he made his moan at being compelled to spend
+all his time on this work. He was not, equally of course, in any way
+compelled, except in the sense that if you want to make a large income
+you must earn it. This is the sense in which many people are compelled
+to do work, which they give you to understand is not the most suited to
+their genius, and it must be admitted that, although their words are
+foolish, not to say insincere, yet their deeds are sensible. There can
+be no mistake about the income, and there often is about the genius.
+Morewood, whose eccentricity stopped short of his banking account,
+painted his portraits like other people, and only deviated into
+landscape for a month in the summer, with the unfailing result of
+furnishing a crop of Morewoodesque parodies on Mother Nature that
+conclusively proved the fates were wiser than the painter.
+
+This year it so chanced that he chose the wilds of Exmoor for the scene
+of his outrages. He settled down in a small inn and plied his brush
+busily. Of course he did not paint anything that the ordinary person
+cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But
+he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself
+down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so
+carried away, being by nature a conceited man, as to exclaim:
+
+"My head of Stafford was the best head done these hundred years; and
+that's the best bit of background done these hundred and fifty!"
+
+The frame of the phrase seemed familiar to him as he uttered it, and he
+had just succeeded in tracing it back to the putative parentage of Lord
+Verulam, when, to his great astonishment, he heard Stafford's voice from
+the top of the bank, saying:
+
+"As I am in your mind already, Mr. Morewood, I feel my bodily appearance
+less of an intrusion on your solitude."
+
+"Why, how in the world did you come here?"
+
+The spot was within ten miles of the Retreat, and part of Stafford's
+treatment for himself consisted of long walks; but he only replied:
+
+"I am staying near here."
+
+"For health, eh?"
+
+"Yes--for health."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to see you. How are you? You don't look very
+first-class."
+
+Stafford came down the bank without replying, and sat down. He was, in
+spite of it being the country and very hot, dressed in his usual black,
+and looked paler and thinner than ever.
+
+"Have some lunch?"
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"There's only enough for one," he said.
+
+"Nonsense, man!"
+
+"No, really; I never take it."
+
+A pause ensued. Stafford seemed to be thinking, while Morewood was
+undoubtedly eating. Presently, however, the latter said:
+
+"You left us rather suddenly at Millstead."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sent for?"
+
+"You of all men know why I went, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"If you don't mind my admitting it, I do. But most people are so
+thin-skinned."
+
+"I am not thin-skinned--not in that way. Of course you know. You told
+me."
+
+"That head?"
+
+"Yes; you did me a service."
+
+"Well, I think I did, and I'm glad to hear you say so."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Shows you've come to your senses," said Morewood, rapidly recovering
+from his lapse into civility.
+
+Stafford seemed willing, even anxious, to pursue the subject. The
+_regimen_ at the Retreat was no doubt severe.
+
+"What do you mean by coming to my senses?"
+
+"Why, doing what any man does when he finds he's in love--barring a
+sound reason against it."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Try his luck. You needn't look at me. I've tried my luck before now,
+and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and
+there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!"
+
+"I don't bore you about it?"
+
+"No, I like jawing."
+
+"Well then, I was going to say, of course you don't know how it struck
+me."
+
+"Yes, I do, but I don't think any the better of it for that."
+
+"You knew about my vow? I suppose you think that--"
+
+"Bosh? Yes, I do. I think all vows bosh; but without asking you to agree
+to that, though I think I did ask the Bishop of Bellminster to, I do say
+this one is utter bosh. Why, your own people say so, don't they?"
+
+"My own people? The people I suppose you mean don't say so. I took a vow
+never to marry--there were even more stringent terms--but that's
+enough."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"A vow," continued Stafford, "that you won't marry till you want to is
+not the same as a vow never to marry."
+
+"No. I think I could manage the first sort."
+
+"The first sort," said Stafford, with a smile, "is nowadays a popular
+compromise."
+
+"I detest compromises. That's why I liked you."
+
+"You're advising me to make one now."
+
+"No, I advise you to throw up the whole thing."
+
+"That's because you don't believe in anything?"
+
+"Yes, probably."
+
+"Suppose you believed all I believe and had done all I had?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You believed what a priest believes--in heaven and hell--the gaining
+God and the losing him--in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this,
+had given your life to God, and made your vow to him--had so proclaimed
+before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a
+broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of
+others--a baseness, a treason, a desertion--more cowardly than a
+soldier's flight--as base as a thief's purloining--meaning to you and
+those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph of evil?"
+
+He sat still, but his voice was raised in rapid and intense utterance;
+he gazed before him with starting eyes.
+
+"All that," he went on, "it meant to me--all that and more--the triumph
+of the beast in me--passion and desire rampant--man forsaken and God
+betrayed--my peace forever gone, my honor forever stained. Can't you
+see? Can't you see?"
+
+Morewood rose and paced up and down.
+
+"Now--now can you judge? You say you knew--did you know that?"
+
+"Do you still believe all that?"
+
+"Yes, all, and more than all. For a moment--a day--perhaps a week, I
+drove myself to doubt. I tried to doubt--I rejoiced in it. But I cannot.
+As God is above us, I believe all that."
+
+"If you break this vow you think you will be--?"
+
+"The creature I have said? Yes--and worse."
+
+"I think the vow utter nonsense," said Morewood again.
+
+"But if you thought as I think, then would your love--yes, and would a
+girl's heart, weigh with you?"
+
+Morewood stood still.
+
+"I can hardly realize it," he said, "in a man of your brain. But--"
+
+"Yes?" said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for
+his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.
+
+"If I believed that, I'd cut off my hand rather than break the vow."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Stafford, "I knew it!"
+
+Morewood was touched with pity.
+
+"If you're right," he said, "it won't be so hard to you. You'll get over
+it."
+
+"Get over it?"
+
+"Yes; what you believe will help you. You've no choice, you know."
+
+Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.
+
+"You have never felt belief?" he asked.
+
+"Not for many years. That's all gone."
+
+"You think you have been in love?"
+
+"Of course I have--half a dozen times."
+
+"No more than the other," said Stafford decisively.
+
+Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly:
+
+"I have told you what belief is--I could tell you what love is; you know
+no more the one than the other. But why should I? I doubt if you would
+understand. You think you couldn't be shocked. I should shock you. Let
+it be. I think I could charm you, too. Let that be."
+
+A pause followed. Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually
+changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught
+on his canvas.
+
+"You're in love with her still?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Still?"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you conquered it? I'm a poor hand at preaching, but, by
+Jove! If I thought like you, I'd never think of the girl again."
+
+"I mean to marry her," said Stafford quietly. "I have chosen."
+
+Morewood was in very truth shocked. But Stafford's morals, after all,
+were not his care.
+
+"Perhaps she won't have you," he suggested at last, as though it were a
+happy solution.
+
+Stafford laughed outright.
+
+"Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?"
+
+"Well--after a time."
+
+"As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.
+As if it made the smallest difference--as if the result mattered!"
+
+"I suppose you are right there."
+
+"Of course. But she will have me."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I don't doubt it. If I doubted it, I should die."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"Pardon me; I dare say you do."
+
+"You don't want to talk about that?"
+
+"It isn't worth while. I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.
+Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out. I had a
+curiosity to see how my resolution struck you."
+
+"If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish. I'm no saint;
+but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn't to trample
+it under foot!"
+
+Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand. "I'm
+going back to London to-morrow," he said, "to wait till she comes."
+
+"God help you!" said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.
+
+"I have no more to do with God," said Stafford.
+
+"Then the devil help you, if you rely on him!"
+
+"Don't be angry," he said, with a swift return of his old sweet smile.
+"In old days I should have liked your indignation. I still like you for
+it. But I have made my choice."
+
+"'Evil, be thou my good.' Is that it?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. Why talk about it any more? It is done."
+
+He turned and walked away, leaving Morewood alone to finish his
+forgotten lunch.
+
+He could not get the thought of the man out of his mind all day. It was
+with him as he worked, and with him when he sat after dinner in the
+parlor of his little inn, with his pipe and whisky and water. He was so
+full of Stafford that he could not resist the impulse to tell somebody
+else, and at last he took a sheet of paper.
+
+"I don't know if he's in town," he said, "but I'll chance it;" and he
+began:
+
+     "DEAR AYRE:
+
+     "By chance down here I met the parson. He is mad. He painted for me
+     the passion of belief--which he said I hadn't and implied I
+     couldn't feel. He threatened to paint the passion of love, with
+     the same assertion and the same implication. He is convinced that
+     if he breaks his vow (you remember it, of course) he'll be worse
+     than Satan. Yet his face is set to break it. You probably can't
+     help it, and wouldn't if you could, for you haven't heard him. He's
+     going to London. Stop him if you can before he gets to Claudia
+     Territon. I tell you his state of mind is hideous.
+
+     "Yours,
+
+     "A. MOREWOOD."
+
+This somewhat incoherent letter reached Sir Roderick Ayre as he passed
+through London, and tarried a day or two in early October. He opened it,
+read it, and put it down on the breakfast-table. Then he read it again,
+and ejaculated.
+
+"Talk about madness! Why, because Stafford's mad--if he is mad--must our
+friend the painter go mad too? Not that I see he is mad. He's only been
+stirring up old Morewood's dormant piety."
+
+He lit his cigar, and sat pondering the letter.
+
+"Shall I try to stop him? If Claudia and Eugene have fixed up things it
+would be charitable to prevent him making a fool of himself. Why the
+deuce haven't I heard anything from that young rascal? Hullo! who's
+that?"
+
+He heard a voice outside, and the next moment Eugene himself rushed in.
+
+"Here you are!" he said. "Thought I should find you. You can't keep
+away from this dirty old town."
+
+"Where do you spring from?" asked Ayre.
+
+"Liverpool. I found the Continent slow, so I went to America. Nothing
+moving there, so I came back here. Can you give me breakfast?"
+
+Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up
+Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American
+experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home
+topics.
+
+"Well, how's everybody?"
+
+Ayre waited for a more definite question.
+
+"Seen the Territons lately?"
+
+"Not very. Haven't you?"
+
+"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?"
+
+"My young friend, are you trying to deceive me? You have heard from at
+least one of them, if you haven't seen them?"
+
+"I haven't--not a line. We don't correspond: not _comme il faut_."
+
+"Oh, you haven't written to Claudia?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Let us go back to the previous question. Have you heard from Miss
+Bernard?"
+
+"Why probe my wounds? Not a single line."
+
+"Confound her impudence! she never wrote?"
+
+"I don't know why she should. But in case she ought, I'm bound to say
+she couldn't."
+
+"Why not? She said she would; she said so to me."
+
+"She couldn't have said so. You must have misunderstood her. I left no
+address, you know; and I had no difficulty in eluding interviewers--not
+being a prize-fighter or a minor poet."
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Gad! I never thought of that. She held me, after all."
+
+"What on earth are you driving at?"
+
+"If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's a narrative; but I
+see I'm in for it. Sit still and hold your tongue till I'm through with
+it."
+
+Eugene obeyed implicitly; and Ayre, not without honest pride, recounted
+his Baden triumph.
+
+"And unless she's bolder than I think, you'll find a letter to that
+effect."
+
+Eugene sat very quiet.
+
+"Well, you don't seem overpleased, after all. Wasn't I right?"
+
+"Quite right, old fellow. But, I say, is she in love with Haddington?"
+
+"Ah, there's your beastly vanity? I think she is rather, you know, or
+she'd never have given herself away so."
+
+"Rum taste!" said Eugene, whose relief at his freedom was tempered by
+annoyance at Kate's insensibility. "But I'm awfully obliged. And, by
+Jove, Ayre, it's new life to me!"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Eugene had got over his annoyance. A sudden thought seemed to strike
+him.
+
+"I say, does Claudia know?"
+
+"Rickmansworth's sure to have told her on the spot. She must have known
+it a month; and what's more, she must think you've known it a month."
+
+"Inference that the sooner I show up the better."
+
+"Exactly. What, are you off now? Do you know where she is?"
+
+"I shall send a wire to Territon Park. Rick's sure to be there if she
+isn't, and I'll go down and find out about it."
+
+"Wait a minute, will you? Have you heard from your friend Stafford
+lately?"
+
+A shadow fell on Eugene's face.
+
+"No. But that's over. Must be, or he'd never have bolted from
+Millstead."
+
+Ayre was silent a moment. Morewood's letter told him that Stafford had
+set out to go to Claudia. What if he and Eugene met? Ayre had not much
+faith in the power of friendship under such circumstances.
+
+"I think, on the whole, that I'd better show you a letter I've had," he
+said. "Mind you, I take no responsibility for what you do."
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Eugene, with a smile. "We all understand
+that's your position."
+
+Ayre flung the letter over to him and he read it.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, this is the devil!" he exclaimed, jumping off the
+writing-table, where he had seated himself.
+
+"So Morewood seems to think."
+
+"Poor old fellow! I say, what shall I do? Poor old Stafford! Fancy his
+cutting up like this."
+
+"It's kind of you to pity him."
+
+"What do you mean? I say, Ayre, you don't think there is anything in
+it?"
+
+"Anything in it?"
+
+"You don't think there's any chance that Claudia likes him?"
+
+"Haven't an idea one way or the other," said Ayre rather disingenuously.
+
+Eugene looked very perturbed.
+
+"You see," continued Ayre, "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl
+is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else up
+to a month ago."
+
+"Oh, damn it, yes!" groaned Eugene; "but she knew old Stafford had sworn
+not to marry anybody."
+
+"And she knew--of course she knew--you both wanted to marry her. I
+wonder what she thought of both of you!"
+
+"She never had any idea of the sort about him. About me she may have had
+an inkling."
+
+"Just an inkling, perhaps," assented Sir Roderick.
+
+"The worst of it is, you know, if she does like me I shall feel a brute,
+cutting in now. Old Stafford knew I was engaged too, you know."
+
+"It all serves you right," observed Ayre comfortingly. "If you must get
+engaged at all, why the deuce couldn't you pick the right girl?"
+
+"Fact is, I don't show up over well."
+
+"You don't; that is a fact."
+
+"Ayre, I think I ought to let him have his shot first."
+
+"Bosh! why, as like as not she'd take him! If it struck her that he was
+chucking away his immortal soul and all that for her sake, as like as
+not she'd take him. Depend upon it, Eugene, once she caught the idea of
+romantic sin, she'd be gone--no girl could stand up against it."
+
+"It is rather the sort of thing to catch Claudia's fancy."
+
+"You cut in, my boy," continued Ayre, "Frendship's all very well--"
+
+"Yes, 'save in the office and affairs of love!'" quoted Eugene, with a
+smile of scorn at himself.
+
+"Well, you'd better make up your mind, and don't mount stilts."
+
+"I'll go down and look round. But I can't ask her without telling her or
+letting him tell her."
+
+"Pooh! she knows."
+
+"She doesn't, I tell you."
+
+"Then she ought to. You're a nice fellow! I slave and eavesdrop for you,
+and now you won't do the rest yourself. What the deuce do you all see in
+that parson? If I were your age, and thought Claudia Territon would have
+me, it would take a lot of parsons to put me on one side."
+
+"Poor old Charley!" said Eugene again. "Ayre, he shall have his shot."
+
+"Meanwhile, the girl's wondering if you mean to throw her over. She's
+expected to hear from you this last month. I tell you what: I expect
+Rick'll kick you when you do turn up."
+
+"Well, I shall go down and try to see her: when I get there I must be
+guided by circumstances."
+
+"Very good. I expect the circumstances will turn out to be such that
+you'll make love to Claudia and forget all about Stafford. If you
+don't----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're an infernally cold-blooded conscientious young ruffian, and I
+never took you for that before!"
+
+And Ayre, more perturbed about other people's affairs than a man of his
+creed had any business to be, returned to the _Times_ as Eugene went to
+pursue his errand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure
+
+
+Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more
+startling than the reality warranted. When a man is going to act against
+his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime
+has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would
+detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a
+question of impressing others. Sin seems commonplace if we give it no
+pomp and circumstance. No man was more free than Stafford from any
+conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality
+that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing
+to allow, a real disease of the mind. But in his interview with Morewood
+he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and
+stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual
+inmost movement of his mind justified. It was true that he was
+determined to set action and conviction in sharp antagonism, and to
+follow an overpowering passion rather than a belief that he depicted as
+no less dominant. Had his fierce words to Morewood reproduced exactly
+what he felt, it may be doubted whether the resultant of two forces so
+opposite and so equal could have been the ultimately unwavering
+intention that now possessed him. In truth, the aggressive strength of
+his belief had been sapped from within. His efforts after doubt,
+described by himself as entirely unsuccessful, had not in reality been
+without result. They had not issued in any radical or wholesale
+alteration of his views. He was right in supposing that he would still
+have given as full intellectual assent to all the dogmas of his creed as
+formerly; the balance of probability was still in his view
+overwhelmingly in their favor. But it had come to be a balance of
+probability--not, of course, in the way in which a man balances one
+account of an ordinary transaction against another, and decides out of
+his own experience of how things happen--Stafford had not lost his
+mental discrimination so completely--but in the sense that he had
+appealed to reason, and thus admitted the jurisdiction of reason in
+matters which he had formerly proclaimed as outside the province of that
+sort of reasoning that governs other intellectual questions. In the
+result, he was left under the influence of a persuasion, not under the
+dominion of a command; and the former failed to withstand an assault
+that the latter might well have enabled him to repulse. He found
+himself able to forget what he believed, though not to disbelieve it;
+his convictions could be postponed, though not expelled; and in
+representing his mind as the present battle-ground of equal and opposite
+forces, he had rather expressed what a preacher would reveal as the
+inner truth of his struggle than what he was himself conscious of as
+going on within him. It is likely enough that his previous experience
+had made him describe his own condition rather in the rhetoric of the
+pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had
+certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps
+Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He
+thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene,
+as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the
+moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture
+Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew
+it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He
+was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin
+when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely
+conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed
+wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned
+his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had
+silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an
+exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly
+diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let
+trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were
+in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth
+having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy
+that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would
+bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was
+mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true
+presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene
+had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more
+rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather
+than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself
+more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change.
+
+Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood,
+feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair
+advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known
+to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency
+to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he
+had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once
+to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely
+quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and
+on the afternoon of his arrival in town--on the same day, that is, as
+Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast--he knocked at the door
+of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were
+at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning,
+from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his
+way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a
+telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was
+at Millstead Manor.
+
+Stafford was annoyed at missing Eugene, but not surprised or disturbed
+to hear of his visit to Territon Park. Eugene did not strike him as a
+possible rival. It may be doubted whether in his present frame of mind
+he would have looked on any man's rivalry as dangerous, but of course he
+was entirely ignorant of the new development of affairs, and supposed
+Eugene to be still the affianced husband of Miss Bernard. The only way
+the news affected him was by dispelling the slight hope he had
+entertained of finding that Claudia had already returned to London.
+
+He went back to his hotel, wrote a single line to Eugene, asking him to
+tell him Claudia's address, if he knew it, and then went for a walk in
+the Park to pass the restless hours away. It was a dull evening, and the
+earliest of the fogs had settled on the devoted city. A small drizzle
+of rain and the thickening blackness had cleared the place of
+saunterers, and Stafford, who prolonged his walk, apparently unconscious
+of his surroundings, had the dreary path by the Serpentine nearly to
+himself. As the fog grew denser and night fell, the spot became a
+desert, and its chill gloom began to be burdensome even to his
+prepossessed mind. He stopped and gazed as far as the mist let him over
+the water, which lay smooth and motionless, like a sheet of opaque
+glass; the opposite bank was shrouded from his view, and imagination
+allowed him to think himself standing on the shore of some almost
+boundless lake. Seen under such conditions, the Serpentine put off the
+cheerful vulgarity of its everyday aspect, and exercised over the spirit
+of the watcher the same fascination as a mountain tarn or some deep,
+quick-flowing stream. "Come hither and be at rest," it seemed to
+whisper, and Stafford, responsive to the subtle invitation, for a moment
+felt as if to die in the thought of his mistress would be as sweet as to
+live in her presence, and, it might be, less perilous. At least he could
+be quiet there. His mind traveled back to a by-gone incident of his
+parochial life, when he had found a wretched shop-boy crouching by the
+water's edge, and trying to screw his courage up for the final plunge.
+It was a sordid little tragedy--an honest lad was caught in the toils of
+some slatternly Jezebel; she had made him steal for her, had spent his
+spoil, and then deserted him for his "pal"--his own familiar friend.
+Adrift on the world, beggared in character and fortune, and sore to the
+heart, he had wandered to the edge of the water, and listened to its
+low-voiced promises of peace. Stafford had stretched forth his hand to
+pluck him from his doom and set him on his feet; he prevailed on the lad
+to go home in his company, and the course of a few days proved once
+again that despair may be no more enduring than delight. The incident
+had almost faded from his memory, but it revived now as he stood and
+looked on the water, and he recognized with a start the depths to which
+he was in danger of falling. The invitation of the water could not draw
+him to it till he knew Claudia's will. But if she failed him, was not
+that the only thing left? His desire had swallowed up his life, and
+seemed to point to death as the only alternative to its own
+satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal
+interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon
+it,--Claudia would rescue him from that,--but with a theoretical
+certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should
+break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued
+his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and
+romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; as a man might die
+because he could not save his country, so might he because he could not
+please his lady-love. In old days, Stafford, rigidly repressing his
+aesthetic delight in such literature, had condemned its teaching with
+half-angry contempt, and enough of his former estimate of things
+remained to him to prevent him regarding such a state of mind as it
+pictured as a romantic elevation rather than a hopeless degradation of a
+man's being. But although he still condemned, now he understood, if not
+the defense of such an attitude, at least the existence of it. He might
+still think it a folly; it no longer appeared a figment. A sin it was,
+no doubt, and a degradation, but not an enormity or an absurdity; and
+when he tried again to fancy his life without Claudia, he struggled in
+vain against the growing conviction that the pictures he had condemned
+as caricatures of humanity had truth in them, and that it might be his
+part to prove it.
+
+With a shiver he turned away. Such imaginings were not good for a man,
+nor the place that bred them. He took the shortest cut that led out of
+the Park and back to the streets, where he found lights and people, and
+his thoughts, sensitive to the atmosphere round him, took a brighter
+hue. Why should he trouble himself with what he would do if he were
+deceived in Claudia? He knew her too well to doubt her. He had pushed
+aside all obstacles to seek her, and she would fly to meet him; and he
+smiled at himself for conjuring up fantasies of impossible misfortune,
+only to enjoy the solace of laying them again with the sweet confidence
+of love. He passed the evening in the contemplation of his happiness,
+awaiting Eugene's reply to his note with impatience, but without
+disquiet.
+
+This same letter was, however, the cause of very serious disquiet to the
+recipient, more especially as it came upon the top of another
+troublesome occurrence. Rickmansworth had welcomed Eugene to Territon
+Park with his usual good nature and his usual absence of effusion. In
+fact, he telegraphed that Eugene could come if he liked, but he,
+Rickmansworth, thought he'd find it beastly slow. Eugene went, but
+found, to his dismay, that Claudia was not there. Some mystery hung over
+her non-appearance; but he learned from Bob that her departure had been
+quite impromptu,--decided upon, in fact, after his telegram was
+received,--and that she was staying some five miles off, at the Dower
+House, with her aunt, Lady Julia, who occupied that residence.
+
+Eugene was much annoyed and rather uneasy.
+
+"It looks as if she didn't want to see me," he said to Bob.
+
+"It does, almost," replied Bob cheerfully. "Perhaps she don't."
+
+"Well, I'll go over and call to-morrow."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ should let her alone."
+
+Very likely Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a
+lover--even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene--ever listen to
+the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning
+came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to
+the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and
+propose to give his friend a chance when he thought the pear was only
+waiting to drop into his hand; magnanimity appeared at once safe and
+desirable, and there was no strong motive to counteract Eugene's love
+for Stafford. Matters were rather different when it appeared that the
+pear was not waiting to drop--when, on the contrary, the pear had
+pointedly removed itself from the hand of the plucker, and seemed, if
+one may vary the metaphor, to have turned into a prickly pear. Eugene
+still believed that Claudia loved him; but he saw that she was stung by
+his apparent neglect, and perhaps still more by the idea that in his
+view he had only to ask at any time in order to have. When ladies gather
+that impression, they think it due to their self-respect to make
+themselves very unpleasant, and Eugene did not feel sure how far this
+feeling might not carry Claudia's quick, fiery nature, more especially
+if she were offered a chance of punishing Eugene by accepting a suitor
+who was in many ways an object of her admiration and regard, and came to
+her with an indubitable halo of romance about him. Eugene felt that his
+consideration for Stafford might, perhaps, turn out to be more than a
+graceful tribute to friendship; it might mean a real sacrifice, a
+sacrifice of immense gravity; and he did what most people would do--he
+reconsidered the situation.
+
+The matter was not, to his thinking, complicated by anything approaching
+to an implied pledge on his part. Of course Stafford had not looked upon
+him as a possible rival; his engagement to Kate Bernard had seemed to
+put him _hors de combat_. But he had been equally entitled to regard
+Stafford as out of the running; for surely Stafford's vow was as binding
+as his promise. They stood on an equality: neither could reproach the
+other--that is to say, each had matter of reproach against the other,
+but his mouth was closed. There was then only friendship--only the old
+bond that nothing was to come between them. Did this bond carry with it
+the obligation of standing on one side in such a case as this? Moreover,
+time was precious. If he failed to seek out Claudia that very day, she,
+knowing he was at Territon Park, would be justly aggrieved by a new
+proof of indifference or disrespect. And yet, if he were to wait for
+Stafford, that day must go by without his visit. Eugene had hitherto
+lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in
+consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon
+himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of
+honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship
+would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points against himself.
+
+He sat down after breakfast, and wrote a long letter to Stafford.
+
+After touching very lightly on Stafford's position, and disclaiming not
+only any right to judge, but also any inclination to blame, he went on
+to tell in some detail the change that had occurred in his own
+situation, avowed his intention of gaining Claudia's hand if he could,
+clearly implied his knowledge that Stafford's heart was set on the same
+object, and ended with a warm declaration that the rivalry between them
+did not and should not alter his love, and that, if unsuccessful, he
+could desire to be beaten by no other man than Stafford. He added more
+words of friendship, told Stafford that he should try his luck as soon
+as might be, and that he had Rickmansworth's authority to tell him that,
+if he saw proper to come down for the same purpose, his coming would not
+be regarded as an intrusion by the master of the house.
+
+Then he went and obtained the authority he had pledged, and sent his
+servant up to London with the letter, with instructions to deliver it
+instantly into Stafford's own hand. His distrust in the integrity of the
+postmaster's daughter in such a matter prevented his sending any further
+message by the wires than one requesting Stafford to be at home to
+receive his letter between twelve and one, when his messenger might be
+expected to arrive.
+
+With a conscience clear enough for all practical purposes, he then
+mounted his horse, rode over to the Dower House, and sent in his card to
+Lady Julia Territon. Lady Julia was probably well posted up; at any
+rate, she received him with kindness and without surprise, and, after
+the proper amount of conversation, told him she believed he would find
+Claudia in the morning-room. Would he stay to lunch? and would he excuse
+her if she returned to her occupations? Eugene prevaricated about the
+lunch, for the invitation was obviously, though tacitly, a contingent
+one, and conceded the lady's excuses with as respectable a show of
+sincerity as was to be expected. Then he turned his steps to the
+morning-room, declining announcement, and knocked at the door.
+
+"Oh, come in," said Claudia, in a tone that clearly implied, "if you
+won't let me alone and stay outside."
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't know who it is," thought Eugene, trying to comfort
+himself as he opened the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.
+
+
+Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
+her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
+psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
+to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
+unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
+proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
+always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
+digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
+hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
+The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
+pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
+under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
+thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws--it
+is more interesting to be peculiar--and that Claudia would have regarded
+such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
+if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
+stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
+along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
+even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
+lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
+abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
+be scrupulously, avoided.
+
+Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
+could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
+Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
+and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
+might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
+at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
+the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
+of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
+recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
+patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
+exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
+generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
+he waited, and like Fabius he struck.
+
+"I have been so completely out of the world--out of my own world--for
+the last month that I know nothing. Didn't even have my letters sent
+on."
+
+"Fancy!" said Lady Claudia.
+
+"I wish I had now."
+
+Claudia was meant to say "Why?" She didn't, so he had to make the
+connection for himself.
+
+"I found one letter waiting for me that was most important."
+
+"Yes?" said Claudia, with polite but obviously fatigued interest.
+
+"It was from Miss Bernard."
+
+"Fancy not having her letters sent on!"
+
+"You know what was in that letter, Lady Claudia?"
+
+"Oh, yes; Rickmansworth told me. I don't know if he ought to have. I am
+so very sorry, Mr. Lane."
+
+"From not getting the letter, I didn't know for a month that I was free.
+I needn't shrink from calling it freedom."
+
+"As you were in America, it couldn't make much difference whether you
+knew or not."
+
+"I want you to know that I didn't know."
+
+"Really you are very kind."
+
+"I was afraid you would think--"
+
+"Pray, what?" asked Claudia, in suspiciously calm tones.
+
+Eugene was conscious he was not putting it in the happiest possible way;
+however, there was nothing for it but to go on now.
+
+"Why, that--why, Claudia, that I shouldn't rush to you the moment I was
+free."
+
+Claudia was sitting on a sofa, and as he said this Eugene came up and
+leant his hands on the back of it. He thought he had done it rather well
+at last. To his astonishment, she leapt up.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"Why, what?" exclaimed poor Eugene.
+
+"To come and tell me to my face that you're afraid I've been crying for
+you for a month past!"
+
+"Of course I don't mean--"
+
+"Do I look very ill and worn?" demanded Claudia, with elaborate sarcasm.
+"Have I faded away? Make your mind easy, Mr. Lane. You will not have
+another girl's death at your door."
+
+Eugene so far forgot himself as to stare at the ceiling and exclaim,
+"Good God!"
+
+This appeared to add new fuel to the flame.
+
+"You come and tell a girl--all but in words tell her--she was dying for
+love of you when you were engaged to another girl; dying to hear from
+you; dying to have you propose to her! And when she's mildly indignant
+you use some profane expression, just as if you had stated the most
+ordinary facts in the world! I am infinitely obliged for your
+compassion, Mr. Lane."
+
+"I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant that considering what had
+passed between us--"
+
+"Passed between us?"
+
+"Well, yes at Millstead, you know."
+
+"Are you going to tell me I said anything then, when I knew you were
+engaged to Kate? I suppose you will stop short of that?"
+
+Eugene wisely abandoned this line of argument. After all, most of the
+talking had been on his side.
+
+"Why will you quarrel, Claudia? I came here in as humble a frame of mind
+as ever man came in."
+
+"Your humility, Mr. Lane, is a peculiar quality."
+
+"Won't you listen to me?"
+
+"Have I refused to listen? But no, I don't want to listen now. You have
+made me too angry."
+
+"Oh, but do listen just a little--"
+
+Claudia suddenly changed her tone--indeed, her whole demeanor.
+
+"Not to-day," she said beseechingly; "really, not to-day. I won't tell
+you why; but not to-day."
+
+"No time like the present," suggested Eugene.
+
+"Do you know there is something you don't allow for in women?"
+
+"So it seems. What is that?"
+
+"Just a little pride. No, I will not listen to you!" she added with an
+imperious little stamp of her foot, and a relapse into hostility.
+
+"May I come again?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Eugene was not a patient man. He allowed himself a shrug of the
+shoulders.
+
+"Are you about to congratulate me on having 'bagged' another?"
+
+"You're entirely hopeless to-day, and entirely charming!" he said. "If
+any girl but you had treated me like this, I'd never come near her
+again."
+
+Claudia looked daggers.
+
+"Pray don't make me an exception to your usual rule."
+
+"As it is, I shall go away now and come back presently. You may then at
+least listen to me. That's all I've asked you to do so far."
+
+"I am bound to do that. I will some day. But do go now."
+
+"I will directly; but I want to speak to you about something else."
+
+"Anything else in the world! And on any other subject I will
+be--charming--to you. Sit down. What is it?"
+
+"It's about Stafford."
+
+"Your friend Father Stafford? What about him?"
+
+"He's coming down here."
+
+"Oh, how nice! It will be a pleasant ref--resource."
+
+Eugene smiled.
+
+"Don't mind saying what you mean--or even what you don't mean; that
+generally gives people greater pleasure."
+
+"You're making me angry again."
+
+"But what do you think he's coming for?"
+
+"To see you, I suppose."
+
+"On the contrary. To see you."
+
+"Pray don't be absurd."
+
+"It's gospel truth, and very serious. He is in love with you. No--wait,
+please. You must forgive my speaking of it. But you ought to know."
+
+"Father Stafford?"
+
+"No other."
+
+"But he--he's not going to marry anybody. He's taken a vow."
+
+"Yes. He's going to break it--if you'll help him."
+
+"You wouldn't make fun of this. Is it true?"
+
+"Yes, it's desperately true. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more, or
+say anything more about it. He'll come and plead his own cause. If you'd
+treated me differently, I might have stopped him. As it is, he must come
+now."
+
+"Why do you assume I don't want him to come?"
+
+"I assume nothing. I don't know whether you'll make him happy or treat
+him as you've treated me."
+
+"I shan't treat him as I've treated you, Eugene; is he--is he very
+unhappy about it?"
+
+"Yes, poor devil!" said Eugene bitterly. "He's ready to give up this
+world and the next for you."
+
+"You think that strange?"
+
+Eugene shook his head with a smile.
+
+    "'A man had given all other bliss
+    And all his worldly worth,'"
+
+he quoted. "Stafford would give more than that. Good-morning, Lady
+Claudia."
+
+"Good-by," she said. "When is he coming?"
+
+"To-day, I expect."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and
+made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought
+to the contingent lunch.
+
+"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I
+did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully
+over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed
+much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an
+unreasonable accident befallen him.
+
+So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was
+well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very
+satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on
+Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for
+annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient
+lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not
+the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put
+more upon him than he was able to bear--certainly not more than he
+deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing
+him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this
+extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of
+difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of
+affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and
+she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of
+Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult,
+without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of
+surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that
+Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt
+that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only
+erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to
+a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing
+that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of
+her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The
+secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation
+that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love
+with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with
+her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed,
+had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than
+contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of
+awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his
+position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other
+hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that
+aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so
+powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an
+Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But
+Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from
+himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's
+mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him,
+he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at
+least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing
+Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before
+he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to
+appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford
+himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of
+celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between
+them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to
+respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full
+liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for
+himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its
+betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from
+the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the
+picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the
+breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of
+treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and
+although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate
+beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on
+the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view
+that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above
+all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of
+genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and
+there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding
+interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was,
+unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings,
+which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment
+against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses.
+Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without
+scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she
+would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood
+exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with
+encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense,
+though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept
+as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with
+him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed
+him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did
+because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the
+truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful
+because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment
+settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.
+
+When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers
+with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive
+medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing
+occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.
+
+"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.
+
+"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.
+
+"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"
+
+"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."
+
+"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.
+
+"Something of the sort; but I think it's all right."
+
+"You play up, old man," said Bob.
+
+"Well, but what the devil are we to do with this parson?" Lord
+Rickmansworth demanded. "He'll be here after lunch, you know. You are an
+ass, Eugene, to bring him down!"
+
+"I'm not quite sure, you know, that he won't persuade her."
+
+"Why didn't you settle it this morning?"
+
+"My dear fellow, she was impossible this morning."
+
+"Oh, bosh!" said his lordship. "Now I'll tell you what you ought to have
+done--"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Rick! What do you know about it? Stafford must try his
+luck, if he likes. Don't you fellows bother about him. I'll see him when
+he comes down."
+
+"Would it be infernally uncivil if we happened to be out in the tandem!"
+suggested Rickmansworth.
+
+"I expect he'd be rather glad."
+
+"Then we will be out in the tandem. If you kill him, or the other way,
+just do it outside, will you, so as not to make a mess? Now we'll lunch,
+and then Bob, my boy, we'll evaporate."
+
+It was about three o'clock when Stafford arrived. He had managed to
+catch the 1:30 from London, and must have started the moment he had
+read his letter. He was shown into the billiard-room, where Eugene was
+restlessly smoking a cigar.
+
+He came swiftly up, and held out his hand, saying:
+
+"This is like you, my dear old fellow. Not another man in England would
+have done it."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied Eugene. "I ought to have done more."
+
+"More? How?"
+
+"I ought to have waited till you came before I went to see her."
+
+"No, no; that would have been too much."
+
+He was quite calm and cool; apparently there was nothing on his mind,
+and he spoke of Eugene's visit as if it concerned him little.
+
+"I daresay you're surprised at all this," he continued, "but I can't
+talk about that now. It would upset me again. Beside, there's no time."
+
+"Why no time?"
+
+"I must go straight over and see her."
+
+"My dear Charley, are you set on going?"
+
+"Of course. I came for that purpose. You know how sorry I am we are
+rivals; but I agree with what you said--we needn't be enemies."
+
+"It wasn't that I meant. But you don't ask how I fared."
+
+"Well, I was expecting you would tell me, if there was anything to
+tell."
+
+"I went, you know, to ask her to be my wife."
+
+Stafford nodded.
+
+"Well, did you?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"I tried to--I mean I wasn't kept back by loyalty to you--you mustn't
+think that. But she wouldn't let me."
+
+"I thought she wouldn't."
+
+Eugene began to understand his state of mind. In another man such
+confidence would have made him angry; but he had only pity for Stafford.
+
+"I must try and make him understand," he thought.
+
+"Charley," he began, "I don't think you quite follow, and it's not very
+easy to explain. She didn't refuse me."
+
+"Well, no, if you didn't ask," said Stafford, with a slight smile.
+
+"And she didn't stop me in--in that way. Look here, old fellow; it's no
+use beating about the bush. I believe she means to have me."
+
+Stafford said nothing.
+
+"But I don't say that to put you off going, because I'm not sure. But I
+believe she does. And you ought to know what I think. I tell you all I
+know."
+
+"Do you tell me not to go?"
+
+"I can't do that. I only tell you what I believe."
+
+"She said nothing of the sort?"
+
+"No--nothing explicit."
+
+"Merely declined to listen?"
+
+"Yes--but in a way."
+
+"My dear Eugene, aren't you deceiving yourself?"
+
+"I think not. I think, you know, you're deceiving yourself."
+
+They looked at one another, and suddenly both men smiled.
+
+"I want to spare you," said Eugene; "but it sounds a little absurd."
+
+"The sooner I go the better," said Stafford. "I must tell you, old
+fellow, I go in confident hope. If I am wrong--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Everything is over! Would you feel that?"
+
+Eugene was always honest with Stafford. He searched his heart.
+
+"I should be cut up," he said. "But no--not that."
+
+Stafford smiled sadly.
+
+"How I wish I could do things by halves!" he exclaimed.
+
+"You will come back?"
+
+"I'll leave a line for you as I go by. Whatever happens, you have
+treated me well."
+
+"Good-by, old man. I can't say good luck. When shall I see you?"
+
+"That depends," said Stafford.
+
+Eugene showed him the road to the Dower House, and he set out at a brisk
+walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A Lover's Fate and a Friend's Counsel.
+
+
+It was about half-past three when Stafford left Territon Park; about the
+same hour Claudia sallied forth from the Dower House to take her
+constitutional. When two people start to walk at the same time from
+opposite ends of the same road, barring accidents, they meet somewhere
+about the middle. In accordance with this law, when Claudia was about
+two miles from home, walking along the path through the dense woods of
+Territon Park, she saw Stafford coming toward her. There were no means
+of escape, and with a sigh of resignation she sat down on a rustic seat
+and awaited his approach. He saw her as soon as she saw him, and came up
+to her without any embarrassment.
+
+"I am lucky," he said, "I was going over to see you."
+
+Claudia had given some thought to this interview and had determined on
+her best course.
+
+"Mr. Lane told me you were coming."
+
+"Dear old Eugene!"
+
+"But I hoped you would not."
+
+"Don't let us begin at the end. I haven't seen you since I left
+Millstead. Were you surprised at my going?"
+
+"I was rather surprised at the way you went."
+
+"I thought you would understand it. Now, honestly, didn't you?"
+
+"Perhaps I did."
+
+"I thought so. You had seen what I only saw that very night. You
+understood--"
+
+"Please, Father Stafford--"
+
+"Say Mr. Stafford."
+
+"No. I know you as Father Stafford, and I like that best."
+
+"As you will--for the present. You knew how I stood. You saw I loved
+you--no, I am going on--and yet felt myself bound not to tell you."
+
+"I saw nothing of the kind. It never entered my head."
+
+"Claudia, is it possible? Did you never think of it?"
+
+"As nothing more than a possibility--and a very unhappy possibility."
+
+"Why unhappy?" he asked, and his voice was very tender.
+
+"To begin with: you could never love any one."
+
+"I have swept all that on one side. That is over."
+
+"How can it be over? You had sworn."
+
+"Yes; but it is over."
+
+"Dare you break your vow?"
+
+"If I dare, who else dare question me? Have I not counted the cost?"
+
+"Nothing can make it right."
+
+"Why talk of that? It is my sin and my concern."
+
+"You destroy all my esteem for you."
+
+"I ask for love, not for esteem. Esteem between you and me! I love you
+more than all the world."
+
+"Ah! don't say that!"
+
+"Yes, more than my soul. And you talk of esteem! Ah! you don't know what
+a man's love is."
+
+"I never thought of you as making love."
+
+"I think now of nothing else. Why should I trouble you with my
+struggles? Now I am free to love--and you, Claudia, are free to return
+my love."
+
+"Did you think I was in love with you?"
+
+"Yes," said Stafford. "But you knew my promise, and did not let yourself
+see your own feelings. Ah, Claudia! if it is only the promise!"
+
+"It isn't only the promise. You have no right to speak like that. I
+should never have done as I did if I'd even thought of you like that."
+
+"What do you mean by saying it's not only the promise?"
+
+"Why, that I don't love you--I never did--oh, what a wretched thing!"
+And she rose and paced about, clasping her hands.
+
+Stafford was very pale now, but very quiet.
+
+"You never loved me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you will. You must, when you know my love--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, but you will. Let me tell you what you are--"
+
+"No, I never can."
+
+"Is it true? Why?"
+
+"Because--oh! don't you see?"
+
+"No. Wasn't it because you loved me that you wouldn't let Eugene speak?"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Claudia," he cried, clasping her wrist, "were you playing with him?"
+
+No answer seemed possible but the truth.
+
+"Yes," she said, bowing her head.
+
+"And playing with me?"
+
+"No, that's unjust. I never did. I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was beyond hurt?"
+
+"I suppose so. You set up to be."
+
+"Yes, I set up to be," he said bitterly.
+
+"And the truth--in God's name let us have truth--is that you love him?"
+
+"Have you no pity? Why do you press me?"
+
+"I will not press you; God forbid I should trouble you! But is this the
+end?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is final--no hope? Think what it means to me."
+
+"If I do care for Mr. Lane, is this friendly to him?"
+
+"I am beyond friendship, as I am beyond conscience. Claudia, turn to me.
+No man ever loved as I do."
+
+"I can't help it," she said: "I can't help it!"
+
+Stafford sank down on the seat and sat there for a moment without
+speaking. Claudia was awed at the look on his face.
+
+"Don't look like that!" she cried. "You look like a man lost."
+
+"Yes, lost!" he echoed. "All lost--all lost--and for nothing!"
+
+Silence followed for a long time. Then he roused himself, and looked at
+her. Claudia's eyes were full of tears.
+
+"It's not your fault, my sweet lady," he said gently. "You are pure and
+bright and beautiful, as you ever were, and I have raved and frightened
+you. Well, I will go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"Where? I don't know yet."
+
+"I am so very, very sorry. But you must try--you must forget about it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, I must forget about it."
+
+"You will be yourself again--your old self--not weak like this, but
+giving others strength."
+
+"Yes," he said again, humoring her.
+
+"Surely you can do it--you who had such strength. And don't think hardly
+of me."
+
+"I think of you as I used to think of God," he said; and bent and
+kissed her hand.
+
+"Oh, hush!" she cried. "Pray don't!"
+
+He kissed her hand once again, and then straightened himself, and said:
+
+"Now I am going. You must forget--or remember Millstead, not Territon.
+And I--"
+
+"Yes, and you?"
+
+"I will go, too, where I may find forgetfulness. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Claudia, and gave him her hand again, her heart full of
+pity and almost of love. He turned on his heel, and she stood and
+watched him go. For a moment a sudden thought flashed through her head.
+
+"Shall I call him back? Shall I ever find such love as his?"
+
+She started a step forward, but stopped again.
+
+"No, I do not love him," she said. "And I do love my careless Eugene.
+But God comfort him! O God, comfort him!"
+
+And so standing and praying for him, she let him go.
+
+And he went, with no falter in his step and never a look backward. This
+thing also had he set behind him.
+
+Claudia still stood fixed on the spot where he had left her. Then she
+sat down on the seat, and gave herself up to memories of their walks and
+talks at Millstead.
+
+"Why need he spoil it all?" she cried. "Why need he give me a sad
+memory, when I had such a pleasant one? Oh, how foolish they are! What a
+pity it's Eugene, and not him! Eugene would never have looked like that.
+He'd have made a bitter little speech, and then a pretty little speech,
+and smoothed his feathers and flown away. But still it is Eugene! Oh,
+dear, I shall never be quite happy again!"
+
+We may reasonably, nay confidently, hope that this was looking at the
+black side of things. It is pleasant to act a little to ourselves now
+and then. The little pieces are thrilling, and they don't last much
+longer than their counterparts upon the stage. With most of us the
+curtain falls very punctually, leaving time for a merry supper, where we
+forget the headache and the thousand natural and unnatural ills that
+passed in our sight before the green baize let fall its merciful veil.
+
+Stafford pursued his way through the woods. Arriving at the lodge gates,
+he stopped abruptly, remembering his promise to Eugene. He saw a little
+fellow playing about, and called to him.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Lane, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the child.
+
+"Then I'll give you something to take to him."
+
+He took a card out of his pocket and wrote on it: "You were right. I am
+going to London"; and giving it, with a sixpence, to his messenger,
+resumed his journey to the station.
+
+He was stunned. It cannot be denied that he had been blindly hopeful,
+blindly confident. He had persuaded himself that his love for Claudia
+could be nothing but the outcome of a natural bond between them that
+must produce a like feeling in her. He had attributed to her the depth
+and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
+not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
+common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
+in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
+asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
+the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
+hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
+refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
+could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
+Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
+pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
+and she had closed her grasp upon it.
+
+He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
+able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
+reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
+his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
+him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
+to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
+whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
+He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
+destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
+go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
+nothing had happened--as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
+sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
+had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
+revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
+restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
+been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
+with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
+emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
+of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
+himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
+life left for the man he was now?
+
+Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
+had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
+learnt always to regard it rather as a necessary evil than as a thing
+desirable in itself. Its momentary sweetness left it more bitter still.
+There would be a physical pang, inevitable to a strong man, full of
+health. But this he was ready to face; and now, in leaving life he would
+leave behind nothing he regretted. The religious condemnation of
+suicide, which in former days would not have decided, but prevented such
+a discussion in his mind, now weighed little with him. No doubt it would
+be an act of cowardice: but he had been guilty of such a much more
+flagrant treachery and desertion, that the added sin seemed a small
+matter. He felt that to boggle over it would be like condemning a
+murderer for trying to cheat the gallows. But still, there was the
+natural dislike of an acknowledgment of utter defeat; and, added to
+this, the bitter reluctance a man of ability feels at the idea of his
+powers ceasing to be active, and himself ceasing to be. The instinct of
+life was strong in him, though his reason seemed to tell him there was
+no way in which his life could be used.
+
+"It's better to go!" he exclaimed at last, after long hours of
+conflicting meditation.
+
+It was getting late in the evening. Eleven o'clock had struck, and he
+thought he would go to bed. He was very tired and worn out, and decided
+to put off further questions till the next day.
+
+After all, there was no hurry. He knew the worst now; the blow had been
+struck, and only the dull, unending pain was with him--and would be
+till the hour came when he should free himself from it. He resolutely
+turned his mind away from Claudia. He could not bear to think about her.
+If only he could manage to think about nothing for an hour, sleep would
+come.
+
+He rose to take his candle, but at the same moment a waiter opened the
+door.
+
+"A gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+"To see me? Who is it?"
+
+"He says his name's Ayre, and he hopes you'll see him."
+
+"I can't see him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the
+petulance of weariness. Why did the man bother him?
+
+But Ayre had followed close on his messenger, and entered the room as
+Stafford spoke.
+
+"Pray forgive me, Mr. Stafford," he said, "for intruding on you so
+unceremoniously."
+
+Stafford received him with courtesy, but did not succeed in concealing
+his questioning as to the motive of the visit.
+
+Ayre took the chair his host gave him.
+
+"You think this a very strange proceeding on my part, I dare say?"
+
+"How did you know I was here?"
+
+"I had a wire from Eugene Lane. I'm afraid I seem to be taking a
+liberty, and that's a thing I hate doing. But I was most anxious to see
+you."
+
+"Has Eugene any news?"
+
+"What he says is this: It has happened as we feared. I am uneasy about
+him. Can you see him to-night?"
+
+"I suppose, then, my fortune is known to you?"
+
+"Yes; I wish I had seen you before you went. Do you mind my
+interfering?"
+
+"No, not now. You could have done no good before."
+
+"I could have told you it was no use."
+
+"I shouldn't have believed you."
+
+"I suppose you were bound to try it for yourself. Now, you think I don't
+understand your feelings."
+
+"I suppose most people think they know how a man feels when he's crossed
+in love," said Stafford, trying to speak lightly.
+
+"That's not the only thing with you."
+
+"No, it isn't," he replied, a little surprised.
+
+"I feel rather responsible for it all, you know. I was at the bottom of
+Morewood's showing you that picture."
+
+"It must have dawned on me sooner of later."
+
+"I don't know. But, yes--I expect so. You're hard hit."
+
+Stafford smiled.
+
+"Hard hit about her; and harder hit because it was a plunge to go into
+it at all."
+
+"You're quite right."
+
+"Of course I can't go into that side of it very much, but I think I know
+more or less how you feel."
+
+"I really think you do. It surprises me."
+
+"Yes. But, Stafford, may I go on taking liberties?"
+
+"I believe you are my friend. Let us put that sort of question out of
+the way. Why have you come?"
+
+"What does he mean by saying he's uneasy about you?"
+
+"It's the old fellow's love for me."
+
+Ayre was silent for a moment. Then he asked abruptly:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I have hardly had time to look round yet."
+
+"Why should it make any difference to you?"
+
+Stafford was puzzled. He thought Ayre had really recognized the state of
+his mind. He was inclined to think so still. But how, then, could he ask
+such a question?
+
+"You've had your holiday," Ayre went on calmly, "and a precious bad use
+you've made of it. Why not go back to work now?"
+
+"As if nothing had happened?" This was the very suggestion he had made
+to himself, and scornfully rejected.
+
+"You think you're utterly smashed, of course--I know what a facer it can
+be--and you're just the man to take it very hard. Stafford, I'm sorry."
+And with a sudden impulse he held out his hand.
+
+Stafford grasped it. The sympathy almost broke him down. "She is all the
+world to me," he said.
+
+"Aye, but be a man. You have your work to do."
+
+"No, I have no work to do. I threw all that away."
+
+"I expected you'd say that."
+
+"I know, of course, what you think of it. In your view, that vow of mine
+was nonsense--a part of the high-falutin' way I took everything in.
+Isn't that so?"
+
+"I didn't come here to try and persuade you to think as I do about such
+things. I am not so fond of my position that I need proselytize. But I
+want you to look into yours."
+
+"Mine is only too clear. I have given up everything and got nothing.
+It's this way: all the heart is out of me. If I went back to my work I
+should be a sham."
+
+"I don't see that. May I smoke?"
+
+He lighted a cigar, and sat quiet for a few seconds.
+
+"I suppose," he resumed, "you still believe what you used to teach?"
+
+"Certainly; that is--yes, I believe it. But it isn't part of me as it
+was."
+
+"Ah! but you think it's true?"
+
+"I remain perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth--only
+I have lost the faith that is above knowledge."
+
+It was evidently only with an effort that Ayre repressed a sarcasm.
+Stafford saw his difficulty.
+
+"You don't follow that?"
+
+"I have heard it spoken of before. But, after all, it's beside the
+point. You believe the things so that, as far as honesty goes, you could
+still teach them?"
+
+"Certainly I should believe every dogma I taught."
+
+"Including the dogma that people ought to be good?"
+
+"Including that," answered Stafford, with a smile.
+
+"I don't see what more you want," said Sir Roderick, with an air of
+finality.
+
+Stafford felt himself, against his will, growing more cheerful. In fact,
+it was a pleasure to him to exercise his brains once again, instead of
+being the slave of his emotions. Ayre had anticipated such a result from
+their conversation.
+
+"Everything more," he said. "Personal holiness is at the bottom of it
+all."
+
+"The best thing, I dare say." Ayre conceded. "But indispensable?
+Besides, you have it."
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Yes, I say--in all essentials."
+
+"I can't do it. Ah, Ayre! it's all empty to me now."
+
+"For God's sake, be a man! Is there nothing on earth to be but a saint
+or a husband?"
+
+Stafford looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's
+brains, and you sit--I don't know how you sit--in sackcloth, clearly,
+but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to
+hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes,
+I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a
+greater than ever I could."
+
+Stafford listened.
+
+"Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something.
+Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself
+something to live for."
+
+"In the Church?"
+
+"Yes--that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often
+wondered why you don't try the other."
+
+"I've been very near trying it before now."
+
+"It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything."
+
+Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely.
+
+"Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last.
+
+"Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough
+to do more."
+
+"I doubt that motive."
+
+"Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to
+lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more."
+
+Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"It's all misery," he said.
+
+"Now, yes. But not always."
+
+"And it's not what I meant."
+
+"No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do."
+
+"I feel what you mean, but I have scruples."
+
+Ayre looked at him curiously.
+
+"You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them."
+
+"Is that a compliment?"
+
+"Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do
+and be. Now, I'm off."
+
+Stafford rose to show him out.
+
+"I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said.
+
+"You will think of it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?"
+
+"You were afraid of that?"
+
+"Yes. Was I wrong?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't, then, without seeing me again?"
+
+"No; I promise."
+
+Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street.
+
+"It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty,
+I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night--and a life
+worth saving."
+
+And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering
+the new things in his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.
+
+
+Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On
+the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an
+incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this
+unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she
+could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her
+correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He
+had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why
+his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that
+Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist
+in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought;
+and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this
+sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But
+Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but
+she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he
+encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
+that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth
+openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be
+pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his
+mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found
+himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's
+dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that
+Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes
+that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his
+feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter
+he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling
+him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was
+anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also
+vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.
+
+It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene
+was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the
+autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than
+usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with
+a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
+positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of
+Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked
+as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this
+idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also
+he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious
+friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy
+imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong
+enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to
+day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling
+very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
+the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted
+haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper
+precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.
+
+"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get
+hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."
+
+"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick,
+about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my
+fault."
+
+"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."
+
+"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with
+Aunt Julia."
+
+"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet
+she'd see me."
+
+Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him
+fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own
+presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward
+Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.
+
+Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the
+day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her
+portrait.
+
+"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end
+of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."
+
+And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how
+Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
+that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
+Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above
+referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had
+chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that
+Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting
+greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not
+interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have
+painted but for the pressure of penury.
+
+"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.
+
+"I don't know. It's--but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that
+tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.
+
+"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so
+many people, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"Not artists."
+
+"Dear me! no!"
+
+"Whom, then?"
+
+"Oh, the nobility and gentry."
+
+"And clergy?"
+
+A shadow passed across her face--but a fleeting shadow.
+
+"You paint very slowly," she said.
+
+"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."
+
+"Oh! Why?"
+
+"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."
+
+"Does the one exclude the other?"
+
+"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.
+
+"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
+people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."
+
+"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.
+
+Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the
+contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
+had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an
+end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.
+
+"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.
+
+"Surely tea is _compris_?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't
+stay more than an hour."
+
+Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint,
+and--well, she was amusing.
+
+Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to
+see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received
+him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.
+
+"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I
+didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."
+
+"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.
+
+Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off
+to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.
+
+"You've got her very well."
+
+"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."
+
+"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.
+
+"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl--but not
+overmuch, you know."
+
+"There's all I want."
+
+"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"
+
+"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
+Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."
+
+"A queer combination."
+
+"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"
+
+Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more
+talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.
+
+"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.
+
+"I told you I didn't want to see you."
+
+"I know. But that was a month ago."
+
+"I was very much upset."
+
+"So was I, awfully!"
+
+"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"
+
+"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."
+
+"How yours?"
+
+"Well, you see, he thought--"
+
+"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question,
+and therefore--"
+
+"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"
+
+"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great
+trouble?"
+
+"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as
+it would be to any one."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"It would be death!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"
+
+"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."
+
+"I never intended any harm."
+
+"You never do."
+
+"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
+Lane. It's not in your line."
+
+"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a
+miserable month."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."
+
+"Ah! that wasn't my reason."
+
+"Claudia, you must give me an answer."
+
+Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no
+further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
+took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:
+
+"May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to
+Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next
+sitting.
+
+"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his
+hat.
+
+"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."
+
+"I don't."
+
+But it is very possible he did.
+
+The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to
+Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into
+the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.
+
+"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.
+
+Claudia was looking grave.
+
+"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"
+
+Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.
+
+"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."
+
+"So it does, in a way."
+
+"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"
+
+"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
+rate, I don't feel it."
+
+"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"
+
+"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved
+Father Stafford, and not you."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on
+the fringe of yours."
+
+"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing
+her hand.
+
+"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might
+give lessons in amatory deportment."
+
+"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."
+
+"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too _point-de-vice_ in his speeches as
+well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes,
+trembling, and with rugged words."
+
+"I am not the man that Stafford is--save for my lady's favor."
+
+"And you came in confidence?"
+
+"You had let me hope."
+
+"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I
+must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"
+
+"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and
+kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me,
+and I must be content with that."
+
+"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"
+
+"With lucid intervals?"
+
+"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray--dynastic
+considerations--a suitable cousin."
+
+"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."
+
+"_Pereant quae ante te!_ You know a little Latin?"
+
+"I think I'd better not just now."
+
+"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But
+we'll not bandy recriminations."
+
+"I wasn't joking."
+
+"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes,
+and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly
+serious before."
+
+"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"
+
+"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"
+
+"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you
+won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."
+
+"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."
+
+"A lofty function!"
+
+"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind
+fifty years hence."
+
+"I will," she said; "and I am happy."
+
+"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very
+dangerous thing to marry me!"
+
+"I will brave the danger."
+
+"There is none. I have found my goddess."
+
+The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment
+when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be
+playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to
+fly.
+
+"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"
+
+"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"
+
+"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"
+
+Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."
+
+And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to
+be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
+to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+An End and a Beginning.
+
+
+When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much
+questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become
+known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's
+abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and
+the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least,
+shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on
+the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers;
+he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood
+off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To
+Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate
+himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and
+work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that
+he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia
+sprang upon him with a new assault.
+
+He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that
+the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work,
+and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one
+another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the
+fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed
+very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did
+not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by
+all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.
+
+"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you
+will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."
+
+"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."
+
+"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very--well, reckless. But I
+want to ask you something."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to
+him?"
+
+"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"
+
+"Probably. I told him to."
+
+"Well, that's all."
+
+"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"
+
+"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and
+reluctantly denied that you were an exception."
+
+"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But
+hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"
+
+"I think he will."
+
+"Did you advise him to do that?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."
+
+"He spoke to me as if--as if he had no religion left."
+
+"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."
+
+"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him
+to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"
+
+"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll never say anything to a lover again."
+
+"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends--for ambition,
+and so on?"
+
+"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up--I had to tide him over a bad hour."
+
+"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."
+
+"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."
+
+"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"
+
+"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?
+
+"His was once!"
+
+"Before he met--you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the
+breakage; I couldn't undo it."
+
+"I would rather--"
+
+"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."
+
+"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."
+
+"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"
+
+"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will
+do great things."
+
+"Now he is well quit of me?"
+
+Sir Roderick smiled.
+
+"Well, I don't like it."
+
+"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."
+
+"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned
+himself?"
+
+"I don't know; he has very good manners."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."
+
+"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't
+accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my
+suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."
+
+Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat
+disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than
+Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for
+the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its
+effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly
+correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished
+man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately
+associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a
+living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had
+really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection
+we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the
+thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday
+life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which
+the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on
+the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for
+himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love
+tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the
+lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united
+with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood,
+besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found
+delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the
+upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf
+to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the
+alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were
+right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most
+useful work must go undone.
+
+Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia
+deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to
+put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to
+Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it?
+Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate
+and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's
+proposal to herself--it is believed ladies always do tell these
+incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was
+strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate
+was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a
+comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her
+conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his
+return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the _role_ he
+offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the
+faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked,
+she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the
+question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from
+London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived
+from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival,
+and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this
+doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working
+happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a
+man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy
+if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely
+contented with himself to be other than happy.
+
+Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party
+gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been
+his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there--Kate
+retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing;
+but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former
+bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's
+present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the
+wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.
+
+The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to
+dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal,
+and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:
+
+"I have heard from Stafford."
+
+"Ah! what does he say?"
+
+"He has joined the Church of Rome."
+
+"I thought he would."
+
+Morewood grunted angrily.
+
+"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.
+
+"No; I think I referred to it."
+
+"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.
+
+"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go
+before. What do you say, Ayre?"
+
+Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow
+coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.
+
+"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he
+answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.
+
+"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to
+perdition."
+
+"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't
+perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."
+
+"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But
+he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"
+
+"I doubt it," said Ayre.
+
+"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth.
+"He's a good fish to land."
+
+"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what
+the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it
+public property?"
+
+"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll
+say!"
+
+"Everything but the truth."
+
+"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"
+
+"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the
+enemy triumph."
+
+Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the _odium
+theologicum_ imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above
+the suspicion of caring for such things.
+
+"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.
+
+"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"
+
+"Perhaps; will you show it me?"
+
+"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to
+write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously
+reserved."
+
+He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:
+
+     "DEAR EUGENE:
+
+     "A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do
+     not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my
+     own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken
+     the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I
+     need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well,
+     and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news
+     to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I
+     would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my
+     need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I
+     shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old
+     fellow, till then. I long for {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
+     PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     STIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL
+     LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
+     LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
+     WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER STIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
+     WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
+     PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER STIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
+     WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
+     DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
+     SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
+     UPSILON~}.
+
+     "Yours always,
+
+     "C.S.K."
+
+"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"
+
+"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."
+
+Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.
+
+She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said
+to Ayre:
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because you are most likely to know."
+
+"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think--"
+
+"Yes?" she said impatiently.
+
+"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Stafford, by Anthony Hope
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