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diff --git a/18051.txt b/18051.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acfa6aa --- /dev/null +++ b/18051.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9551 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hilda, by Sarah Jeanette Duncan + +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: Hilda + A Story of Calcutta + +Author: Sarah Jeanette Duncan + +Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18051] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILDA *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + + + + + + HILDA + + A STORY OF CALCUTTA + + BY SARAH JEANETTE DUNCAN (MRS. EVERARD COTES) + +Author of "A Social Departure," "An American Girl in London," "His +Honour and a Lady," "A Voyage of Consolation," "Vernon's Aunt," "A +Daughter of To-day," etc. + + + +NEW YORK +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + +Copyright, 1898 +By Frederick A. Stokes Company + + + + +HILDA + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Miss Howe pushed the portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully +separated fingers; it was a staccato movement, and her body followed it +after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, +eyes inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who +was there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. +She entered the room with a little stride, and then crossed it quickly, +the train of her morning gown--it cried out of luxury with the cheapest +voice--taking folds of great audacity, as she bent her face in its loose +mass of hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo sofa, +and said-- + +"You poor thing! Oh, you _poor_ thing!" + +She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the hand +was neutral, and she let it go. "It is a hand," she said to herself, in +one of those quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, +"that turns the merely inquiring mind away. Nothing but passion could +hold it." + +Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to +nothing, or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then her +voice showed this feeling to be merely superficial, made nothing of it, +pushed it to one side. + +"I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity," she said. "Oh, +Miss Howe, I am happier than you are--much happier." Her bare feet, as +she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and her +eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three foot high, and thick +with the gilded landscape of Japan which stood near it, in the cheap +magnificence of the squalid room. + +Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found, +acquiesced with the gladness of an explorer in Laura Filbert as a +feature of it. + +"Don't be too sure," she cried; "I am very happy. It is such a pleasure +to see you." + +Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person and Miss Filbert as a +pictorial fact; but that was because she could not help it. Her eyes +were really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert. + +"Much happier than you are," Laura repeated, slowly moving her head from +side to side, as if to negative contradiction in advance. She smiled +too; it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness. + +"Of course you are--of course!" Miss Howe acknowledged. The words were +mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a kind of +rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious sweetness. "I can +imagine the beatitudes you feel--by your clothes." + +The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only +semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that exclaimed in +silver letters, "Glory to His Name!" "It is the dress of the Army in +this country," she said; "I would not change it for the wardrobe of any +queen." + +"That's just what I mean." Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her +head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, +straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. +A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy +in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like +that--so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go +about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the +world--there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go +on. At least I couldn't." + +"I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took a curious soft, +uplifted note. "I wear three garments only--the garments of my sisters +who plant the young shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the +building of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the roadways to +burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer India it must march bare-footed +and bare-headed all the way. All the way," Laura repeated, with a tremor +of musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in soft appeal upon the other +woman's. + +"And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered head, I think, 'it struck +more fiercely upon Calvary'; and if the way is sharp to my unshod feet, +I say, 'At least I have no cross to bear.'" The last words seemed almost +a chant, and her voice glided from them into singing---- + + "The blessed Saviour died for me, + On the cross! On the cross! + He bore my sins at Calvary, + On the rugged cross!" + +She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in a tender swaying-- + + "Behold His hands and feet and side, + The crown of thorns, the crimson tide. + 'Forgive them, Father!' loud he cried, + On the rugged cross!" + +"Oh, thank you!" Miss Howe exclaimed. Then she murmured again, "That's +just what I mean." + +A blankness came over the girl's face as a light cloud will cross the +moon. She regarded Hilda from behind it with penetrant anxiety. "Did you +really enjoy that hymn?" she asked. + +"Indeed I did." + +"Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be very far from the kingdom." + +"I? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom." Her voice caressed the idea. "And +the curious thing is that we are all aristocrats who belong to it. Not +the vulgar kind, you understand--but no, you don't understand. You'll +have to take my word for it." Miss Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus +flower that looked in at the window half drowned in sunlight, and the +smile in them deepened. The flower admitted so naively that it had no +business to be there. + +"Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?" Laura Filbert's clear +glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the inflexible quality +of her tone more than counterbalanced this. + +"There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's what you mean. And yet +I think the men who wrote 'The time of the singing of birds has come,' +and 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have belonged to it." +She paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. "But one shouldn't talk +about things like that--it takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way +about your privileges now and then? Don't they look rather dusty and +battered to you after a day's exposure in Bow Bazaar?" + +There came a light crunch of wheels on the red kunker drive outside and +a switch past the bunch of sword ferns that grew beside the door. The +muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry +penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary +Duff Lindsay came into the room. + +"Do I interrupt a rehearsal?" he asked; but there was nothing in the way +he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed +him. For her part, she rose and made one short step to meet him, and +then received him, as it were, with both hands and all her heart. + +"How ridiculous you are!" she cried. "Of course not. And let me tell you +it is very nice of you to come this very first day, when one was dying +to be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been talking about +our respective walks in life. Let me introduce you. Miss +Filbert--Captain Filbert, of the Salvation Army--Mr. Duff Lindsay of +Calcutta." + +She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and +differentiated it; his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a +repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked, +although any Bond street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and +one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first +words seemed to show a slight unbending. "Won't you sit there?" she +said, indicating the sofa corner she had been occupying. "You get the +glare from the window where you are." It was virtually a command, +delivered with a complete air of dignity and authority; and Lindsay, in +some confusion, found himself obeying. "Oh, thank you, thank you," he +said. "One doesn't really mind in the least. Do you--do you object to +it? Shall I close the shutters?" + +"If you do," said Miss Howe delightedly, "we shall not be able to see." + +"Neither we should," he assented; "the others are closed already. Very +badly built, these Calcutta houses, aren't they? Have you been long in +India, Miss--Captain Filbert?" + +"I served a year up-country and then fell ill and had to go home on +furlough. The native food didn't suit me. I am stationed in Calcutta +now, but I have only just come." + +"Pleasant time of the year to arrive," Mr. Lindsay remarked. + +"Yes; but we are not particular about that. We love all the times and +the seasons, since every one brings its appointed opportunity. Last +year, in Mugridabad, there were more souls saved in June than in any +other month." + +"Really?" asked Mr. Lindsay; but he was not looking at her with those +speculations. The light had come back upon her face. + +"I will say good-bye now," said Captain Filbert. "I have a meeting at +half-past five. Shall we have a word of prayer before I go?" + +She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence; but Miss Howe said, +"Another time, dear." + +"Oh, why not?" exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda put the semblance of a +rebuke into her glance at him, and said, "Certainly not." + +"Oh," Captain Filbert cried, "don't think you can escape that way! I +will pray for you long and late to-night, and ask my lieutenant to do so +too. Don't harden your heart, Miss Howe--the Lord is waiting to be +compassionate." + +The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the door. Just where the +sun slanted into the room and made leaf-patterns on the floor, she +turned and stood for an instant in the full tide of it; and it set all +the loose tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little flame, and gave +the folds of the flesh-coloured sari that fell over her +shoulder the texture of draperies so often depicted as celestial. The +sun sought into her face, revealing nothing but great purity of line and +a clear pallor, except where below the wide, light-blue eyes two +ethereal shadows brushed themselves. Under the intentness of their gaze +she made as if she would pass out without speaking; and the tender +curves of her limbs, as she wavered, could not have been matched out of +mediaeval stained glass. But her courage, or her conviction, came back to +her at the door, and she raised her hand and pointed at Hilda. + +"She's got a soul worth saving." + +Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room +until the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair. + +"She came out in the _Bengal_ with us," Hilda told him--this is not a +special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay in +advance--"and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after her a +little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got me on her mind. +And as the two hundred and eighty million benighted souls of India are +her continual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of being the two +hundred and eighty-first millionth oppresses one." + +Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness. + +"You weren't at that end of the ship!" he demanded. + +"Of course I was--we all were. And some of us, little Miss Stace, for +instance--thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and sardines for +tea every night for a whole month. And after Suez ices for dinner on +Sundays. It was luxury." + +Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. "I don't call it fair or +friendly," he said, "when you know how easily it could have been +arranged. Your own sense of the fitness of things should have told you +that the second-class saloon was no place for you. For _you_!" + +Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She poised her chin in +her hand and looked away over his head, and he could not help seeing, as +he had seen before, that her eyes were beautiful. But this had been so +long acknowledged between them that she could hardly have been conscious +that she was insisting on it afresh. Then, by the time he might have +thought her launched upon a different meditation, her mind swept back to +his protest, like a whimsical bird. + +"I didn't want to extract anything from the mercantile community of +Calcutta in advance," she said. "It would be most unbusinesslike. +Stanhope has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, as +leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. Then I +think," she said with defiance, "that I shall avoid you." + +"And pray why?" + +"Because you would put too much in. According to your last letters you +are getting beastly rich. You would take all the tragedy out of the +situation, and my experience would vanish in your cheque." + +"I don't know why my feelings should always be cuffed out of the way of +your experiences," Lindsay said. She retorted, "Oh, yes, you do;" and +they regarded each other through an instant's silence with visible good +fellowship. + +"A reasonably strong company this time?" Lindsay asked. + +"Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a month we have been a +'troupe'--in the first-class end. Fairish. Bad to middling. Fifteen of +us, and when we are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can please with the +latest thing in rainbow chiffon done on mirrors with a thousand +candle-power. Bradley and I will have to do most of the serious work. +But I have improved--oh, a lot. You wouldn't know my Lady Whippleton." + +It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an implication which +appeared to prevent Lindsay's kindling. + +"Then Bradley is here too?" he remarked. + +"Oh, yes," she said; and an instinct sheathed itself in her face. "But +it is much better than it was, really. He is hardly ever troublesome +now. He understands. And he teaches me a great deal more than I can tell +you. You know," she asserted, with the effect of taking an independent +view, "as an artist he has my unqualified respect." + +"You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists are men when they +are not women;" Duff said. "I don't believe their behaviour is a bit +more affected by their artistry than it would be by a knowledge of the +higher mathematics." + +She turned indignant eyes on him. "Fancy _your_ saying that! Fancy your +having the impertinence to offer me so absurd a sophistry! At what +Calcutta dinner-table did you pick it up?" she said derisively. "Well, +it shows that one can't trust one's best friend loose among the +conventions!" + +He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to say that such matters +were not often discussed at Calcutta dinner-tables, when she added, with +apparent inconsistency and real dejection, "It _is_ a hideous bore." + +Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it aside +he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him--perhaps the +primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse +to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, "He gives +up a good deal, doesn't he, for his present gratification?" + +"He gives up everything! That is the disgusting part of it. Leander +Morris offered him--but why should I tell you? It's humiliating enough +in the very back of one's mind." + +"He is a clever fellow, no doubt." + +"Not too clever to act with me! Oh, we go beautifully--we melt, we run +together. He has given me some essential things, and now I can give them +back to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him now. It must be +awfully satisfying to generate artistic life in--in anybody, and watch +it grow." + +"Doubtless," said Lindsay, with his eyes on the carpet; and her eyebrows +twitched together, but she said nothing. Although she knew his very +moderate power of analysis, he seemed to look, with his eyes on the +carpet, straight into the subject, to perceive it with a cynical +clearness, and as Hilda watched him a little hardness came about her +mouth. "Well," he said, visibly detaching himself from the matter, "it's +a satisfaction to have you back. I have been doing nothing, literally, +since you went away, but making money and playing tennis. Existence, as +I look back upon it, is connoted by a varying margin of profit and a +vast sward." + +She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely, +considering the advisability of returning. "It's a pity you can't act," +she said; "then you could come away and let it all go." + +Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. "How simple life is +to you!" he said. "But any way, I couldn't act." + +"Oh, no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, +you are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent, +even for an instant, to be the flame in anybody else--any of those +people who, for the purpose of the stage, are called imaginary. Never!" + +It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: "I wish you would go +on. You can't think how gratifying it is--after the tennis." + +"If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable." + +"Oh, then stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are you +comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?" + +"Yes, thank you. Yes, please!" She grew before him into a light and +conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech. +He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had +detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got +up to go. + +"I shan't bother you again before Saturday," he said. "I know what a +week it will be at the theatre. Remember you are to give the man his +orders about the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart. +Good-bye! Calcutta is waiting for you." + +"Calcutta is never impatient," said Miss Howe. "It is waiting with yawns +and much whiskey and soda." She gave him a stately inclination with her +hand, and he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart in a +burlesque of it. At the door he remembered something, and turned. He +stood looking back precisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun +was gone. "You might tell me more about your friend of the altruistic +army," he said. + +"You saw, you heard, you know." + +"But----" + +"Oh," cried she, disregardingly, "you can discover her for yourself, at +the Army Headquarters in Bentinck street--you man!" + +Lindsay closed the door behind him without replying, and half-way down +the stairs her voice appealed to him over the bannisters. + +"You might as well forget that. I didn't particularly mean it." + +"I know you didn't," he returned. "You woman! But you yourself--you're +not going to play with your heavenly visitant?" + +Hilda leaned upon the bannisters, her arms dropping over from the +elbows. "I suppose I may look at her," she said; and her smile glowed +down upon him. + +"Do you think it really rewards attention--the type, I mean?" + +"How you will talk of types! Didn't you see that she was unique? You may +come back, if you like, for a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss +her." + +Lindsay looked at his watch. "I would come back for a quarter of an hour +to discuss anything or nothing," he replied, "but there isn't time. I am +dining with the Archdeacon. I must go to church." + +"Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon without going to +church? Why not say on arrival: 'My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and +your mutton the same evening--_c'est trop_! I cannot so impose upon your +generosity. I have come for the mutton!'" + +Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as doubtless often before, by +an orthodox consideration. Duff Lindsay drove away in his cart; and +still, for an appreciable number of seconds, Miss Howe stood leaning +over the bannisters, her eyes fixed full of speculation on the place +where he had stood. She was thinking of a scene--a dinner with an +Archdeacon--and of the permanent satisfaction to be got from it; and she +renounced almost with a palpable sigh the idea of the Archdeacon's +asking her. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Oh, her gift!" said Alicia Livingstone. "It is the lowest, isn't it--in +the scale of human endowment? Mimicry." + +Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she spoke, but turned her +eyes and her delicate chin toward Duff Lindsay with the protest. +Lindsay's cup was at his lips, and his eyebrows went up over it as if +they would answer before his voice was set at liberty. + +"Mimicry isn't a fair word," he said. "The mimic doesn't interpret. He's +a mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen +mask. The actress takes a different rank. This one does, anyway." + +"You're mixing her up with the apes and the monkeys," remarked +Surgeon-Major Livingstone. + +"Mere imitators!" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. She smiled upon their +energy, and, so to speak, disappeared. It was one of her little ways, +and since it left seeming conquerors on her track nobody quarrelled with +it. + +"I've met them in London," she said. "Oh, I remember one hot little +North Kensington flat full of them, and their cigarettes--and they were +always disappointing. There seemed to be, somehow, no basis--nothing to +go upon." + +She looked from one to the other of her party with a graceful, +deprecating movement of her head, a head which people were unanimous in +calling more than merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. That +was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will +do to go on with. From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he +might have been suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the +somewhat privileged in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens +to find out anything at all. + +"You found that they had no selves," he said, and the manner of his +words was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was obscured to +him for the instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her +comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual with him. "But Miss +Hilda Howe has one." + +"Is she a lady?" asked Mrs. Barberry. + +"I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on +that." + +"Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but she +closed them instead and turned her head again to listen to Mrs. +Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the +conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance and +relief. + +"I saw her in _A Woman of Honour_, last cold weather," Mrs. Barberry +said; "I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the +Fort, and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out, +and not one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to +look! And no more did I. So disgustingly real." + +Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, and a +little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, hovered about her +lips. + +"I was in England last year," she said; "I--I saw _A Woman of Honour_ in +London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch +company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts." + +"Miss Howe did something with it," observed Mr. Lindsay. "That and one +or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported +even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there +was something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball, +and cheerfully." + +"That's saying a good deal, isn't it?" commented Dr. Livingstone, +vaguely aware of an ironical intention. "By Jove, yes." + +"Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?" Mrs. Barberry said. "Such a +magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare." + +"He knows the conventions, and uses them with security," Lindsay +replied, looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air, +demanded: "Is the story true?" + +"The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of them +is." + +Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a +reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she murmured to +Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about." + +"The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the effect that Mr. +Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he +met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion +for her art--I mean, of course, her affections----" + +"My dear girl, we know what you mean," cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a +protest, as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen. + +"And precisely the reverse happened." + +"One imagines it was something like that," Lindsay said. + +"Oh, did she know about the bet?" cried Mrs. Barberry. + +"That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew about the man," Lindsay +contributed again. + +"Tables turned, eh? Dare say it served him right," remarked Dr. +Livingstone. "If you really want to come to the laboratory, Mrs. +Barberry, we ought to be off." + +"He is going to show me a bacillus," Mrs. Barberry announced with +enthusiasm. "Plague, or cholera, or something really bad. He caught it +two days ago, and put it in jelly for me--wasn't it dear of him? +Good-bye, you nice thing,"--Mrs. Barberry addressed Alicia--"Good-bye, +Mr. Lindsay. Fancy a live bacillus from Hong Kong! I should like it +better if it came from fascinating Japan, but still--good-bye." + +With the lady's departure an air of wontedness seemed to repossess the +room and the two people who were left. Things fell into their places, +one could observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, in +Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings attached themselves--to +oval portraits of ladies, evidently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were +tied with blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, to odd +brass bowls and faint-coloured embroideries. The air became full of +agreeable exhalations, traceable to inanimate objects, or to a rose in a +vase of common country glass; and if one turned to Alicia, one could +almost observe the process by which they were absorbed in her and given +forth again with a delicacy more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the +bee and flowers and honey, but always abandoned the simile as a trifle +gross and material. Certainly, as she sat there in her grace and +slenderness and pale clear tints--there was an effect of early morning +about her that made the full tide of other women's sunlight +vulgar--anyone would have been fastidious in the choice of a figure to +present her in. With suspicion of haughtiness she was drawn for the +traditional marchioness; but she lifted her eyes and you saw that she +appealed instead. There was an art in the doing of her hair, a dainty +elaboration that spoke of the most approved conventions beneath, yet it +was impossible to mistake the freedom of spirit that lay in the lines of +her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran now and then into a downrightness +of movement which suggested the assertion of a primitive sincerity in a +personal world of many effects. Into her making of tea, for example, she +put nothing more sophisticated than sugar, and she ordered more bread +and butter in the worst possible Hindustani without a thought except +that the bread and butter should be brought. Lindsay liked to think that +with him she was particularly simple and direct, that he was of those +who freed her from the pretty consciousness, the elegant restraint that +other people fixed upon her. It must be admitted that this conviction +had reason in establishing itself, and it is perhaps not surprising +that, in the security of it, he failed to notice occasions when it would +not have held, of which this was plainly one. Alicia reflected, with her +cheek against the Afghan wolf-skins on the back of the chair. It was +characteristic of her eyes that one could usually see things being +turned over in them. She would sometimes keep people waiting while she +thought. She thought perceptibly about Hilda Howe, slanting her absent +gaze between sheltering eyelids to the floor. Presently she re-arranged +the rose in its green glass vase and said: "Then it's impossible not to +be interested." + +"I thought you would find it so." + +Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress +sandwich upon a terrier. "Fancy your being so sure," she said, "that you +could present her entertainingly!" She looked past him toward the soft +light that came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her +regard held him fast by the way. + +"Anyone could," he said cheerfully; "she presents herself. One is only +the humblest possible medium. And the most passive." + +Alicia's eyes still rested upon the light from the window. It +silhouetted a rare fern from Assam, it certainly rewarded them. + +"I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more." + +"Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?" + +"Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; "but I'm not a bit +satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. Wasn't it +a little difficult to make her acquaintance?" + +"Not in the very least. I saw her in _A Woman of Honour_ and was +charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her address--it's +obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I explained +to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here one was protected +by _dustur_.[1] And she received me warmly. She gave me to understand +that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind from Calcutta. +The truthful ring of it was pathetic, poor dear." + +[Footnote 1: Custom.] + +"That was in--" + +"In February." + +"In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up +her divining-rod again. "One can imagine that she was grateful. People +of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean--are rather +stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;" and +with the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she +added, "The arts conspire to be absent." + +"Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine. +But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of +life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that +sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she +admitted it." + +"What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded, quickly. "I should be +glad of a new one." + +Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch +of a finger light but cold. + +"I don't think she has ever told me," he said. "No, I am sure she has +not." His reflection was, "It is her garment--and how could it fit +another woman?" + +"But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me your +impression." + +He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but +not without a shade of embarrassment. + +"Perhaps. But having perceived to pass on--it doesn't follow that one +can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols." + +The faintest look of disappointment, the slightest cloud of submission, +appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face. + +"Oh, I know!" she said. "You are making me feel dreadfully out of it, +but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual +atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in +connection with an actress." + +There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back +upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them, and +looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. He +had the subtlest intimations with women. + +"It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. "My continual wonder is that +I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, +would be embroiled with half his female relations by this time, and +taking his third refusal with a haggard eye." + +Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with intentness. She lifted +her head to look at them; one might have imagined a beauty suddenly +revealed. + +"Why aren't you?" she said. "I wonder, too." + +"I should like it enormously," he laughed. "I've lain awake at nights +trying to find out why it isn't so. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me. I +think it must be because she's such a confoundedly good fellow." + +Alicia turned her face toward him sweetly, and the soft grey fur made a +shadow on the whiteness of her throat. Her buffeting was over; she was +full of an impulse to stand again in the sun. + +"Oh, you mustn't depend on me," she said. "But why are you going? Don't +go. Stay and have another cup of tea." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay had spent the same terms +at New College, and now found themselves again together in the social +poverty of the Indian capital, would not necessarily explain their +walking in company through the early dusk of a December evening in +Bentinck street. It seems desirable to supply a reason why any one +should be walking there, to begin with, any one, at all events, not a +Chinaman or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand furniture or an +able-bodied seaman luxuriously fingering wages in both trouser pockets, +and describing an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest +glass of country spirits. Or, to be quite comprehensive, a draggled +person with a Bulgarian, a Levantine or a Japanese smile, who no longer +possessed a carriage, to whom the able-bodied seamen represented the +whole port. The cramped, twisting thoroughfare was full of people like +this; they overflowed from the single narrow border of pavement to the +left and walked indifferently upon the road among the straw-scatterings +and the dung-droppings; and when the tramcar swept through and past with +prodigious whistlings and ringings, they swerved as little as possible +aside, for three parts of the tide of them were neither white nor black, +but many shades of brown, written down in the census as "of mixed blood" +and wearing still, through the degenerating centuries, an eyebrow, a +nostril of the first Englishmen who came to conjugal ties of Hindustan. +The place sent up to the stars a vast noise of argument and anger and +laughter, of the rattling of hoofs and wheels; but the babel was ordered +in its exaggeration, the red turban of a policeman here and there +denoted little more than a unit in the crowd. There were gas-lamps, and +they sent a ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the gutter beside +the banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead rat and was silhouetted. +They picked out, too, the occasional pair of Corinthian columns, built +into the squalid stucco sheer with the road that made history for +Bentinck street, and explained that whatever might be the present colour +of the little squat houses and the tall lean ones that loafed together +into the fog round the first bend, they were once agreeably pink and +yellow, with the magenta cornice, the blue capital, that fancy dictated. +There, where the way narrowed with an out-jutting balcony high up, and +the fog thickened and the lights grew vague, the multitude of heads +passed into the blur beyond with an effect of mystery, pictorial, +remote; but where Arnold and Lindsay walked the squalor was warm, human, +practical. A torch flamed this way and that stuck in the wall over the +head of a squatting bundle and his tray of three-cornered leaf-parcels +of betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady little +flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and showed +his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of butter. From +the "Cape of Good Cheer," where many bottles glistened in rows inside, +came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced along +the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied +seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the "Cape of Good Cheer" did +not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of +Christian theology. But most of the brightness abode in the Chinamen's +shoe-shops, where many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitching. +There were endless shoe-shops, and they all belonged to Powson or +Singson or Samson, while one signboard bore the broad impertinence, +"Macpherson." The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out in +the street--that smell of Chinese personality steeped in fried oil and +fresh leather that out-fans even the south wind in Bentinck street. They +were responsible but not anxious, the proprietors; they buried their fat +hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, stolid and smiling. +They stood in their alien petticoat trousers for the commercial +stability of the locality, and the rows of patent-leather slippers that +glistened behind them testified to it further. Everything else shifted +and drifted, with a perpetual change of complexion, a perpetual +worsening of clothes. Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. +It lay round his thick brown neck with the low clean line of his blue +cotton smock, and he carried it without offensive consciousness, looking +up and down by no means in search of customers, rather in the exercise +of the opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. + +Lindsay liked Bentinck street as an occasional relapse from the scenic +standards of pillared and verandahed Calcutta, and made personal +business with his Chinaman for the sake of the racial impression thrown +into the transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, waited in the doorway with +his arms crossed behind him, and his thin face thrust as far as it would +go into the air outside. It is possible that some intelligence might +have seen in this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be +copied for the curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the +common signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish in +its plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only +occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness which +had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose +which looked as if, for preference, it would be for ever thrust among +the pages of the Fathers; and anyone might observe the width of his +mouth without perhaps detecting the patience and decision of the upper +lip. The indignity of spectacles he did not yet wear, but it hovered +over him; it was indispensable to his personality in the long run. In +figure he was indifferently tall and thin and stooping, made to pass +unobservedly along a pavement, or with the directness of humble but +important business among crowds. At Oxford he had interested some of his +friends and worried others by wistful inclinations toward the shelter of +that Mother Church which bids her children be at rest and leave to her +the responsibility. Lindsay, with his robust sense of a right to exist +on the old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and decent animal, +under civilised moral governance a miserable sinner, was among those who +observed his waverings without prejudice, or anything but an +affectionate solicitude that whichever way Arnold went he should find +the satisfactions he sought. The conviction that settled the matter was +accidental, the work of a moment, a free instinct and a thing made with +hands--the dead Shelley where the sea threw him and the sculptor fixed +him, under his memorial dome in the gardens of University College. Here +one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head +in some confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might +claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he +saw, deeply concealed in his bosom and disguised with a host of +spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic +bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that +he spent three days without consummated prayer at all, occupied in the +effort to find out whether he could yet indeed worship in purity of +spirit, or how far the paralysis of the ideal of mere beauty had crept +upon his devotions. In the end he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic +point of view, as far from him as his will would carry, and walked away +in another direction from which, if he turned his head, he could see the +Church of Rome sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in her +skirts, looking mournfully after him. He had been a priest of the Clarke +Mission to Calcutta, a "Clarke Brother," six years when he stood in the +door of Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck street while Lindsay explained +to Ahsing his objection to patent-leather toe caps; six years which had +not worn or chilled him, because, as he would have cheerfully admitted, +he had recognised the facts and lowered his personal hopes of +achievement--lowered them with a heroism which took account of himself +as no more than a spiritual molecule rightly inspired and moving to the +great future, already shining behind coming aeons, of the universal +Kingdom. Indeed, his humility was scientific; he made his deductions +from the granular nature of all change, moral and material. He never +talked or thought of the Aryan souls that were to shine with peculiar +oriental brightness as stars in the crown of his reward; he saw rather +the ego and the energy of him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in +this world, thankful if, in that which is to come, it was counted worthy +to survive at all. It should be understood that Arnold did not hope to +attain the simplicity of this by means equally simple. He held vastly, +on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the ministry of +symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation which the eye of +faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon of Bengal should be +hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do to purify and +intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to bring it +about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, +who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat baskets of +mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round +boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the +converts that already testified to the success of the mission; it might +be gathered that he had ideas about premature fruition. + +As they stepped out together into the street, Lindsay thrust his hand +within Arnold's elbow. It was an impulse, and the analysis of it would +show elements like self-reproach, and a sense of value continually +renewed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common ground. The physical +nearness, the touch, was something, and each felt it in the remoteness +of his other world with satisfaction. There was absurdly little in what +they had to say to each other; they talked of the Viceroy's attack of +measles and the sanitary improvements in the cloth-dealers' quarter. +Their bond was hardly more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness of +sentiment, clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was strong enough to +make both men wish it were stronger, a desire which was a vague +impatience on Lindsay's part with a concentration of hostility to +Arnold's _soutane_. It made its universal way for them, however, this +garment. Where the crowd was thickest people jostled and pressed with +one foot in the gutter for the convenience of the padre-sahib. He, with +his eyes cast down, took the tribute with humility; as meet, in a way +that made Lindsay blaspheme inwardly at the persistence of +ecclesiastical tradition. + +Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of tongues, the +broken, half-comprehensible tumult, was smitten and divided by a wave of +rhythmic sound. It pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and +mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the continual auction of +Krist, Dass and Friend, dealers in the second-hand. In its vivid +familiarity it seemed to make straight for the two Englishmen, to +surround and take possession of them, and they paused. The source of it +was plain--an open door under a vast white signboard dingily lettered +"The Salvation Army." It loomed through the smoke and the street lights +like a discovery. + +"Our peripatetic friends," said Arnold, with his rare smile; and, as if +the music seized and held them, they stood listening. + + "I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + All day on Sunday, and six days a week! + I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep + Fifty-two weeks in the year." + +It was immensely vigourous; the men looked at each other with fresh +animation. Responding to the mere physical appeal of it, they picked +their steps across the street to the door, and there hesitated, revolted +in different ways. Perhaps I have forgotten to say that Lindsay came to +Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, and had a mother before whose +name people wrote "The Hon." Besides, the singing had stopped, and +casual observation from the street was checked by a screen. + +"I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are," said Arnold. + +Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed +youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulder, fingering a +forage-cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two +men beside the door, and a light, clear voice seemed to call after him-- + +"Ah! don't go away!" + +Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical speculation +whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe was still +pursuing the broad road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up in +him; he was reminded of a vista of some interest which had recently +revealed itself by an accident, and which he had not explored. It had +almost passed out of his memory; he grasped at it again with something +like excitement, and fell adroitly upon the half-inclination in Arnold's +voice. + +"I suppose I can't expect you to go in?" he said. + +"Precisely why not?" Stephen retorted. "My dear fellow, we make broad +our sympathies, not our phylacteries." + +At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was +the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the +pulpit tone of the little epigram. But this moment found him only aware +of the consent in it. His hand on Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement; +he half pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped into seats. +Stephen's hand went to his breast instinctively--for the words in the +air were holy by association--and stopped there, since even the breadth +of his sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before General +Booth. Though absent in body, the room was dominated by General Booth; +he loomed so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline and bushy, +from a frame on the wall at the end of it. The texts on the other walls +seemed emanations from him; and the man in the short, loose, collarless +red coat, with "Salvation Army" in crooked black letters on it, who +stood talking in high, rapid tones with his hands folded, had the look +of a puppet whose strings were pulled by the personality in the frame +above him. It was only by degrees that they observed the other objects +in the room--the big drum on the floor in the empty space where the +exhorters stood, the dozen wooden benches and the possible score of +people sitting on them, the dull kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting +up the curtness of the texts. There were half-a-dozen men of the Duke's +Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and three +or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who +leaned well forward, their elbows on their knees, twirling battered +straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for the instant off the +defensive. One was a Scandinavian, another a Greek, with earrings. There +was a ship's cook, too, a full-blooded negro, very respectable with a +plaid tie and a silk hat; and beside, two East Indian girls of different +shades, tittering at the Duke's Own in an agony of propriety; a Bengali +boy, who spelled out the English on the cover of a hymn-book; and a very +clean Chinaman, who greatly appreciated his privilege, since it included +a seat, a lamp, and a noise, though his perception of it possibly went +no further. The other odds and ends were of the mixed country blood, +like the girls, dingy, undecipherable. They made a shadow for the rest, +lying along the benches, shifting unnoticeably. + +Three people, two of them women, sat in the open space at the end of the +room where the smoky fog from outside thickened and hung visibly in +mid-air, and there was the empty seat of the man who was talking. Laura +Filbert was one of the women. She might have been flung upon her chair; +her head drooped over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A +tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay, +palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs. +The folds hung from her waist, and the short close bodice that she wore +above them, like a Bengali woman, left visible the narrow gap of flesh +which nobody notices when it is brown. Her head covering had slipped and +clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked, +pathetically, the conscious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware +even of the gaze of the Duke's Own, though it had fixity and absorption. + +The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have caught as a +text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. "Yes indeed," he said, +"I can tell every one 'ere this night, h'every one, that the Saviour is +mighty to keep. I've got it out of my own personal experience, I 'ave. +Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday but six days a week, my +friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on +you--that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an' +fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but +oh, my friends, I ask you each an' every one of you, is that the fault +of Jesus? No, it is not 'is fault, it is the fault of the person. The +person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' his prayers; +what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus a-keeping +you? And if he is not, oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put off any +longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet +together again. You and I may never 'ear each other speaking again or +see each other sitting there. Thank God," the speaker continued, as his +eye rested on Arnold and Lindsay, "the vilest sinner may be saved, the +respectable sinner may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just +a little word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere--she's got God's ear, the +Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls inside +these four walls to-night." + +Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters on +her knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience a +preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from +a point remote and emotionally involved. Lindsay's impression was that +she looked at him as from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as +the other woman began, and through their lids, as it were, he could see +that she was again caught up, though her body remained abased, her hands +interlocked between her knees, swaying in unison with the petition. The +Ensign was a little, meagre, freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless +hair and tight drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world she +would have been bedraggled and a nagger. She gained an elevation, it was +plain, from the Bengali dress; it kept her away from the temptation of +cheap plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave her a +complacency which was doubtless accepted as sanctification by her +fellow-officers, especially by her husband, who had announced her +influence with the Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior +commission. She prayed in a complaining way, and in a strained minor key +that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who listened, her key to +hearts. She told the Lord in confidence that however appearances might +be against it, every soul before him was really longing to be gathered +within His Almighty arms, and when she said this, Laura Filbert, on the +floor, threw back her head and cried "Hallelujah!" and Duff started. The +others broke in upon the Ensign with like exclamations. They had a +recurrent, perfunctory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when Laura again +cried "Praise the Lord!" Lindsay found himself holding in check a hasty +impulse to leave the premises. Then she rose, and he watched with the +Duke's Own, to see what she would do next. The others looked at her too, +as she stood surprisingly fair and insistant among them, Ensign Sand +with humble eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak the +silence widened for her words, the ship's cook stopped shuffling his +feet. "Oh come," she said, "Come and be saved." Her voice seemed to +travel from her without effort, and to penetrate every corner and every +consciousness. There was a sudden dip in it like the fall of water, that +thrilled along the nerves. "Who am I that ask you? A poor weak woman, +ignorant, unknown. Never mind. It is not my voice, but the voice in your +heart that entreats you, 'Come and be saved!' You know that voice, it +speaks in the watches of the night; it began to speak when you were a +little, little child, with little joys and sorrows, and little prayers +that you have forgotten now. Oh, it is a sweet voice, a tender +voice"--her own had dropped to the cooing of doves--"It is hard to know +why all the winds do not carry it, and all the leaves whisper it! +Strange, strange! But the world is full of the clamour of its own +foolishness, and the Voice is lost in it, except in places where people +come to pray, as here to-night, and in those night watches. You hear it +now in the echo from my lips, 'Come and be saved.' Why must I beg of +you? Why do you not come hastening, running? Are you too wise? But when +did the wisdom of this world satisfy you about the next? Are you too +much occupied? But in the day of judgment what will you do?"-- + + "When you come to Jordan's flood, + How will you do? How will you do?" + +It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, quick upon her +opportunity. Laura gave her no glance of surprise--perhaps she was +disciplined to interruptions--but caught up her own tambourine, singing, +and instantly the chorus was general, the big drum thumping out the +measure, all the tambourines shaking together. + + "You who now contemn your God, + How will you do? How will you do?" + +The Duke's Own sang lustily, with a dogged enjoyment that made little of +the words. Some of them assumed a vacuity to counteract the sentiment, +but most of the sheepish countenances expressed that the tune was the +thing, one or two with a smile of jovial cynicism, and kept time with +their feet. Through the medley of voices--everybody sang except Arnold +and Lindsay and the Chinaman--Laura's seemed to flow, separate and +clear, threading the jangle upon melody, and turning the doggerel into +an appeal, direct, intense. When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to +him, in the unmistakable intention of her eyes, he caught his breath. + + "Death will be a solemn day + When the soul is forced away, + It will be too late to pray; + How will you do?" + +It was simple enough. All her supreme desire, to convince, to turn, to +make awfully plain, had centred upon the single person in the room with +whom she had the advantage of acquaintance, whose face her own could +seek with a kind of right to response. But the sensation Duff Lindsay +tried to sit still under was not simple. It had the novelty, the shock, +of a plunge into the sea; behind his decorous countenance he gasped and +blinked, with unfamiliar sounds in his ears. His soul seemed +shudderingly repelling Laura's, yet the buffets themselves were +enthralling. In the strangeness of it he made a mechanical movement to +depart, picked up his stick, but Arnold was sitting holding his chin, +wrapped in quiet interest, and took no notice. The hymn stopped, and he +found a few minutes' respite, during which Ensign Sand addressed the +meeting, unveiling each heart to its possessor; while Laura turned over +the leaves of the hymn-book, looking, Lindsay was profoundly aware, for +airs and verses most likely to help the siege of the Army to his +untaken, sinful citadel. There was time to bring him calmness enough to +wonder whether these were the symptoms of emotional conversion, the sort +of thing these people went in for, and he resolved to watch his state +with interest. Then, before he knew it, they were all down on their +knees' again, and Laura was praying; and he was not aware of the meaning +of a single word that she said, only that her voice was threading itself +in and out of his consciousness burdened with a passion that made it +exquisite to him. Her appeal lifted itself in the end into song, low and +sweet. + + "Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, + Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, + There to my heart was the blood applied, + Glory to His name!" + +They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, and when it was +over Lindsay was almost certain that his were not the preliminary pangs +of conversion by the methods of the Salvation Army. Deliberately, +however, he postponed further analysis of them until after the meeting +was over. He would be compelled then to go away, back to the club to +dinner, or something; they would put out the lights and lock the place +up; he thought of that. He glanced at the lamps with a perception of the +finality that would come when they were extinguished--she would troop +away with the others into the darkness--and then at his watch to see how +much time there was left. More exhortation followed and more prayer; he +was only aware that she did not speak. She sat with her hand over her +eyes, and Lindsay had an excited conviction that she was still occupying +herself with him. He looked round almost furtively to detect whether any +one else was aware of it, this connection that she was blazoning between +them, and then relapsed, staring at his hat, into a sense of +ungrammatical iterations beating through a room full of stuffy smells. +When Laura spoke again his eye leaped to hers in a rapt effort to tell +her that he perceived her intention. That he should be grateful, that he +should approve, was neither here nor there; the indispensable thing was +that she should know him conscious, receptive. She read three or four +sacred verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christ-heart, +"Come unto me ..." The words stole about the room like tears. Then she +would ask "all present," she said, to engage for a moment in silent +prayer. There was a wordless interval, only the vague street noises +surging past the door. A thrill ran along the benches as Laura brought +it to an end with sudden singing. She was on her feet as the others +raised their heads, breaking forth clear and jubilant. + + "I am so wondrously saved from sin, + Jesus so sweetly abides within; + There at the Cross where he took me in, + Glory to His Name." + +She smiled as she sang. It was a happy, confident smile, and it was +plain that she longed to believe it the glad reflection of spiritual +experience of many who heard her. Lindsay's perception of this was +immediate and keen, and when her eyes rested for an instant of glad +inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy of her calling, he felt a +pang of compunction. It was a formless reproach, too vague for anything +like a charge, but it came nearest to defining itself in the idea that +he had gone too far--he who had not left his seat. When the hymn was +finished, and Ensign Sand said, "The meeting is now open for +testimonies," he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she looked +at the screen above his head, and he sat abashed, with a prodigal sense +surging through him of what he would rejoice to do for her in +compensation. In the little chilly silence that followed he surprised +his own eyes moist with disappointment--it had all been so anxious and +so vain--and he felt relief and gratitude when the man who beat the drum +stood up and announced that he had been saved for eleven years, with +details about how badly he stood in need of it when it happened. + +"Hallelujah!" said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a meretricious air of +hearing it for the first time. "Any more?" And a Norwegian sailor +lurched shamefacedly upon his feet. He had a couple of inches of +straggling yellow beard all round his face, and twirled a battered straw +hat. + +"I haf to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by Jesus. Long time I subbose +I sdop by Jesus. I subbose----" + +"Glory be to God!" remarked Ensign Sand again, spiking the guns of the +Duke's Own, who were inclined to be amused. "That will do, thank you. +Now, is there nobody else? Speak up, friends. It'll do you no harm, none +whatever; it'll do you that much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll +be the next to say a word for Jesus?" She was nodding encouragement at +the negro cook as if she knew him for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in +his gleaming white collar, was aware, in silent, smiling misery, that +the expectations of the meeting were toward him. Laura had again hidden +her eyes in her hand. The negro fingered his watch-chain foolishly, and +the prettiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to disguise her +perception that an African, in his best clothes, under conviction of +sin, was the funniest thing in the world. The silence seemed to focus +itself upon the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared his +voice. It was a shock to all concerned when Stephen Arnold, picking up +his hat, got upon his feet instead. + +"I also," he said, "would offer my humble testimony to the grace of +God--with all my heart." + +It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the performance of his +office. Then he turned and bent gravely to Lindsay. "Shall we go now?" +he whispered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving a silence +behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the part of Ensign Sand at least, +to be somewhat resentful. As they passed out, a voice recovered itself +and cried, "Hallelujah!" It was Laura's. And all the way to the +club--Arnold was dining with him there--Lindsay listened to his friend's +analysis of religious appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that +clear music above a sordid din, "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she liked it, drove to Number +Three, Lal Behari's Lane and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was +only partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, badly in want +of repair and bearing, sunk in one of them, a marble slab announcing +"Residence with Board," she perceived the squalid attempt the place made +at respectability, the servants in dirty livery salaaming curiously, the +over-fed squirrel in a cage in the door, the pair of damaged wicker +chairs in the porch suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, the +general discoloration. She observed with irritation that it was a +down-at-heels shrine for such a divinity, in spite of its six dusty +crotons in crumbling plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her +own repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it presented. What +she demanded and expected of herself was that Number Three, Lal Behari's +Lane should be pleasing, interesting, acceptable on its merits as a +cheap Calcutta boarding-house. She found herself so unable to perceive +its merits that it was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe +either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the "dance-house," the servant +said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with +Christian names distressed by an uncertainty as to whether her visit had +been a disappointment or an escape. By the next day, however, she was +well pulled together in favour of the former conclusion--she could +nearly always persuade herself of such things in time--and wrote a +frank, sweet little note in her picturesque hand--she never joined more +than two syllables--to say how sorry she had been, and would Miss Howe +come to lunch on Friday. "I should love to make it dinner," she said to +herself, as she sealed the envelope, "but before one knows how she will +behave in connection with the men--I suppose one must think of the other +people." + +It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two had met among the +faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's drawing-room--there was something +auroral even about the mantlepiece--a little like diplomatists using a +common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia drew the +conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had more to cover, +but was less particular about it. The only thing she was bent upon +making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's +effort to receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly +aware of what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that +Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was +almost too effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia +remembered afterwards, to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of +intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set +Celine at her--with such a foundation to work upon, what could Celine +not have done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things +Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones +of which resided a hint of the seats nearest the exit under the gallery, +and her wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with them, movements +which seemed to imply blank verse and to be thrown away upon two women +and a little furniture. A consciousness stood in the room between them, +and their commonplaces about the picturesqueness of the bazaar rode on +long absorbed regards, one reading, the other anxious to read; yet the +encounter was so conventionally creditable to them both that they might +have smiled past each other under any circumstances next day and +acknowledged no demand for more than the smile. + +The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was at the back of her +head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her elbow on +the table. They had found a portrait-painter. + +"He has such an eye," said Alicia, "for the possibilities of character." + +"Such an eye that he develops them. I know one man he painted. I +suppose when the man was born he had an embryo soul, but in the meantime +he and everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. Salter +re-created it on the original lines, and brought it up, and gave it a +lodging behind the man's wrinkles. I saw the picture. It was +fantastic--psychologically." + +"Psychology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I know," Alicia said. +"Do let him give you a little more. It's only Moselle." She felt quite +direct, and simple, too, in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a +friendly, unembarrassed look; there was nothing behind them but the joy +of talking intelligently about Salter. + +Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her hostess instead, with +an expression of candour so admirable that one might easily have +mistaken it to be insincere. It was part of her that she could swim in +any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the moment, to swim in +Alicia's. Both the Moselle and the cutlets, moreover, were of excellent +quality. + +"It's everything to everything, don't you think? And especially, thank +Heaven, to my trade." Her voice softened the brusqueness of this; the +way she said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. That was the +case with flagrancies of hers sometimes. + +"To discover motives and morals and passions and ambitions and to make a +picture of them with your own body--your face and hands and +voice--compare our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush to +do it, or a pen or a chisel!" + +"I know what you mean," said Alicia. She had a little flush, and an +excited hand among the wine-glasses. "No, I don't want any; please don't +bother me!" to the man at her elbow with something in aspic. "It's much +more direct--your way." + +"And, I think, so much more primitive, so much earlier sanctioned, +abiding so originally among the instincts! Oh, yes! if we are lightly +esteemed it is because we are bad exponents. The ideal has dignity +enough. They charge us, in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to +appreciate our lines, especially when they are Shakespeare's--with being +unliterary. You might--good Heavens!--as well accuse a painter of not +being a musician? Our business lies behind the words--they are our mere +medium! Rosalind wasn't literary--why should I be? But don't indulge me +in my shop, if it bores you," Hilda added lightly, aware as she was that +Miss Livingstone was never further from being bored. + +"Oh, please go on! If you only knew," her lifted eyebrows confessed the +tedium of Calcutta small-talk. "But why do you say you are lightly +esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone--and you hold the public in +the hollow of your hand!" + +Hilda smiled. "Dear old public! It does its best for us, doesn't it? One +loves it, you know, as sailors love the sea, never believing in its +treachery in the end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly +esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've done nothing--I've no +right. In ten years perhaps--no, five--I'll write signed articles for +the _New Review_ about modern dramatic tendencies. Meanwhile you'll have +to consider that the value of my opinions is prospective." + +"But already you have succeeded--you have made a place." + +"In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg. I think they remember me in +Trichinopoly too, and--yes, it may be so--in Manila. But that wasn't +legitimate drama," and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her +unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and gold. She waited an +instant for these tints to materialise, but Miss Howe's smile slid +discreetly into her wine-glass instead. + +"There's immense picturesqueness in the Philippines," she went on, her +look of thoughtful criticism contrasting in the queerest way with her +hat. "Real ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. One wonders what +America will do with those friars, when she does take hold there." + +"Do you think she is going to?" asked Alicia, vaguely. It was the merest +politeness--she did not wait for a reply. With a courageous air which +became her charmingly she went on, "Don't you long to submit yourself to +London? I should." + +"Oh, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of duty and +conscience--it's not to be put off forever. But one dreads the chained +slavery of London"--she hesitated before the audacity of adding, "the +sordid hundred nights," but Alicia divined it, and caught her breath as +if she watched the other woman make a hazardous leap. + +"You are magnificently sure," she said. Alicia herself felt curiously +buoyed up and capable, conscious of vague intuitions of immediate +achievement. The lunch-table still lay between the two, but it had +become in a manner intangible; the selves of them had drawn together, +and regarded each other with absorbent eyes. In Hilda's there was an +instant of consideration before she said: + +"I might as well tell you--you won't misunderstand--that I am sure. I +expect things of myself. I hold a kind of mortgage on my success; when I +foreclose it will come, bringing the long, steady, grasping chase of +money and fame, eyes fixed, never a day to live in, only to accomplish, +every moment straddled with calculation, an end to all the byeways where +one finds the colour of the sun. The successful London actress, my +dear--what excursion has she? A straight flight across the Atlantic in a +record-breaker, so many nights in New York, so many in Chicago, so many +in a Pullman car, and the net result in every newspaper--an existence of +pure artificiality infested by reporters. It's like living in the shell +of your personality. It's the house forever on your back; at the last +you are buried in it, smirking in your coffin with a half-open eye on +the floral offerings. There never was reward so qualified by its +conditions." + +"Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?" + +"Oh, yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! But +then you know all, you have done all; there is nothing afterwards but +the eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could +begin to make you see the joys of a strolling player--they aren't much +understood in the proscenium--but there are so many, honestly, that +London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of going +has twice wound round the world already. But I'm talking like an +illustrated interview. You will grant the impertinence of all I've been +saying when I tell you that I've never yet had an illustrated +interview." + +"Aren't they almost always vulgar?" Alicia asked. "Don't they make you +sit the wrong way on a chair, in tights?" + +Hilda threw her head back and laughed almost, Alicia noted, like a man. +She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, +as woman often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much +as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented +themselves quite preposterously to any discussion of her profession. +They were things to be taken for granted, like the curtain and the +wings; they had no relation to clothing in the world. + +Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd--her outsider's +prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar again +for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. "They _are_ +atrocities," she said. "On their merits they ought to be cast out of +even the suburbs of art and literature. But they help to make the +atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they do that, of +course"----the pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the impression +that, though the whole world took offence, the expediency of the +illustrated interview was beyond discussion. + +The servant brought them coffee. "Shall we smoke here," said Miss +Livingstone, "or in the drawing-room?" + +"Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you like it? Please don't on my +account--you really mustn't. Suppose it should make you ill?" If Hilda +felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her face. Nothing was +there but cheerful concern. + +"It won't make me ill." Alicia lifted her chin with delicate +assertiveness. "I suppose you do smoke, don't you?" + +"Occasionally--with some people. Honestly, have you ever done it +before?" + +"Four times," said Alicia, and then turned rose-colour with the +apprehension that it sounded amateurish to have counted them. "I thought +it was one of your privileges to do it always, just as you--" + +"Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down the back of some Serene +Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense +with it. In my bath, for instance, and almost always in omnibuses." + +"How absurd you are! Then we'll stay here." + +Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and watched Alicia sacrifice +two matches. + +"There's Rosa Norton of our company," she went on. "Poor dear old Rosy. +She's fifty-three--grey hair smooth back, you know, and a kind of look +of anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and chokes her, poor dear; +but blow her if she won't be as Bohemian as anybody. I've seen her smoke +in a bonnet with strings tied under her chin. I got up and went away." + +"But I can't possibly affect you in that way," said Alicia, putting her +cigarette down to finish, as an afterthought, a marron glacee. "I'm not +old and I'm not grotesque." + +"No, but--oh, all right. After you with the matches, please." + +"I _beg_ your pardon. How thoughtless of me! Dear me, mine has gone out. +Do you suppose anything is wrong with them? Perhaps they're damp." + +"Trifle dry, if anything," Hilda returned, with the cigarette between +her lips, "but in excellent order, really." She took it between her +first and second finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, +leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals through her nostrils. It +was rather, Alicia reflected, like a horse on a cold day--she hoped Miss +Howe wouldn't do it again. But she presently saw that it was Miss Howe's +way of doing it. + +"No, you're not old and grotesque," Hilda said, contemplatively; "you're +young and beautiful." The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and +enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so +little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the +common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something +quite different--a mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. + +"Fairly," she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and there +was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace seemed to be +dismissed between them. + +"You made a vivid impression here last year," said Alicia. She felt +delightfully terse and to the point. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you know +him well?" + +Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side of +them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold--it would +have annoyed her to know how cold--with distance. + +"He is an old friend of my brother's," she said. Hilda had the sensation +of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. +She looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette, crisped over +with grey, in its blackened calyx. + +"Most impressionable," she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. "As to +the rest of the people--bah, you can't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in its +torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you know, +the way pancreatic influences can be idealised--made to serve ennobling +ends. But Mr. Lindsay is--different." + +"Yes?" Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of her, +the asking note was in the word. + +"We have done some interesting things together here. He has shown me the +queerest places. Yesterday he made me go with him to Wellesley Square to +look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the middle of it." + +"A statue?" + +"No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the people. She wasn't new to +me--I knew her before he did--but the picture was and the performance. +She stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a rabble of all +colours, like a fallen angel--I mean a dropped one. Light seemed to come +from her hair or eyes or something. I almost expected to see her sail +away over the palms into the sunset when it was ended." + +"It sounds most unusual," Alicia said, with a light smile. Her interest +was rather obviously curbed. + +"It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop and look; one +doesn't go round the corner." + +There was another little silence, full of the unwillingness of Miss +Livingstone's desire to be informed. + +Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger bowl and waited. +The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke it herself. + +"And I regret to say it was I who introduced them," she said. + +"Introduced whom?" + +"Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They met at +Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed," +Hilda went on tranquilly, "because I would only lend it to her while she +was there." + +"Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. He is +always grateful to be amused." + +"Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather intense +about it. And--I don't know that my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's +account. Did I say so?" They were simple, amiable words, and their +pertinence was far from insistent: but Alicia's crude blush--everything +else about her was perfectly worked out--cried aloud that it was too +sharp a pull up. "Perhaps, though," Hilda hurried on with a pang, "we +generalise too much about the men." + +What Miss Livingstone would have found to say--she had certainly no +generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay--had not a servant brought +her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The card saved +her the necessity. She looked at it blankly for an instant, and then +exclaimed, "My cousin, Stephen Arnold! He's a reverend--a Clarke Mission +priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall we do with our +cigarettes?" + +Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situation was developing. + +"Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much matter, does it? Drown the +corpse in here, and he won't guess it belongs to you." She pushed the +finger bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went into it. + +"Don't ask me to sacrifice mine," she added, and there was no time for +remonstrance; Arnold's voice was lifting itself at the door. + +"Pray may I come in?" he called from behind the portiere. + +Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition of +the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. It +reminded her of a man she knew who "did" curates beautifully. Arnold +walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, and it amused her +to think that he bent over Alicia's hand as if he would bless it. + +"You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee." He flavoured what he +said, and made it pretty, like a woman. "Let me confess at once, that is +what brought me." He stopped to laugh; there was a hint of formality and +self-sacrifice even in that. "It is coffee time, isn't it?" Then he +turned and saw Hilda, and she was, at the moment, flushed with the +luxury of her sensations, a vision as splendid as she must have been to +him unusual. But he only closed his lips and thrust his chin out a +little, with his left hand behind him in one of his intensely clerical +attitudes, and so stood waiting. Hilda reflected afterwards that she +could hardly have expected him to exclaim, "Whom have we here?" with +upraised hands, but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his +self-possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when Alicia mentioned +them to each other, that there was the habit of deference in it, yet +that it waved her courteously, so to speak, out of his life. It was all +as interesting as the materialisation of a quaint tradition, and she +decided not, after all, to begin a trivial comedy for herself and +Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen Arnold whether he objected to +tobacco. She had an instant's circling choice of the person she would +represent to this priest in the little intermingling half-hour of their +lives that lay shaken out before them, and dropped unerringly. It really +hardly mattered, but she always had such instants. She was aware of the +shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal effect; her hand went +to her throat and drew the laces closer together there. An erectness +stole into her body as she sat, and a look into her eyes that divorced +her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken to him of too +general an accessibility, too unthinking a largesse. She went on +smoking, but almost immediately her cigarette took its proper note of +insignificance. Alicia, speaking of it once afterwards to Arnold, found +that he had forgotten it. + +"Even in College street you have heard of Miss Howe," Alicia said, and +the negative very readable in Arnold's silent brow brought Hilda a +flicker of happiness at her hostess's expense. + +"I don't think the posters carry us as far as College street," she said, +"but I am not difficult to explain, Mr. Arnold. I act with Mr. +Stanhope's Company. If you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help +knowing all about me, the letters are so large." The bounty of her +well-spring of kindness was in it under the candour and the simplicity; +it was one of those least of little things which are enough. + +Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition leap through the +armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. He glanced away again quickly, and +looked at the floor as he said he feared they were terribly out of it in +College street, for which, however, he had evidently no apology to +offer. He continued to look at the floor with a careful air, as if it +presented points pertinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself--it was +an odd sensation--too sunny upon the nooked, retiring current that +flowed in him. He might have turned to the cool accustomed shadow that +Alicia made, but she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling +through her strangeness and his shyness for something to say to her. He +stirred his coffee, and once or twice his long upper lip trembled as if +he thought he had found it; but it was Alicia who talked, making light +accusations against the rigours of the Mission House, complaining of her +cousin that he was altogether given over to bonds and bands, that she +personally would soon cease to hold him in affection at all; she saw so +little of him it wasn't really worth while. + +This was old fencing ground between them, and Stephen parried her +pleasantly enough, but his eyes strayed speculatively to the other end +of the table, where, however, they rose no higher than the firm, +lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. + +"If I could found a monastic order," Hilda said, "one of the rules +should be a week's compulsory retirement into the world four times a +year." She spoke with a kind of grave brightness: it was difficult to +know whether she was altogether in jest. + +"There would be a secession all over the place," Arnold responded, with +his repressed smile. "You would get any number of probationers; I wonder +whether you would keep them!" + +"During that week," Hilda went on, "they should be compelled to dine and +dance every night, to read a 'Problem' novel every morning before +luncheon, to marry and be given in marriage, and to go to all the +variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss of the return to the +cloisters! All joy lies in a succession of sensations, they say. Do you +remember how Lord Ormont arranged his pleasures? Oh, yes, my brotherhood +would be popular, as soon as it was understood." + +Alicia hurried in with something palliating--she could remember +flippancies of her own that had been rebuked--but there was no sigh or +token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have observed +there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight +disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and something +like the original undergraduate looking out from beneath. + +Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one gaped at two finger-ends; +she buttoned it with the palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the +daintiest spoil of the Avenue de l'Opera. + +"Not yet!" Alicia cried. + +"Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full rehearsal, and I have to +dress the stage for the first act before six o'clock. And after pulling +all that furniture about, I shall want an hour or two in bed." + +"You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else?" + +"I wouldn't let anybody else," Hilda laughed. "Don't forget, please, +that we are only strolling players, odds and ends of people, mostly from +the Antipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs with anything +you've heard about the Lyceum. Good-bye. It has been charming. Good-bye, +Mr. Arnold." + +But Alicia held her hand. "The papers say it is to be _The Offence of +Galilee_, after all," she said. + +"Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and we've found a pretty fair +local Judas--amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without Mr. +Bradley. He takes the part of"--Hilda glanced at the hem of the +listening priestly robe--"of the chief character, you know." + +"That was the great Nonconformist success at home last year, wasn't it?" +Arnold asked; "Leslie Patullo's play? I knew him at Oxford. I can't +imagine--he's a queer chap to be writing things like that." + +"It works out better than you--than one might suppose," Hilda returned, +moving toward the door. "Some of the situations are really almost novel, +in spite of all your centuries of preaching." She sent a disarming smile +with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most effective +hesitations, one hand holding back the portiere. + +"And next week?" cried Alicia. + +"Oh, next week we do _L'Amourette de Giselle_--Frank Golding's re-vamp. +Good-bye! Good-bye!" + +"I wonder very much what Patullo has done with _The Offence of +Galilee_," Arnold said, after she had gone. + +"Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and there will be heaps of room. +It's--suitable, isn't it?" + +"Oh, quite." + +"Then dine with us--the Yardleys are coming--and go on. Why not?" + +"Thanks, very much indeed. It is sure to reward one. I think I shall be +able to give myself that pleasure." + +Arnold made a longer visit than usual; his cup of coffee, indeed, became +a cup of tea; and his talk, while he staid, seemed to suffer less from +the limitations of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent and +direct; he allowed it to appear that he read more than his prayers, that +his glance at the world had still a speculation in it; and when he went +away, he left Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, murmuring +a vague inward corollary upon her day-- + +"It pays! It pays!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the only combination that +offered itself to the entertainment of Calcutta that December Saturday +night. The ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his "Surprise Party"--he +sailed up the Bay as regularly as the Viceroy descended from the +hills--had been advertising "Side-splitting begins at 9:30. Prices as +usual," with reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. In +the Athenian Theatre--it had a tin roof, and nobody could hear the +orchestra when it rained--the Midgets were presenting the earlier +collaborations of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed +under nine years of age. Colonel Pike's Great Occidental Circus had been +in full blast on the Maidan for a week. It became a great occidental +circus when Colonel Pike married the proprietress. They were both +staying at the Grand Oriental Hotel at Singapore when she was made a +relict through cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do +with, to say nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. +And certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for while +hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably +imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural feature of the cold +weather. There was the mystic bower, too, in an octagonal tent under a +pipal tree, which gave you, by an arrangement of looking-glasses, the +most unaccountable sensations for one rupee; and a signboard cried "Know +Thyself!" where a physiological display lurked from the eyes of the +police behind a perfectly respectable skeleton at one end of Peri +Chandra's Gully. Llewellyn Stanhope saw that there was competition, +sighed to think how much, as he stood in the foggy vestibule of the +Imperial Theatre wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial cape, +and pulled his moustache and watched the occasional carriage that rolled +his way up the narrow lane from Chowringhee. He thought bitterly, +standing there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims of legitimate +drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise of wheels and the +flashing of lamps on the way to accord another season's welcome to Jimmy +Finnigan. "I might've learned this town well enough by now," he +reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it." +Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the +twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He +aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the +incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since +nature had arranged that he never could be on his intrinsic merits. His +upper lip was too short for that, his yellow moustache too curly, while +the perpetual bullying he underwent at the hands of leading ladies gave +him an air of deference to everybody else which was sometimes painfully +misunderstood. The stars, it must be said regretfully, in connection +with so laudable an ambition, nearly always betrayed him, coming down +with an unmistakably meteoric descent, stony-broke in the uttermost ends +of the earth, with a strong inclination to bring the cause of that +misfortune before the Consular Courts. They seldom succeeded in this +design, since Llewellyn was usually able to prove to them in advance +that it would be fruitless and expensive, but the paths of Eastern +capitals were strewn with his compromises, in Japanese yen, Chinese +dollars, Indian rupees, for salaries which no amount of advertising +could wheedle into the box-office. When the climax came Llewellyn +usually went to hospital and received the reporters of local papers in +pathetic audience there, which counteracted the effect of the astounding +statements the stars made in letters to the editor, and yet gave the +public clearly to understand that owing to its coldness and neglect a +number of ladies and gentlemen of very superior talents were subsisting +in their midst mainly upon brinjals and soda water. "I'm in hospital," +Mr. Stanhope would say to the reporters, "and I'm d---- glad of it."--he +always insisted on the oath going in, it appealed so sympathetically to +the domiciled Englishman grown cold to superiority--"for, upon my soul, +I don't know where I'd turn for a crust if I weren't." In the end the +talented ladies and gentlemen usually went home by an inexpensive line +as the voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain soda was a +ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any price. +Then Llewellyn and Rosa Norton--she had a small inalienable income, and +they were really married, though they preferred for some inexplicable +reason to be thought guilty of more improper behaviour--would depart in +another direction full of gratification for the present and of +confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting statement to +the newspapers that, although his aims were unalterably high, he was not +above profiting by experience, and that next season he could be relied +upon to hit the taste of the community with precision. This year, as we +know, he had made a serious effort by insisting that at least a +proportion of his ladies and gentlemen should be high kickers, and equal +to an imitation, good enough for the Orient, of most things done by the +illustrious Mr. Chevalier. But the fact that Mr. Stanhope had selected +_The Offence of Galilee_ to open with tells its own tale. He was +convinced, but not converted, and he stood there with his little legs +apart, chewing a straw above the three uncut emeralds that formed the +chaste decoration of his shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one +more chance to redeem itself. + +It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly irredeemable. A +ticca-gharry deposited a sea captain; three carriages arrived in +succession; an indefinite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of them +drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery; an overflow from +Jimmy Finnigan, who could no longer give his patrons even standing room. +When this occurred, Llewellyn turned and swung indifferently away in the +direction of the dressing-rooms. When Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors so +early there was no further cause for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad and +stirring, and would turn for amusement even to _The Offence of Galilee_. + +Eventually--that is, five minutes before the curtain rose--the +representatives of the leading Calcutta journals decided that they were +justified in describing the house as a large and fashionable audience. +The Viceroy had taken a box and sent an Aide-de-Camp to sit in it, also +a pair of M.P.s from the North of England, whom he was expected to +attend to in Calcutta, and the governess. The Commander-in-Chief had not +been solicited to be present, the theatrical season demanding an economy +in such personalities if they were to go round; but a Judge of the High +Court had a party in the front row, and a Secretary to the Bengal +Government sat behind him. To speak of unofficials, there must have been +quite forty lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, very genial +and prosperous, to say nothing of hides and seeds, and the men who sold +money and bought diamonds with the profits, which shone in their wives' +hair. A duskiness prevailed in the bare arms and shoulders; much of the +hair was shining and abundant, and very black. A turn of the head showed +a lean Greek profile, an outline bulbous and Armenian, the smooth creamy +mask of a Jewess, while here and there glimmered something more opulent +and inviting still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote +motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of +fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars--the evening was warm under +the gas-lights--sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an +old woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those +who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five--an +audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for good +manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait for the +rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, diffusing an atmosphere of +affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, with imperious chins, the +use of quick orders in a world of personal superiority. + +Thus the stalls--they were spindling cane-bottomed chairs--and the +boxes, in one of which the same spindling cane-bottomed chairs +supported, in more expensive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss +Livingstone, the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other people. +The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, cheek by jowl with all the flotsam +and jetsam of an Eastern port, well on the lookout for any offensive +personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting freely. Here, too, +was an ease of shoulder and a freedom from the cares of life--at a +venture the wives were taking in washing in Brixton, and the children +sent to Board School at the expense of the nation. And in a climate like +this it was a popular opinion that a man must either enjoy himself or +commit suicide. + +The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above and beyond them all. It +was a caricature of the Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. + +Hilda's audience that night knew all about _The Offence of Galilee_ from +the English illustrated papers. The illustrated papers had a great way +of ministering to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; they contained +photographs of almost every striking scene, composed at the leisure of +the cast, but so vividly supplemented with descriptions of the leading +lady's clothes that it hardly required any effort of the imagination to +conjure up the rest. The postures and the chief garments of Pilate--he +was eating pomegranates when the curtain rose and listening to scandal +from his slave maidens about Mary Magdalene--were at once recognised in +their resemblance to those of the photographs, and in the thrill of this +satisfaction any discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally +unobserved. A silent curiosity settled upon the house, half reverent, as +if with the Bible names came thronging a troop of sacred associations to +cluster about personalities brusquely torn out of church, and people +listened for familiar sentences with something like the composed gravity +with which they heard on Sundays the reading of the second lesson. But +as the stage-talk went on, the slave-maidens announcing themselves +without delay comfortably modern and commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and +a decadent, though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possible to +note the breaking up of this sentiment. It was plain, after all, that no +standard of ideality was to be maintained or struggled after. The relief +was palpable; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish gibe at +him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience showed but a faint +inclination to be amused. It was to be a play evidently like any other +play, the same coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It is +doubtful whether this idea was critically present to any one but Stephen +Arnold, but people unconsciously tasted the dramatic substance offered +them, and leaned back in their chairs with the usual patient +acknowledgment that one mustn't expect too much of a company that found +it worth while to come to Calcutta. The house grew submissive and +stolid, but one could see half-awakened prejudices sitting in the +dress-circle. The paper-chasing Secretary said to the most intelligent +of his party that on the whole he liked his theology neat, forgetting +that the preference belonged to Mr. Andrew Lang in connection with a +notable lady novelist; and the most intelligent--it was Mrs. +Barberry--replied that it did seem strange. The depths under the gallery +were critically attentive, though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile +and longing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. Arnold shrank +into the furthest corner of Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, and knew +all the misery of outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat +wife and an unspeakably comic centurion, offered as yet hardly more than +a prelude, but the monstrosity of the whole performance was already +projected upon Arnold's suffering imagination. This, then, was what +Patullo had done with it. But what other, he asked himself in quiet +anger, could Patullo have been expected to do--the fellow he remembered? +Arnold tilted his chair back and stared, with arms folded and sombre +brows, at the opposite wall. He looked once at the door, but some spirit +of self-torture kept him in his seat. If so much offence could be made +with the mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of the sacred story, what +sacrilege might not be committed with the divine personalities +concerned--with Our Lord and His Mother? He remembered, with the touch +of almost physical nausea that assailed him when he saw them, one or two +pictures in recent Paris exhibitions where the coveted accent of +surprise had been produced by representing the sacred figure in the +trivial monde of the boulevards, and fixed upon them as the source of +Patullo's intolerable inspiration. Certain muscles felt responsive at +the thought of Patullo which Arnold had forgotten he possessed; it was +so seldom that a missionary priest, even of athletic traditions, came in +contact with anybody who required to be kicked. + +Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her unfailing plummet +into the evening's experience. Arnold, hesitating over the rudeness of +departure, thought she was sufficiently absorbed; she would hardly mind. +The centurion slapped his tin armour, and made a jest about the King of +the Jews which reached Stephen over his hostess's shoulder and seemed to +brand him where he sat. He looked about for his hat and some excuse that +would serve, and while he looked the sound of applause rose from the +house. It was a demonstration without great energy, hardly more than a +flutter from stall to stall, with a vague, fundamental noise from the +gallery; but it had the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold +glanced at the stage and saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested +slaves and the tin centurion were still on they had somehow lost +significance and colour, had faded into the impotent figures of a +tapestry, and that all the meaning and the dominance of the situation +had gathered into the person of a woman of the East who danced. She was +almost discordant in her literalness, in her clear olive tints and the +_kol_ smudges under her eyes, the string of coins in the mass of her +fallen hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her the slave-girls, +crouching, looked liked painted shells. She danced before Pilate in +strange Eastern ways, in plastic weavings and gesturings that seemed to +be the telling of a tale; and from the orchestra only one unknown +instrument sobbed out to help her. The women of the people have ever +bought in Palestine, buy to-day in the Mousky, the coarse, thick +grey-blue cotton that fell about her limbs, and there was audacity in +the poverty of her beaten silver anklets and armlets. These shone and +twinkled with her movements; but her softly splendid eyes and reddened +lips had the immobility of the bazaar. People looked at their playbills +to see whether it was really Hilda Howe or some nautch-queen borrowed +from a native theatre. By the time she sank before Pilate and placed his +foot upon her head a new spirit had breathed upon the house. Under the +unexpectedness of the representation it sat up straight, and there was a +keenness of desire to see what would happen next which plainly curtailed +the applause, as it does with the children at a pantomime. + +"Have you ever seen anything like it before?" Alicia asked Captain +Yardley; and he said he thought he had once, in Algiers, but not nearly +so well done. Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene had begun to +use her arts upon Pilate in the well-known scene about which the +newspapers reported long afterwards how the Pope had declared that if +Miss Howe had not been a Protestant and so impervious he would have +excommunicated her--and as he looked his movement imperceptibly changed +to afford him a better place. He put an undecided hand upon a prop of +the box that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, and so stood leaning and +looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines and short shoulder-cape +of the frock of his Order than he knew. Hilda, in one of those +impenetrable regards which she threw straight in front of her while +Pilate yawned and posed nearer and nearer the desire of the Magdalene to +be admitted to his household, was at once aware of him. Presently he sat +down again--it was still the profane, the fabulous, the horrible +Patullo, but a strain of pure gold had come into the fabric worth +holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close the eyes upon. Far enough +it was from any semblance to historical fact, but almost possible, +almost admissible, in the form of the woman, as historical fiction. She +dared to sit upon the floor now, in the ungraceful, huddled Eastern +fashion, clasping her knees to her breast, with her back half turned to +her lord the friend of Caesar, so that he could not see the design that +sat behind the mask of her sharp indifference. She rested her chin upon +her knees, and let the blankness of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety +of her replies, plainly measuring the power of her provocation against +the impoverished quality that camp and grove, court and schools, might +leave upon august Roman sensibilities. It was the old, old +sophistication, so perfect in its concentration behind the _kol_-brushed +eyes and the brown breasts, the igniting, flickering, raging of an +instinct upon the stage. Alicia, when it was over, said to Mrs. Yardley, +"How the modern woman goes off upon side issues?" to which that lady +nodded a rather suspicious assent. + +Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his special +consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so to speak, by +a whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much more than "lift" +the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the common sense; she +inspired and transfused it so that wherever she appeared people +irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made private acknowledgments +to the effect that something was to be said even for an impious fantasy +which gave her so unique an opportunity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment +of an incident in that which was his morning and evening meditation made +special appeal, and though it was in a way as if she had thrust her +heathen torch into his Holy of Holies, he saw it lighted with +fascination, and could not close the door upon her. The moment of her +discovery of this came early, and it is only she, perhaps, who could +tell how the strange bond wove itself that drew her being--the +Magdalene's--to the priest who sat behind a lady in swansdown and +chiffon in the upper box nearest to the stage on the right. The +beginnings of such things are untraceable, but the fact may be +considered in connection with this one that Hamilton Bradley, who +represented, as we have been told he would, the Chief Character, did it +upon lines very recognisably those of the illustrations of sacred books, +very correct as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of the +Galilean; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and inscrutable +remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, too, of a popular engraving, +the limitations and the depression. Under it one saw the painful +inconsistency of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other presentations, +and realised with irritation, which must have been tenfold in Hilda, how +he hated the part. Perhaps this was enough in itself to send her +dramatic impulse to another focus, and the strangeness of the adventure +was a very thing she would delight in. Whatever may be said about it, +while yet the hideousness of the conception and display of a woman's +natural passion for the man Christ Jesus was receding from Arnold's mind +before the exquisite charm and faithfulness of the worshipping +Magdalene, he became aware that in some special way he sat judging and +pitying her. She had hardly lifted her eyes to him twice, yet it was he, +intimately he, who responded, as if from afar off, to the touch of her +infinite solicitude and abasement, the joy and the shame of her love. As +he watched and knew his lips tightened and his face paled with the throb +of his own renunciation, he folded his celibate arms in the habit of his +brotherhood and was caught up into a knowledge and an imitation of how +the spotless Original would have looked upon a woman suffering and +transported thus. The poverty of the play faded out; he became almost +unaware of the pinchbeck and the fustian of Patullo's invention and its +insufferable mixture with the fabric of which every thread was precious +beyond imagination. He looked down with tender patience and compassion +upon the development of the woman's intrigue in the palace, through the +very flower of her crafts and guiles, to save him who had transfigured +her from the hands of the rabble and the high priests; he did not even +shrink from the inexpressibly grating note of the purified Magdalene's +final passionate tendering of her personal sacrifice to the enamoured +Pilate as the price of His freedom, and when at the last she wept at His +feet, where He was bound waiting for His cross, and wrapped them, in the +agony of her abandonment, in the hair of her head, the priest's lips +almost moved in words other than those the playwright had given his +Christ to say--words that told her he knew the height and the depth of +her sacrifice and forgave it, "Neither do I condemn thee...." In his +exultation he saw what it was to perform miracles, to remit sins. The +spark of divinity that was in him glowed to a white heat; the woman on +the stage warmed her hands at it in two consciousnesses. She was stirred +through all her artistic sense in a new and delicious way, and wakened +in some dormant part of her to a knowledge beautiful and surprising. She +felt in every nerve the exquisite quality of that which lay between +them, and it thrilled her through all her own perception of what she +did, and all the applause at how she did it. It was as if he, the +priest, was borne out upon a deep, broad current that made toward solar +spaces, toward infinite bounds, and as if she, the actress, piloted +him.... + +The Sphinx on the curtain--it had gone down in the old crooked +lines--again looked above and beyond them all. I have sometimes fancied +a trace of malignancy about her steady eyeballs, but perhaps that is the +accident or the design of the scene-painter; it does not show in +photographs. The audience was dispersing a trifle sedately; the +performance had been, as Mrs. Barberry told Mr. Justice Horne, +interesting but depressing. "I hope," said Alicia to Stephen, fastening +the fluffy-white collar of the wrap he put round her, "that I needn't be +sorry I asked you to come. I don't quite know. But she did redeem it, +didn't she? That last scene, where she knows what they are doing to +Him----" + +"Can you not be silent?" Arnold said, almost in a whisper; and her look +of astonishment showed her that there were tears in his eyes. He left +the theatre and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee and out into +the starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where presently he stumbled +upon a wooden bench under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell upon +his amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or two, while the +breeze stole across the grass from the river, and the masthead lights +watched beside the city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached +the Mission House in College street his servant was surprised at the +unusual irritation of a necessary rebuke. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagination in accounting for +Duff Lindsay's absence from the theatre on the first night of a notable +presentation by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees crossed on the +bench furthest back in the corner obscurest of the Salvation Army +Headquarters in Bentinck street. It had become his accustomed place; +sitting there he had begun to feel like the adventurer under Niagara, it +was the only spot from which he could observe, try to understand, and +cope with the torrential nature of his passion. Nearer to the fair charm +of her presence in the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and the +sound of the big drum, he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. His +persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it +brought to Ensign Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he +was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the +Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not +noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, +a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came +round. After his first contribution Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual +interests with almost superstitious reverence, according them the +fullest privacy of which she was capable. The gravity which the +gentleman attached to his situation was sufficiently testified by the +"amount"; Mrs. Sand never wanted better evidence than the amount. Even +Laura, acting doubtless under instructions, seemed disposed to hold away +from him in her prayers and exhortations; only a very occasional +allusion passed her lips which Duff could appropriate. These, when they +fell he gathered and set like flowers in his tenderest consciousness, to +visit and water them after the sun went down and for twenty-four hours +he would not see her again. Her intonation went with them and her face, +they lived on that. They stirred him, I mean, least of all in the manner +of their intention. After the first quarter of an hour it is to be +feared Lindsay suffered no more apprehensions on the score of emotional +hypnotism. He recognised his situation plainly enough, and there was no +appeal in it of which the Reverend Stephen Arnold for example could +properly suspect the genuineness or the permanence. + +On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting as he had sat through +other meetings, absorbed in his exquisite experience, which he meditated +mostly with his eyes on the floor. His attitude was one quite adapted to +deceive Ensign Sand; if he had been occupied with the burden of his +transgressions it was one he might very well have fallen into. When +Laura knelt or sang he sometimes looked at her, at other times he looked +at the situation in the brightness of her presence at the other end of +the room. She gave forth there, for Lindsay, an illumination by which he +almost immediately began to read his life, and it was because he thought +he had done this with accuracy and intelligence that he came up behind +her that evening when the meeting was over as she followed the rest, +with her _sari_ drawn over her head, out into the darkness of Bentinck +street, and said with directness, "I should like to come and see you. +When may I? Any time that suits you. Have you half an hour to spare +to-morrow?" + +It was plain that she was tired, and that the brightness with which she +welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the +frankness, though, or the touch of "Now we are getting to business," +that stood somehow in her expression. She looked alert and pleased. + +"You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't you?" she said. Her +manner took Lindsay a trifle aback, it suggested that she conferred this +privilege so freely. "To-morrow--let me see, we march in the morning, +and I have an open-air at four in the afternoon--the Ensign takes the +evening meeting. Yes, I could see you to-morrow about two or about +seven, after I get back from the Square." It was not unlike a +professional appointment. + +Lindsay considered. "Thanks," he said, "I'll come at about seven--if you +are sure you won't be too exhausted to have me after such a day." + +He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer were slightly reddened +at the edges, testifying to the acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and a +dry crack crept into the silver voice with which she said +matter-of-factly, "We are never too exhausted to attend to our Master's +business." + +Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation, he looked gravely the +other way. "And the address?" he said. + +"Almost next door--we all live within bugle-call. The entrance is in +Crooked lane. Anybody will tell you." + +At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously waiting. Arnold said "Thanks" +again and passed out--she seemed to be holding it for him--and picked +his way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From +there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked +lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part +in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also +localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make +her thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and +found there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in +advance, to say that she had not expected him. "Friendly creature!" he +said as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to think that +already there was one who guessed, who knew. + +One gropes in Crooked lane after the lights of Bentinck street have done +all that can be expected of them. There are various things to avoid, +washer-men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca-gharries, heaps of +rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. Lindsay, when he had surmounted +these, found himself at the entrance to a quadrangle which was +positively dark. He waylaid a sweeper slinking out; and the man showed +him where an open staircase ran down against the wall in one corner. It +was up there, he said, that the "tamasho-mems"[2] lived. There were +three tamasho-mems, he continued, responding to Arnold's trivial coin, +and one sahib, but this was not the time for the tamasho--it was +finished. Lindsay mounted the first flight by faith, and paused at the +landing to avoid collision with a heavy body descending. He inquired +Miss Filbert's whereabouts from this person, who providentially lighted +a cigar, disclosing himself a bald Armenian in tusser silk trousers and +a dirty shirt, presumably, Lindsay thought, the landlord. At all events, +he had the information. Lindsay was to keep straight on; it was the +third story, "and a lovelie airie flat, too, sir, for this part of the +town." Duff kept straight on in a spirit of caution and just missed +treading upon the fattest rat in the heathen parish of St. John's. At +the top he saw a light and hastened; it shone from an open door at the +side of a passage. The partition in which the door was came considerably +short of the ceiling, and from the top of it to the window opposite +stretched a line of garments to dry, of pungent odour and infantile +pattern. Lindsay dared no further, but lifted up his voice in the Indian +way to summon a servant. "_Qui hai!_"[3] he called; "_Qui hai!_" + +[Footnote 2: Festival-making women.] + +[Footnote 3: "Whoever is there!"] + +He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair pushed back, and a door +further down the passage opened outwards, disclosing Laura Filbert with +her hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful picture. "Good +evening, Mr. Lindsay," she said as he advanced. "Won't you come in?" She +clung to the handle until he had passed into the room, then she closed +the door after him. "I was expecting you," she said. "Mr. Harris, let me +make you acquainted with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Harris." + +Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three cane-bottomed +chairs. He was a clumsily built youth, and he wore the private's garb of +the Salvation Army. It was apparent that he had been reading a +newspaper; he had a displeasing air of possession. At Laura's formula he +looked up and nodded without amiability, folded his journal the other +side out and returned to it. + +"Please take a seat," Laura said, and Lindsay took one. He had a demon +of self-consciousness that possessed him often, here he felt dumb. Nor +did he in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed his legs in +greater discomfort than he had dreamed possible, looking at Laura, who +sat down like a third stranger, curiously detached from any sense of +hospitality. + +"Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris," she said +pleasantly. "I guess you can tell him what to do about it as well as I +can." + +"Oh!" Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the word. "Is he?" said Mr. +Harris, without looking up from his paper. "Well, what I've got to say +on that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a proper an' a +public place. He can hear it there any day of the week." + +"I think I have already heard," remarked Lindsay, "what you have to +say." + +"Then that's all right," said Mr. Harris, with his eyes still upon his +newspaper. He appeared to devour it. Laura looked from one to the other +of them and fell upon an expedient. + +"If you'll excuse me," she said, "I'll just get you that bicycle story +you were kind enough to lend me, Mr. Harris, and you can take it with +you. The Ensign's got it," and she left the room. Lindsay glanced round +and promptly announced to himself that he could not come there again. It +was taking too violent an advantage. The pursuit of an angel does not +imply that you may trap her in her corner under the Throne. The place +was divided by a calico curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a +mosquito curtain--she slept in there. On the walls were all tender texts +about loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed +with photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic +eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, +China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, a +Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll +which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little +ineffectual heathen protest. There was another more embarrassing table; +it had a coarse cloth and was garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a +plate of plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a +meal evidently impending. It was atrociously, sordidly intimate, with +its core in Harris, who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room +looked up. "If you're here on private business," he said to Lindsay, +fixing his eyes, however, on a point awkwardly to the left of him, +"maybe you ain't aware that the Ensign"--he threw his head back in the +direction of the next room--"is the person to apply to. She's in command +here. Captain Filbert's only under her." + +"Indeed?" said Lindsay. "Thanks." + +"It ain't like it is in the Queen's army," Harris volunteered, still +searching Lindsay's vicinity for a point upon which his eye could +permanently rest, "where, if you remember, ensigns are the smallest +officer we have." + +"The commission is, I think, abolished," replied Lindsay, trying to +govern a deep and irritated frown. + +"Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern very close on the +other--not in discipline, anyhow," said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. "But +you'll find Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can for you. +She's a hard-working officer." + +A sharp wail smote the air from a point suspiciously close to the lath +and canvas partition on the other side, followed by hasty hushings and +steps in the opposite direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe that Mr. +Sand seemed at present to be sufficiently engaged, at which Mr. Harris +shifted one heavy limb over the other, and lapsed into silence, looking +sternly at an advertisement. The air was full of their mutual annoyance, +although Duff tried to feel amused. They were raging as primitively, +under the red flannel shirt and the tan-coloured waistcoat with white +silk spots, as two cave-men on an Early British coast; their only +sophistication lay in Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's idea that he +ought to find this person humourous. Then Laura came back and resolved +the situation. + +"Here it is," she said, handing the volume to Mr. Harris; "we have all +enjoyed it. Thank you very much." There was in it the oddest mixture of +the supreme feminine and the superior officer. Harris, as he took the +book, had no alternative. + +"Good-evening, then, Captain," said he, and went stumbling at the door. + +"Mr. Harris," said Laura, equably, "found salvation about a month ago. +He is a very steady young man--foreman in one of the carriage works +here. He is now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he often drops in +in the evening." + +"He seems to be a--a member of the corps," said Lindsay. + +"He would be, only for the carriage works. He says he doesn't find +himself strong enough in grace to give up his situation yet. But he +wears the uniform at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the Ensign +doesn't think there's any objection." + +Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cane-bottomed chairs, her +_sari_ drawn over her head, her hands folded in her lap. The native +dress clung to her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her consecrated +ambitions seemed more insistent than ever. She had nothing to do with +anything else, nothing to do with her room or its arrangements, nothing, +Lindsay felt profoundly, to do with him. Her personal zeal for him +seemed to resolve itself, at the point of contact, into something +disappointingly thin; he saw that she counted with him altogether as a +unit in a glorious total, and that he himself had no place in her +knowledge or her desire. This brought him, with something like a shock, +to a sense of how far he had depended on her interest for his soul's +sake to introduce her to a wider view of him. + +"But you have come to tell me about yourself," she said, suddenly, it +seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped in the contemplation of her profile. +"Well, is there any special stumbling-block?" + +"There are some things I should certainly like you to know," replied +Lindsay; "but you can't think how difficult"----he glanced at the lath +and plaster partition, but she, to whom publicity was a condition +salutary, if not essential, to spiritual experience, naturally had no +interpretation for that. + +"I know it's sometimes hard to speak," she said; "Satan ties our +tongues." + +The misunderstanding was almost absurd, but he saw only its +difficulties, knitting his brows. + +"I fear you will find my story very strange and very mad," he said. "I +cannot be sure that you will even listen to it." + +"Oh," Laura said, simply, "do not be afraid! I have heard confessions! I +work at home, you see, a good deal among the hospitals, and--we do not +shrink, you know, in the Army from things like that." + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, staring, "you don't think--you don't +suppose----" + +"Ah! don't say that! It's so like swearing." + +As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate something intelligible, +the curtain parted, and a sallow little Eurasian girl of eighteen, also +in the dress of the Army, came through from the bedroom part. She smiled +in a conscious, meaningless way, as she sidled past them. At the door +her smile broadened, and as she closed it after her she gave them a +little nod. + +"That's my lieutenant," said Laura. + +"The place is like a warren," Lindsay groaned. "How can we talk here?" + +Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a diagnosis. "Do you think," +she said, "a word of prayer would help you?" + +"No," said Lindsay. "No, thank you. What is making me miserable," he +added, quietly, "is the knowledge that we are being overheard. If you go +into the next room, I am quite certain you will find Mrs. Sand listening +by the wall." + +"She's gone out! She and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take the +evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, and they +are asleep." Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of her. "Indeed, we +are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So please don't be afraid, +Mr. Lindsay! Say whatever is in your heart, and the mere saying----" + +"Oh," Lindsay cried, "stop! Don't, for Heaven's sake, look at me in that +light any longer. I'm not penitent. I'm not--what do you call it?--a +soul under conviction. Nothing of the sort." He waited with +considerateness for this to have its effect upon her; he could not go on +until he saw her emerge, gasping, from the inundation of it. But she was +not even staggered by it. She only looked down at her folded hands with +an added seriousness and a touch of sorrow. + +"Aren't you?" she said. "But at least you feel that you ought to be. I +thought it had been accomplished. But I will go on praying." + +"Shall you be very angry, if I tell you that I'd rather you didn't? I +want to come into your life differently--sincerely." + +She looked at him with such absolute blankness that his resolution was +swiftly overturned, and showed him a different face. + +"I won't tell you anything about what I feel and what I want to-night +except this--I find that you are influencing all my thoughts and all my +days in what is to me a very new and a very happy way. You hear as much +as that often, and from many people, don't you? So there is nothing in +it that need startle you or make you uncomfortable." He paused, and she +nodded in a visible effort to follow him. + +"So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do something for you just +for my own pleasure--there must be some way of helping you, and being +your friend----" + +"As Mr. Harris is," she interrupted. "I do influence Mr. Harris for +good, I know. He says so." + +"Influence me," he begged, "in any way you like." + +"I will pray for you," she said. "I promise that." + +"And you will let me see you sometimes?" he asked, conceding the point. + +"If I thought it would do you any good"--she looked at him doubtfully, +clasping and unclasping her hands--"I will see; I will ask for guidance. +Perhaps it is one of His own appointed ways. If you have no objection, I +will give you this little book, _Almost Persuaded_. I am sure you are +almost persuaded. Above all, I hope, you will go on coming to the +meetings." + +And in the course of the next two or three moments Lindsay found +himself, somewhat to his astonishment, again in the night of the +staircase, dismissed exactly as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a +printed volume. Only in his case, a figure of much angelic beauty stood +at the top, holding a patent kerosene lamp high to illumine his way. He +refrained from looking back lest she should see something too human in +his face and vanish, leaving him in darkness which would be indeed +impenetrable. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a "ticca-gharry"--the shabby oblong +box on wheels, dignified in municipal regulations as a hackney +carriage--was running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked children up on +the pavement with angry screams; drivers of ox-carts dug their lean +beasts in the side and turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the +tramcar held on its course in conscious invincibility. A pariah tore +along beside the vehicle barking; crows flew up from the dung in the +road by half-dozens, protesting shrilly; a pedlar of blue bead necklaces +just escaped being knocked down. Little groups of baboos[4] and +bunnias[5] stood looking after, laughing and speculating; a native +policeman, staring also, gave them sharp orders to disperse, and they +said to him, "Peace, brother." To each other they said, "Behold, the +driver is a 'mut-wallah,'" (or drunken person); and presently, as the +thing whirled further up the emptied perspective, "Lo! the syce has +fallen." The driver was certainly very drunk; his whip circled +perpetually above his head; the syce clinging behind was stiff with +terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. Inside, Hilda Howe, with a +hand in the strap at each side and her feet against the opposite seat, +swayed violently, and waited for what might happen, breathing short. +Whenever the gharry thrashed over the tram-lines, she closed her eyes. +There was a point near Cornwallis street where she saw the off front +wheel make sickeningly queer revolutions; and another, electrically +close, when two tossing roan heads with pink noses appeared in a gate to +the left, heading smartly out, all unawares, at precisely right angles +to her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of the Reverend +Stephen Arnold's interference, walking and discussing with Amiruddin +Khan, as he was, the comparative benefits of Catholic and Mohammedan +fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen did in that +interruption of the considerate hearing he was giving to Amiruddin. The +ticca-gharry ponies were almost spent, and any resolute hand could have +impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which the roans +threatened to impale their wretched sides. The front wheel, however, +made him heroic, going off at a tangent into a cloth-merchant's shop, +and precipitating a clash while he still clung to the reins. The door +flew open on the under side and Hilda fell through, grasping at the dust +of the road; while the driver, discovering that his seat was no longer +horizontal, entered suddenly upon sobriety, and clamoured with tears +that the cloth-merchant should restore his wheel--was he not a poor man? +Hilda, struggling with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by various +lean hands of the bazaar, and observed herself the central figure in yet +another situation. When she was in a condition to see, she saw Arnold +soothing the ponies; Amiruddin, before the possibility of vague police +complication, having slipped away. Stephen had believed the gharry +empty. The sight of her, in her disordered draperies, was a revelation +and a reproach. + +[Footnote 4: Clerks.] + +[Footnote 5: Small dealers.] + +"Is it possible?" he exclaimed, and was beside her. "You are not hurt?" + +"Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with this." She held up her +right palm, broadly abraded round the base, where her hand had struck +the road. Arnold took it delicately in his own thin fingers to examine +it; an infinity of contrast rested in the touch. He looked at it with +anxiety so obviously deep and troubled that Hilda silently smiled. She +who had been battered, as she said, twice round the world, found it +disproportionate. + +"It's the merest scratch," she said, grave again to meet his glance. + +"Indeed, I fear not." The priest made a solicitous bandage with his +handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. "It is quite +unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the nearest +chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may give you a +vast amount of trouble--but I am walking." + +"I will walk, too," Hilda said, readily. "I should prefer it, truly." +With her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her pocket, where a +few coins chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. "I +really can't afford any more," she said. "He can get his wheel mended +with that, can't he?" + +"It is three times his fare," Arnold said, austerely, "and he deserved +nothing--but a fine, perhaps." The man was suppliant before them, +cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head +and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood +golden upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink +kite. Something seemed to gather into her eyes as she looked, and when +she fixed them softly upon Arnold, to speak, as it had spoken before. + +"Ah," she said. "Our deserts." + +It was the merest echo and she had done it on purpose, but he could not +know that, and as she dropped the rupees into the craving hands and +turned and walked away with him, he had nothing to say. There was +nothing, perhaps, that he wanted to talk of more than of his experience +at the theatre; he longed to have it simplified and explained; yet in +that space of her two words the impossibility of mentioning it had +sprung at him and overcome him. He hoped, with instant fervour, that she +would refrain from any allusion to _The Offence of Galilee_. And for the +time being she did refrain. She said, instead, that her hand was +smarting absurdly already, and did Arnold suppose the chemist would use +a carbolic lotion? Stephen, with a guarded look, said very possibly not +but one never knew; and Hilda, thinking of the far-off day when the +little girl of her was brought tactfully to disagreeable necessities, +covered a preposterous impulse to cry with another smile. + +A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the syce, with his arms +full of thin paper bags, the kind that hold cheap millinery. "Oh, the +good man!" Hilda exclaimed, "My parcels!" and looked on equably, while +Arnold took them by their puckered ends. "I have been buying gold lace +and things from Chunder Dutt for a costume," she exclaimed. The bags +dangled helplessly from Arnold's fingers; he looked very much aware of +them. "Let me carry at least one," she begged. "I can perfectly with my +parasol hand;" but he refused her even one. "If I may be permitted to +take the responsibility," he said, happily, and she rejoined, "Oh, I +would trust you with things more fragile." At which, such is the +discipline of these orders, he looked steadily in front of him and +seemed deaf with modesty. + +"But are you sure," said Hilda, suddenly considerate, "that it looks +well?" + +"Is the gold lace, then, so very meretricious?" + +"It goes doubtfully with your cloth," she laughed, and instantly looked +stricken with the conviction that she might better have said something +else. But Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see no gibe in it, +only a pleasant commonplace. + +"It might look queer in Chowringhee," he said, "but this is not a +censorious public." Then, as if to palliate the word, he added, "They +will think me no more mad to carry paper bags than to carry myself, when +it is plain that I might ride--and they see me doing that every day." + +All the same the paper bags swinging beside the girdled black skirt did +impart a touch of comedy, which was in a way a pity, since humour goes +so far to destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the paper bags would +have been vastly enough for contrast. She walked--one is inclined to +dwell upon her steps and face the risk of being unintelligible--in a +wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at the seams, a +trifle spent in vulnerable places, surmounted by an extravagant collar +and a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention, inexpensively +carried out, the hat had an accomplished _chic_; it had fallen to her in +the wreck and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter +of fact it was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little +below the elbow, and she carried in compensation a pair of long suede +gloves, a compromise which only occasionally discovered itself +buttonless, and a most expensive umbrella, the tribute of a gentleman in +that line of business in Cape Town, whose standing advertisement is now +her note of appreciation. Arnold in his unvarying gait paced beside her; +he naturally shrank, so close to her opulence, into something less +impressive than he was; a mere intelligence he looked, in a quaint +uniform, with his long lip drawn down and pursed a little in this +accomplishment of duty, and his eyes steadily in front of him. Hilda's +lambent observation was everywhere but most of all on him; a fleck of +the dust from the road still lay upon the warm bloom of her cheek, a +perpetual happy curve clung about her mouth. So they passed in streets +of the thronging people, where yards of new dyed cotton, purple and +yellow, stretched drying in the sun, where a busy tom-tom called the +pious to leave coppers before a blood-red, goldened-tongued Kali, half +visible through the door of a mud hut--where all the dealers in brass +dishes and glass armlets, nine-yard turban cloths, blue and gold, and +silver gilt stands for the comfortable hubble-bubble, squatted in line +upon their thresholds and accepted them with indifference. So they +passed, worthy of a glance from that divinity who shapes our ends. + +They talked of the accident. "You stopped the horses, didn't you?" Hilda +said, and the speculation in her eyes was concerned with the extent to +which a muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, under sacerdotal +robes worn every day. + +"I told them to stop, poor things," Arnold said; "they had hardly to be +persuaded." + +"But you didn't save my life or anything like that, did you?" she +adventured; like a vagrant in the sun. The blood was warm in her. She +did not weigh her words. "I shouldn't like having my life saved. The +necessity for feeling such a vast emotion--I shouldn't know how to cope +with it." + +"I will claim to have saved your other hand," he smiled. "You will be +quite grateful enough for that." + +She noted that he did not hasten, behind pyramidal blushes, into the +shelter of a general disavowal. The cassock seemed to cover an +obligation to acknowledge things. + +"I see," she said, veering round. "You are quite right to circumscribe +me. There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that will out. It is +only the absence of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But +you won't find that in me either." She gave him a smile as she lowered +her parasol to turn into the shop of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell +European drugs, that promised, infinite possibilities of friendship; and +he, following, took pleased and careful possession of it. + +An hour later, as they approached No. 3, Lal Behari's Lane, Miss Howe +looked pale, which is not surprising, since they had walked and talked +all the way. Their talk was a little strenuous too; it was as if they +had fallen upon an opportunity, and mutually, consciously, made the most +of it. + +"You must have some tea immediately," Arnold said, before the battered +urns and the dusty crotons of her dwelling. + +"A little whiskey and soda, I think. And you will come up, please, and +have some, too. You must." + +"Thanks," he said, looking at his watch. "If I do--" + +"You'll have the soda without the whiskey! All right!" she laughed, and +led the way. + +"This is vicious indulgence," Arnold said of his beverage, sitting under +the inverted Japanese umbrellas. "I haven't been pitched out of a +ticca-gharry." + +It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether in the soda, which +is, after all, ascetic in its quality, and only suitably effervescent, +like ecclesiastical humour. It may very probably be that there was no +indulgence; indeed one is convinced that the word, like so many words, +says too much. The springs of Arnold's chair were bursting through the +bottom, and there were stains on its faded chintz-arms, but it was +comfortable, and he leaned back in it, looking up at the paper +umbrellas. You know the room; I took you into it with Duff Lindsay, who +did not come there from rigidities and rituals, and who had a qualified +pleasure in it. But there were lines in the folds of the flowered window +curtains dragging half a yard upon the floor which seemed to disband +Arnold's spirit, and a twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo screen where +the light came through that released it altogether. The shabby, +violent-coloured place encompassed him like an easy garment, and the +lady, with her feet tucked up in a sofa and a cushion under her tumbled +head, was an unembarrassing invitation to the kind of happy things he +had not said for years. They sat in the coolness of the room for half an +hour, and then, after a little pause, Hilda said suddenly, + +"I am glad you saw me in _The Offence of Galilee_ on Saturday night. We +shall not play it again." + +"It has been withdrawn?" + +"Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. Bradley; and he can't +endure his part." + +"Is there no one else to--" + +"He objects to anyone else. We generally play together." This was +inadvertent, but Stephen had no reason to imagine that she contracted +her eyebrows in any special irritation. "It is an atrocious piece," she +added. + +"Is it?" he said, absently, and then, "Yes, it is an atrocious piece. +But I am glad, too, that I saw you." He looked away from her, reddening +deeply, and stood up. His bands fell upon him again, he bade her a +measured and precise farewell. It seemed as if he hurried. She only half +rose to give him her unwounded hand, and when he was gone she sank back +again thoughtfully. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +"I have outstayed all the rest," Lindsay said, with his hat and stick in +his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's drawing-room, "because I want +particularly to talk to you. They have left me precious little time," he +added, glancing at his watch. + +She had wondered when he came early in the formal Sunday noon hour for +men's calls, since he had more casual privileges; and wondered more when +he sat on with composure, as one who is master of the situation, while +Major-Generals and Deputy Secretaries came and went. There was a mist in +her brain as she talked to the Major-Generals and Deputy Secretaries--it +did not in the least obscure what she found to say--and in the midst of +it the formless idea that he must wish to attach a special importance to +his visit. This took shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke +of outsitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the window and open +it. "You might stay to lunch," she said, addressing a pair of crows in +altercation on the verandah. + +"There is nearly half-an-hour before lunch," he said. "Can I convince +you, in that time, I wonder, that I am not an absolute fool." + +Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may have had a prevision of +the need of support. "I hardly think," she said, drawing the long breath +with which we try to subdue a tempest within, "that it would take so +long." She tried to look at him, but her eyes would not carry above the +violets in his button-hole. + +"I've had a supreme experience," he said, "very strange and very lovely. +I am living in it, moving in it, speaking in it," he added quickly, +watching her face; "so don't, for God's sake, touch it roughly." + +She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary deprecation. "Why should you +suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in her voice which +cried put that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the +brink of his confidence, could not suppose it--did not hear it. He knew +her so well. + +"A great many people will," he said. "I can't bear the thought of their +fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you." + +She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked +straight at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, even in +the form which should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile. + +"I believe you know already," Lindsay cried. + +"I have heard something. Don't be alarmed--not from people, from Miss +Howe." + +"Wonderful woman! I haven't told her." + +"Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case," Alicia +went on, with immense courage, "I didn't believe them." + +"Why?" he asked, enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight--he would +even submit it to analysis. + +She hesitated--her business was in great waters, the next instant might +engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. "If she had +been a duchess--a very exquisite person, or somebody very +clever--remember I haven't seen her." + +"You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons." Lindsay +visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated hardness. + +Alicia raised her eyebrows. + +"What do you expect one to imagine?" she asked, with quietness. + +"A miracle," he said, sombrely. + +"Ah, that's difficult!" + +There was silence for a moment between them, then she added, perversely, + +"And, you know, faith is not what it was." + +Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was accustomed +to find in her fields of delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running +watercourses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. Suddenly she +seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she +could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he +stood. + +"Don't make a mistake," she said, "don't." She thrust her hand for a +fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it, +gathering herself together to meet what he might say. + +What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. "That's what everybody +will tell me; but I thought you might understand." He tapped the toe of +his boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down +and counted them too. + +"Then you won't help me to marry her," he said definitely, at last. + +"What could I do?" She twisted her sapphire ring. "Ask somebody else." + +"Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you could do. Go to her as +my friend. It isn't such a monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good you +know of me. At present her imagination paints me in all the lurid +colours of the lost." + +The face she turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and the +cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting +Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise +of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she looked +too amusedly at his difficulty. Her negative, too, was more +unsympathetic than he had any reason to expect. + +"No," she said; "it must be somebody else. Don't ask me. I should become +involved--I might do harm." She had surmounted her emotion; she was able +to look at the matter with surprising clearness and decision. "I should +do harm," she repeated. + +"You don't count with her effect on you." + +"You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. I'm not a man." + +"But won't you take anything--about her--from me? You know I'm really +not a fool--not even very impressionable." + +"Oh, no!" she said impatiently, "no--of course not." + +"Pray, why?" + +"There are other things to reckon with." She looked coldly beyond him +out of the window. "A man's intelligence when he is in love--how far can +one count on it?" + +There was nothing but silence for that or perhaps the murmured "Oh, I +don't agree," with which Lindsay met it. He rode down her logic with a +simple appeal. "Then after all," he said, "you're not my friend." + +It goaded her into something like an impertinence. "After you have +married her," she said, "you'll see." + +"You will be hers then," he declared. + +"I will be yours." Her eyes leaped along the prospect and rested on a +brass-studded Tartar shield at the other end of the room. + +"And I thought you broad in these views," Lindsay said, glancing at her +curiously. Her opportunity for defense was curtailed by a heavy step in +the hall, and the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon-Major Livingstone, +looking warm. He, whose other name was the soul of hospitality, made a +profound and feeling remonstrance against Lindsay's going before tiffin, +though Alicia, doing something to a bowl of nasturtiums, did not hear +it. Not that her added protest would have detained Lindsay, who took his +perturbations away with him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the cloud +upon him as he shook hands with her, and found it but slightly consoling +to reflect that his sun would without doubt re-emerge in all effulgence +on the other side of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +That same Sunday Alicia had been able to say to Lindsay about Hilda +Howe, "We have not stood still--we know each other well now," and when +he commented with some reserve upon this, to follow it up. "But these +things have so little to do with mere length of time or number of +opportunities," she declared. "One springs at some people." + +A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he had the chance; and +they talked about something else. But perhaps this is enough to explain +a note which went by a messenger from the Livingstones' pillared palace +in Middleton street to No. 3, La Behari's Lane on Monday morning. It was +a short note, making a definite demand with an absence of colour and +softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. Hilda, at breakfast, +tore off the blank half sheet, and wrote in pencil-- + +"I think I can arrange to get her here about five this afternoon. No +rehearsal--they're doing something to the gas-pipes at the theatre, so +you will find me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see you." + +She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered that, and made the +scrap more secure in a yellow envelope. It had an embossed post-office +stamp, which she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went back to an +extremely uninteresting vegetable curry, with the reflection, "Can she +possibly imagine that one doesn't see it yet?" + +Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of Gissing's, in order +apparently that they might without fail talk about Gissing. Hilda was +agreeable; she would talk about Gissing, or about anything, tipped on +the edge of her bed--Alicia had surmounted that degree of intimacy at a +bound by the declaration that she could no longer endure the blue +umbrellas--and clasping one knee, with an uncertain tenure of a chipped +bronze slipper deprived of its heel. Wonderful tusser silk draperies +fell about her, with ink-spots on the sleeves; her hair was magnificent. + +"It's so curious to me," she was saying of the novel, "that any one +should learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. It's +like looking at it through the little end of an opera-glass." + +"I fancy that the most desirable way," said Alicia, glancing at the +door. + +"Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow out of +it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the value of +contrast, and the distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were +born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you couldn't help it." + +"Everybody doesn't grow out of it." The concentration in Alicia's eyes +returned again with vacillating wings. + +"She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet." + +The slipper dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again. +She kept her foot in her hands and regarded it pensively. + +"Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter," she +said; "At all events, ready-made." + +"You have an audacity----" Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile. + +"Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?" + +"I know it." + +"From him?" + +"From him." + +"Oh"--Hilda deliberated a moment, nursing her slipper--"Really? Well, we +can't let that happen." + +"Why not?" + +"You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see +anything?" + +Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. "I +see only one thing that matters--he wants it," she said. + +"And won't be happy till he gets it? Rubbish, my dear! We are an +intolerably self-sacrificing sex." Hilda felt around for pillows, and +stretched her length along the bed. "They've taught us well, the men; +it's a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female line. You may +be sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated between the lady and +the tiger. A civilised one would have introduced the lady and given her +a _dot_, and retired to the nearest convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like +the dachshund's legs." + +Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not quite +worth while to follow. + +"The happiness of his whole life is involved," she said, simply. + +"Oh dear yes--the old story! And what about the happiness of yours? Do +you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do you see yourself +in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of self-praise?" + +Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice and sat in her eyes. To mark +her climax, she kicked her slipper over the end of the bed. + +"It is idiotic--it's disgusting," she said. + +Alicia caught a flash from her. "My attitude!" she cried. "What in the +world do you mean? Do you always think in poses? I take no attitude. I +care for him, and in that proportion I intend that he shall have what he +wants--so far as I can help him to it. You have never cared for +anybody--what do you know about it?" + +Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. "I assure you I'm +not an angel," she cried. "Haven't I cared? Several times." + +"Not really--not lastingly." + +"I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never thought +the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail +the prettiest experiences." + +"Of course, in your profession----" + +"Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the +opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into +matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the +brink. _Quelle escape!_ We must contrive one like it for Duff Lindsay." + +"You assume too much--a great deal too much. She must be beautiful--and +good." + +"Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that +lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. +Touch those things and bruise them, as--as marriage would touch and +bruise them--and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You +want him to clasp that to his bosom for the rest of his life?" + +"I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel." + +Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still +regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient +shoulder while they should be brushed undetected away. + +"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "I forgot. You are usually so intelligent, +one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to you. Go into the +bath-room and get my salts--they're on the washhand-stand--will you? I'm +quite faint with all I'm about to undergo." + +Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the salts. Ignoring the +third person with the bottle, she went directly to the bedside and laid +her hand on Hilda's head. + +"Oh, Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick--so sorry," she said. It was +a cooing of professional concern, true to an ideal, to a necessity. + +"I am not very bad," Hilda improvised. "Hardly more than a headache." + +"She makes light of everything," Miss Filbert said, smiling toward +Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering the +blue salts bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands. + +"And what," said the barefooted Salvation Army girl, "might your name +be?" + +There was an infinite calm interest in it--it was like a conventionality +of the other world, and before its assurance Alicia stood helpless. + +"Her name is Livingstone," called Hilda from the bed, "and she is as +good as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about _her_ soul--she +takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral." + +"Hallelujah!" said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious congratulation. + +"Much better," said Hilda, cheerfully, "to take it at the Cathedral, you +know, than nowhere." + +Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of the +bed, looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair. + +"You don't seem to have much fever," she said. "There was a poor fellow +in the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of 107. I could +hardly bear to touch him." + +"What was the matter?" asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses about +the third person in the room. + +"Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of the wages +the body pays to sin." + +"Divinest Laura!" Hilda exclaimed, drawing her head back. "Do take a +chair. It will be even more soothing to see you comfortable." + +Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. "Miss Howe is more +thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones," she said, with +vast kindness. "I have often told her so. I have had a long day." + +"It may improve me in that character," Hilda said, "to suggest that if +you will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good +thing, or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your bath. Do +you use those things?" + +Laura shook her head. "Faith is better than disinfectants. I never get +any harm. My Master protects me." + +"My goodness!" Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, Captain +Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid for was a +decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands on +Hilda's previous references as a tangibility that remained with her. + +"Do you ever go to the Cathedral?" she said. + +The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, as +when, on a day of cloud fleeces, the sun withdraws for an instant from a +flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of dogma it +may have been some other obscurity, but my appraisement fails. + +"No, I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a tabernacle to +ourselves." + +"Isn't it exquisite--her way of speaking!" cried Hilda from the bed, and +Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof +of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she were +conscious of a stimulus. + +"Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cluster is sanctuary +enough," she said: "a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied +fields; the Name of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army. He is +Lord of our hosts." + +"A kind of chant," murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became aware +that she might if she liked play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then +that impression was carried away, as it were, on a puff of air, and it +is hardly likely that she thought of it again. + +"I suppose all the _elite_ go to the Cathedral," Laura said. The +sanctity of her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested upon +it, and behind the curiosity a far-off little leaping tongue of some +other thing. Hilda on the bed named it the constant feminine and +narrowed her eyes. + +"Dear me, yes," she said for Alicia. "His Excellency, the Viceroy, and +all his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies, +Secretaries to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under +Secretaries so thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bell stops. +'_And make thy chosen people joyful!_'" she intoned. "Not forgetting +Surgeon-Major and Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to +the right of the main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit." + +"You know already what a humbug she is!" Alicia said, but Captain +Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation. + +"Well, it would not be any attraction for me," she said, rising to go +through the little accustomed function of her departure. "I'll be going +now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again and I have to take her place +at the Believers' Meeting." She took Hilda's hand in hers and held it +for an instant. "Good-bye, and God bless you--in the way you most need," +she said, and turned to Alicia, for whose ears Hilda's protests against +the girl's going broke meaninglessly about the room. "Good-bye. I am +glad to know that we will be one in the glad hereafter, though our paths +may diverge"--her eye rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's +embroidered sleeves--"in this world. To look at you I should have +thought you were of the bowed down ones, not yet fully assured, but +perhaps you only want a little more oxygen in the blood of your +religion. Remember the word of the Lord--'Rejoice! again I say unto you, +rejoice!' Good-bye." + +She drew her head-covering further forward and moved to the door. It +sloped to her shoulders and made them droop: her native clothes clung +about her breast and her hips, disclosing, confessing, insisting upon +her sex in the cringing oriental way. Miss Howe looked after her guest +with a curl of the lip as uncontrollable as it was unreasonable. "A +saved soul, perhaps. A woman--oh, assuredly," she said in the depths of +her hair. + +The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert when Alicia made +something like a dash at an object about to elude her. "Oh," she +exclaimed, "Wait a minute. Will you come and see me? I think--I think +you might do me good. I live at No. 10, Middleton street. Will you +come?" + +Laura came back into the room. There was a little stiffness in her air, +as if she repressed something. + +"I have no objection," she said. + +"To-morrow afternoon--at five? Or--my brother is dining at the +club--would you rather come to dinner?" + +"Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me." She spoke carefully, after +an instant's hesitation. + +"Then do come and dine--at eight," Alicia said; and it was agreed. + +She stood staring at the door when Laura finally closed it, and only +turned when Hilda spoke. + +"You are going to have him to meet her," she said. "May I come too?" + +"Certainly not." Alicia's grasp was also by this time on the door +handle. + +"Are you going too? You daren't talk about her!" Hilda cried. + +"I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home," said +Alicia, and went out swiftly. + +"My goodness!" Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her +slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College street. "Thanks immensely," it +ran, "for your delightful offer to introduce me to Father Jordan and +persuade him to show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his tower +at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an hour of milk and honey, and +belonging to that charming Order he won't mind my coming on a Sunday +evening--the first clear one." + +Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her pen. +Then she added: "If you have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may be +news to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep him from +marrying a cheap, ethereal little _religieuse_ of the Salvation Army +named Filbert. It may seem more fitting that you should expostulate with +her, but I don't advise that." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful air +when Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in any case +it is likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, +carrying a baby, a pale, sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited +from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room +was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at +random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed +at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with +his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain +Sand audibly washed himself and brushed his hair. + +"What kind of meetin' did you have?" asked Mrs. Sand. "There--there now; +he shall have his bottle, so he shall!" + +"A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you +know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario +from Whiteway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time." + +"What sort of collection?" + +Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins. + +"Only seven annas three pice! And you call that a good meeting! I don't +believe you exhorted them to give!" + +"Oh, I think I did!" Laura returned mechanically. + +"Seven annas and three pice! And you know what the Commissioner wrote +out about our last quarter's earnings! What did you say?" + +"I said--I said the collection would now be taken up," Laura faltered. + +"Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! Couldn't you think of +anythin' more tellin' or more touchin' than that? Fever or no fever, it +does not do for me to stay away from the regular meetin's. One thing is +plain--_he_ wasn't there!" + +"Who?" + +"Well, you've never told me his name, but I expect you've got your +reasons." Mrs. Sand's tone was not arch, but slightly resentful. "I mean +the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, under the window. +A society man, I should say, to look at him, though the officers of this +Army are no respecters of persons, and I don't suppose the Lord takes +any notice of his clothes." + +"His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there." + +The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke about the collection +had gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches. + +"I hope you haven't been discouraging him?" + +Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment. + +"I have entreated him to come to the meetings. But he never attends a +Believers' Rally. Why should he?" + +"What's his state of mind? He came to see you, didn't he, the other +night?" + +"Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether careless." + +"Ain't he seeking?" + +"He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know himself. The Lord has +different ways of working. What else should bring him night after +night?" + +Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted +eyebrows, then at her officer, and finally hid a badly disciplined smile +behind her baby's head. When she looked back again Laura had flushed all +over, and an embarrassment stood between them, which she felt was +absurd. + +"My!" she said--scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have been +expected of her--"you do look nice when you've got a little colour. But +if you can't see that it's you that brings him to the meetin's you must +be blind, that's all." + +Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a wand. + +"Then I hope I may go on bringing him," she said. "He couldn't come to a +better place." + +"Well, you'll have to be careful," said Mrs. Sand, as if with severe +intent. "But I don't say discourage him; I wouldn't say that. You may be +an influence for good. It may be His will that you should be pleasant to +the young man. But don't make free with him. Don't, on any account, have +him put his arm round your waist." + +"Nobody has done that to me," Laura replied, austerely, "since I left +Putney, and so long as I am in the Army nobody will. Not that Mr. +Lindsay" (she blushed again) "would ever want to. The class he belongs +to look down on it." + +"The class he belongs to do worse things. The Army doesn't look down on +it. It's only nature, and the Army believes in working with nature. If +it was Mr. Harris that wanted such a thing, I wouldn't say a word--he +marches under the Lord's banner." + +Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her expression was even +slightly complacent. + +"Well," she said, "I told Mr. Harris last evening that the Lieutenant +and I couldn't go on giving him so much of our time, and he seemed to +think he'd been keeping company with me. I had to tell him I hadn't any +such idea." + +"Did he seem much disappointed?" + +"He said he thought he would have more of the feeling of belonging to +the Army if he was married in it; but I told him he would have to learn +to walk alone." + +Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lip. Some faint reflection of the +interview with Mr. Harris made her, as far as possible, button up her +dressing-gown. + +"I don't know but what you did right," she said. "By the grace of God +you converted him, and he hadn't ought to ask more of you. But I have a +kind of feeling that Mr. Lindsay'll be harder to convince." + +"I dare say." + +"It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. He might be willing to +march with us and subscribe half his pay, like poor Captain Corby, of +the Queen's Army, did in Rangoon." + +"He might be proud to." + +"We must all try and bring sin home to him," Mrs. Sand remarked with +rising energy; "and don't you go saying anything to him hastily. If he's +gone on you----" + +"Oh, Ensign; let us hope he is thinking of higher things! Let us both +pray for him. Let Captain Sand pray for him, too, and I'll ask the +Lieutenant. Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the Kingdom, I +don't think she has any special object." + +"Oh, yes, we'll pray for him," Ensign Sand returned, as if that might +have gone without saying, "but you----" + +"And give me that precious baby. You must be completely worn out. I +should enjoy taking care of him; indeed I should." + +"It's the first--the very first--time she ever took that draggin' child +out of my arms for an instant," the Ensign remarked to her husband and +next in command later in the evening, but she resigned the infant +without protest at the time. Laura carried him into her own room with +something like gaiety, and there repeated to him more nursery rhymes, +dating from secular Putney, than she would have believed she remembered. + +The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a gathering of some +selectness. If the Chinaman came, it was because of the vagueness of his +reception of the privileges he claimed; and his ignorance of all tongues +but his own left no medium for turning him out. Qualms of conscience, +however, kept all Miss Rozario's young lady friends away, and these +also, doubtless, operated to detain Duff Lindsay. One does not attend a +Believers' Rally unless one's personal faith extends beyond the lady in +command of it, and one specially refrains if one's spiritual condition +is a delicate and debatable matter with her. In Wellesley square, later +in the evening, the conditions were different. It would not be easy to +imagine a scene that suggested greater liberality of sentiment. The moon +shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted shadows down. Beyond +them, on four sides, lines of street-lamps shone, and tram-drivers +whistled bullock carts off the lines, and street pedlars lifted their +cries. A torch marked the core of the group of exhorters; it struck pale +gold from Laura's hair, and made glorious the buttons of the man who +beat the drum. She talked to the people in their own language; the "open +air" was designed for the people. "Kiko! Kiko!" (Why! Why!) Lindsay +heard her cry, where he stood in the shadow, on the edge of the crowd. +He looked down at a coolie woman with shrivelled breasts crouched on her +haunches upon the ground, bent with the bricks of half a century, and +back at the girl beside the torch. "Do not delay until to-morrow!" Laura +besought them. "_Kul-ka dari mut karo!_" A sensation of disgust assailed +him; he turned away. Then, in an impulse of atonement--he felt already +so responsible for her--he went back and dropped a coin into the coolie +creature's lap. But he grew more miserable as he stood, and finally +walked deliberately to a wooden bench at a distance, where he could not +hear her voice. Only the hymn pursued him; they sang presently a hymn. +In the chorus the words were distinguishable, borne in the robust +accents of Captain Sand-- + + "_Us ki ho tarif, + Us ki ho tarif!_" + +The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made a barbarous jangle, +a discordance of a special intolerable sort. + +Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity, whether the coolie woman +were singing too, and found something like relief in the questionable +reflection that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, she ought to be. + +"Glory to His name!" "Glory to His name!" + +His "Good evening!" when the meeting was over was a cheerful, general +salutation, and the familiarity of the sight of him was plain in the +response he got, equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant Da +Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had thought of +interpreting it, and there was overt amiability in the manner in which +Ensign Sand put her hymn-books together and packed everybody, including +her husband, whose arm she took, out of the way. + +"Wait for me," Laura said, to whom a Eurasian beggar made elaborate +appeal, as they moved off. + +"I guess you've got company to see you home," Mrs. Sand called put, and +they did not wait. As Lindsay came closer, the East Indian paused in his +tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not afford a coffin, and +slipped away. + +"The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that," Laura said. Lindsay +marked with a surge of pleasure that she was flushed and seemed +perturbed. + +"What she said was quite true," he ventured. + +"But--anybody would think----" + +"What would anybody think? Shall we keep to this side of the road? It's +quieter. What would anybody think?" + +"Oh, silly things." Laura threw up her head with a half-laugh. "Things I +needn't mention." + +Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then "Between us?" he asked, and she +nodded. + +Their side of the street, along the square, was nearly empty. He found +her hand and drew it through his arm. "Would you mind so very much," he +said, "if those silly things were true?" He spoke as if to a child. His +passion was never more clearly a single object to him, divorced from all +complicating and non-essential impressions of her. "I would give all I +possess to have it so," he told her, catching at any old foolish phrase +that would serve. + +"I don't believe you mean anything like all you say, Mr. Lindsay." Her +head was bent and she kept her hand within his arm. He seemed to be a +circumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one behaved +sentimentally toward a young man with whom there was no serious +entanglement. It is not surprising that he saw only one thing, walls +going down before him, was aware only of something like invitation. +Existence narrowed itself to a single glowing point; as he looked it +came so near that he bounded to meet it. + +"Dear," he said, "you can't know--there is no way of telling you--what I +mean. I suppose every man feels the same thing about the woman he loves; +but it seems to me that my life had never known the sun until I saw you. +I can't explain to you how poor it was, and I won't try; but I fancy God +sends every one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, and He +did more for me--He lifted the veil of my stupidity and let me see it, +passing by in its halo, trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to make +you understand, though--I want to make you promise. I want to be +absolutely sure from to-night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll +marry me--say it before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura." She +listened to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then +made as if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and +she heard him through, walking beside him formally in her bare feet, and +looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in Putney. + +"I don't object to your calling me by my given name," she said when he +had done, "but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you +ought not to bring God into it--indeed you ought not. You are no son or +servant of His--you are among those whose very light is darkness, and +how great is your darkness!" + +"Don't," he said shortly, "never mind about that--now. You needn't be +afraid of me, Laura--there are decent chaps, you know, outside the +Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him, that's how it +is. Will you?" + +"I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, but +I couldn't dream of it." + +"Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, darling, you are half +mine already--don't you feel that?" + +Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of his +eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. "Are you quite sure you +haven't begun to think of loving me?" he demanded. + +"It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the Army. +You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything." + +One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in the +world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and the flame +in him leaped up. + +"Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question." + +"Is that a quotation?" she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she +succeeded in withdrawing her hand. "I dare say you think the Army very +common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy +crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to give up my +life-work?" + +"Only to take it into another sphere," Duff said, unreflectively. He was +checked but not discouraged, impatient, but in no wise cast down. She +had not flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had no intention of +flight. He tried to resign himself to the task of beating down her +trivial objections, curbing his athletic impulse to leap over them. + +"Another sphere"--he caught a subtle pleasure in her enunciation. "I +suppose you mean high society; but it would never be the same." + +"Not quite the same. You would have to drive to see your sinners in a +carriage and pair, and you might be obliged to dine with them in--what +do ladies generally dine in?--white satin and diamonds, or pearls. I +think I would rather see you in pearls." He was aware of the +inexcusableness of the points he made, but he only stopped to laugh +inwardly at their impression, watching the absorbed turn of her head. + +"We might think it well to be a little select in our sinners--most of +them would be on Government House list, just as most of your present +ones are on the lists of the charitable societies or the district +magistrates. But you would find just as much to do for them." + +"I should not even know how to act in such company." + +"You can go home for a year, if you like, to be taught, to some people I +know; delightful people, who will understand. A year! You will learn in +three months--what odds and ends there are to know. I couldn't spare you +for a year." + +Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was murmuring the cadences +of a hymn. She went through two stanzas, and--covered her eyes for a +moment with her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, level, almost +mechanical way. "Yes," she said. "The Cross and the Crown, the Crown and +the Cross. Father in Heaven, I do not forget Thy will and Thy purpose, +that I should bring the word of Thy love to the poor and the lowly, the +outcast and those despised. And what I say to this man, who offers me +the gifts and the gladness of a world that had none for Thee, is the +answer Thou hast put in my heart--that the work is Thine and that I am +Thine, and he has no part or lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is +Crooked lane. Good-night, Mr. Lindsay." + +She had slipped into the devious darkness of the place before he could +find any reply, before he quite realised, indeed, that they had reached +her lodging. He could only utter a vague "Good-night" after her, +formulating more definite statements to himself a few minutes later in +Bentinck street. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of Calcutta. It was the +business quarter, and yet the air was gay with the dimpling of piano +notes, and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow +stuccoed flats above the shops and the offices. There the pleasant north +wind blew banners of muslin curtains out of wide windows, and little +gardens of palms in pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs +whenever a story ran short. Everywhere was a subtle contagion of +momentary well-being, a sense of lifted burden. The stucco streets were +too slovenly to be purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in +them, the pariahs blinked at one genially, there was a note of cheer +even in the cheeling of the kites where they sat huddled on the +roof-cornices or circled against the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to +be abroad, in the brushing fellowship of the pavements, in touch with +brown humility, half-clad and going afoot, since even brown humility +seemed well affected toward the world, alert and content. The air was +full of the comfortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced luxuries and +the incense of wayside trees; it was as if the sun laid a bland +compelling hand upon the city, bidding strange flowers bloom and strange +fruits increase. Brokers' gharries rattled past, each holding a pale +young man preoccupied with a note-book; where the bullock-carts gathered +themselves together and blocked the road the pale young men put excited +heads out of the gharry windows and used remarkable imprecations. One of +them, as Hilda turned into the compound of the _Calcutta Chronicle_, +leaned out to take off his hat, and sent her up to the office of that +journal in the pleasant reflection of his infinite interest in life. +"Upon my word," she said to herself, as she ascended the stairs behind +the lean legs of a Mussulman servant in a dirty shirt and an embroidered +cap, "he's so light-hearted, so general, that one doubts the very +tremendous effect even of a failure like the one he contemplates." + +She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the lean Mussulman, and +followed it past the desks of two or three Bengali clerks, who hardly +lifted their well-oiled heads from their account-books to look at +her--so many memsahibs to whose enterprises the _Chronicle_ gave +prominence came to see the manager-sahib and they were so much alike. At +all events they carried a passport to indifference in the fact that they +all wanted something, and it was clear to the meanest intelligence that +they appeared to be more magnificent than they were, visions in dazzling +complexions and long kid gloves, rattling up in third-class +ticca-gharries, with a wisp of fodder clinging to their skirts. It was +less interesting still when they belonged to the other class, the shabby +ladies, nearly always in black, with husbands in the Small Cause Court, +or sons before the police magistrate, who came to get it, if possible, +"kept out of the paper." Successful or not, these always wept on their +way out, and nothing could be more depressing. The only gleam of +entertainment to be got out of a lady visitor to the manager-sahib +occurred when the female form enshrined the majestic personality of a +boarding-house madam, whose asylum for respectable young men in leading +Calcutta firms had been maliciously traduced in the local columns of the +_Chronicle_--a lady who had never known what a bailiff looked like in +the lifetime of her first husband, or her second either. Then at the +sound of a pudgy blow upon a table or high abusive accents in the rapid, +elaborate cadences of the domiciled East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would +glance at Gobind Babu with a careful smile, for the manager-sahib who +dispensed so much _galli_[6] was now receiving the same, and +defenceless. + +[Footnote 6: Abuse.] + +The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. He did not rise--he was +one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in +such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had come on +business. He gave her a nod, however, and an affectionate smile, and +indicated with his blue pencil a chair on the other side of the table. +He had once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and that gave him +the air of a capitalist and speculator gamely shrewd. Tapping the table +with his blue pencil, he asked Miss Howe how the world was using _her_. + +"Let me see," said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, "were you here last +cold weather--I rather imagine you were, weren't you?" + +"I was; I had the pleasure of--" + +"To be sure. You got the place in December, when that poor fellow Baker +died. Baker was a country-bred, I know, but he always kept his +contracts, while you got your polish in Glesca, and your name is +Macphairson--isn't it?" + +"I was never in Glasscow in my life, and my name is Macandrew," said the +manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of +bills. + +"Never mind," said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, "don't +apologise--it's near enough. Well, Mr. Macandrew"--her tone came to a +point--"what is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a month to +the _Chronicle_?" + +"A hundred rupees, maybe--there or thereabouts," and Mr. Macandrew, with +a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to tear at the +end of it. + +"One hundred and fifty-five, I think, to be precise. That communication +will wait, won't it? What is it--Kally Nath Mitter's paper and stores +bill? You won't be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw our +advertisement." + +"Why should ye withdraw it?" + +"It was given to you on the understanding that notices should appear of +every Wednesday and Saturday's performance. For two Wednesdays there has +been no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool." + +"So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his advertisement?" + +"He is very much of that mind." + +The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back +in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given him a gold +watch chain--"Never be bluffed." + +"Ye can withdraw it," he said, with a warily experimental eye upon her. + +"How reasonable of you not to make a fuss! We'll have the order to +discontinue in writing, please. If you give me a pen and +paper--thanks--and I'll keep a copy." + +"Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the _Market Gazette_ for some +time," she went on as she wrote. + +"That's not a newspaper. You'll get no notices there." + +"Cheaper on that account, probably." + +"They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the rates of them?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your show. We'll be able +to send him every night now." + +"When we withdraw our advertisement?" + +"Just then." + +"All right," said Hilda. "It will be interesting to point out in the +_Indian Empire_ the remarkable growth of independent criticism in the +_Chronicle_ since Mr. Stanhope no longer uses the space at his disposal. +I hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might as well hand over +the permanent passes--the gentleman will expect, I suppose, to pay." + +"They'll be in the yeditorial department," said Mr. Macandrew, but he +did not summon a messenger to go for them. Instead he raised his +eyebrows in a manner that expressed the necessity of making the best of +it, and humourously scratched his head. + +"We have four hundred pounds of new type coming out in the +_Almora_--she's due on Thursday," he said. "Entirely for the +advertisements. We'll have a fine display next week. It's grand +type--none of your Calcutta-made stuff." + +"Pays to bring it out, does it?" asked Hilda, inattentively, copying her +letter. + +"Pays the advertisers." There were ingratiating qualities in the +managerial smile. Hilda inspected them coldly. + +"There's your notice of withdrawal," she said. "Good-morning." + +"Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy Finnigan's ad. will look +in it." + +"That's all right. Good-morning." Miss Howe approached the door, the +blue glance of Macandrew pursuant. + +"No notices for two Wednesdays, eh? We'll have to see about that. I was +thinkin' of transferrin' your space to the third page; it's a more +advantageous position--and no extra charge--but ye'll not mention it to +Jimmy." + +Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. "Do I understand you'll do that, and +guarantee regular notices, if we leave the advertisement with you?" + +Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively and tore, with a gesture of +moderated recklessness, the notice of withdrawal in two. + +"Rest easy," he said, "I'll see about it. I'd go the len'th of attendin' +myself to-night, if ye could spare three extra places." + +"Moderate Macandrew!" + +"Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in the same place with +me from Behar--indigo people. I was thinkin' I'd give them a treat, if +three places c'd be spared next to the _Chronicle_ seats." + +"We do _Lady Whippleton_ to-night and the booking's been heavy. Five is +too many, Mr. Macandrew, even if you promise not to write the notice +yourself." + +"I might pay for one--" Macandrew drew red cartwheels on his +blotting-pad. + +"Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a box. Stanhope's as bad +as he can be with dysentery--you might make a local out of that. Be sure +to mention he can't see anybody--it's absurd the way Calcutta people +want to be paid." + +"A box'll be grand," said Mr. Macandrew. "I'll see ye get plenty of +ancores. Can ye manage the door? Good-day, then." + +Hilda stepped out on the landing. The heavy, regular thud of the presses +came up from below. They were printing the edition that took the world's +news to planters' bungalows in the jungle of Assam and the lonely +policemen on the edge of Manipore. The smell of the newspaper of to-day +and of yesterday and of a year ago stood in the air; through an open +door she saw the dusty, uneven piles of them, piled on the floor. Three +or four messengers squatted beside the wall, with slumbrous heads +between their knees. Occasionally a shout came from the room inside, and +one of them, crying "_Hazur!_" with instant alacrity, stretched himself +mightily, loafed upon his feet and went in, emerging a moment later +carrying written sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions +below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up: under it, through an +open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves +of a pipal tree and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in +with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and +gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an +official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings, +spoke between dusty yawns of the langour and the leisure which might +attend the manipulation of the business of life, and Hilda paused for an +instant to perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her card into +the next room, where a young gentleman, reading proofs in his +shirt-sleeves, flung himself upon his coat and struggled into it at her +approach. He seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes and +the neatest moustache available, all set in a complexion frankly olive, +amiable English cut, in amiable Oriental colour, and the whole +illumined, when once the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned +down, by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with his head +slightly on one side and one hand resting on the table while the other +saw that nothing was disarranged between collar and top waistcoat +button, he was an interjection-point of imitation and attention. + +"The editor of the _Chronicle_?" Hilda asked with diffident dignity, and +very well informed to the contrary. + +"_Not_ the editor--I am sorry to say." The confession was delightfully +vivid--in the plentitude of his candour it was plain that he didn't care +who knew that he was sorry he was not the editor. "In journalistic +parlance the sub-editor," he added. "Will you be seated, Miss Howe?" and +with a tasteful silk pocket handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a +chair for her. + +"Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair," Hilda declared. "You have been +pointed out to me on several first nights. Oh, I know very well where +the _Chronicle_ seats are!" + +Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification and tucked the silk +handkerchief back so that only a fold was visible. "We members of the +Fourth Estate are fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta," he said. +"Personally, I could sometimes wish it were otherwise. But certainly not +in this instance." + +Hilda gave him a gay little smile. "I suppose the editor," she said, +with a casual glance about the room, "is hammering out his leader for +to-morrow's paper. Does he write half and do you write half, or how do +you manage?" + +A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, which he +nevertheless irradiated, as if he could not help it, with beaming eyes. +"Ah, those are the secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. +Unfortunately, it is not etiquette for me to say in what proportion I +contribute the leading articles of the _Chronicle_. But I can tell you +in confidence that if it were not for the editor's prejudices--rank +prejudices--it would be a good deal larger." + +"Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. Sinclair, and say that +he is just a little tiny bit jealous of his staff. All editors are, you +know." Miss Howe shook her head in philosophical deprecation of the +peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, embarrassed glance at his +smart brown leather boot. The glance was radiant with what he couldn't +tell her as a sub-editor of honour about those cruel prejudices, but he +gave it no other medium. + +"I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe," he said, with a noble +reserve, and that was all. + +"A corner of it here and there. But you are responsible for the whole of +the dramatic criticism"--Hilda charged him roundly--"the editor can't +claim any of _that_." + +An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap appeared at the door; a +brown hand thrust in a bunch of printed slips. Mr. Sinclair motioned +both away, and they vanished in silence. + +"That I can't deny," he said. "It would be useless if I wished to do +so--my style betrays me--I must plead guilty. It is not one of my +legitimate duties--if I held this position on the _Times_ or, say, the +_Daily Telegraph_, our London contemporaries, it would not be required +of me. But in this country everything is piled upon the sub-editor. Many +a night, Miss Howe, I send down the last slips of a theatre notice at +midnight and am here in this chair"--Mr. Sinclair brought his open palm +down upon the arm of it--"by eleven the following day!" Mr. Sinclair's +chin was thrust passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety +brightness of those eyes which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed +to have inherited from a Nawab great grandfather. "But I don't +complain," he said, and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his +argument to a climax over which he looked at Hilda in warm, frank +expansion. + +"Overworked, too, I dare say," she said, and then went on a trifle +hurriedly: "Well, I must tell you, Mr. Sinclair, how kind your criticism +always is, and how much I personally appreciate it. None of the little +points and effects one tries to make seem to escape you, and you are +always generous in the matter of space too." + +Molyneux impartially slapped his leg. "I believe in it!" he exclaimed. +"Honour where honour is due, Miss Howe, and the Stanhope Company has +given me some very enjoyable evenings. And you'll hardly believe me, but +it is a fact, I assure you; I seldom get a free hand with those notices. +Suicidal to the interests of the paper as it is, the editor insists as +often as not on cutting down my theatre copy!" + +"Cuts it down, does he? The brute!" said Miss Howe. + +"I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo market report. +Now, I ask you, who reads an indigo market report? Nobody. Who wants to +know how Jimmy Finnigan's--how the Stanhope Company's latest novelties +went off? Everybody. Of course, when he does that sort of thing, I make +it warm for him next morning." + +The door again opened and admitted a harassed little Babu in spectacles, +bearing a sheaf of proof slips, who advanced timidly into the middle of +the room and paused. + +"In a few minutes, Babu," said Mr. Sinclair; "I am engaged." + +"It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Member, sir, and it iss to go +at five p. m. to his house for last correction." + +"Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was saying, Miss Howe, I make it +warm for him till he apologises. I must say he always apologises, and I +don't often ask more than that. But I was obliged to tell him the last +time that if it happened again one of us would have to go." + +"What did he say to that?" + +"I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremendous effect--tremendous. +We became good friends almost immediately." + +"Quite so. We miss you when you don't come, Mr. Sinclair--last Saturday +night, for example." + +"I _had_ to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came here with tears in his +eyes that morning. 'My show is tumbling to pieces,' he said. 'Sinclair, +you've got to come to-night.' Made me dine with him--wouldn't let me out +of his sight. We had to send a reporter to you and Llewellyn that +night." + +"Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep." + +"I know. All that about the costumes. But what can you expect? The man +is as black as your hat." + +"We have to buy our own costumes," said Hilda, with a glance at the +floor, "and we haven't any too much, you know, to do it on." + +"The toilettes in _Her Second Son_ were simply magnificent. Not to be +surpassed on the boards of the Lyceum in tasteful design or richness of +material. They were _ne plus ultra_!" cried Mr. Sinclair. "You will +remember I said so in my critique." + +"I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far another time. There's a +lot of cotton velvet and satin about it, you know, between ourselves, +and Finnigan's people will be getting the laugh on us. That's one of the +things I wanted to mention. Don't be quite so good to us. See? +Otherwise--well, you know how Calcutta talks, and what a pretty girl +Beryl Stacey is, for example. Mrs. Sinclair mightn't like it, and I +don't blame her." + +"As I said before, Miss Howe, you know the world." + +Mr. Sinclair replied with infinite mellow humour, and as Miss Howe had +risen, he rose too, pulling down his waistcoat. + +"There was just one other thing," Hilda said, holding out her hand. +"Next Wednesday, you know, Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's as well +known here as the Ochterlony monument; she's been coming every cold +weather for ten years, poor old Rosy. Don't you think you could do her a +bit of an interview for Wednesday's paper? She'll write up very +well--get her on variety entertainments in the Australian bush." + +Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. "Personally," he said, +confidentially, "I should like it immensely, and I dare say I could get +it past the editor. But we're so short-handed." + +Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed luminous with solution. +"Don't you bother," she said, "I'll do it for you; I'll write it myself. +My 'prentice hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the result ready +to print on Tuesday morning. Will that do?" + +That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not conceal the admiration +he felt for such a combination of talents. He did not try; he +accompanied it to the door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more +than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere unreasonably +contracted. Hilda received his final bow from the threshold of what he +called his "sanctum," and had hardly left the landing in descent when a +square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt-sleeves came down, +descending, as it seemed, in bounds from parts above. "Damn it, +Sinclair," she heard as he shot into the apartment she had left, "here's +the whole council-meeting report set up and waiting three-quarters of an +hour--press blocked; and the printer-Babu says he can get nothing out of +you. What the devil.... If the _dak's_[7] missed again, by thunder!... +paid to converse with itinerant females ... seven columns ... infernal +idiocy." + +[Footnote 7: Country post.] + +Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting with some amusement +as she made her way down that Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until +his lady visitor was well out of earshot to make it warm for the editor. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +I find myself wondering whether Calcutta would have found anything very +exquisitely amusing in the satisfactions which exchanged themselves +between Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend Stephen +Arnold, had if been aware of them, and I conclude reluctantly that it +would not. Reluctantly because such imperviousness argues a lack of +perception, of _flair_, in directions which any continental centre would +recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable in a capital of such vaunted +sophistication as that which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be +shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's sense of comedy you +must, for example, attempt to corner, by shortsightedness or faulty +technical equipment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from +England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your +dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does +not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a little frivolous +and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in +the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the +World, the Flesh and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the impression +that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of these things +is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian +capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough that the +affairs of a priest of College street and an actress of no address at +all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did not advertise it. +Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was no rehearsal, to tea. +He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which answered fairly well +the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could question hers; it +operated obscurely to keep them in the house. + +She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her to +take the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of beauty, +although she mentioned herself that he took it with a difference, a vast +temperamental difference which she was aware of not having yet quite +sounded. The depths of his faith, of course--there she could only scan +and hesitate, but this was a brink upon which she did not often find +herself, away from which, indeed, he sometimes gently guided her. The +atmospheres of their talk were the more bracing ones of this world, and +it was here that Hilda looked when she would make him a parallel for +Lindsay, and here that she found her measure of disappointment. He +warmed himself and dried his wings in the opulence of her spirit, and +she was not, on the whole, the poorer by any exchange they made, but she +was sometimes pricked to the reflection that the freemasonry between +them was all hers, and the things she said to him had still the flavour +of adventure. She found herself inclined--and the experience was new--to +make an effort for a reward which was problematical and had to be +considered in averages, a reward put out in a thin and hesitating hand +under a sacerdotal robe, with a curious, concentrated quality and a +strange flavour of incense and the air of cold churches. There was also +the impression--was it too fantastic--of words carried over a medium, an +invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by the +way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came running +with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to +one's idea. But the comparison was subtly irritating, and after a time +she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to declare to +the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex +than she would have thought it possible to be--one hardly paused to +consider that he was a man at all; a reflection which would certainly +not have occurred to her about poor dear Duff. With regard to Stephen +Arnold, it was only, of course, another way of saying that she was less +oppressed, in his company, by the consideration of her own. Perhaps it +is already evident that this was her grievance with life, when the joy +of if left her time to think of a grievance, the attraction of her +personal curves, the reason of the hundred fetiches her body claimed of +her and found her willing to perform: the fact that it meant more to +her, for all her theories, that she should be looking her best when she +got up in the morning than was justifiable from any point of view except +the biological. She had no heroic quarrel with these conditions--her +experience had not been upon that plan--but she bemoaned them with +sincerity as too fundamental, too all-pervading; one came upon them at +every turn, grinning in their pretty chains. It was absurd, she +construed, that a world of mankind and womankind with vastly interesting +possibilities should be so essentially subjected to a single end. So +primitive, it was, she argued in her vivid candour, and so +interfering--so horribly interfering! Personally she did not see herself +one of the fugitive half of the race; she had her defences; but the +necessity of using them was matter for complaint when existence might +have been so delightful a boon without it, full of affinities and +communities in every direction. She had not, I am convinced, any of the +notions of a crusader upon this popular subject, nor may I portray her +either shocked or revolted, only rather bored, being a creature whom it +was unkind to hamper; and she would have explained quite in these simple +terms the reason why Stephen Arnold's saving neutrality of temperament +was to her a pervasive charm of his society. + +She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she could not classify +him, that she had never known any one like him before; and there was in +this no doubt a vague perception that the confession showed a limitation +of experience on her part for which he might be inclined to call her to +account, since cultured young Oxonians with an altruistic bias, if they +do not exactly abound, are still often enough to be discovered if one +happens to belong to the sphere which they haunt, they and their ideals. +Not that any such consideration led her to gloss or to minimise the +disabilities of her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, pinching +her lips, and watched the studiously modified interest of his glance +following her into its queer by-ways--her sphere's--full of spangles and +lime-light, and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival artistry. +There was a fascination in bringing him out of his remoteness near to +those things, a speculation worth making as to what he might do. This +remained ungratified, for he never did anything. He only let it appear +by the most indefinite signs possible that he saw what she saw, peering +over his paling, and she in the picturesque tangle outside found it +enough. + +He was there when she came back from the _Chronicle_ office, patient +under the blue umbrellas; he had brought her a book, and they had told +him she would not be long in returning. He had gone so far as to order +tea for her, and it was waiting with him. "Make it," she commanded; "why +haven't you had some already?" and while he bent over the battered +Britannia metal spout she sank into the nearest seat and let her hat +make a frame for her face against the back of it. She was too tired, she +said, to move, and her hands lay extended, one upon each arm of her +chair, with the air of being left there to be picked up at her +convenience. Arnold, over the tea-pot, agreed that walking in Calcutta +was an insidious pleasure--one gathered a lassitude--and brought her +cup. She looked at him for an instant as she took it. + +"But I am not too tired to hear what you have on your mind," she said. +"Have Kally Nath Mitter's relations prevailed over his convictions? +Won't your landlord let you have your oratory on the roof after all?" + +"You get these things so out of perspective," Stephen said, "that I +don't think I should tell you if they were so. But they're not. Kally +Nath is to be baptised to-morrow. We are certain to get our oratory." + +"I am very glad," Hilda interrupted. "When one prays for so long a time +together it must be better to have fresh air. It will certainly be +better for Brother Colquhoun. He seems to have such a weak chest." + +"It will be better for us all." Arnold seemed to reflect, across his +tea-cup, how much better it would be. Then he added, "I saw Lindsay last +night." + +"Again? And----" + +"I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is making way." + +"Sickening! I hoped you would not speak to him again. After all--another +man--it's naturally of no use!" + +"I spoke as a priest!" + +"Did he swear at you?" + +"Oh dear no! He was rather sympathetic. And I went very far. But I could +get him to see nothing--to feel nothing." + +"How far did you go?" + +"I told him that she was consecrated, that he proposed to commit +sacrilege. He seemed to think he could make it up to her." + +"If anyone else had said that to me I should have laughed--you don't +suspect the irony in it," Hilda said. "Pray who is to make it up to +him?" + +"I suppose there is that point of view." + +"I should think so, indeed! But taking it, I despair with you. I had her +here the other day and tried to make the substance of her appear before +him. I succeeded, too--he gave me the most uncomfortable looks--but I +might as well have let it alone. The great purpose of nature," Hilda +went on, putting down her cup, "reasonable beings in their normal state +would never lend themselves to. So she invents these temporary +insanities. And therein is nature cruel, for they might just as well be +permanent. That's a platitude, I know," she added, "but it's +irresistibly suggested." + +Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on the other side of the +room. The platitude brought him, by some process of inversion, the +vision of a drawing-room in Addison gardens, occupied by his mother and +sisters, engaged with whatever may be Kensington's substitutes at the +moment for the spinet and the tambour frame; and he had a disturbed +sense that they might characterise such a statement differently, if, +indeed, they would consent to characterise it at all. He looked at the +wall as if, being a solid and steadfast object, it might correct the +qualm--it was really something like that--which the wide sweep of her +cynicism brought him. + +"From what he told me last week I thought we shouldn't see it. He seemed +determined enough, but depressed and not hopeful. I fancied she was +being upheld--I thought she would easily pull through. Indeed, I wasn't +sure that there was any great temptation. Somebody must be helping him." + +"The Devil, no doubt," Hilda replied, concisely; "and with equal +certainty, Miss Alicia Livingstone." + +Arnold gave her a look of surprise. "Surely not my cousin!" he +protested. "She can't understand." + +"Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to _her_! I think she understands. I +think she's only too tortuously intelligent." + +Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. "May I ask----?" he began +formally. + +"Oh, yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of anyone so exquisitely +self-contained, but your cousin is very much in love with Mr. Lindsay +herself. It seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, to tell you such a thing +about a member of your family?" she went on, at Arnold's blush; "but you +asked me, you know. And she is making it her ecstatic agony to bring +this precious union about. I think she is taking a kindergarten method +with the girl--having her there constantly, and showing her little +scented, luxurious bits of what she is so possessed to throw away. +People in Alicia's condition have no sense of immorality." + +"That makes it all the more painful," said Arnold; but the interest in +his tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was not quite +a shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication between Alicia +and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying more, covering his eyes +with his hand. + +"Why should you care so much?" Hilda asked gently. "You are at the very +antipodes of her sect. You can't endorse her methods--you don't trust +her results." + +"Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence." He spoke with a curious, +governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. "It's seeing +another ideal pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best it +could, a ray from the source. It's another glimpse of the strength of +the tide--terrible. It's a cruel hint that one lives above it in the +heaven of one's own hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set +one's feeble hand to the spiritualising of the world, and to feel the +possibility of that----" + +"I see," said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed her. +She got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and went to a +promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was refreshed and +vivified--she wanted to talk of the warm world. She let a decent +interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his hand from his +eyes. Even then, to make the transition easier, she said, "You ought to +be lifted up to-day, if you are going to baptise Kally Nath to-morrow." + +"The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know--I don't know. The +young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to +us----" + +"The young woman he is to marry! Oh, my dear and reverend friend! _Avec +ces gens la!_ I have had a most amusing afternoon," she went on, +quickly. "I have taken off my hat, now let me remove your halo." She was +safe with her conceit; Arnold would always smile at any imputation of +saintship. He held himself a person of broad indulgences, and would +point openly to his consumption of tea cakes. But this afternoon a miasm +hung over him. Hilda saw it and bent herself, with her graphic recital, +to dispel it, perceived it thicken and settle down upon him, and went +bravely on to the end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. Molyneux Sinclair lived and +spoke before him. It was comedy enough, in essence, to spread over a +matinee. + +"And that is the sort of thing you store up and value," he said, when +she had finished. "These persons will add to your knowledge of life." + +"Extremely," she replied to all of it. + +"I suppose they will in their measure. But personally I could wish you +had not gone. Your work has no right to make such demands." + +"Be reasonable," she said, flushing. "Don't talk as if personal dignity +were within the reach of everybody. It's the most expensive of +privileges. And nothing to be so very proud of--generally the product of +somebody else's humiliations, handed down. But the humiliations must +have been successful, handed down in cash. My father drove a cab and +died in debt. His name was Murphy. I shall be dignified some day--some +day! But you see I must make it possible myself, since nobody has done +it for me." + +"Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with your +sincerity?" + +"I didn't play with it," she flashed; "I abandoned it. I am an actress." + +They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their +discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold +was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the +tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently +she spoke, quietly, in a different key. + +"I sometimes think," she said, "of a child I knew in the other years. +She had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her impulses, within +her little limits, were noble--she was the keenest, loyalist little +person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I look at the +woman as she is now I think the uses of life are hard, my friend--they +are hard." + +He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as an +illustration. + +"And yet," he replied, "they can be turned to admirable purpose." + +"I wonder!" Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf of +that mood. "But we are not cheerful--let us be cheerful. For my part, I +am rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of December. Look at +this!" + +She opened a small black leather bag and poured money out of it, notes +and currency, into her lap. + +"Is it a legacy?" + +"It's pay," she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. "I have +been paid--we have all been paid! It's so unusual--it makes me feel +quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, and this"--she +counted into her open palm ten silver rupees--"all those I will give you +for your mission. _Prends!_" and she clinked them together and held them +out to him. + +He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and small. Something in him +had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could only +draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate and +inoffensive proceeding. + +"Thanks, no," he said, "I think not. We desire people's prayers, rather +than their alms." + +He went away immediately, and she glossed over his scandalous behaviour +and said farewell to him as usual, in spite of the unusual look of +consciousness in her eyes. Then she went to her room and deliberately +loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, first to sob like that +little child she remembered, and afterwards to think, until the world +came and knocked at her door and bade her come out of herself and earn +money. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked lane is hardly ours +to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand +involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of +exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its +other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult +enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so _voyant_ +in the Church Militant, by a mere fighting soul without such straps and +buttons as might compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible +to know how far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty--the priestly +horizon is perhaps not wholly free from mirage--or to what extent he +confessed it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire +than he could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not +desert her post. The idea had an element of imitation oddly personal; he +could not bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether in any +flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a parallel situation +with a lady. I am sure he did not. It may be considered, however, that +among mirages there are unaccountable resemblances--resemblances without +shape or form. He might fix his gaze, at all events, upon the supreme +argument that those who were given to holy work, under any condition, in +any degree, should make no rededication of themselves. This had to +support him as best it could against the conviction that had Captain +Filbert been Sister Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institution, +and Ensign Sand the Mother Superior of its Calcutta branch, it was +improbable that he would have ventured to announce his interest in the +matter by his card, or in any other way. + +It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him up to the +quarters, and a glance of some nervous distress that made him aware, as +he stood bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft +felt hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased to see him. +She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair; she said she was very glad +he'd dropped in, if he didn't mind the room being so untidy--where there +were children you could spend the whole day picking up. They were out at +present, with Captain Sand, in the perambulator--not having more +servants than they could help. A sweeper and a cook they did with; it +would surprise the people in this country, who couldn't get along with +less than twenty, she often said. + +Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat +aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right to +criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her +visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short +work of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders +in any form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, as between Ensign +and man, reasonable satisfaction; presently, in fact, she went so far as +to say, still vaguely remarking upon his appearance there, that she +often thought there ought to be more sociability between the different +religious bodies; it would be better for the cause. There was nothing +narrow, she said, about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And then, with +the distinct intimation that that would do, that she had gone far +enough, she crossed her hands in her lap and waited. It became her to +have it understood this visit need have no further object than an +exchange of amiabilities; but there might be another, and Mrs. Sand's +folded hands seemed to indicate that she would not necessarily meet it +with opposition. + +Stephen made successive statements of assent. He sat grasping his hat +between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an infant's sock which lay upon +the floor immediately in front of him, looking at Mrs. Sand as seldom +and as briefly as possible, as if his glance took rather an unfair +advantage, which he would spare her. + +"Yes, yes," he said. "Yes, certainly," revolving his hat in his hands. +And when she spoke of the fraternity that might be fostered by such +visits, he looked for an instant as if he had found an opening, which +seemed, however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. Sand's folded hands. He +flushed to think afterwards, that it was she who was obliged to bring +his resolution to a head, her scent of his embarrassment, sharpening her +curiosity. + +"And is there anything we Army officers can do for you, Mr. Arnold?" she +inquired. + +There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, they would have +done it more willingly if she had not been obliged to ask. + +"I am afraid," he said; "my mission is not quite so simple. I could wish +it were. It is so easy to show our poor needs to one another; and I +should have confidence----" he paused, amazed at the duplicity that +grinned at him in his words. At what point more remote within the poles +was he likely to show himself with a personal request? + +"I have nothing to ask for myself," he went on, with concentration +almost harsh. "I am here to see if you will consent to speak with me +about a matter which threatens your--your community--about your possible +loss of Miss Filbert." + +Mrs. Sand looked blank. "The Captain isn't leavin' us, as far as I +know," she said. + +"Oh--is it possible that you are not aware that--that very strong +efforts are being made to induce her to do so?" + +Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to find an explanation +lying somewhere near her chair. Light came to her suddenly and brought +her a conscious smile; it only lacked force to be a giggle. She glanced +at her lap as she smiled; her air was deprecating and off-putting, as if +she had detected in what Arnold said some suggestion of a gallant nature +aimed at herself. Happily, he was not looking. + +"You mean Mr. Lindsay," she exclaimed, twisting her wedding-ring and its +coral guard. + +"I hope--I beg--that you will not think me meddlesome or impertinent. I +have the matter very much at heart. It seems to lie in my path. I must +see it. Surely you perceive some way of averting the disaster in it!" + +"I'm sure I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish +and offended. "She hasn't said a word to me--she's a great one for +keeping things to herself--but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean marriage with +her----" + +"Why, of course!" Arnold, startled, turned furiously red, but Mrs. Sand +in her indignation did not reflect the tint. "Of course! Is not that," +he went on after an instant's pause, "precisely what is to be +lamented--and prevented?" + +Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. "I suppose you are a +friend of his," she said. + +"I have known him for years. Pray don't misunderstand me. There is +nothing against him--nothing whatever." + +"Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not on the Lord's side. +But I don't expect any of his friends are anxious for him to marry an +officer in the Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond of the Army, +and never will be." + +"His people--he has only distant relatives living--are all at home," +Stephen said, vaguely. The situation had become slightly confused. + +"Then you speak for them, I suppose." + +"Indeed not, I am in no communication with them whatever. I fancy they +know nothing about it. I am here entirely--_entirely_ of my own accord. +I have come to place myself at your disposition if there is anything I +can do, any word I can say, to the end of preventing this catastrophe in +a spiritual life so pure and devoted; to ask you at all events to let me +join my prayers to yours that it shall not come about." + +The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his eyes and be suffused +with light. At last he had made himself plain. But Mrs. Sand was not +transfigured. She seemed to sit, with her hands folded, in the midst of +a calculation. + +"Then he _has_ proposed. I told her he would," she said. + +"I believe he has asked her to marry him and she has refused, more than +once. But he is importunate, and I hear she needs help." + +"Mr. Lindsay," said Mrs. Sand, "is a very takin' young man." + +"I suppose we must consider that. There is position, too, and wealth. +These things count--we are all so human--even against the Divine +realities into possession of which Miss Filbert must have so perfectly +entered." + +"I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he be one of them +Government officials?" + +"He is a broker." + +"Oh, is he indeed?" Mrs. Sand's enlightenment was evidently doubtful. +"Well, if they get married Captain Filbert'll have to resign. It's +against the regulations for her to marry outside of the Army." + +"But is she not vowed to her work; isn't her life turned forever into +that channel? Would it not be horrible to you to see the world +interfere?" + +"I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave us. But I wouldn't +stand in her way either, and neither would Captain Sand." + +"Stand in her way! In her way to material luxury, poverty of spirit, the +shirking of all the high alternatives, the common moral mediocrity of +the world. I would to God I could be that stumbling block! I have heard +her--I have seen the light in her that may so possibly be extinguished." + +"I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but she's losin' her +voice. And she doesn't understand briskin' people up, if you know what I +mean." + +"She will be pulled down--she will go under!" Arnold repeated in the +depths of his spirit. He stood up, fumbling with his hat. Mrs. Sand and +her apartment, her children out of doors in the perambulator, and the +whole organisation to which she appertained, had grown oppressive and +unnecessary. He was aware of a supreme desire to put his foot again in +his own world, where things were seen, were understood. He thought there +might be solace in relating the affair to Brother Colquhoun. + +"It's a case," said Mrs. Sand, judicially, "where I wouldn't think +myself called on to say one word. Such things everyone has a right to +decide for themselves. But you oughtn't to forget that a married +woman"--she looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if to hold it +accountable for much--"can have a great influence for good over him that +she chooses. I am pretty sure Captain Filbert's already got Mr. Lindsay +almost persuaded. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he joined the Army +himself when she's had a good chance at him." + +Arnold put on his hat with a groan and began the descent of the stairs. +"Good-afternoon, then," Mrs. Sand called out to him from the top. He +turned mechanically and bared his head. "I beg your pardon," he said, +"Good-afternoon." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind upon several points +touching the visit of the Reverend Stephen Arnold. Its purport, of which +she could not deny her vague, appreciation, drew a cloud across a rosy +prospect, and in this light his conduct showed unpardonable; on the +other hand, it implied a compliment to the corps, it made the spiritual +position of an officer of the Army, a junior too, a matter of moment in +a wider world than might be suspected; and before this consideration +Mrs. Sand expanded. She reflected liberally that salvation was not +necessarily frustrated by the laying-on of hands; she had serene fancies +of a republic of the redeemed. She was a prey to further hesitations +regarding the expediency of mentioning the interview to Laura, and as +private and confidential it ministered for two days to her satisfactions +of superior officer. In the end, however, she had to sacrifice it to the +girl's imperturbable silence. She chose an intimate and a private hour +and shut the door carefully upon herself and her captain, but she had +not at all decided, when she sat down on the edge of the bed, what +complexion to give to the matter, nor had she a very definite idea, when +she got up again, of what complexion she had given it. Laura, from the +first word, had upset her by an intense eagerness, a determination not +to lose a syllable. Captain Filbert insisted upon hearing all before she +would acknowledge anything; she hung upon the sentences Mrs. Sand +repeated, and joined them together as if they were parts of a puzzle; +she finally had possession of the conversation much as I have already +written it down. As Mrs. Sand afterward told her husband, Miss Filbert +sat there growing whiter and whiter, more and more worked up, and it was +impossible to take any comfort in talking to her. It seemed as if she, +the Ensign, might save herself the trouble of giving an opinion one way +or the other, and not a thing could she get the girl to say except that +it was true enough that the gentleman wanted to marry her, and she was +ashamed of having let it go so far. But she would never do it--never. +She declared she would write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask +him to pray for her, "and she as much as ordered me to go and do the +same," concluded Mrs. Sand with an inflection which made its own comment +upon such a subversion of discipline. + +Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent Laura's letter--she did +write--to Lindsay. "I cannot allow you to be in the dark about what I am +doing in the matter," he explained; "though if I had not this necessity +for writing you might reasonably complain of an intrusive and +impertinent letter. But I must let you know that she has appealed to me, +and that as far as I can I will help her." + +Duff read both communications--Laura's to the priest was brief and very +technical--between the business quarters of Ralli Brothers and the Delhi +and London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his office-gharry +and his forehead puckered by an immediate calculation forward in rupee +paper. His irritation spoiled his transaction--there was a distinct edge +in the manager's manner when they parted, and it was perhaps a +pardonable weakness that led him to dash in blue pencil across the page +covered with Arnold's minute handwriting, "Then you have done with pasty +compromises--you have gone over to the Jesuits. I congratulate you," and +re-addressed the envelope to College street. The brown tide of the crowd +brought him an instant messenger, and he stood in the doorway for a +moment afterwards frowning upon the yellow turbans that swung along in +the sunlight against the white wall opposite, across the narrow +commercial road. The flame of his indignation set forth his features +with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether the soft amused +_bien-etre_ which was nearly always there. His lips set themselves +together, and Mrs. Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of +practical utility by the lines that came about his mouth. A brother in +finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, +divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute-mill shares +pending, Lindsay had decided upon a _coup_, and made his arrangements +accordingly. He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of +Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from the +mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use and +familiarity. + +Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed himself to feel distress, +but when he had read it, that emotion was somewhat lightened in him by +another sentiment. + +"A community admirable in many ways," he murmured, refolding the page. +"Does he think he is insulting me!" + +Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, Lindsay was inclined +to concede to Stephen's intermediary, he was compelled to recognise +without delay that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, +had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive operations. She +retired effectively into camp; the quarters in Crooked lane became her +fortified retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service +strictly obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the +post; and Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same +agency should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with +which he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any +_sortie_ to Middleton street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and +luncheons were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence +and the palest ink, always with the negative of a formal excuse. They +loosed the burden of her complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, +these notes which bore so much the atmosphere of Crooked lane, and at +the same time they formed the indictment against her which was, perhaps, +best calculated to weigh upon her conscience. She saw it, holding them +at arm's length, in enormous characters that ever stamped and blotted +out the careful, taught-looking writing, and the invariable "God bless +you, yours truly," at the end. They were all there, aridly complete, the +limitations of the lady to whom she was helping Lindsay to bind himself +without a gleam of possibility of escape or a rift through which tiniest +hope could creep to emerge smiling upon the other side. When she saw +him, in fatalistic reverie, going about ten years hence attached to the +body of this petrifaction, she was almost satisfied to abandon the pair, +to let them take their wretched chance. But this was a climax which did +not occur often; she returned, in most of her waking moments, to +devising schemes by which Laura might be delivered into the hands she +was so likely to encumber. The new French poet, the American novelist of +the year, and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's table many +days together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what she +expected of these volumes, what _plein air_ sensations, or what profound +plunges, and did not quite like her indifference as to whether her +expectations were fulfilled. She discovered herself intellectually +jaded--there had been tiring excursions--and took to daily rides which +carried her far out among the rice-fields, and gave her sound nights to +sustain the burden of her dreaming days. She had ideas about her +situation; she believed she lived outside of it. At all events, she took +a line; the new Arab was typical, and there were other measures which +she arranged deliberately with the idea that she was making a physical +fight. Life might weigh one down with a dragging ball and chain, but one +could always measure the strength of one's opinions against these +things. She made it her sorry and remorseless task to separate from her +impulses those that she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of the +foolish woman, and to turn a cruel heel upon them. She stripped her +meditations of all colour and atmosphere; she would not accept from her +grief the luxury of a rag to wrap herself in. If this gave her a +skeleton to live with, she had what gratification there was in observing +that it was anatomically as it should be. The result that one saw from +the outside was chiefly a look of delicate hardness, of tissue a little +frayed, but showing a quality in the process. We may hope that some +unconfessed satisfaction was derivable from her continued reception of +Duff's confidences, her unflinching readiness to consult with him; +granting the analytic turn we may almost suppose it. Starvation is so +monotonous a misery that a gift of personal diagnosis might easily lend +attraction to poisoned food as an alternative, if one may be permitted a +melodramatic simile in a case which Alicia kept conventional enough. She +did not even abate the usual number of Duff's invitations to dinner, +when there was certainly nothing to repay her for regarding him across a +gulf of flowers and silver and a tide of conversation about the season's +paper-chasing except the impoverished complexion which people acquire +who sit much in Bentinck street, desirous and unsatisfied. + +It may very well be that she regretted her behaviour in this respect, +for it was effectively after one of these parties that Surgeon-Major +Livingstone, pressing upon his departing guest in the hall the usual +whiskey and soda, found it necessary instead to give him another kind of +support, and to put him immediately and authoritatively to bed. Lindsay +was very well content to submit; he confessed to fever off and on for +four and five days past, and while the world went round the pivotal +staircase, as Dr. Livingstone gave him an elbow up, he was indistinctly +convinced that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at the +club. The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of +the hall in Crooked lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of +these exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of the +kerosene lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against which +she must key herself to indifference. When on the second and third +evenings she was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her that +either she or Mr. Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she offered up +thanks. On the fourth she reflected recurrently and anxiously that it +was not after all a very glorious victory if the Devil had carried off +the wounded; if Lindsay, after all the opportunities that had been his, +should slip back without profit to the level from which she had +striven--they had all striven--to lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to +be buffeted by such speculations, sent a four-anna bit to the head +bearer at the club on her own account and obtained information. + +Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complication, though the +circumstances taken together did present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs. +Barberry came for hours to take advantage of. There were the usual two +nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry; Alicia could take the Arab further +afield than ever, and she did. One can imagine her cantering fast and +far with a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Barberry and +the two nurses. There may be a certain solace in the definite and +continuous knowledge available about a person hovering on the brink of +typhoid under your own roof tree. It was as grave as that; Surgeon-Major +Livingstone could not make up his mind. Alicia knew only of this +uncertainty; other satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and Mrs. +Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, he was so +uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and good-tempered coming from +Lindsay's room in the morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature +was the same, hadn't budged a point, must manage to get it down somehow +in the next twenty-four hours, and forthwith to envelop himself in the +newspapers. Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for +apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped themselves on most things +as the day wore on, and at tea-time Mrs. Barberry gave her other +details, thinking her rather cold in the reception of them. But she +plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses on the stairs, +refraining from so much as a glance at the boiled-milk preparations of +the butler. "And you know," said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, "how these +people have to be watched." To Mrs. Barberry she was really a conundrum, +only to be solved on the theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. +There was so little that was preposterous in Miss Livingstone's conduct +as a rule that it is not quite fair to explain her attitude either by +this exaggeration or by an equally hectic scruple about her right to +take care of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it has +been given in the highest to somebody else. These pangs and penalties +may have visited her in their proportion, but they did not take the +importance of motives. She rather stood aside with folded hands, and in +an infinite terror of prejudicing fate, devoured her heart by way of +keeping its beating normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final +alternative to Lindsay's marriage, and one can imagine her forcing +herself to look at it. + +Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's +room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a +February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted +upper hall on tip-toe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the +native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but +the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than common, +Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an +imperceptible movement in the direction of her skirts. She stood silent, +stricken in the dusk with fear and wonder, but the sense that was +strangest in her was plainly that of having made a criminal discovery. +Laura stumbled upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an +instant; words held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom +door. Then Alicia beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact +been the servant she took her for, and Laura followed to where, further +on, a bedroom door stood open, which presently closed upon them both. It +was a spacious room, with pale, high-hung draperies, a scent of flowers, +such things as an etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebon crucifix over the +bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix afterward with a feeling +almost intense, also some silver-backed brushes on the toilet table. +Across the open window a couple of bars of sunset glowed red and gold, +and a tall palm of the garden cut all its fronds sharply against the +light. + +"Well?" said Alicia, when the door was shut. + +Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. + +"I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, but you had gone out. +And the nurse was in the room; I couldn't get to her. There was nobody +but the servants about." + +"Objection to what?" + +"To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lindsay." + +"Did you make any noise?" + +Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. "It was silent prayer, of +course," she said. + +Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet table, had an air of +eagerness, of successful capture. The yellow sky in the window behind +her made filmy lights round her hair and outlined her tall figure in the +gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped effect, like a +conventional pose taken easily, from habit. Laura Filbert thought she +looked like a princess. + +"I seem to hear of nothing but petitions," she said. "Isn't somebody +praying for you?" + +The blood of any saint would have risen in false testimony at such a +suggestion. Laura blushed so violently that for an instant the space +between them seemed full of the sound of her protest. + +"I hope so, miss," she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's +shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour sank +back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it +ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue +seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the uplifted +golden gates rewarded them. + +"Why do you use that odious word?" Alicia explained. "You are not my +maid! Don't do it again--don't dream of doing it again!" + +"I--I don't know." The girl was still plainly covered with confusion at +being found in the house uninvited. "I suppose I forget. Well, good +evening," and she turned to the door. + +"Don't go," Alicia commanded. "Don't. You never come to see me now. Sit +down." She dragged a chair forward and almost pushed Laura into it. "I +will sit down, too--what am I thinking of?" + +Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded hands. "I might as +well tell you," she said, "that I have not been praying that Mr. Lindsay +should get better. Only that he should be given time to find salvation +and die in Jesus." + +"Don't--don't say those things to me. How light you are--it's wicked!" +Alicia returned with vehemence, and then, as Captain Filbert stared, +half comprehending, "Don't you care?" she added curiously. + +It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider still +during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort of complete +understanding. Then her lip trembled. + +"How can I care?" she cried, "how can I?" and burst into weeping. She +drew her _sari_ over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot +protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled together, her head in +its coverings sunk between weak, shaking shoulders. Alicia considered +her for an instant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she went +over and touched her. + +"You are completely worn out," she said, "and it is almost dinner time. +The ayah will bring you a hot bath, and then you will come down and have +some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out somewhere. I will go +away for a little while and then I know you will feel better. And after +dinner," she added gently, "you may come up if you like and pray again +for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would----" + +The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out of +the room. + +It was a foolish thing and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much deplored +it, but the Miss-sahib had forgotten to give information that the dinner +of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take place--hence +everything was ready in its sequence for this event, with a new fashion +of stuffing quails and the first strawberries of the season from +Dinapore. The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to a +woman in the dress of a coolie are not important; but Alicia, for some +reason, seemed to find the trivial incident gratifying. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Under the Greek porch of No. 10, Middleton street, in the white sunlight +between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant +ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce +squatted beneath the horse's nose and fed it perfunctorily with hay from +a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in +pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out +the garden, where heavy scents stood in the sun and mynas chattered on +the drive. The air was full of ease, warm, _fretillante_, abandoned to +the lavish energy of growing things; beyond the discoloured wall of the +compound rose the tender cloud of a leafing tamarisk against the blue. A +long time already the driver had slept immovably, and the horse, +uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the wisps of hay. + +Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, even a dropped +handkerchief agreeably scented. The night nurse had realised herself +equally superfluous and had gone, the other, a person of practical +views, could hardly retain her indignation at being kept from day to day +to see her patient fed and hand him books and writing materials. She had +not even the duty of debarring visitors, but sat most of the time in the +dressing-room, where echoes fell about her of the stories with which +riotous young men, in tea and wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's +convalescence. There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor in +vain, to express her views upon such waste of scientific training. She +had Surgeon-Major Livingstone's orders, and he on this occasion had his +sister's. + +There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, between the two women in +the drawing-room; it was plain that Alicia had communicated these things +to her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was already half-disengaged +from the subject, her eye wandered as if in search for the avenue to +another. By a sudden inclination Alicia began the story of Laura Filbert +on her knees at Lindsay's door. She told it in a quiet, steady, +colourless way, pursuing it to the end--it came with the ease of +frequent private rehearsals--and then with her elbows on her knees and +her chin in her palms she stopped and gazed meditatively in front of +her. There was something in the gaze to which Hilda yielded an attention +unexpectedly serious, something of the absolute in character and life +impervious to her inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey look of +eyes habited to regard the future with penetration and to find nothing +there. + +"Have you told him?" Hilda asked after an instant's pause, during which +she conceded something, she hardly knew what; she meant to find out +later. + +"I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise you." + +"I have no doubt you will! But don't promise _me_. I won't even witness +the vow!" Hilda cried. + +"What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him." The words fell +definitely like pebbles. Hilda thoughtfully picked them up. + +"On the whole," she said, "perhaps it would be as well. Yes, it is my +advice. It is quite likely that he will be revolted. It may be +curative." + +Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that nevertheless +crept into her voice. "I don't think so," she said. "How you do juggle +with things! I don't know why I talk to you about this--this matter. I +am sure I ought not." + +"I was going to say," pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, "that I +shouldn't be at all surprised if his illness leaves him quite +emotionally sane. The poison has worked itself out of his blood--perhaps +the passion and the poison were the same. In such a case it's all so +physical. It must be." + +"I wonder!" Alicia said. She said it mechanically, as the easiest +comment. + +"When I knew you first your speculation would have been more active, my +dear. You would have looked into the possibility and disputed it. What +has become of your modernity?" + +It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign. Alicia +seemed to weigh it. "I think I like theories better than illustrations," +she said in defence. + +"One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an illustration +wants a careful point of view. For this one perhaps you are a little +near." + +"Perhaps," Alicia assented, "I am a little near." She glanced quickly +down as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were dry and clear. + +"I can see it better," Hilda went on, with immense audacity, "much +better." + +"Isn't it safer to feel?" + +"_Jamais de la vie!_ The nerves lie always." + +They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute. Alicia leaned +back among the cushions and regarded the other with an undecided eye. + +"You are not sure," said Hilda, "that you won't ask me, at this point, +to look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian classic--I +forget its lovely name--or inquire what sort of house we had last night. +Well, don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Only, you know, between +us, as between more doubtful people, the door must be either open or +shut. I fancy you take cold easily; perhaps you had better shut the +door." + +"Not for worlds," Alicia said, with promptitude. Then she added rather +cleverly, "That would be my spoiling my one view of life." + +Hilda smiled. "Isn't there any life where you live?" She glanced round +her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden indifference. +"After all," she said, "I don't know what I am doing here, in your +affairs. As the world swings no one could be more remote from them or +you. I belong to its winds and its highways--how have you brought me +here, a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room?" + +Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's skirt. "Don't go away," +she said. Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was hardly a +foot between them. She went on with a curious excitement. + +"My kind of life is so primitive, so simple; it is one pure pulse, you +don't know. One only asks the things that minister--one goes and finds +and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any roof. What +difference does it make? The only thing that counts, that rules, is the +chance of seeing something else, feeling something more, doing something +better." + +Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of her fingers on the +actress's skirt. Hilda made the slightest, most involuntary movement. It +comprehended the shaking off of hindrance, the action of flight. Then +she glanced about her again with a kind of appraisement, which ended +with Alicia and embraced her. What she realised seemed to push her, I +think, in some weak place of her sex, to go on intensely, almost +fiercely. + +"Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, Alicia Livingstone. We +leave it all over the world for people of taste, like you, in the glow +of their illusions. I couldn't make you understand our harvest; it is of +the broad sun and the sincerity of things." + +"I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it," Alicia said, wearing, +as it were, across her heaviness a lighter cloud of trouble. + +But the other would not be stayed; she followed by compulsion her +impulse to the end. "Shall I be quite candid?" she said. "I find the +atmosphere about you, dear, a trifle exhausted." + +Alicia, with a face of astonishment, made a half-movement toward the +window before she understood. There was some timidity in her glance at +Hilda and in her mechanical smile. "Oh," she said, "I see what you mean; +and I don't wonder. I am so literal--I have so little imagination." + +"Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric--something you could add +up or measure," Hilda cried remorselessly. "You have none!" + +As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. "At +least I had enough to know you when you came!" she cried. "I felt you, +too, and it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to--to respond +properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be the one valuable thing +that I can have--the only permanent fact that is left." + +Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. "Who said anything about +giving up?" she interrupted. + +"Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean it, if +you say so." She turned the appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful +consideration in Hilda's, and, as if it called them forth, two tears +sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate head, upon her +lap. + +"Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm +overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately." She possessed herself of +one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head bent for a +moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, upon the other +woman's shoulder. Her defences crumbled so utterly that Hilda felt +guilty of using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for a moment +or two in silence with only that supervening sense of successful +aggression between them, and the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently it +grew heavy, embarrassing. Alicia got up and began a slow, restless +pacing up and down before the alcove they sat in. Hilda watched her--it +was a rhythmic progress--and when she came near with a sound of brushing +silk and a faint fragrance which seemed a personal emanation, drew a +long breath, as if she were an essence to be inhaled, and so, in a +manner, obtained, assimilated. + +"Oh, yes," Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating herself with a smile, +"I must keep you. I'll do anything you like to make myself more--worth +while. I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take up modelling. +There's rather a good man here just now." + +"Yes," Hilda assented. "Read for the pure idea--take up modelling. It is +most expedient, especially if you marry. Women who like those things +sometimes have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far as I count--oh, my +dear, do nothing more. You are already an achieved effect--a +consummation of the exquisite in every way. Generations have been chosen +among for you; your person holds the inheritance of all that is gracious +and tender and discriminating in a hundred years. You are as rare as I +am, and if there is anything you would take from me, I would make more +than one exchange for the mere niceness of your fibre--the feeling you +have for fine shades of morality and taste--all that makes you a lady, +my dear." + +"Such niminy piminy things," said Alicia, contradicting the light of +satisfaction in her eyes. The sound of a step came from the room +overhead, and the light died out. "And what good do they do me!" she +cried in soft misery. "What good do they do me!" + +"Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't you up there now? What +more simple, honest opportunity do you want than a sick room in your own +house?" + +Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew to her side. "Oh, +hush!" she cried. "Go on!" + +"It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. The room should be +full of cool refreshing hints of what you are. Your profile should come +between him and the twilight with a scent of violets." + +"It sounds like a plot," Alicia murmured. + +"It _is_ a plot. Why quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a plot. +If you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, deeper than you +perceive--the scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have lent +ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we had been consulted; we're +naturally too scrupulous, but nobody asked us. 'Without our aid He did +us make,' you know." + +"But--deliberately--to go so far! I couldn't, I couldn't, even if I +could." + +Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms extended along the back +and the end of the sofa. Her hands drooped in their vigour, her knees +were crossed, and her skirts draped them in long simple lines. In her +symmetry and strength and the warm cloud of her hair and the soul that +sat behind the shadows of her eyes Vedder might have drawn her as a +tragic symbol for the poet who sang in the King's garden of wine and +death and roses. + +"I would go further," she said, and looked as if some other thing +charged with sweetness had come before her. + +"And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success," Alicia +faltered. + +"Ah, if one gained one would hold," Hilda said; and while she smiled on +her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her eyes and came +upon her lips. As if she knew her betrayal already complete, "I wish I +had such a chance," she said. + +Alicia looked at her as they might have looked, across the desert, at a +mirage of the Promised Land. + +"Then after all he has prevailed," she said. + +"Who?" + +"Hamilton Bradley." + +Hilda laughed--the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if all +the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to make it +beautiful. + +"How you will hold me to my _metier_," she said. "Hamilton Bradley has +given up trying." + +"Then----" + +"Then think! Be clever. Be very clever." + +Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A turquoise +on one of them made them whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently +she drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched the other +woman with eyes that nevertheless refused confirmation for their +astonishment. + +"Well?" said Hilda. + +"I can think of no one--there _is_ no one--except--oh, it's too absurd! +Not Stephen--poor dear Stephen!" + +The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an instant +she contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came back, dashed +with a gravity, a gentleness. + +"I admit the absurdity. Stephen--poor dear Stephen. How odd it seems," +she went on, while Alicia gazed, "the announcement of it--like a thing +born. But it is that--a thing born." + +"I don't understand--in the least," Alicia exclaimed. + +"Neither do I. I don't indeed. Sometimes I feel like a creature with its +feet in a trap. The insane, _insane_ improbability of it!" She laughed +again. It was delicious to hear her. + +"But--he is a priest!" + +"Much more difficult. He is a saint." + +Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment +twitched itself out of a day that was forgotten. + +"Are you quite certain?" she said. "You told me once that--that there +had been other times." + +"They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the +difference." The tone of this was very even, very usual, but Alicia was +aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of aggression, that almost +ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that position. + +"If it were possible," she said, frowning at her embarrassment. "I see +nothing--nothing _really_--against it." + +"I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?" + +"And what could he do for you?" Alicia asked, with a flash of curiosity. + +"I don't think I can let you ask me that." + +"There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from the +Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the +more impossible!" + +Hilda got up. + +"It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?" she said. "I haven't made +it out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls for +redemption, never of me at all." + +A servant of the house, with the air of a messenger, brought Alicia a +scrap of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that trembled, +began folding it together. + +"He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair," she murmured, "and +he wants me to come and talk to him." + +"Well," said Hilda, "come." + +She put her arm about Alicia and drew her out of the room to the foot of +the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they parted, +and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Half way up she paused +and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something of +primitive puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes of +the two women. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of +anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered +tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such +indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for other +betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse had gone and +Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he seemed to prefer to talk +about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the khansamah, or +things in the newspapers. Alicia once, at a suggestive point, put almost +a visible question into a silent glance, and Lindsay asked her for some +more sugar. Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into his office +unexpectedly one morning, found his sister in the act of replacing a +volume upon its professional shelf. It was somebody on the pathology of +Indian fevers. Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve it--only +technical corroboration. It might also be considered that, although +Laura had expressly received the freedom of the city for intercessional +or any other purpose, she did not come again. They may have heard in +Crooked lane that Duff was better. We may freely imagine that Mrs. Sand +was informed; it looked as if the respite to disinterested anxiety +afforded by his recovery had been taken advantage of. Lindsay was to be +given time for more dignified repentance; they might now very well hand +him over, Alicia thought, smiling, to the Archdeacon. + +As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay, still +in prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make was perhaps +lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it +might very probably work, out in shades. So much would infallibly have +to be put down for surprise and so much reasonably for displeasure, +without any prejudice to the green hope budding underneath; the key to +Hilda's theory might very well be lost in contingencies. Nevertheless, +Alicia postponed her story from day to day and from hour to hour. If her +ideas about it--she kept them carefully in solution--could have been +precipitated they might have appeared in a formula favourite with her +brother, the Surgeon-Major, who often talked of giving nature a chance. + +She told him finally on the morning of his first drive. They went +together and alone, Alicia taking her brother's place in the carriage at +a demand for him from the hospital. It was seven o'clock, and the +morning wind swept soft and warm from over the river. There was a white +light on all the stucco parapets, and their shadows slanted clear and +delicately purple to the west. The dust slept on the broad roads of the +Maidan, only a curling trace lifted itself here and there at the heel of +a cart-bullock, and nothing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the +streets that knotted themselves in the city. From the river, curving +past the statue of an Indian administrator, came a string of country +people with baskets on their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the +red and the saffron they wore, turned them into an ornamentation, in the +profuse Oriental taste, of the empty expanse. There was the completest +freedom in the wide, tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered +her shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to disburden any +heaviness that might oppress, to give the wings of words to any joy that +might rebel in prison. The advantage of the intimacy of the landau for +purposes of observation was so obvious that one imagines Alicia must +have been aware of it, though, as a matter of fact, when she told +Lindsay she did not look at him at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden +Gardens, where the yellow dome of the Post Office swelled against the +morning sky, and so lost it. + +He heard without exclamation, but stopped her now and then with a +question. On what day precisely? And how long? And afterward? The yellow +dome was her anchor; she turned her head a little, as the road trended +the other way, to keep her eyes upon it. There was an endless going +round of wheels, and trees passed them in mechanical succession; a tree, +and another tree; some of them had flowers on them. When he broke the +silence afterward, she started as if in apprehension, but it was only to +say something that anybody might have said, about the self-sacrificing +energy of the organisation to which Miss Filbert belonged. Her assent +was little and meagre; nothing would help her to expand it. The +Salvation Army rose before her as a mammoth skeleton, without a +suggestive bone. + +Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered an unguarded +thought, "I had so little to make me think she cared." There was in it +that phantom of speculation and concern which a sick man finds under +pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned himself to his +invalid's privileges as if he valued them. He lay extended beside her +among his cushions and wraps; she tried to look at him, and got as far +as the hand nearest her, ungloved and sinewy, on the plaid of the rug. + +"She told me it was not for your life she had been praying--only that if +you died you might be saved first." Her eyes were still on his hand, and +she saw the fingers close into the palm as if by an impulse to some kind +of action. Then they relaxed again, and he said, "Oh, well," and smiled +at the balancings of a crow drinking at a city conduit. + +That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and impossible enough, to +postpone her impressions, even her emotions. In the meantime it was +something to have got it over, and she was able at a bound to talk about +the commonplaces of the roadside. In her escape from this oppression, +she too gathered a freshness, a convalescent pleasure in what they saw; +everything had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak trees, +tender and curative. In the broad early light that lay over the tanks +there was a vague allurement, almost a presage, and the wide spaces of +the Maidan made room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if he would +mind driving to the market; she wanted some flowers for that night. I +think she wanted some flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily +into the symbol of a rose. + +They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus bushes showed pink and +crimson over the stucco walls, and at the gates of the pillared houses +servants with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches in the sun +and were shaved. Where the street ran into shops there was still a +shuttered blankness, but here and there a _durwan_[8] yawned and +stretched himself before an open door, and a sweeper made a cloud of +dust beneath a commercial verandah. The first boarding in a side street +announced the appearance of Miss Hilda Howe for one night only as Lady +Macbeth, under the kind patronage of His Excellency the Viceroy, with +Jimmy Finnigan in the close proximity of professional jealousy, +advertising five complete novelties for the same evening. It made a +cheerful note which appealed to them both; it was a pictorial +combination, Hilda and Jimmy Finnigan and the Viceroy; there was +something of gay burlesque in the metropolitan poster against the +crumbling plaster of the outer mosque wall where Mussulmans left their +shoes. Talking of Hilda, they smiled; it was a way her friends had, a +testimony to the difference of her. In Alicia's smile there was a +satisfaction rather subtle and in a manner superior; she knew of things. + +[Footnote 8: Doorkeeper.] + +The life of the market, the bazaar, was all awake and moving. They +rolled up though a crowd of inferior vehicles, empty for the moment and +abandoned, where the leisurely crowd, with calculation under its +turbans, swayed about the market-house, and the pots of a palm-dealer +ran out of bounds and made a little grove before the stall of the man +who sold pith helmets. The warm air held the smell of all sorts of +commodities; there was a great hum of small transactions, clink of small +profits. "It makes one feel immensely practical and acquisitive," Duff +said, looking at the loaded baskets on the coolies' heads; and he +insisted on getting out. "I am dying to buy an enormous number of +desirable things very cheap. But not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, +nor any ribbons or lace--is that good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a +live duck--really I am difficult. We might inquire the price of the +duck, though." + +The sense of being contributory to his holiday satisfaction reigned in +her. She abandoned herself to it with a little smile that played +steadily about her lips, as if it would tell him, without her sanction, +how continually she rejoiced in his regained well-being. They made their +way slowly toward the flower-corner; there were so many things he wanted +to stop before as they went, leaning on his stick to examine them and +delighting in opportunities for making himself quite ridiculous. The +country tobacco-dealer laughed too, squatting behind his basket; it was +a mad sahib, but not madder than the rest, and there was no hurry. +Alicia saw the pink glow of the roses beyond, where the sun struck +across them over the shoulders of the crowd, and was content to reach +them by degrees. They would be in their achieved sweetness a kind of +climax to the hour's experience, and after that she was not entirely +sure that the day would be as grey as other days. + +This was the flood-time of roses and it was exquisite in the +flower-corner with the soft wind picking up their fragrance and squares +of limpid sunlight standing on the wet flagstones. Some of the +stall-keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was room only +for the Gloire de Dijons and the La Frances and the velvety Jacks, the +rest over-ran the tables and the floor in anything that would hold them. +The place rioted with the joy and the passion of roses, for buying and +selling. There were other flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, +but they had a diminished, insignificant look in their tied-up bunches +beside the triumph of the roses. Further on, beyond the cage of the +money-changer, the country people were hoarse with crying their +vegetables, in two green rows, and beyond that, where the jostling crowd +divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and pomegranates. In this part there +were many comers and goers, lean Mussulman table servants and fat +Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, Armenian women with +embroidered shawls drawn over their heads, sailors of the port. They +came to pass that way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a +coign of vantage for the men with trays, who were very persecuting +there. Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands +were deep in them; he perceived with pleasure that their glow was +reflected in her face. "No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man +who sat cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are +certainly of yesterday. There is no scent left in them--and look!" she +held up the bunch and shook it. A shower of pink petals and drops of +water fell upon the round of her arm above the wrist, where the laces of +her sleeve slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic +appreciation of her, observing her put the bunch down tenderly, as if +she would not, if she could help it, find fault with any rose. The +dealer drew put another and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, wide-open, +perfect thing, and it was then that her glance of delight, wandering, +fell upon Laura Filbert. Lindsay looked instantly, curiously, in the +same direction, and Alicia was aware that he also saw. There ensued a +terse moment with a burden of silence and the strangest misgivings, in +which he may have imagined that he had his part alone, but which was the +heavier for her because of him. These two had seen the girl before only +under circumstances that suggested projection, that made excuse, on a +platform receiving the respect of attention, marching with her fellows +under common conventions, common orders. Here, alone, slipping in and +out among the crowd, she looked abandoned; the sight of her in her bare +white feet and the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her humility +screamed its violation, its debasement of her race; she woke the impulse +to screen her and hurry her away as if she were a woman walking in her +sleep. She had on her arm a sheaf of the _War Cry_. This was another +indignity; she offered them right and left, and no one had a pice for +her except one man, a sailor who refused the paper. When he rejoined his +companions there was a hoarse laugh, and the others turned their heads +to look after her. + +The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation, +seeing what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the "mem" +passed every day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, too, +looked at her as she came closer, offering her paper to Alladiah Khan, a +man impatient in his religion, who refused it, mumbling in his beard. +With a gesture of appeal she pressed it on him, saying something. Then +Alladiah's green turban shook, his beard, dyed red in Mecca, waggled; he +raised his arm, and Laura, in white astonishment, darted from under it. +They seldom did that. + +Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it as Lindsay made his +stride forward. She saw him twist his hand in the beard of Mecca and +fling the man into the road; she was aware of a vague thankfulness that +it ended there, as if she expected bloodshed. More plainly she saw the +manner of Duff's coming back to the girl, and the way in which, with a +look of half-frightened satisfaction, Laura gave herself up to him. He +was hurrying her away without a word. Her surrender was as absolute and +final as if she had been one of those desirable things he said he wanted +to buy. Alicia intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being +forgotten, stepping up to them. "Take her home in the carriage," she +said to Duff, "and send it back for me. I shall be here a long time +still--quite a long time." She stared at Captain-Filbert as she spoke, +but made no answer to the "Good-morning! God bless you!" with which the +girl perfunctorily addressed her. When they left her she looked down at +the long-stemmed rose, the perfect one, and drove a thorn of it deep +into her palm, as other creatures will sometimes hurt themselves more to +suffer less. It was not in the least fantastic of her, for she was not +aware that she still held it, but that was the only rose she brought +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on the hem of her +skirt, and struck out into the Maidan. It spread before her green where +the slanting sun searched through the short blades, brown and yellow in +the distance, where the light lay on the top of the withered grass. It +was like a great English park, with something of the village common, +only the trees, for the most part, made avenues over it, running an +arbitrary half-mile this way or that, with here and there a group dotted +about in the open; and the brimming tank-ponds were of India and of +nowhere else in the world. The sun was dipping behind the masts that +showed where the straight border of the river ran, and the shadows of +the pipals and the banyans were richly purple over the roads. The light +struck on the stuccoed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee +which made behind their gardens the other border, and seemed to push +them back, to underline their scattered insignificance, hinting that the +Maidan at its pleasure might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, the +teeming capital, lived in the streets and gullies behind that chaste +frontage and quarrelled over drainage schemes; but out here cattle +grazed in quiet companies, and squirrels played on the boles of the +trees. Calcutta, the capital, indeed, was superimposed; one felt that +always at this time, when the glow came and stood in the air among the +tamarinds, and there was nothing anywhere but luminous space and +indolent stillness, and the wrangling and winging of crows. What +persisted, then, under the span of the sky was the old India of rich +traditions, and a thinking bullock beneath the yoke, jogging through the +evening to his own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on the +rim of the city, the real India, and the rest was fiction and +fabrication. + +The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately sought its solace +for her feet, letting their pressure linger. All day long the sun had +been drawing the sweetness and the life out of it, and now the air had a +sweet, warm, and grateful scent, like that of harvests. The crickets had +been at it since five o'clock, and though the city rose not half a mile +across the grass, it was the crickets she heard and listened to. In +making private statements of things, the crickets offered a chorus of +agreement and they never interrupted. Not that she had much to consider, +poor girl, which lent itself to a difference of opinion. One might have +thought her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, not badly +equipped. She had all the arguments--which is like saying all the +arms--and the most accurate understanding; but the only practical +outcome of these things had been an intimate object-lesson in the small +value of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with cynicism and +made it more piquant. She did not altogether scorn her own intelligence +at the result, because it had always admitted the existence of +dominating facts that belonged to life and not to reason; it was only +the absurd unexpectedness of coming across one herself. One might think +round such a fact and talk round it--there were less exquisite +satisfactions--but it was not to be cowed or abated, and in the end the +things one said were only words. + +Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through her +veins, with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she saw +helped her to a fulness of life; the south wind brought her profound +sweet presciences. A coolie woman, carrying a basket on her head, +stopped and looked at her with full, glistening eyes; they smiled at +each other and passed on. She found herself upon a narrow path, worn +smooth by other barefooted coolie-folk; it made in its devious way +toward the rich mists where the sun had gone down and Hilda followed it, +breasting the glow and the colour and wide, flat expanse, as if in the +India of it there breathed something exquisitely sensuous and +satisfying. It struck sharp on her senses; she almost consciously +thanked heaven for such a responsive set of nerves. Always and +everywhere she was intensely conscious of what she saw, and of how she +saw it; and it was characteristic of her that she found in that saffron +February evening, spreading to a purple rim with wandering points of +colour in a soldier's coat or a coachman's turban, an atmosphere and a +_mise en scene_ for her own complication. She could take a tenderly +artistic view of that, more soothing a good deal than any result that +came of examining it in other lights. And she did, aware, with smiling +eyes, of how colourable, how dramatic it was. + +Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any material outcome seemed +a great way off, pursuable by conjecture when there was time for that. +For the present, there on the Maidan with the south wind, she took it +with her head thrown up, in her glad, free fashion, as something that +came in the way of life--the delightful way of life--with which it was +absurd to quarrel because of a slight inconvenience or incongruity, +things which helped, after all, to make existence fascinating. + +A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured scrap with a broken stem, +dropped from some coolie's necklace. Hilda picked it up and drew in the +crude, warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes and drifted on +the odour, forgetting her speculations, losing her feet. All India and +all her passion was in that violent, penetrating fragrance; it brought +her, as she gave her senses up to it, a kind of dual perception of being +near the core, the throbbing centre of the world's meaning. + +Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He hastened to meet her, in +his friendly way; and she was glad of the few yards that lay between +them, and gave transit to her senses from that other plane. They +encountered each other in full recognition of the happiness of the +accident, and he turned back with her as a matter of course. It was a +kind of fruition of all that light and colour and passive delight that +they should meet and take a path together, he at least was aware. Hilda +asked him if he was quite all right now, and he said "Absolutely" with a +shade of emphasis. She charged him with having been a remarkable case, +and he piled up illustrations of what he felt able to do in his +convalescence. There was something in the way he insisted upon his +restoration which made her hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. + +"And I hear I may congratulate you," she said. "You have got what you +wanted." + +"Someone has told you," he retorted, "who is not friendly to it." + +"On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial +support--Alicia Livingstone." + +He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for the +first time under such an aspect. + +"She has been immensely kind," he asserted, "but she wasn't at first. At +first she was hostile, like you, only that her hostility was different, +just as she is different. She had to be converted," he went on +hopefully, "but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think she takes +a kind of pride in conquering her prejudices, and being true to the real +breadth of her nature." + +"I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very well be +content that it is charming. And what is the difference between her +hostility and mine?" + +"The main difference," Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon her, "is +that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours"--he made a dramatic +gesture--"walks between us." + +"I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her on your +behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler +instincts." + +Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and spent +the grimness of this in twirling it. + +"One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all +proportion--" Duff said. "And I should be sorry--do you really want me +to talk about this?" + +"Don't be stupid. Of course." + +He took her permission with plain avidity. + +"Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody else +who knows or cares," he said; "I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous +desirability. Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't +want to insist on that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity +and transparency of her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's +souls are so clouded with knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals +especially to me because my own design isn't in the least esoteric. I'm +only a man. Then she was so ludicrously out of her element. A creature +like that should be surrounded by the softest refinement in her daily +life. That was my chance. I could offer her her place. It's not much to +counterbalance what she is, but it helps, roughly speaking, to equalise +matters." + +Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, missing an emanation +from him. It was his enthusiasm. A cheerfulness had come upon him +instead. Also what he said had something categorical in it, something +crisp and arranged. He himself received benefit from the consideration +of it, and she was aware that if this result followed, her own +"conversion" was of very secondary importance. + +"So!" she said meditatively, as they walked. + +"After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, it will be so +plainly right that nobody will think twice about it," Duff went on in an +encouraged voice. "It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I want her +drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow silk cushions." + +"When its it to happen?" + +"Beginning of next cold weather--in not quite a year." + +"Ah! then there will be time. Time to get the white and gold furniture. +It wouldn't be my taste quite. Is it Alicia's?" + +"It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We have talked it over +together. And I don't think she would ask Miss Livingstone. In matters +of taste women are rather rivals, aren't they?" + +"Oh, Lord!" Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. "Where is Miss Filbert +now?" + +"At No. 10, Middleton street." + +"With the Livingstones?" + +"Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her +kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and +Laura is to stay with them until she sails." + +"She sails?" + +"In the _Sutlej_, next Wednesday. She's got three months' leave. She +really hasn't been well, and her superior officer is an accommodating +old sort. She resigns at home, and I'm sending her to some dear old +friends of mine. She hasn't any particular people of her own. She's got +a notion of taking lessons of some kind--perfectly unnecessary, but if +it amuses her--during the summer. And of course she will have to get her +outfit together." + +"And in December," said Hilda, "she comes out and marries you." + +"Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras and we come up together." + +"Ideal," said Hilda; "and is Calcutta much scandalised?" + +"Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in the beginning I fancy I +would have trumpeted it. But now I suppose it's wiser--why should one +offer her up at their dinner-tables?" + +"Especially when they would make so little of her," said Hilda absently. + +The coolie-track had led them into the widest part of the Maidan, where +it slopes to the south, and the huts of Bowanipore. There was nothing +about them but a spreading mellowness and the baked turf under-foot. The +cloudy yellow twilight disclosed that a man little way off was a man and +not a horse but did hardly more. "I'm tired," Hilda said suddenly, "let +us sit down," and sank comfortably on the fragrant grass. Lindsay +dropped beside her and they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket +chirped noisily a few inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that +direction and it ceased. Sounds wandered across from the encircling +city, evening sounds, softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, +topaz points in the level glow. + +"She is making a tremendous sacrifice," Lindsay went on; "I seem to see +its proportions more clearly now." + +Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. "You are an awfully good +sort, Duff," she said, "I wish you were out of Asia." + +"Oh, a magnificent sort." The irony was contemplative, as if he examined +himself to see. + +"You can make her life delightful to her. The sacrifice will not endure, +you know." + +"One can try. It will be worth doing." He said it as if it were a maxim, +and Hilda, perceiving this, had no answer ready. As they sat without +speaking, the heart of the after-glow drew away across the river and +left something chill and empty in the spaces about them. Things grew +hard of outline, the Maidan became an unlimited expanse of commonplace, +grey and unyielding; the lines of gas-lamps on the roads came very near. +"What a difference it makes!" Lindsay exclaimed, looking after the +vanished light, "and how suddenly it goes!" + +Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then looked with keen sadness +far into the changed landscape. "Ah, well, my dear," she said with +apparent irrelevance, "we must take hold of life with both hands." She +made a movement to rise, and he, jumping to his feet, helped her. As if +the moment had some special significance, something to be underlined, he +kept her hand while he said, "You will always represent something in +mine. I can depend upon you--I shall know that you are there." + +"Yes," she said, sincerely, "Yes, indeed;" and it seemed to her that he +looked thin and intense as he stood beside her--unless it was only +another effect of atmosphere. "After all," she said, as they turned to +walk back again across the withered grass, "your fever has taken a good +deal out of you." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under the Livingstones' roof +followed each other into the past that is not much pondered. Alicia at +one time valued the impression that life in Calcutta disappeared +entirely into this kind of history, that one's memory there was a +rubbish heap of which one naturally did not trouble to stir up the dust. +It gave a soothing wistulness to discontent to think this, which a +discerning glance might often have seen about her lips and eyebrows as +she lay back among her carriage cushions under the flattery of the south +wind in the course of her evening drive. She had ceased latterly, +however, to note particularly that or any impression. Such things +require range and atmosphere, and she seemed to have no more command +over these; her outlook was blocked by crowding, narrowing facts. There +was certainly no room for perceptions creditable to one's intellect or +one's taste. Also it may be doubted whether Alicia would have tried the +days of her hospitality to Captain Filbert by her general standard of +worthlessness. She turned away from them more actively than from the +rest, but it was because they bristled, naturally enough, with dilemmas +and distresses which she made a literal effort to forget. As a matter of +fact, there were not very many days, and they were largely filled with +millinery. Even the dilemmas and distresses, when they asserted +themselves, were more or less overswept, as if for the sake of decency, +by billows of spotted muslin, with which Celine, who felt the romance of +the situation, made herself marvellously clever. Celine, indeed, was +worth in this exigency many times her wages. Alicia hastened to "lend" +her to the fullest extent, and she spent hours with Miss Filbert +contriving and arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's +beneficence. It became plain that Laura preferred the conductor to the +source, and they stitched together while she, with careful reserves, +watched for the casual sidelights upon modes and manners that came from +the lips of the maid. At other times she occupied herself with her +Bible--she had adopted, as will be guessed, the grateful theory of Mrs. +Sand, that she had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. She had +several times felt, seated beside Celine, how grateful she ought to be +that her spiritual paths for the future would be paths of such +pleasantness, though Celine herself seemed to stand rather far from +their border, probably because she was a Catholic. Mrs. Sand came +occasionally to upbuild her, and after that Laura had always a fresh +remembrance of how much she had done in giving so generous a friend as +Duff Lindsay to the Army in Calcutta. It was reasonable enough that +there should be a falling off in Mr. Lindsay's attendance just now in +Laura's absence, but when they were united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would +be very few evening services when she, the Ensign, would miss their +bright faces. Lindsay himself came every afternoon, and Laura made his +tea for him with precision, and pressed upon him, solicitously, +everything there was to eat. He found her submissive and wishful to be +pleasant. She sat up straight and said it was much hotter than they had +it this time of year up-country but nothing at all to complain of yet. +He also discovered her to be practical; she showed him the bills for the +muslins, and explained one or two bargains. She seemed to wish to make +it clear to him that it need not be, after all, so very expensive to +take a wife. In the course of a few days one of the costumes was +completed, and when he came she had it on, appearing before him for the +first time in secular dress. The stays insisted a little cruelly on the +lines of her figure, and the tight bodice betrayed her narrow-chested. +Above its frills her throat protruded unusually, with a curve outward +like that of some wading birds, and her arms, in their unaccustomed +sleeves, hung straight at her sides. She had put on a hat that matched: +it was the kind of pretty, disorderly hat with waving flowers that +demands the shadow of short hair along the forehead, and she had not +thought of that way of making it becoming. Among these accessories the +significance of her face retreated to a point vague and distant; its +lightly-pencilled lines seemed half erased. She made no demand upon him +for admiration on this occasion, she seemed sufficiently satisfied with +herself; but after a time, when they were sitting together on the sofa, +and he still pursued the lines of her garment with questioning eyes, she +recalled him to the conventionalities of the situation. + +"You needn't be afraid of mussing it," she said. + +The ship she took her departure in sailed from its jetty in the river at +six o'clock in the morning. Preparations for her comfort had been +completed over night; indeed, she slept on board, and Duff had only the +duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the morning. He found her in +a sequestered corner of the fresh-swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her +Army clothes--she had come on board in one of the muslins--and she was +softly crying. From the jetty on the other side of the ship arose, amid +tramping feet and shouted orders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, +the overruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company had come +apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they should no +more meet on earth, bearing her heavenly commission. + + "Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu + To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you. + We've laboured together, united in heart, + But now we must close, and soon we must part." + +They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, all of them, but they +evidently meant to sing the ship out of port. Lindsay sat down beside +the victim of the demonstration and quietly took her hand. There was a +consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, which he owed perhaps to a +ghost of futility that seemed to pace up and down before him, between +the ranks of the steamer-chairs. Nevertheless, as she presently turned a +calmed face to him with her pale apology, he had the sensation of a +rebound toward the ideal that had finally perished in the spotted +muslin, and when a little later he watched the long backward trail of +smoke as the steamer moved down the clear morning river, he remembered +that it was a satisfaction to have prevailed. + +The _Sutlej_ had gone far on her tranquil course by the evening of a +dinner in Middleton street, at which the guests, it was understood, were +to proceed later to a party given at Government House by his Excellency +the Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her invitations, felt an +assurance that the steamer must by that time have reached Aden, and rose +almost with buoyancy to the illusion you can make, if you like, with the +geographical mile. She could hardly have left him out in any case--he +could almost have demanded an explanation--since it was one of those +parties which she gave every now and then, undiscouraged, with the focus +of Hilda Howe. It had to be every now and then, because Calcutta society +was so little adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses--there +were so many people whom Alicia had to consider as to whether they would +"mind." Hilda marvelled at the sanguine persistence of Miss +Livingstone's efforts in this direction, the results were so +fragmentary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. She +took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and generous level, it quite +comprehended the salient points of a Calcutta dinner party; and it was +seldom that she failed, metaphorically speaking, to carry away a bone +from the feast. If you found this reprehensible, she would have told you +she had observed that they do it in Japan, where manners are the best in +the world. + +Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such a dinner-party than I, +with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. +To me it is depressing, and a little cruel, to be compelled to betray +the inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially +in connection with the conspicuous excellence of the cooking. A poverty +of cuisine would have provoked no contrast, and one irony the less would +have been offered up to the gods that season. The limitations of her +resources were, of course, arbitrary, that is plain in the fact that she +asked such a person as the Head of the Department of Education, with no +better reason than that he had laid almost the whole of Shelley under +critical notes for the benefit of Calcutta University, and the necessary +item, his wife, who did even less harm by making exquisite lampshades. +There was a civilian who had written a few years before an article in +the _Nineteenth Century_ about the aboriginal tribes of Madras, and the +lady attached to him, who had been at one time the daughter of a +Lieutenant-Governor. The Barberrys were there because Mrs. Barberry +loved meeting anybody that was clever, admired brains beyond anything; +and an Aide-de-Camp who had to be asked because Mrs. Barberry was, and +Captain Salter Symmes, who took leading male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays +when they were produced in Simla, and was invariably considered up there +to have done them better than any professional they have at home, though +he was even more successful as a contortionist when the entertainment +happened to be a burlesque. Taking Hilda and Lindsay and Stephen Arnold +as a basis, Alicia had built up her party, with the contortionist, as it +were, at the apex, on his head. The Livingstones had family connection +with a leading London publishing firm, and Alicia may possibly have +reflected, as she surveyed her completed work, how much better than +capering captains she could have done in Chelsea, though it cannot be +admitted likely that she would harbour, at that particular instant, so +ungracious a thought. And indeed it was a creditable party; it would +almost unanimously call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe +made the most agreeable excitement--you might almost have heard the +heart-beats of the wife of the literary and on one occasion current +civilian, as she just escaped being introduced, and so availed herself +of the dinner's opportunity for intimate observation without letting +herself in a particle--most clever. Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed +upon the spear, as she always did, and made a gushing little speech, +with every eye upon her, in the middle of the room, without a thought of +consequences. The Aide-de-Camp was also _empresse_, one would have +thought that he was acting himself, the way he bowed and picked up +Hilda's fan--a grace lingered in it from the minuet he had danced the +week before, in ruffles and patches, with the daughter of the +Commander-in-Chief. Duff got out of the way to enable the +newly-introduced Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss Howe +that he never went to the theatre in Calcutta himself, it was much too +badly ventilated; and Stephen Arnold, arriving late, shot like an +embarrassed arrow through the company to Alicia's side, and was still +engaged there in grieved explanation when dinner was announced. + +There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace--those were the +pictorial features. Half of the people had taken their seats when he +began; there was a hasty scramble, and a decorous, half-checked smile. +Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed hotly; then she +stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands, like a +reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew +a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The +civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was +absurdly affected; and, indeed, to an acuter intelligence it might have +looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was not +offered. + +That was the one instant, however, in which the civilian's wife, +observing the actress, was gratified; and it was so brief that she +complained afterward that Miss Howe was disappointing. She certainly +went out of her way to be normal. Since it was her daily business to +personate exceptional individuals, it seemed to be her pleasure that +night to be like everybody else. She did it on opulent lines; there was +a richness in her agreement that the going was as hard as iron on the +Ellenborough course, and a soft ingenuousness in her inquiries about +punkahs and the brain-fever bird that might have aroused suspicion, but +after a brief struggle to respond to the unusualness she ought to have +represented, Alicia's guests gratefully accepted her on their own terms +instead. She expanded in the light and the glow and the circumstance; +she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the +jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little +dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the civilian's +wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the chatter of +the Head of the Department of Education with the most satisfying +qualities, which were only very slightly dashed when she glanced over +the brim of her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, +giving a gravely humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. Barberry and +drinking water. The occasion grew before her into a gorgeous flower, +living, pulsating, and in the heart of its light and colour the petals +closed over her secret, over him, the unconscious priest with the +sloping shoulders, thinking of abstinence and listening to Mrs. +Barberry. + +It transpired, when the men came up, that there was no unanimity about +going to Government House. The Livingstones craved the necessity of +absence, if anyone would supply it by staying on; it would be a boon, +they said, and cited the advancement of the season. "One gets to bed so +much earlier," Surgeon-Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised +her eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected to gratify them, +with the proclaimed purpose of seeing how long Livingstone could be kept +up, and the civilian pair agreed, apparently from an inert tendency to +remain seated. The Aide-de-Camp had, of course, to go; duty called him; +and he declared a sense of slighted hospitality that anybody should +remain behind. "Besides," he cried, with ingenuous privilege, "who's +goin' to chaperone Miss Howe?" + +Hilda stood in the midst. Tall in violet velvet, she had a flush that +made her magnificent; her eyes were deep and soft. It was patent that +she was out of proportion to the other women, body and soul; there was +altogether too much of her; and it was only the men, when Captain Corby +spoke, who looked silently responsive. + +"We're coming away so early," said Mrs. Barberry, buttoning her glove. +Hilda had begun to smile, and, indeed, the situation had its humour, but +there was also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. "Don't," +she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of her prompting tone, as if +the other had mistaken her cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, +and Alicia turned an unflinching, graceful front to the lady in the +Department of Education. "Then I think I must ask you," she said. + +The educational husband was standing so near Hilda that she got the very +dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as she +replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be +delighted. + +"Nobody suggests _me_!" exclaimed Captain Corby, resentfully. They were +gathered in the hall, the carriages were driving to the open door, the +Barberrys' glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the battered +vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of ludicrous forlornity, with its +damaged paint and its tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed upon +the purple vision of her, might have been a modern Cinderella in +mid-stage of backward transformation. + +"I could chaperone you all!" she cried gaily back at them as she passed +down the steps; and in the relief of the general exclamation it seemed +reasonable enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into the gharry to see +that she was quite comfortable. The unusual thing, which nobody else +heard, was that he said to her then with shamed discomfort, "It doesn't +matter--it doesn't matter," and that Hilda, driving away, found herself +without a voice to answer the good-nights they chorussed after her. + +Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dog-cart, and Hilda, with her +purple train in her lap, heard the wheels following all the way. She +re-encountered the lady to whom she had been entrusted, whose name it +occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloak-room. They were late; there was +hardly anybody else but the attendants; and Mrs. Winstick smiled freely +and said she loved the colour of Hilda's dress; also that she would give +worlds for an invisible hair-pin--oh, thank you!--and that it was simply +ducky of her Excellency to have pink powder as well as white put out. +She did hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening--they would meet again +later on; she must not forget to look at the chunam pillars in the +ball-room--perfectly lovely. So she vanished; but Hilda went with +certainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and down the red +strip of carpet, with his hands clasped behind him and his head thrust +forward, waiting for her. + +They dropped together into the crowd and walked among well-dressed +woman, men in civilian black and men in uniform, up and down the +pillared spaces of the ball-room. People had not been asked to dance, +and they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. There was, of +course, the opportunity of talking and of listening to the band which +discoursed in a corner behind palms, but the distraction which is the +social Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increasing in the +neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, and made the +commonplaces people uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, +while it was plain that few were aware whether music was being rendered +or not. Anyone sensitive to pervading mental currents in gatherings of +this sort would have found the relief of concentration and directness +only near the buffet that ran along one side of the room, where the +natural instinct played, without impediment, upon soup and sandwiches. + +They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm of her liveried priest. +She was a strange vessel, sailing in from beyond their ken, and her +pilot was almost as novel, yet they were incurious. Their interests were +not in any way diffused: they had one straight line and it led upward, +pausing at the personalities clerked above them, with an ultimate point +in the head of a department. The Head of the Department was the only +person unaware, when addressed, of a travelling eye in search over his +shoulder of somebody with whom it would be more advantageous to +converse. Yet there were a few people apparently not altogether +indifferent to the presence of Miss Howe. She saw them here and there, +and when Arnold said, "It must seem odd to you, but I know hardly +anybody here. We attempt no social duties," she singled out this one and +that, whom Alicia had asked to meet her, and mentioned them to him with +a warm pleasure in implying one of the advantages of belonging to the +world rather than to the cloister. Stephen knew their names and their +dignities. He received what she said with suitably impressed eyebrow and +nods of considerate assent. Hilda carried him along, as it were, in +their direction. She was full that night of a triumphant sense of her +own vitality, her success and value as a human unit. There was that in +her blood which assured her of a welcome; it had logic in it, with the +basis of her rarity, her force, her distinction among other women. She +pressed forward to human fellowship with a smile on her lips, as a +delightful matter of course, going toward the people who were not +indifferent to the fact that she was there, who could not be entirely, +since they had some sort of knowledge of her. + +In no case did they ignore her, but they were so cheerfully engaged in +conversation that they were usually quite oblivious of her. She +encountered this animated absorption two or three times, then, turning, +she found that the absorbed ones had changed their places--were no +longer in her path. One lady put herself at a safe distance and then +bowed with much cordiality. It was extraordinary in a group of five how +many glistening backs would be presented, quite without offence, to her +approach. Mrs. Winstick had hidden behind the Superintendent of Stamps +and Stationery, to whom she was explaining, between spoonfuls of +strawberry ice her terrible situation. And from the lips of another +lady, whose face she knew, she heard after she had passed, "Don't you +think it's rather an _omnium gatherum_?" + +It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment, with serious interest, +how the little world about them had the same negative attitude for the +missionary priest beside her, presenting it with a hardly perceptible +difference. Within its limits there was plainly no room for him either. +His acquaintances--he had a few--bowed with the kind of respect which +implies distance, and in the wandering eyes of the others it was plain +that he did not exist. She saw, too, with a very delicate pleasure, that +he carried himself in his grave humility untouched and unconscious. +Expecting nothing, he was unaware that he received nothing. It was odd, +and in its way charming, that she who saw and knew drew from their +mutual grievance a sense of pitiful protection for him, the unconscious +one. For herself, the tide that bore her on was too deep to let these +things hurt her; she looked down and saw the soreness and humiliation of +them pictorially, at the bottom, gliding smoothly over. They brought no +stereotype to her smile, no dissonance to what she found to say. When at +last she and Arnold sat down together her standpoint was still superior, +and she herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk about it +without bitterness, divorcing the personal pang from a social +manifestation of some dramatic value. In offering up her egotism that +way she really only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one could +hardly expect such a consideration, just then, to give her pause. She +anointed his eyelids, she made him see, and he was relieved to find in +her light comment that she took the typical Mrs. Winstick less seriously +than he had supposed when they drove away from the Livingstones'. It +could not occur to him to correct the impression he had then by the +sound of his own voice uttering sympathy. + +"But I know now what a wave feels like dashing against a cliff," she +said. "Fancy my thinking I could impose myself! That is the wave's +reflection." + +"It goes back into the sea, which is its own; and there," said the +priest, whom nature had somehow cheated by the false promise of high +moralities out of an inheritance of beauty, "and there, I think, is +depth and change and mystery, with joy in the obedience of the tides and +a full beating upon many shores----" + +"Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even," she said +half-reflectively, "when I am talking to you. But sometimes I think I am +not a wave at all, only a shell, to be stranded and left, always with +the calling in my ears"--she seemed to have dropped altogether into +reverie, and then looked up suddenly, laughing, because he could not +understand. + +"After all," she said practically, "what has that to do with it? One +doesn't blame these people. They are stupid--that's all. They want the +obvious. The leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope--without the +smallest diamond--who does song and dance on Saturday nights--what can +you expect. If I were famous they would be pleased enough to see me. It +is one of the rewards of the fame." She was silent for a moment, and +then she added, "They are very poor." + +"Those rewards! I have sometimes thought," Arnold said, "that you were +not devoured by thirst for them." + +"When we are together, you and I," she answered simply, "I never am." + +He took it at its face value. They had had some delightful +conversations. If her words awakened anything in him it was the +remembrance of these. The solace of her companionship presented itself +to him again, and her statement gave their mutual confidence another +seal; that was all. They sat where they were for half an hour, and +something like antagonism and displeasure toward the secretaries' wives +settled upon them, for which Hilda, interrupting a glance or two from +the ladies purring past, drew suspicion. "I am going now," she said. +"It--it isn't quite suitable here," and there was just enough suggestion +in the point of her fan to make him think of his frock. "It is an +unpardonable truth that if we stay any longer I shall make people talk +about you." + +He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which she remembered +afterward there was absolutely nothing but a literal and pained +apprehension of what she said. "You are a good woman," he exclaimed. +"How could such a thing be possible?" + +The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion of distress, came into +her face and concentrated in her eyes, which she fixed upon him as if +she would bring his words to the last analysis and answer him as she +would answer a tribunal. + +"A good woman?" she repeated. "I don't know--isn't that a refinement of +virtue? No, standing on my sex, I make no claim, but as _people_ go I am +good. Yes, I am good." + +"In my eyes you are splendid," he replied, content, and gave her his +arm. They went together through the reception-rooms, and the +appreciation of her grew in him. If in the bright and silken distance he +had not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a cordiality of speech +with his distinctive individual stamp on it. But he saw his Bishop, his +ceinture tightened on him, and he uttered only the trite saying about +the folly of counting on the sensibility of swine. + +"Yes," she laughed into her good-night to him, "but I'm not sure that it +isn't better to be the pig than the pearl." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +"Not long ago," said Hilda, "I had a chat with him. We sat on the grass +in the middle of the Maidan, and there was nothing to interfere with my +impressions?" + +"What were your impressions? No!" Alicia cried. "No! Don't tell me. It +is all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. You think such +extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk about her. He +is coming this afternoon. So I have impressions too--and they are just +as good." + +"All right." Hilda crossed her knees more comfortably. "_What_ did you +say the Surgeon-Major paid for those Teheran tiles?" + +"Something absurd--I've forgotten. He writes to her regularly, diary +letters, by every mail." + +"Do you tell him what to put into them?" + +"Hilda, sometimes--you're positively coarse." + +"I dare say, my dear. You didn't come out of a cab, and you never are. I +like being coarse, I feel nearer to nature then, but I don't say that as +an excuse. I like the smell of warm kitchens and the talk of +bus-drivers, and bread and herrings for my tea--all the low +satisfactions appeal to me. Beer, too, and hand-organs." + +"I don't know when to believe you. He talks about her quite freely, +and--and so do I. She is really interesting in her way." + +"And in perspective." + +"Don't be odiously smart. He and Stephen"--her glance was +tentative--"have made it up." + +"Oh!" + +"He admits now that Stephen was justified, from his point of view. But +of course that is easy enough when you have come off best." + +"Of course." + +"Hilda, what do you _think_?" + +"Oh, I think it's damnable--you have always known what I think. Have you +seen him lately--I mean your cousin?" + +"He lunched with us yesterday. He was more enthusiastic than ever about +you." + +"I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned my name. I don't want +his enthusiasm. The pit gives one that." + +"Hilda, tell me; what is your idea of--of what it ought to be? What is +the principal part of it? Not enthusiasm--adoration?" + +"Goodness, no! Something quite different and quite simple--too simple to +explain. Besides, it is a thing that requires the completest ignorance +to discuss comfortably. Do you want me to vivisect my soul? You +yourself, can you talk about what most possesses you?" + +"Oh," protested Alicia, "I wasn't thinking about myself," and at the +same moment the door opened and Hilda said, "Ah, Mr. Lindsay!" + +There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's response to Miss Howe's +greeting, and a suggestion in the way he sat down that this made a +difference, and that it would be necessary to find other things to say. +He found them with facility, while Hilda decided that she would finish +her tea before she went. Alicia, busy with the urn, seemed satisfied to +abandon them to each other, to take a decorative place in the +conversation, interrupting it with brief inquiries about cream and +sugar. Alicia waited; it was her way; she sank almost palpably into the +tapestries until some reviving circumstance should bring her out again, +a process which was quite compatible with her little laughs and +comments. She waited, offering repose, and unconscious even of that. You +know Hilda Howe as a creature of bold reflections. Looking at Alicia +Livingstone behind the tea-pot, the conviction visited her that a sex +three-quarters of this fibre explained the monastic clergy. + +"It is reported that you have performed the wonderful, the impossible," +Lindsay said; "that Llewellyn Stanhope goes home solvent." + +"I don't know how he can help it now. But I have to be very firm with +him. He's on his knees to me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll +combine with Jimmy Finnigan and bring the _Surprise Party_ on between +the acts. The only way it would go, in this capital." + +"Oh, do produce Ibsen," Alicia exclaimed. "I've never seen one of his +plays--doesn't it sound terrible?" + +"If people will elect to live upon a coral strand--oh, I should like to, +for you and Duff here, but Ibsen is the very last man to deliver to a +scratch company. He must have equal merit, or there's no meaning. You +see, he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It would be a tame +travesty--nobody could redeem it alone. You must keep to the old +situations, the reliable old dodges, when you play in any part of Asia." + +"I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you in _The Reproach of +Galilee_" Duff said; "everyone who knows the least bit about it said you +were marvellous in that." + +"Marvellous," said Alicia. + +Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant without speaking. The +others looked at her absent eyes. "A bazaar trick or two helped me," she +said, and glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might be +hanging on the wall or visible out of the window. + +"And are you really invincible about not putting it on again in +Calcutta?" Duff asked. + +"Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it--nobody has a chance but +me," Hilda said, and got up. + +"Oh, I don't know," Alicia began, but Miss Howe was already half way out +of the discussion in the direction of the door. There was often a +brusqueness in her comings and goings, but she usually left a flavour of +herself behind. One turned with facility to talk about her, this being +the easiest way of applying the stimulus that came of talking to her. It +was more conspicuous than either of these two realised that they +accepted her retreat without a word, that there was even between them a +consciousness of satisfaction that she had gone. + +"This morning's mail," said Alicia, smiling brightly at him, "brought +you a letter, I know." It was extraordinary how detached she was from +her vital personal concern in him. It seemed relegated to some +background of her nature while she occupied herself with the play of +circumstances or was lost in her observation of him. + +"How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. "This was the first by +which I could possibly hear from England." + +"Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. Letters from on board ship +are always difficult to write and unsatisfactory," Alicia said. Miss +Filbert's had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin at the +bottom. + +"The _Sutlej_ seems to have arrived on the 3rd; that's a day later, +isn't it, than we made out she would be?" + +Alicia consulted her memory and found she couldn't be sure. Lindsay was +vexed by a similar uncertainty, but they agreed that the date was early +in the month. + +"Did they get comfortably through the Canal? I remember being tied up +there for forty-eight hours once." + +"I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have been all right. The +voyage is bound to do her good. I've asked the Simpsons to watch +particularly for any sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly +know what she may have imported from that slum in Bentinck street." + +"And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia asked, with a barely +perceptible glance at the envelope edges showing over his breast pocket. + +"I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink and glossy, with a +diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay drew out the single sheet it contained, +and she could see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. "Let +me see," said he. "To begin at the beginning: 'We arrived home on the +3rd'--you see it was the 3rd--'making very slow progress the last day on +account of a fog in the Channel'--ah, a fog in the Channel!--'which was +a great disappointment to some on board who were impatient to meet their +loved ones. One lady had not seen her family of five for seven years. +She said she would like to get out and swim, and you could not wonder. +She was my s--stable companion.'". + +"Quaint!" said Alicia. + +"She has picked up the expression on board, 'So--so she told me this.' +Oh, yes. 'Now that it is all over I have written the voyage down among +my mercies in spite of three days' sickness, when you could keep nothing +on'--What are these two words, Miss Livingstone? I can't quite make them +out." + +"'Your'--cambric?--stom--'stomach'--'your stomach.'" + +"Oh, quite so. Thanks!--'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see, it _was_ rough +after Gib. 'Everybody was'--Yes. 'The captain read Church of England +prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to join, and we +had mangoes every day for a week after leaving Ceylon.'" + +"Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes," Alicia said. + +"Was she? 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of +gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say +it is wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went near +enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of +embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point of +folding it up. + +"You see she hasn't danced for so long," Alicia put in quickly; "she +would naturally hesitate about beginning again with anybody but you. I +shouldn't wonder," she added gently, "if she never does, with anybody +else." + +"I know it's an idea some women have," he replied, gratefully +attributing it to her of whom they spoke. "I think it's rather--nice." + +"And her impressions of the Simpsons--and Plymouth?" + +"She goes on to that." He re-consulted the letter. "'Mr. and Mrs. +Simpson met me as expected and welcomed me very affably.' She has got +hold of a wrong impression there, I fancy; the Simpsons couldn't be +'affable.' 'They seem very kind and pleasant for such stylish people, +and their house is lovely, with electric light in the parlour and hot +and cold water throughout. They seem very earnest people and have family +prayers regularly, but I have not yet been asked to lead. Four servants +come in to prayers. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested in the +work of the Army, though I think Plymouth, as a whole, is more taken up +with the C. M. S.; but we cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes! I +remember those evangelical teas and the disappointment that I could not +speak more definitely about the work among the Sontalis." + +"Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place already!" exclaimed +Alicia. He went on: "'Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have a beautiful garden and +grow most of their own vegetables. We sit in it a great deal and I think +of all that has passed. I hope ever that it has been for the best and +pray for you always. Oh, that your feet may be set in the right path and +that we may walk hand in hand upon the way to Zion!'" + +Lindsay lowered his voice and read the last sentences rapidly, as if the +propulsion of the first part of the letter sent him through them. Then +he stopped abruptly, and Alicia looked up. + +"That's all, only," he added with an awkward smile, "the usual formula." + +"'God bless you'?" she asked, and he nodded. + +"It has a more genuine ring than most formulas," she observed. + +"Yes, hasn't it? May I have another cup?" He restored the pink sheet to +its pink envelope and both to his breast pocket while she poured out the +other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. They went on +talking about her, and entirely in the tone of congratulation--the +suitability of the Simpsons, the suitability of Plymouth, the +probability that she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, +her divine singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, +but Miss Filbert didn't need a tonic; she was too much inclined to be +strung up as it was. What she wanted was the soothing, quieting +influence of just Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. The +charms that so sweetly and definitely characterised her would expand +there; it was a delightful flowery environment for them, and she +couldn't fail to improve in health. Devonshire's visitors got +tremendously well fed, with fish items of especial excellence. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +Nobody could have been more impressed with Hilda's influence upon Mr. +Llewellyn Stanhope's commercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope +himself. He was a prey to all noble feelings; they ruled his life and +spoiled his bargains; and gratitude, when it had a chance, which was +certainly seldom in connection with leading ladies, dominated him +entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears in his +eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done for him, and gave +unnecessary backsheesh to coolies who brought him small bills--so long, +that is, as they were the small bills of this season. When they had +reference to the liabilities of a former and less prosperous year he +waved them away with a bitter levity which belonged to the same period. +His view of his obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking it +he counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the bad +season went consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's +remarkable receipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. He had +only one fault to find with Miss Howe--she had no artistic conscience, +none whatever, and he found this with the utmost leniency, basking in +the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. She was +altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. Stanhope, but +nothing would induce her to do herself justice before Calcutta; she +seemed to have taken the measure of the place and to be as indifferent! +Try to ring in anything worth doing and she was off with the bit between +her teeth, and you simply had to put up with it. The second lead had a +great deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too, +but of course not half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss +Howe wasn't game for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the +night the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It was monstrous. +She seemed to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody +should be paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance, +which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. That +was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was, +Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often lately and going +off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her if that was the way to +treat a man the _Daily Telegraph_ had spoken about as it had spoken +about Hamilton Bradley. Where was she--where was he--going to find +another? No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there were difficulties, and +after all that might be the very way to lose him. But a woman had an +influence, and that influence could never be more fittingly exercised +than in the cause of dramatic art, based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. +Mr. Stanhope expressed himself more vaguely, but it came to that. + +Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the +track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the +further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel for +procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as +Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she +was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It +wasn't, either, as if she complained of anything in the terms--that +would be easy enough fixed--but she said herself that it was a bigger +salary than he, Llewellyn, would ever be able to pay unless she went +round with the hat. Nor had she any objection to the tour--a fascinating +one--including the Pacific Slope and Honolulu. It stumped him, +Llewellyn, to know what she did object to and why she couldn't bark it +out at once, seeing she must understand perfectly well it was no use his +going to Bradley without first settling with her. + +Hilda, alone in her own apartment--it was difficult to keep Llewellyn +Stanhope away from even that door in his pursuit of her +signature--considered the vagary life had become for her, it was so +whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely hers. +Alicia knew, of course; but that was much as if she had written it down +on a sheet of perfect notepaper and locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did +not speculate about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in a +speculation. There had been a time filled with the knowledge and the joy +of this new depth in her, like a buoyant sea, and she had been content +to float in it, imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract +made a limit to the time--a limit she brought up against without +distress or shock, but with a kind of recognising thrill in contact at +last with the necessity for action, decision, a climax of high +heart-beats. She saw with surprise that she had lived with her passion +these weeks and months half consciously expecting that a crucial moment +would dissolve it, like a person aware that he dreams and will presently +awake. She had not faced till now any exigency of her case. But the +crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing out the subjection of her +life, and she, undefended, sought only how to accomplish her bonds. + +Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem monstrous; yet every +pulse in her demanded a solution; there was no questioning the imperious +need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she +looked at it without flinching and without compromise. Above all, she +had true vision of Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating +nothing. It was almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance and +be denied the soft uses of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had +been offered to Hilda she would doubtless have retorted that it was +precisely because she saw him that she loved him. His figure, in its +poverty and austerity, was always with her; she made with the fabric of +her nature a kind of shrine for it, enclosing, encompassing, and her +possession of him, by her knowledge, was deep and warm and protecting. I +think the very fulness of it brought her a kind of content with which, +but for Llewellyn and his contract, she would have been willing to go on +indefinitely. It made him hers in a primary and essential way, beside +which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed chiefly decorative, like the +capital of a pillar firmly rooted. There may be an appearance that she +took a good deal for granted; but if there is, I fear that in the +baldness of this history it has not been evident how much and how +variously Arnold depended on her, in how many places her colour and her +vitality patched out the monkish garment of his soul--this with her +enthusiasm and her cognisance. It may be remembered, too, that there was +in the very tenderness of her contemplation of the priest in her path an +imperious tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted there. +Certainly they had been men and not priests; but the little flickering +doubt that sometimes leaped from this source through the glow of her +imagination she quenched very easily with the reflection that such a +superficies was after all a sophistry, and that only its rudiments were +facts. She proposed, calmly and lovingly, to deal with the facts. + +She told herself that she would not be greedy about the conditions under +which she should prevail; but her world had always, always shaped itself +answering her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the ground now, and +left the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, it was because she would +not find any concessions among its features if she could help it. It was +a trick she played upon her own consciousness; she would not look; but +she could see without looking. She saw that which explained itself to be +best, fittest, most reasonable, and thus she sometimes wandered with +Arnold anticipatively, on afternoons when there was no matinee, through +the perfumed orange orchards of Los Angeles, on the Pacific slope. + +She would not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of those +steps of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to +possibilities. She wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see her +then. She had not spoken to him since the night of the Viceroy's party, +when she put her Bohemian head out of the ticca-gharry to wish him +good-night, and he walked home alone under the stars, trying to remember +a line of Horace, a chaste one, about woman's beauty. She sent the note +by post. There was no answer but that was as usual; there never was an +answer unless something prevented him; he always came, and ten minutes +before the time. Hilda sat under the blue umbrellas when the hour +arrived, devising with full heart-beats what she would say, creating +fifty different forms of what he would say, while the hands slipped +round the clock past the moment that should have brought his step to the +door. Hilda noted it and compared her watch. A bowl of roses stood on a +little table near a window; she got up and went to it, bending over and +rearranging the flowers. The light fell on her and on the roses; it was +a beautiful attitude, and when at a footfall she looked up expectantly +it was more beautiful. But it was only another boarder--a Mr. Gonzalves, +with a highly-varnished complexion, who took off his hat elaborately as +he passed the open door. Hilda became conscious of her use of the roses +and abandoned them. Presently she sat down on a Bentwood rocking-chair +and swayed to and fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour +later she was still sitting there. Her face had changed, something had +faded in it; her gaze at the floor was profoundly speculative, and when +she glanced at the empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not come +and did not come. + +The evening passed without explanation, and next morning the post +brought no letter. It was simplest to suppose that her own had not +reached him, and Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by hand, +with a separate sheet of paper addressed for signature. The messenger +brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S. +A.," and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence +from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most +unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked +from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat +roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College street, and +curbed the impulse in her feet that would have resulted in the curious +spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady calling in person at a +monastic gate to express a kind of solicitude against which precisely it +was barred. A situation, after all, could be too pictorial, looked at +from the point of view of the Order, a consideration which flashed with +grateful humour across her anxiety. Alicia would have known; but both +the Livingstones had gone for a short sea change to Ceylon with Duff +Lindsay and some touring people from Surrey. They were most anxious, +Hilda remembered, that Arnold should accompany them. Could he in the end +have gone? There was, of course, the accredited fount and source of all +information, the Brother Superior; but with what propriety could Hilda +Howe apply for it? Llewellyn might write for her: but it was glaringly +impossible that the situation should lay itself so far open to +Llewellyn. Looking in vain for resources she came upon an expedient. She +found a sheet of cheap notepaper, and made it a little greasy. On it +she wrote with red ink in the cramped hand of the bazaar _Kerani_:[9] + +[Footnote 9: Hired writer.] + + "Sir:--Will you please to inform to me if Mr. Arnold has gone + mofussil or England as I have some small business with him. Yours + obedient servant, + + "Wun Sing." + +"It can't be forgery," she reflected, "since there isn't a Wun Sing," +and added an artistic postscript, "Boots and shoes verry much cheap for +cash." She made up the envelope to match and addressed it, with +consistent illiteracy, to the head of the mission. The son of the +Chinese basketmaker, who dwelt almost next door, spoke neither English +nor Hindustani, but showed an easy comprehension of her promise of +backsheesh when he should return with an answer. She had a joyful +anticipation, while she waited, of the terms in which she should tell +Arnold how she passed, disguised as a Chinese shoemaker, before the +receptive and courteous consciousness of his spiritual senior; of how +she penetrated, in the suggestion of a pig-tail and an unpaid bill, +within the last portals that might be expected to receive her in the +form under which, for example, certain black and yellow posters were +presenting her to the Calcutta public at that moment. She saw his +scruples go swiftly down before her laughter and the argument of her +tender anxiety, which she was quite prepared to learn foolish and +unnecessary. There was even an adventurous instant in which she leaped +at actual personation, and she looked in rapture at the vivid risk of +the thing before she abandoned it as involving too much. She sent no +receipt-form this time--that was not the practice of the bazaar--and +when, hours after, her messenger returned with weariness, and dejection +written upon him in the characters of a perfunctory Chinese smile, she +could only gather from his negative head and hands that no answer had +been given him, and that her expedient had failed. + +Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were curiously simple. His +world and hers, with the same orbit, had no point of contact. Once +swinging round their eastern centre, they had come close enough for +these two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When they loosed it +seemed they lost. + +The more she gazed at it the more it looked a preposterous thing that in +a city vibrant with human communication by all the methods which make it +easy, it should be possible for one individual thus to drop suddenly and +completely from the knowledge of another--a mediaeval thing. Their +isolation as Europeans of course accounted for it; there was no medium +in the brown population that hummed in the city streets. Hilda could not +even bribe a servant without knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged +the newspapers; they never were more bare of reference to consecrated +labours. The nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling a +social evening given by the Wesleyans in Sudder street, with an +exhibition of the cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and +determination she sent a telegram studiously colourless. "Unable find +you wish communicate please inform. A. Murphy." He had never forgotten +the incongruity she was born to: in occasional scrupulous moments he +addressed her by it; he would recognise and understand. There was no +reply. + +The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the heaviness of it, +waiting. His silence added itself up, brought her a kind of shame for +the exertions she had made. She turned with obstinacy from the further +schemes her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of her unsuccessful +efforts grew a reproach of Arnold; every one of them increased it. His +behaviour she could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty +potential explanations, but not the futility of what she had done. Her +resentment of that undermined all the fairness of her logic, and even +triumphed over the sword of her suspense. She never quite gave up the +struggle, but in effect she passed the week that intervened pinioned in +her unreason--bands that vanished as she looked at them, only to tie her +thrice in another place. + +Life became a permanent interrogation-point. Waiting under it, with a +perpetual upward gaze, perhaps she grew a little dizzy. The sun of March +had been increasing, and the air that Saturday afternoon had begun to +melt and glow and hang in the streets with a kind of inertia, like a +curtain that had to be parted to be penetrated. Hilda came into the +house and faced the stairs with an inclination to leave her body on the +ground floor and mount in spirit only. When she glanced in at the +drawing-room door and saw Arnold sitting under the blue umbrellas, a +little paler, a thought more serene than usual, she swept into the room +as if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a foot-stool close to him, +as if it had dropped her there. He had risen at her appearance. He was +all himself but rather more the priest; his face of greeting had exactly +its usual asking intelligence, but to her the fact that he was normal +was lost in the fact that he was near. He held out his hand, but she +only sought his face speechless, hugging her knees. + +"You are overcome by the sun," he said. "Lie down for a moment," and +again he offered her a hand to help her to rise. She shook her head but +took his hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of happy +deliberation, and drew herself up by it, while her eyes, shining like +dark surfaces of some glorious consciousness within, never left his +face. So she stood beside him with her head bowed, still dumb. It was +her supreme moment; life never again brought her anything like it. It +was not that she confessed so much as that she asserted, she made a +glowing thing plain, cried out to him, still standing silent, the +deep-lying meaning of the tangle of their lives. She was shaken by a +pure delight, as if she unclosed her hand to show him a strange jewel in +her palm, hers and his for the looking. The intensity of her +consciousness swept round him and enclosed him, she knew this +profoundly, and had no thought of the insulation he had in his robe. The +instant passed; he stood outside it definitely enough, yet some +vibration in it touched him, for there was surprise in his involuntary +backward step. + +"You must have thought me curiously rude," he said, as if he felt about +for an explanation, "but your letters were only given to me an hour ago. +We have all been in retreat, you know." + +"In _retreat_!" Hilda exclaimed. "Ah, yes. How foolish I have been! In +retreat," she repeated, softly, flicking a trace of dust from his +sleeve. "Of course." + +"It was held in St. Paul's College," Stephen went on, "by Father Neede. +Shall we sit down? And of course at such times no communications reach +us, no letters or papers." + +"No letters or papers," Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it were, +through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a +chair very near it. There was another placed at a more usual distance, +but she seemed incapable of taking the step or two toward it, away from +him. Stephen gave himself to the grateful sense of her proximity. He had +come to sun himself again in the warmth of her fellowship; he was +stirred by her emphasis of their separation and reunion. "And what, +please," he asked, "have you been doing? Account to me for the time?" + +"While you have been praying and fasting? Wondering what you were at, +and waiting for you to finish. Waiting," she said, and clasped her knees +with her intent look again, swaying a little to and fro in her content, +as if that which she waited for had already come, full and very +desirable. + +"Have you been reading----?" + +"Oh, I have been reading nothing? You shall never go into retreat +again," she went on, with a sudden change of expression. "It is well +enough for you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an indulgence," +she added, unaware of her soft, bright audacity, "that will cover both +our cases." + +His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was extravagant, that it +was a pity, but that what was not due to her profession might be +ascribed to the simple, clear impulse of her temperament--that +temperament which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. + +"I am not to go any more into retreat?" he said, in grave interrogation; +but the hint of rebuke in his voice was not in his heart, and she knew +it. + +"No!" she cried. "You shall not be hidden away like that. You shall not +go alive into the tomb and leave me at the door. Because I cannot bear +it." + +She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on his knee. It was a +claiming touch, and there was something in the unfolded sweetness of her +face that was not ambiguous. Arnold received the intelligence. It came +in a vague, grey, monitory form, a cloud, a portent, a chill menace; but +it came, and he paled under it. He seemed to lean upon his own hands, +pressed one on each side of him to the seat of the sofa for support, and +he looked in fixed silence at the shapely white thing on his knee. His +face seemed to wither, new lines came upon it as the impression grew in +him, and the glamour faded out of hers as she was sharply reminded, +looking at him, that he had not traversed the waste with her, that she +had kept her vigils alone. Yet it was all said and done, and there was +no repentance in her. She only gathered herself together, and fell back, +as it were, upon her magnificent position. As she drew her hand away, he +dropped his face into the cover of his own, leaning his elbow on his +knee, and there was a pulsing silence. The instant prolonged itself. + +"Are you praying?" Hilda asked, with much gentleness, almost a +child-like note; and he shook his head. There was another instant's +pause, and she spoke again. + +"Are you so grieved, then," she said, "that this has come upon us?" + +Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his hands and looking at +the thing nearest to him, while at last blood from the heart of the +natural man in him came up and stained his face, his forehead under the +thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above the white band that was +his badge of difference from other men. + +"I--fear--I hardly understand," he said. The words fell cramped and +singly, and his lip twitched. "It--it is impossible to think----" + +His eyes went in her direction, but lacked courage to go all the way. He +looked as if he dared not lift his head. + +One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there was no failing in the +wings of her high confidence, but she looked at him in a brave silence. +Her glance had tender investigation in it; she stood on the brink of her +words just long enough to ask whether they would hurt him. Seeing that +they would, she nevertheless plunged, but with infinite compassion and +consideration. She spoke like an agent of Fate, conscious and grieved. + +"_I_ understand," she said simply. "Sometimes, you know, we are quicker. +And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is why I must tell +you, because, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly for that +reason I may speak, partly because I love you, Stephen Arnold, better +and more ardently than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, +except, perhaps, your God. And I am tired of keeping silence." + +She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his distress turned to +astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand had been +laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a +flood-gate of happy tenderness in her eyes. + +"Love!" he gasped in it, "I have nothing to do with that." + +"Oh," she said, "you have everything to do with it." + +Something leaped in him without asking his permission, assuring him that +he was a man, until then a placid theory with an unconscious basis. It +was therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have been, but he +warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he had been +ambuscaded. He had to hold himself from the ignominy of flight; he rose +to cut his way out, making an effort to strike with precision. + +"Some perversity has seized you," he said. The muscles about his mouth +quivered, giving him a curious aspect. "You mean nothing of what you +say." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"I--I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can--I can--make +excuse." + +"Ah, don't excuse me!" she murmured, with an astonishing little gay +petulance. + +"You cannot have thought"--in spite of himself he made a step toward the +door. + +"Oh, I did think--I do think. And you must not go." She, too, stood up +and stayed him. "Let us at least see clearly." There was a persuading +note in her voice; one would have thought, indeed, that she was dealing +with a patient, or a child. "Tell me," she clasped her hands behind her +back and looked at him in marvellous, simple candour, "do I really +announce this to you? Was there not in yourself anywhere--deep down--any +knowledge of it?" + +"I did not guess--I did not dream!" + +"And--now?" she asked. + +A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it with +the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must have been by +an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross on Arnold's +breast and closed over it, so that he should see only her. The familiar +vision of her stood close, looking things intolerably new and different. +Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpremeditated rush and +shock in him. He paled with indignation, with the startled resentment of +a woman wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed something +definite--it was anger. He stepped back and caught at his hat. "I am +sorry," he said, "I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond +all that." + +Hilda smiled and turned away. If he choose, it was his opportunity to +go, but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping +her knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on +the carpet, and motes were rising in it. + +"Ah well, so did I," she said meditatively, without raising her eyes. +Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple +way. + +"It was a foolish theory," she said, "and--now--I can't understand it at +all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you." + +It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was +conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him, +he looked at her with something like inquiry. + +"It will always be to me curious," she went on, "that you could have +thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I +find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much +pleasure in me and not--so much more." She opened her lips again, but +kept back the words. "Yes," she added, "that is enough to say." + +But for her colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might +have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned she +could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her +voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him +to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that +would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might +play with his watch-chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed +them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling +in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. "You could not +forget that?" she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself. +He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming. + +"Never!" he said, "Never," but he walked to the nearest chair and sat +down. He seemed suddenly aware that he need not go away, and his head, +as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave and calm. +Without a word a great tenderness filled the space between them; an +interpreting compassion went to and fro. Suddenly a new light dawned in +Hilda's eyes; she leaned forward and met his in an absorption which +caught them out of themselves into some space where souls wander, and +perhaps embrace. The moment died away, neither of them could have +measured it, and when it had finally ebbed--they were conscious of every +subsiding throb--a silence came instead, like a margin for the beauty of +it. After a time the woman spoke. "Once before," she began, but he put +up his hand and she stopped. Then, as if she would no longer be +restrained, "That is all I want," she whispered. "That is enough." + +For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine moment; +the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made quiet +conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then Hilda began to +speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have forgotten her folly in +what she found to say, as Arnold did; you, too, would have drawn faith +and courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, but if this +woman were convicted of the unforgivable sin she could explain it and +obtain justification rather than pardon. + +"Then I may stay?" she said at the end. + +"I am satisfied--if a way can be found." + +"I will find a way," she replied. + +After which he went back through the city streets to his disciples in +new humility and profounder joy, knowing that virtue had gone out of +him. She in her room where she lodged also considered the miracle, twice +wonderful in that it asked no faith of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should think +that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had come and +gone between them for several hours after Arnold left her. It was not +for some time, at all events, that she arrived at the consideration--the +process was naturally downward--that the soul of the marvel lay in the +exact moment of its happening. Nothing could have been more heaven-sent +than her precious perception, exactly then, that before the shining gift +of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser thing from +him must creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, by +infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it remained +permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely +incident that had taken, for the moment, such command of her and of him. +She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct +to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content. +Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with +open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all +that was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It +will be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this, +her backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent +course of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it +entailed a high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of +what the end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled +buoyantly, in the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen +Arnold stood beyond her ultimate possession. + +There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more +favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but +this. Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold +describing her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of success +out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and everything but a calm and +humble statement--any Clarke Brother might have dictated it--of what she +proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was less obvious than the desire +that he should approve it. + +The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an +answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazaar +with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. There was +no service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there. He was +speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma--he had never +quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had--of the intercessory power of +the souls of saints. A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day +before. Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he would be +glad of any good word dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him. The +chapel was deliciously refined. The scent of fresh-cut flowers floated +upon the continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head +against the tall carved altar-piece the Brothers had brought from +Damascus. The seven brass lamps that hung from the rafters above the +altar rails were also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light in +them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place breathed vague +meanings which did not ask understanding. It was a refuge from the riot +and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble +charm, I. H. S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazaar. Stephen +sat in it motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until +the half hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went +out to meet a servant at the door with Hilda's letter. The chapel opened +upon an upper verandah; he crossed it to get a better light and stood to +read with his back half turned upon the comers and goers. + +It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of its +colourlessness, it seemed to lay strong, eager hands upon him, turning +his shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head over the page. +He had not dwelt much upon their strange experience in the days that +followed. It had retreated for him behind the veil of tender mystery +with which he shrouded, even from his own eyes, the things that lay +between his soul and God. The space from that day to this had been more +than usually full of ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, +blotting and deadening the sudden wonder that blossomed then. Latterly +he had hardly thought of it. + +So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar +activities, that he regarded Hilda's letter for an instant with a lip of +censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been admitted. It +was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words expanded into her, +through it she walked back into his life, with an interrogation. +Standing there by the pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of +the interrogation. + +A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister. Arnold +stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the other accepted +with a slightly exaggerated happiness. They might have been girls +together, with their apologies and protestations. The other Brother went +on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold turned back into the chapel, +carrying, it seemed to him, a woman's life in his hand. + +He took his seat and folded his arms almost eagerly; there was a light +of concentration in his eye and a line of compression about his lips +which had not marked his meditation upon Nourendra Lal. The vigour in +his face suggested that he found a kind of athletic luxury in what he +had to think about. Brother Colquhoun, with his flat hat clasped before +his breast, passed down the aisle. Stephen looked up with a trace of +impatience. Presently he rose hurriedly, as if he remembered something, +and went and knelt before one of several paintings that hung upon the +chapel walls. They were old copies of great works, discoloured and +damaged. They had sailed round the Cape to India when the century was +young, and a lady friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale of +the effects of a ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those who could +separate them from their incongruous history and consecrate them over +again. He often found them helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, +and in any special matter a special comfort. He bent for ten minutes +before a Crucifixion, and then hastened back to his place. Only one +reflection corrected the vigourous satisfaction with which he thought +out Hilda's proposition. That disturbed him in the middle of it, and +took the somewhat irrelevant form of a speculation as to whether the +events of their last meeting should have had any place in his Thursday +confession. He was able to find almost at once a conscientious negative +for it, and it did not recur again. + +He got up reluctantly when the Mission bell sounded, and indeed he had +come to the end of a very absorbing interest. His decision was final +against Hilda's scheme. His worn experience cried out at the sacrifice +in it without the illumination--which it would certainly lack--of +religious faith. She confessed to the lack, and that was all she had to +say about her motive, which, of course, placed him at an immense +disadvantage in considering it. But the question then descended to +another plane, became merely a doubt as to the most useful employment of +energy, and that doubt nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable +breadth of view, who had ever seen her expressing the ideals of the +stage. Arnold did his best to ward off all consideration which he could +suspect of a personal origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped +in and counted, naturally enough, under another guise, counted against +her staying. + +He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, simplest of +letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He would have been +perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her; +Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten +days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, +he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance +as to the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her +begone to the light and fulness of her own life and fastened up his +letter, he deliberately lifted it to his lips, and placed a trembling, +awkward kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory, yet +bearing a tender intention. + +The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey +having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered with +more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening in +Middleton street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was +half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting +his tablets, he found that he had nothing that was really of any +consequence to do. There were items, but they were unimportant, +transferable. He had dismissed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she +helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of his day. He made an +errand involving a long walk, and came back at an hour which left +nothing but evensong between him and eight o'clock. + +He was suddenly aware, as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to +his appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he +assured her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom +had certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck +and her waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of the +agreeable things she found to say. It was delightful the way she +declared herself quite a different being and the pleasure with which she +moved, dragging fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She made +more of an impression upon him on the aesthetic side than she had ever +done before; she seemed more highly vitalised, her fineness had greater +relief and her charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and Arnold glanced +from one to the other of them, first with a start, then with a smile, at +the recollection of Hilda's conception of their relations. If this were +a type and instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the +songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding +her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and +finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted +direction. It was a very flower of emotional _naivete_, though a moment +later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it +might have abashed him to say what concern it had in the mind of the +Order of St. Barnabas. It was gratifying, nevertheless, to have his +observation confirmed by the way in which Alicia leaned across him +toward Lindsay with occasional references to Laura Filbert, apparently +full of light-heartedness, references which Duff received in the +square-shouldered, matter-of-course fashion of his countrymen +approaching their nuptials in any quarter of the globe. It was +gratifying, and yet it enhanced in Stephen this evening the indrawing of +his under-lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke upon the +faces of quite half the Order of patience under privation. + +The atmosphere was one of congratulation; the week's _Gazette_ had +transformed Surgeon-Major Livingstone into Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel. +The officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt bosom--he +had them laundried in England and sent out with the mails--made a +serious social effort to correspond, and succeeded in producing more +than one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her Majesty's +forces in India which none of them heard before. They were all delighted +at Herbert's step, he was just the kind of person to get a step, and to +get it rather early; a sense of the propriety of it mingled with the +general gratification. There was a feeling of ease among them, too, of +the indefeasibly won, which the event is apt to bring even when the +surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly deserved. With no strain +imaginable one could see the relaxation. + +"We can't do much in celebration," Lindsay was saying, "but I've got a +box at the theatre, if you'll come. Our people had some pomfret and +oysters over on ice from Bombay this morning, and I've sent my share to +Bonsard to see what he can do with it for supper. Jack Cummins and Lady +Dolly are coming. By the way, what do you think the totalizator paid +Lady Dolly on Saturday--six thousand!" + +"Rippin'," Herbert agreed. "We'll all come--at least--I don't know. What +do you say, Arnold?" + +"Of course Stephen will come," Alicia urged. "Why not?" It was putting +him and his gown at once beyond the operation of vulgar prejudice, +intimating that they quite knew him for what he was. + +"What's the piece?" Herbert inquired. + +"Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only that Hilda Howe is +worth seeing in almost anything." + +"Thanks," Stephen put in, "but I think, thanks very much, I would rather +not." + +"I remember," Alicia said, "you were with us the night she played in +_The Reproach of Galilee_. I don't wonder that you do not wish to +disturb that impression." + +Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of crystallized cherries +immediately in front of him and appeared to consider, austerely, what +form his reply should take. There was an instant's perceptible pause, +and then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if vaguely to acknowledge the +kindness of her recollection. "I think," he said again, "that I will not +accompany you to-night, if you will be good enough to excuse me." + +"You must excuse us both," Alicia said, definitely, "I should much +rather stay at home and talk to Stephen." + +At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone would not change her +mind. "I haven't seen him for three weeks," she said, with gentle +effrontery, making nothing of his presence, "and he's much more +improving than either of you. I also shall choose the better part." + +"How you can call it that, with Hilda in the balance----" Duff +protested. + +"But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After winning six thousand there +will be no holding Lady Dolly. She'll be capable of cat-calls! How I +should love," Alicia went on, "to have Hilda meet her. She would be a +mine to Hilda." + +"For pity's sake," cried her brother, "stop asking Hilda and people who +are a mine to Hilda! It's too perceptible, the way she digs in them." + +"You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does +it make? They never know--they never dream! I wish I could dig." Alicia +looked pensively at the olive between her finger and thumb. + +"Thank heaven you can't," Duff said warmly. It was a little odd, the +personal note. Alicia's eyes remained upon the olive. + +"It's all she lives for." + +"Well," Duff declared, "I can imagine higher ends." + +"You're not abusing Hilda!" Alicia said, addressing the olive. + +"Not at all. Only vindicating you." + +It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and Arnold sat as +spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. + +"I suppose she will be off soon," Livingstone said. + +"Oh, dreadfully soon. On the 15th. I had a note from her to-day." + +"Did she say she was going?" Stephen asked quickly. + +"She mentioned the company--she is the company, surely." + +"Oh, undoubtedly. May I--might I ask for a little more soda-water, +Alicia?" He made the request so formally that she glanced at him with +surprise. + +"Please do--but isn't it very odious, by itself, that way? I suppose we +shouldn't leave out Hamilton Bradley--he certainly counts." + +"For how much?" inquired her brother. "He's going to pieces." + +"Hilda can pull him together again," Lindsay said incautiously. + +"Has she an influence for good--over him?" Stephen inquired and cleared +his throat. He caught a glance exchanged and frowned. + +"Oh, yes," Duff said, "I fancy it is for good. For good, certainly. The +odd part of it is that he began by having an influence over her which +she declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it +turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To my mind, he speaks +like a bit of consecrated stage tradition and looks like a bit of +consecrated stage furniture--he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips, +and his thin eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eyebrows." + +"They'll end by marrying," said Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Livingstone. + +"_Herbert!_ How little you know her!" + +"It's possible enough," Duff said, "especially if she finds him in any +way necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked about too +much to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would place that +first." + +"You are saying a thing which is monstrous!" cried Alicia. + +Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. "She'll have to marry +him to get rid of him," he said. "Fancy the opportunities of worrying +her the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!" + +"Oh, if you think Hilda could be _worried_ into anything!" Miss +Livingstone exclaimed derisively. "If the man were irritating, do you +suppose she wouldn't arrange--wouldn't find means--?" + +"She would have him put in irons, no doubt," Herbert retorted, "or +locked up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher." + +The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, looking up, came in at the +end with a smile. Alicia pronounced her brother too absurd, and unfitted +by nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda Howe. "A mere man +to begin with," she said. "You haven't the ghost of a temperament, +Herbert, you know you haven't." + +"He's got a lovely bedside manner," Lindsay remarked, "and that's the +next thing to it." + +"Rubbish! I don't want to hurry you," Alicia glanced at the watch on her +wrist, "but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the first act you +had better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee comfortably in the +drawing-room and find what excuses we can for you." + +But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of slightly rigid +deprecation. + +"If it is not too vacillating of me," he said, "and I may be forgiven, I +think I will change my mind and go. I have no business to break up your +party, and besides, I shall probably not have another opportunity--I +should rather like to go. To the theatre, of course, that is. Not to +Bonsard's, thanks very much." + +"Oh, do come on to Bonsard's," Lindsay said, and Alicia protested that +he would miss the best of Lady Dolly, but Stephen was firm. Bonsard's +was beyond the limit of his indulgence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Only the Sphinx confronted them, after all, when they arrived at the +theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent +her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain; +Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box. +Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her +a good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling +Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her side, to observe how very perfect +and adorable the cut of her bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was +accustomed to say in moments when his humour escaped his discretion, +that there was more in a good fit than meets the eye, the _role_ of Lady +Dolly's elbows could hardly be dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the +husband attached to the elbows belonged to the Department of which +Colonel John was the head, so that they rested, one may say, upon a very +special plane. + +Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking Colonel Cummins' place, +which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit, assuring the usurper, +with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen +without turquoises. "Believe it or not as you like, but I like you +better every time I see you in that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her +hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and +"love you better" floated back and dispersed itself among the men. +Alicia smiled the necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew made +compliments to her; it was a kind of cult among them. The men had +sometimes an air of envying their freedom of tongue. "Don't say that," +she returned lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any diamonds." She, +too, looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice but said nothing. It was +doubtless precisely because she distained certain forms of feminine +barter that she got so much for nothing. + +"And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, "did you find +that dear, sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at least, bye +and bye, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it +Good Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns--or do +people eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could +only be sure!" + +Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were +filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh +correctness of their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring +from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, a kind of +lustrous tableau of what it was possible to choose and to enjoy. They +were grouped and shut off in a high light which seemed to proceed partly +from the usual sources and partly from their own personalities; he saw +them in a way which underlined their significance at every point. It +seemed to Stephen that in a manner he profaned this temple of what he +held to be poorest and cheapest in life, a paradox of which he was but +dimly aware in his dejection. A sharp impression of his physical +inferiority to the other men assailed him; his appreciation of their +muscular shoulders had a rasp in it. For once the poverty of spirit to +which he held failed to offer him a refuge. His eye wandered restlessly +as if attempting futile reconciliations, and the thing most present with +him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck of his cassock. He fixed +his attention presently in a climax of passive discomfort on the +curtain, where, unconsciously, his gaze crept with a subtle +interrogation in it to the wide eyeballs of the Sphinx. + +The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second production in the +middle of the week, and although the gallery and rupee seats under it +were nearly empty. The piece accounted for both. When Duff Lindsay said +at dinner that it wasn't "up to much," he spoke, I fancy, from the +nearest point of view he could take to that of the Order of St. +Barnabas. As a matter of fact, _The Victim of Virtue_ was up to a very +great deal, but its points were so delicate that one must have been +educated rather broadly to grasp them, which is again, perhaps, a +foolish contrariety of terms. At all events, they carried no appeal to +the theatre-goers from the sailing ships in the river or the regiments +in the fort, who turned as one man that night to Jimmy Finnigan. + +Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He savoured +the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the _Saturday Review_; +he had cast a remotely observing eye upon the productions of this +particular playwright through that medium for a long time. They formed a +manifestation of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of +speculation from the inner; their author was an acrobat of ideas. +Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes of the angels, yet we have the +habit of supposing that they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, +if the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of +_The Victim of Virtue_. His attitude was quite taken before the +orchestra ceased playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism, +on the basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such +things. Deliberately he gave his mind a surface which should shed +promiscuous invitation, and folded his lips, as it were, against the +rising of the curtain. He thought of Hilda separately, and he looked for +her upon the boards with the _naivete_ of a desire to see the woman he +knew. + +When finally he did see her she made before him a picture that was to +remain with him always as his last impression of an art from which in +all its manifestations on that night he definitely turned. From the +aigrette in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe she was _mondaine_. +Her dress, of some indefinite, slight white material, clasped at the +waist with a belt that gave the beam of turquoises and the gleam of +silver, ministered as much to the capricious ideal of the moment as to +the lines and curves of the person it adorned. The set was the +inevitable modern drawing-room, and she sat well out on a sofa with her +hands, in long black gloves, resting stiffly, palm downward, on each +side of her. It was as if she pushed her body forward in an impulse to +rise: her rigid arms thrust her shoulders up a little and accented the +swell of her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude. It expressed a +temperament, a character, fifty other things, but especially epitomised +the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing-rooms. In that +first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she presently, +by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to be, so dazzling and +complete that Stephen literally blinked at the revelation. He made an +effort, for a moment or two, to pursue and detect the woman who had been +his friend; then the purpose of his coming gradually faded from his +mind, and he stood with folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the +other, the Mrs. Halliday on the sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a +purple destiny. + +The play proceeded and Stephen did not move--did not wince. When Mrs. +Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest apostle of +expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives, love your husbands,'" he +even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished +himself familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton Bradley came +jauntily on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that immorality was +really only shortsightedness. Lady Dolly, in front, repeated Lord +Ingleton's phrase with ingenuous wonder. "I know it's clever," she +insisted, "but what does it mean? Now that other thing--what was +it?--'Subtract vice, and virtue is what is left'--that's an easy one. +Write it down on your cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I _shall_ +be so sick if I forget it." + +Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of Lady +Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the play, +wholly involved in an effort which the author would doubtless have +resented, to keep its current and direction through the floating debris +of constrained sayings with which it was encumbered, to know in advance +whither it was carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how far Lord Ingleton +would accompany. When Lord Ingleton paused, as it were, to beg four +people to "have nothing to do with sentiment--it so often leads to +conviction," and the house murmured its amusement, Arnold shifted his +shoulders impatiently. "How inconsistent," Lord Ingleton reproached Mrs. +Halliday a moment later, "to wear gloves on your hands and let your +thoughts go candid." Arnold turned to Duff. "There's no excuse for +that," he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon Hilda's rejoinder and did +not hear him. + +At the end of the first act, where, after introducing Mrs. Halliday to +her husband's divorced first wife, Lord Ingleton is left rubbing his +hands with gratification at having made two such clever women "aware of +each other," Stephen found himself absolutely unwilling to discuss the +piece with the rest of the party. As he left the box to walk up and down +the corridor outside where it was cooler, he heard the voice of Colonel +Cummins lifted in further quotation: "'To be good _and_ charming--what a +sinful superfluity!' I'm sure nobody ever called you superfluous, Lady +Dolly," and was vividly aware of the advisability of taking himself and +his Order out of the theatre. He had not been gratified, or even from +any point appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so +perfect that it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest him. +He had no means of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the +restless brilliant type that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the +problems of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He was too far +from the circle of her modern influence to consider her with anything +but impatience if he had met her original person, and her reflection, +her reproduction, seemed to him frivolous and meaningless. If he went +then, however, he would go as he came, in so far as the play was +concerned; the first act, relying altogether upon the jugglery of its +dialogue, gave no clue to anything. He owed it to Hilda, after all, to +see the piece out. It was only fair to give her a chance to make the +best of it. He decided that it was worth a personal sacrifice to give it +her and went back. + +He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea of the play, and +sufficiently absorbed in its progress, at the end of the second act, to +permit Lady Dolly to capture him before it occurred to him that he had +the use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that it reduced him to +something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be +more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen +that that was what she called _real_ wickedness, the kind that did the +most harm, and invited him, by inference, to a liberal judgment of +stupid sinners. He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes +nervously fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the +third act began. Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel +Cummins, and folded his arms again at the back of the box. + +Before it was finished he had the gratification of recognising at least +one Hilda that he knew. The newspapers found in her interpretation the +development of a soul, and one remembered, reading them, that a _cliche_ +is a valuable thing in a hurry. A phrase which spoke of a soul bruised +out of life and rushing to annihilation would have been more precise. +The demand upon her increased steadily as the act went on, and as she +met it, there slipped into her acting some of her own potentialities of +motive and of passion. She offered to the shaping circumstance rich +material and abundant plasticity, and when the persecution of her +destiny required her to throw herself irretrievably away, she did it +with a splendid appreciation of large and definite movements that was +essentially of herself. + +The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that caught the breath--a +disinterment on the stage in search of letters that would prove the +charge against the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her +letters buried with the poet. It was an advantage which only the husband +of Mrs. Halliday would have claimed to bring so helpless a respondent +before even the informal court at the graveyard; but it gave Hilda a +magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to the skull, holding it +tenderly with both hands, while Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively in +advance of the practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady +through the divorce court and in the final scene offer to her and to the +prejudices of the British public the respectability of his name. + +It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the audience uncertain +whether, after all, enough attention had been paid to that tradition of +the footlights which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and +compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. Duff Lindsay +turned, as the wave of clapping spent itself, to say to Stephen that he +had never respected Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to +Herbert Livingstone instead; the priest had disappeared. + +The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made his way among them in +a direction which was not that of the exit. He went with hurried +purpose, in the face of them all, toward the region, badly lighted and +imperfectly closed, which led to the rear of the stage. He opened doors +into dark closets, and one which gave upon the road, retraced his +unfamiliar steps and asked a question, to which--it was so unusual from +one in his habit--he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment +later he passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a +hostile stare and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a +door upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a +poster, of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when +she cried, "Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single +chair the place contained in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A +Mohammedan servant, who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. +Various garments hung about on nails driven into the unpainted walls, +others overflowed from a packing-box in one corner. A common teak-wood +dressing-table held make-up saucers and powder-puffs and some remnants +of cold fowl which had not been partaken of, apparently, with the +assistance of a knife, and fork. A candle stood in an empty soda-water +bottle on each side of the looking-glass, and there was no other light. +On the floor a pair of stays, old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern. +The place looked sordid and miserable, and Hilda, sitting in the middle +of it, still in the yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. Halliday, all +wrong at that range, gave it a note of false artifice, violent and +grievous. Stephen stood in the doorway grasping the handle, saying +nothing, and an instant passed before she knew with certainty, in the +wretched light, that it was he. Then she sprang up and made a step +toward him as if toward victory and reward, but checked herself in time. +"Is it possible?" she exclaimed. "I did not know you were in the +theatre." + +"Yes," he said, with moderation, "I have seen this--this damnable play." + +"Damnable? Oh!----" + +"It has caused me," he went on, "to regret the substance of my letter +this morning. I failed to realise that this was the kind of work you +devote your life to. I now see that you could not escape its malign +influence--that no woman could. I now think that the alternative that +has been revealed to you, of remaining in Calcutta, is a chance of +escape offered you by God himself. Take it. I withdraw my foolish, +ignorant opposition." + +"Oh," she cried, "do you really think----" + +"Take it," he repeated and closed the door. + +Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had finished unlacing +her shoes. A little tender smile played oddly about her carmined lips. +"Dear heart," she said aloud, "I was going to." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +"I would simply give anything to be there," Miss Livingstone said, with +a look of sincere desire. + +"I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. You might meet men +you knew who had been invited by particular lady friends among the +company." + +"Oh, well, that of course would be odious." + +"Very, I should think," Hilda agreed. "You must be satisfied with a +faithful report of it. I promise you that." + +"You have asked Mr. Lindsay," Alicia complained. + +"That's quite a different thing--and if I hadn't Llewellyn Stanhope +would. Stanhope cherishes Duff as he cherishes the critic of the +_Chronicle_. He refers to him as a pillar of the legitimate. Whenever he +begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, 'I'm sure Mr. Lindsay +would come.'" + +Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in Middleton street, on the +point of departure. It was to be the night of her last appearance for +the season and her benefit, followed by a supper in her honour, at which +Mr. Stanhope and his company would take leave of those whose +acquaintance, as he expressed it, business and pleasure had given them +during the months that were past. It was this function that Alicia, at +the top of the staircase, so ardently desired to attend. + +"No, I won't kiss you," Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek +forward; "I'm so divinely happy--some of it might escape." + +Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran down stairs. "Remember," she said, +"I don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my reverend cousin or +with you. I think you ought to find some other way or let it go. Go home +instead; go straight to London and insist on your chance. After six +weeks you will have forgotten the name of his Order." + +Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the dawn and +promise of success. "Don't blaspheme," she cried. Alicia, leaning down, +was visited by a flash of quotation. "Well," she said, "'nothing in this +life becomes you like the leaving of it,'" and went back to her room to +write to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote often to Miss Filbert, at +Duff's request. It gratified her that she was able, without a pang, to +address four pages of pleasantly colourless communication to Mr. +Lindsay's _fiancee_. Her letters stood for a medicine surprisingly easy +to take, aimed at the convalescence which she already anticipated in the +future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. If that event had +promised fortuitously she would have faced it, one fancies, with less +sanguine anticipations for herself; but the black disaster that rode on +with it brought her certain aids to the spirit, certain hopes of +herself. Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible margins and +painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss Livingstone looked forward +to. She read them with a beating heart in the unconscious apprehension +of some revelation of improvement. She was quite unaware of it, but she +entertained toward the Simpsons an attitude of misgiving in this regard. + +Hilda went on about her business. As usual, her business was important +and imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last day. She drove +about from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting more than +her usual vigour and directness into all she did. It seemed to her that +the sunlight burning on the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets, +had more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to her, came to her, +from the profuse and ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she +leaned a little forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that +said, "I know. I see." She was living for the moment which should exhale +itself somewhere about midnight, after the lights had gone out on her +last appearance, living for it as a Carmelite might live for the climax +of her veil and her vows if it were conceivable that beyond the cell and +the grating she saw the movement and the colour and the passion of a +wider life. All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, of +which she was altogether mistress, riding it and reining it in a +straight course through the encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer +and more eager susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, +passing into a composite day which the years were hardly to dim for her. + +She could live like that, for the purposes of a period, wrought up to +immense keenness of sense and brilliancy of energy, making steadily for +some point of feeling or achievement flashing gloriously on the horizon. +It is already plain, perhaps, that she rejoiced in such strokes, and +that life as she found it worth living was marked by a succession of +them. + +She had kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant to do. When she stepped +from his brougham, flushed after the indubitable triumph of the evening, +with her arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's--no eight-anna +bazaar confections edged with silver tinsel--it occurred to her that +this reticence was not altogether fair to so constant a friend. He was +there, keen and eager as ever in all that concerned her, foremost with +his congratulations on the smiling fringe of the party assembled to do +her honour. It was a party of some brilliance in its way, though its way +was diverse; there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the company +that it comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, editor of the _Indian +Sportsman and Racing Gazette_, was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of the +Bank of Hindustan, who could hardly have been an owner on three hundred +rupees a month without conspicuous ability disconnected with his +ledgers; and Hagge looked gratified. Though so promising, he was young. +Lord Bobby was there from Government House. Lord Bobby always +accompanied the talent, who were very kind to him. He was talking, when +Hilda arrived, to the editor of the _Indian Empire_, who wanted to find +out the date of Her Excellency's fancy-dress party for children, in +order that he might make a leaderette of it; but Lord Bobby couldn't +remember--had to promise to drop him a line. Gianacchi was there, trying +to treat Fillimore with coldness because the _Sportsman_ had discovered +too many virtues in his _Gadfly_, exalted her, indeed, into a favourite +for Saturday's hurdle race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt +himself too modest. "They say," Fillimore had written, "that the +_Gadfly_ has been seen jumping by moonlight"--the sort of the thing to +spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man with +a peculiarly sweet smile and an air of cynicism which gave to his +lightest word a dangerous and suspicious air. It was rumoured in +official circles that he had narrowly escaped beheading, for pointing +out too ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy who insisted on +reviewing the troops from a cushioned carriage with the horses taken +out. Fillimore seemed to think that if nature had not made such a +nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have made him +Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, +however, found it impossible to treat him coldly. His smoothness of +temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted the melodious +information that the _Gadfly_ had pecked badly twice at Tollygunge that +morning, and smiled with pathetic philosophy. "Always let 'em use their +noses," said Fillimore, and there seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore +certainly had a flair, and when Beryl Stace presently demanded of him, +"What's the dead bird going to be on Saturday, Filly?" he put it +generously at her service. Among the friends of Mr. Stanhope and his +company were also several gentlemen, content, for their personal effect, +with the lustre they shed upon the Stock Exchange--gentlemen of high +finance, who wrote their names at the end of directors' reports, but +never in the visitors' book at Government House, who were little more to +the Calcutta world than published receipts for so many lakhs, except +when they were seen now and then driving in fleet dog-carts across the +Maidan toward comfortable suburban residences where ladies were not +entertained. They were extremely, curiously devoted to business; but if +they allowed themselves any amusement other than company promoting it +was the theatre, of which their appreciation had sometimes an odd +relation to the merits of performance. This supper, on the part of Miss +Beryl Stace and one or two other of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have +been considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, since the +suburban residences stood lavishly open to the profession. + +Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an eye that looked for +the sentiment, the pity of things, would have distinguished at once on +about half the faces, especially those of the women, the used underlined +look that spoke of the continual play of muscle and forcing of feeling. +It gave them a shabbily complicated air, contrasting in a strained and +sorry way even with the countenances of the brokers and bankers, where +nature had laid on a smooth wash and experience had not interfered. They +were all gay and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered; they loafed forward, +broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in financial pockets, with their +admiration, and Fillimore put out his cigarette. Hilda came down among +them from the summit of her achievement, clasping their various hands. +They were all personally responsible for her success, she made them feel +that, and they expanded in the conviction. She moved in a kind of tide +of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from every human flavour in the +room the power to hold and show something akin to it in herself, a +fugitive assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour of the +flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with the occasion. They looked +at her up and down the table with an odd smiling attraction; they told +each other that she was in great form. Mr. Fillimore was of the opinion +that she couldn't be outclassed at the Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded +with vivacity that there were few places where she wouldn't stretch the +winner's neck. The feast was not, after all, one of great bounty, Mr. +Stanhope justly holding that the opportunity, the little gathering, was +the thing, and it was not long before the moment of celebration arrived +for which the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, to judge from their +undrained glasses, seemed to be reserving themselves. There certainly +had been one tin of pate, and it circulated at that end; on the other +hand, the ladies had all the fondants. So that when Mr. Llewellyn +Stanhope rose with the sentiment of the evening, he found satisfaction, +if not repletion, in the regards turned upon him. + +Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran a hand through his +yellow hair, not dramatically, but with the effect of collecting his +ideas. He leaned a little forward; he was extremely, happily +conspicuous. The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to overcome +him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure; Hilda's beside him was bent a +little, waiting. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Stanhope, looking with precision up and +down the table to be still more inclusive, "we have met together +to-night in honour of a lady who has given this city more pleasure in +the exercise of her profession than can be said of any single performer +during the last twenty years. Cast your eye back over the theatrical +record of Calcutta for that space of time, and you yourselves will admit +that there has been nobody that could be said to have come within a mile +of her shadow, if I may use the language of metaphor. [Applause, led by +Mr. Fillimore.] I would ask you to remember, at the same time, that this +pleasure has been of a superior class. I freely admit that this is a +great satisfaction to me personally. Far be it from me to put myself +forward on this auspicious occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, if I +have one ambition more than another, it is to promote the noble cause of +the unfettered drama. To this I may say I have been vowed from the +cradle, by a sire who was well known in the early days of the metropolis +of Sydney as a pioneer in the great movement which has made the dramatic +talent of Australia what it is. To-day a magnificent theatre rises on +the site forever consecrated to me by those paternal labours, but--but I +can never forget it. In Miss Hilda Howe I have found a great coadjutor, +and one who is willing to consecrate her royal abilities in the same +line as myself, so that we have been able to maintain a high standard of +production among you, prices remaining as usual. I have to thank you, as +representing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind support +which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, the company, and myself +personally, during the past season. Many a time ladies and gentlemen of +my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stanhope, why do you go to Calcutta? +That city is a death-trap for professionals,' and now the past season +proves that I was right and they were wrong; and the magnificent houses, +the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have greeted our efforts, +especially on the Saturday evening performances, show plain enough that +when a good thing is available, the citizens of Calcutta won't be happy +till they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to join me in +drinking the health, happiness, and prosperity of Miss Hilda Howe." + +"Miss Howe!" "Miss Howe!" "Miss Hilda Howe!" In the midst of a pushing +back of chairs and a movement of feet, the response was quick and +universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and waving glasses with a +slow movement of her beautiful eyes and a quiet smile. In the subsidence +of sound Mr. Stanhope's voice was heard again: "We can hardly expect a +speech from Miss Howe, but perhaps Mr. Hamilton Bradley, whose +international reputation need hardly be referred to, will kindly say a +few words on her behalf." + +Then, with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her chair, a tall figure +among them, looking down with a hint of compassionateness on the little +man at her left. She stood for an instant without speaking, as if the +flushed silence, the expectation, the warm magnetism that drew all their +eyes to her were enough. Then out of something like reverie she came to +the matter. She threw up her beautiful face with one of the supreme +gestures which belonged to her. "I think," she said, with a little +smiling bow in his direction, "that I will not trouble my friend Mr. +Bradley. He has rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure +I might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do +for myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from +my heart to his." There was something like bravado in the glance that +rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of +hearts between them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. "I can +only offer you my thanks, poor things to which we can give neither life +nor substance, yet I beg that you will somehow take them and remember +them. It is to me, and will always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction +that you were pleased to come together to-night to tell me I had done +well. You know yourselves, and I know, how much too flattering your +kindness is, but perhaps it will hurt nobody if to-night I take it as it +is generously offered, and let it make me as happy as you intend me to +be. At all events, no one could disturb me in believing that in +obtaining your praise and your good wishes I have done well enough." + +For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she held them with her eyes +from the mistake of supposing she had done. Lindsay, who was watching +her closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the sweetness and +precision of what she found to say, noted a swift constriction pass upon +her face, and was ready to swear to himself in astonishment that tears +were in her eyes. There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her voice +when she raised it again, a firmer vibration, as if she passed, +deliberate and aware, out of one phase into another. + +"No," she went on, "I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that I +should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and go +on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it +likely that our ways will cross again." Here her words grew suddenly low +and hurried. "If I may tresspass upon your interest so much further, I +have to tell you that my connection with the stage closes with this +evening's performance. To-morrow I join the Anglican Order of the +Sisters of St. Paul--the Baker Institution--in Calcutta, as a novice. +They have taken me without much question because--because the plague +hospitals of this cheerful country"--she contrived a smile--"have made a +great demand upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say." + +It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was too +effective. In any case it was received in silence, the applause that was +ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity +of Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it found words, but +that gentleman's protests were made in violent whispers, to which Hilda, +who sat playing with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever. +One might have thought her more overcome than anyone, she seemed to make +one or two unsuccessful efforts to raise her head. There was a moment of +waiting for someone to reply: eyes were turned toward Mr. Bradley, and +when it became plain that no one would, broken murmurs of talk began +with a note of deprecation and many shakes of the head. The women +especially looked tragically at their neighbours with very wide-open +eyes. Presently a chair was drawn back, then another, and people began +to filter, in slow embarrassment, toward the door. Lindsay came up with +Hilda's cloak. "You won't mind my coming with you," he said; "I should +like to hear the details." Beryl Stace made as if to embrace her, +pouring out abusive disbelief, but Hilda waved her away with a gesture +almost of irritation. Some of the others said a perfunctory word or two +and went away with lingering backward looks. In a quarter of an hour Mr. +Lindsay's brougham had followed the other vehicle into the lamp-lit ways +of Calcutta and only the native table servants remained in somewhat +resentful possession of what was left. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception of Miss Filbert by +the Simpsons would involve any strain upon the affection his friends +bore him, the event must have relieved him in no small degree. He was +soon made aware of its happy character and constantly kept assured. +Indeed, it seemed that whenever Mrs. Simpson had nothing else to do she +laid her pen to the task of telling him once again how cherished a +satisfaction they found in Laura and how reluctant they would be to lose +it. She wrote in that strain of facile sympathy which seems part of an +Englishwoman's education, and often begged him to believe that the more +she knew of their sweet and heavenly-minded guest the more keenly she +realised how dreary for him must have been the pang of parting and how +arid the months of separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well acquainted +with these trials of the spirit. She and her husband had been divided by +those wretched thousands of miles of ocean for three years, one week, +and five days, all told, during their married life; she knew what it +meant. But if Duff could only see how well and blooming his beloved one +was--she had gained twelve pounds already--Mrs. Simpson was sure the +time of waiting would pass less heavily. For herself, it was cruel, but +she smiled upon the deferred reunion of hearts: she would keep Laura +till the very last day, and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. +She was just the daughter Mrs. Simpson would have liked, so unspotted, +so pure, so wrapped in high ideals, and then the page would reflect +something of the adoring awe in which Mrs. Simpson would have held such +a daughter. It will be seen that Mrs. Simpson knew how to express +herself, but there was a fine sincerity behind the mask of words; Miss +Filbert had entered very completely into possession. + +It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into possession. +Everything about Laura Filbert had its abnormal side, none the less +obvious because it was inward and invisible. Nature, of course, worked +with her--one might say that nature really did it, since in the end she +was practically unconscious, except for the hope that certain souls had +been saved, that anything of the sort had happened. She conquered the +Simpsons and their friends chiefly by the simple impossibility that they +should conquer her, walking immobile among them even while she admired +Mr. Simpson's cauliflowers and approved the quality of Mrs. Simpson's +house linen. It must be confessed that nothing in her surroundings spoke +to her more loudly or more subtly than these things. In view of what +happened, poor dear Alicia Livingstone's anticipation that the Simpsons +and their circle would have a radical personal effect upon Laura +Filbert, became ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She took no tint, +no curve. She appeared not to see that these precious things were to be +had for the assimilation. Her grace remained exclusively that of +holiness and continued to fail to have any relation to the common little +things she did and said. + +The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been with them hardly a week +before Mrs. Simpson, with touching humility, was trying to remodel her +spiritual nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the word is +admissible, presented. The dear lady had never before realised, by her +own statement, how terribly her religious feelings were mingled with +domestic and social considerations, how firmly her spiritual edifice was +based upon the things of this world. She felt that her soul was +honeycombed--that was her word--with conventionality and false +standards, and she made confessions like these to Laura, sitting in the +girl's bedroom in the twilight. They were very soothing, these +confessions. Laura would take Mrs. Simpson's thin, veined, middle-aged +hand in hers and seem to charge herself for the moment with the +responsibility of the elder lady's case. She did not attempt to conceal +her pity or even her contempt for Mrs. Simpson's state of grace: she +made short work of special services and ladies' Bible classes. The world +was white with harvest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was a +recreation society for shop-girls. But it was something, it was +everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they would uplift +themselves in prayer, and Laura would find words of such touching +supplication in which to represent the matter that the burden of her +friend and hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of tears. +Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much without perceived cause for grief as +since Laura arrived, and this alone would testify, such was the gentle +paradox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss Filbert's +presence. + +Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener daily gave up his +choicest blooms, the tenderest interest watched upon her comings and +goings, and it was the joy of both the Simpsons to make little +sacrifices for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday evening, +for instance, and accompany her to the firemen's halls and skating rinks +lent to the publishing of the Word in the only manner from which their +guest seemed to derive benefit. + +With all this, the Simpsons were sometimes troubled by the impression +that they could not claim to be making their angel in the house +completely happy. The air, the garden, the victoria, the turbot and the +whitebait, these were all that had been vaunted, and even to the modesty +of the Simpsons it was evident that the intimacy they offered their +guest should count for something. There were other friends, too, young +friends who tried to teach her to play tennis, robust and silent young +persons who threw shy, flushed glances at her in the pauses of the +games, and wished supremely, without daring to hint it, that she would +let fall some word about her wonderful romance--a hope ever renewed, +ever to be disappointed. And physically Laura expanded before their +eyes. The colour that came into her cheek gave her the look of a person +painted by Bouguereau. That artist would have found in her a model whom +he could have represented with sincerity. Yet something was missing to +her, her friends were dimly aware. Her desirable surroundings kindled +her to but a perfunctory interest in life: the electric spark was +absent. Mrs. Simpson relied strategically upon the wedding preparations +and hurried them on, announcing in May that it was quite time to think +about various garments of which the fashion is permanent, but the issue +was blank. No ripple stirred the placid waters, unless, indeed, we take +that way of describing Laura's calm demand, when the decision lay +between Valenciennes and Torchon for under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. +Simpson had ever known Duff Lindsay to be anxious about his eternal +future. The girl continued to give forth a mere pale reflection of her +circumstances, and Mrs. Simpson was forced into the deprecation that +perhaps one would hardly call her a joyous Christian. + +But for the Zenana Mission Society this impression of Miss Filbert might +have deepened. The committee of that body was almost entirely composed +of Mrs. Simpson's friends, and naturally came to learn much about her +guest. The matter was vastly considered, but finally Miss Filbert was +asked to speak at one of the monthly meetings the ladies held among +themselves to keep the society "in touch" with the cause. Laura brought +them, as one would imagine, surprisingly in touch. She made pictures for +them, letting her own eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. +She moved these ladies, inspired them, carried them away, and the fact +that none of them found themselves able afterward to quote the most +pathetic passages seemed rather to add to the enthusiasm with which they +described the address. The first result was a shower of invitations to +tea, occasions when Laura was easily led into monologue. Miss Filbert +became a cult of the evangelistic drawing-rooms, and the same kind of +forbearance was extended to her little traces of earlier social +experiences as is offered, in salons of another sort, to the +eccentricities of persons of genius. Very soon other applications had to +be met and considered, and Mrs. Simpson freely admitted that Laura would +not be justified in refusing to the Methodists and Baptists what she had +given elsewhere. She reasserted her platform influence over audiences +that grew constantly larger, and her world began to revolve again in +that great relation to the infinities which it was her life to perceive +and point out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with having been +miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to do good in her own way, +and saw that she had beef-tea after every occasion of doing it. She +became, in a way, of public character, and a lady journalist sent an +account of her, with a photograph, to a well-known London fashion-paper. +Perhaps the strongest effect she made was as the voice of the Purity +Association, when she delivered an address, in the picturesque costume +she had abandoned, attacking measures contemplated by Government for the +protection of the health of the army in India. This was reported in full +in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to Duff Lindsay, who +received it, I regret to say, with an unmistakable imprecation. But +Laura rejoiced. Deprived of her tambourine she nevertheless rejoiced +exceedingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The Sister Superior had a long upper lip, which she was in the habit of +drawing still further down; it gave her an air of great diplomatic +caution, almost of casuistry. Her face was pale and narrow. She had eyes +that desired to be very penetrating, and a flat little stooping figure +with a suggestion of extreme neutrality within her voluminous draperies. +She carried about with her all the virtues of a monastic order, patience +was written upon her, and repression, discipline and the love of +administration, written and underlined, so that the Anglican Sister whom +no Pope blessed was more priestly in her personal effect than any +Jesuit. It was difficult to remember that she had begun as a woman; she +was now a somewhat anaemic formula making for righteousness. Sister Ann +Frances, who in her turn suggested the fat capons of an age of friars +more indulgent to the flesh, and whose speech was of the crispest in +this world, where there was so much to do, thought poorly of the +executive ability of the Sister Superior, and resented the imposition, +as it were, of the long upper lip. Out of this arose the only +irritations that vexed the energetic flow of duty at the Baker +Institution, slight official raspings which the Sister Superior +immediately laid before Heaven at great length. She did it with +publicity, too, kneeling on the chunam floor of the chapel for an hour +at a time explaining matters. The bureaucracy of the country was +reflected in the Baker Institution: it seemed to Sister Ann Frances that +her superior officer took undue advantage of her privilege of direct +communication with the Supreme Authority, giving any colour she liked to +the incident. And when the Sister Superior's lumbago came on in direct +consequence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of Sister Ann Frances was +naturally not lessened. + +There were twenty or thirty of them, with their little white caps tied +close under their chins, their long veils and their girdled black robes. +They were the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, the most devout, the +most useful. Government gave hospitals and doctors into their hands; +they took the whole charge of certain schools. They differed in +complexion, some of the newly arrived being delightfully fresh and pink +under their starched bandeaux. But they were all official, they all +walked discreetly and directly about their business, with a jangle of +keys in the folds of their robes, immensely organised, immensely under +orders. Hilda, when she had time, had the keenest satisfaction in +contemplating them. She took the edge off the fact that she was not +quite one, in aim and method, with these dear women, as they supposed +her to be, with the reflection that, after all, it might be worth while +to work out a solution of life in those terms, standing aside from the +world--the world was troublesome--and keeping an unfaltering eye upon +the pity of things, an unfaltering hand at its assuagement. It was +simple and fine and indisputable, this work of throwing the clear shadow +of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the world. It carried the boon +of finality in itself. One might be stopped and put away at any moment, +and nothing would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; and it absolutely +barred out such considerations as were presented by Hamilton Bradley. +There was a time early in her probation when she thought seriously that +if it were not Stephen Arnold it should be this. + +She begged to be put on hospital work and was sent for her indiscretion +to teach in the Orphanage for Female Children of British Troops. The +first duty of a novice was to be free of preference, to obey without a +sigh of choice. On the third day, however, Sister Ann Frances, +supervising, stopped at the open schoolroom door to hear the junior +female orphans repeating in happy chorus after their instructress the +statement that seven times nine were fifty-six. I think Hilda saw Sister +Ann Frances in the door. That couldn't go on, even in the name of +discipline, and Miss Howe was placed at the disposal of the chief +nursing Sister at the General Hospital next day. Sister Ann Frances was +inclined to defend Hilda's imperfect acquaintance with primary +arithmetic. + +"We all have our gifts," she said. "Miss Howe's is not the +multiplication table, but neither is mine stage-acting." At which the +upper lip lengthened further into an upward-curving smile, and the +Sister Superior remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss Howe would +develop one for making bandages, otherwise---- + +The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation with Alicia +Livingstone--perhaps it has been plain that they were not quite the +ordinary feminine liens--seems to me to be sounded in the tacit +acceptance of Hilda's novitiate on its merits that fell between the two +women. The full understanding of it was an abyss between them, across +which they joined hands, looking elsewhere. Even in the surprise of +Hilda's announcement Alicia had the instinct to glance away, lest her +eyes should betray too many facts that bore upon the situation. It had +never been discussed, but it had to be accepted and occasionally +referred to; and the terms of acceptance and reference made no +implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost privacy Alicia gazed +breathless at the conception as a whole; she leaped at it, and caught +it, and held it to look, with a feverish comparison of possibilities. It +was not strange, perhaps, that she took a vivid personal interest in the +essentials that enabled one to execute a flank movement like Hilda's nor +that she should conceive the first of them to be that one must come out +of a cab. She dismissed that impression with indignation as ungenerously +cynical, but it always came back for redismissal. It did not interfere +in the least, however, with her deliberate invitations to Stephen to +come to 10, Middleton street on afternoons or evenings when Hilda was +there. She was like one standing denied in the Street of Abundance; she +had an avidity of the eye for even love's reflection. + +That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to +lament, the loss, the break. + +"You look," cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the +dress of the novice, a kind of understudy of the Sisters' black and +white, "you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and +yet made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing those things I +shall end by understanding you perfectly." + +"If you don't understand me," Hilda said, dropping into the corner of a +sofa, "_Cela que je m'en doute_, it's because you look for too much +elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad +brush--_voila tout!_" + +Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The neutrality +of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: one saw in a +special way the significance of lines and curves; it was an +astonishingly vigourous human expression. + +Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin +tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in a light +blue muslin sleeve of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour +found a wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was +accustomed to the look and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being +made impatient by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however +charming. + +"Just now," Alicia said, "the shadows under your eyes are brushed too +deep." + +"I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory." + +"Horrible! All the little privacies of life--don't you miss them?" + +"I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given me +the luxury of curtains--I don't miss them. An occasional blind--a closed +door--and those we got even at the Institution. The decencies are +strictly conserved, believe me." + +"One imagines that kind of place is always clean." + +"When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and +believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also--dear +commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there is +some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is +very like other women." + +"It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the Sisters receive +you--with the harp and the psaltery?" + +"That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I expected. On the +contrary, they snubbed me--they really did. There were two of them. I +said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange to +me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it. Give me +your absolution in advance--at least your blessing." + +"Hilda, you didn't!" + +"It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, +disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such +diplomacy--funny old thing." + +"They must be _devoured_ with curiosity!" + +"Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on the lip. +It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames, +_entendez_--it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would +go into their ears." + +"And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules." + +"I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They make +the thing simple and--possible. It is a little like living for the first +time in a house all right angles after--after a life-long voyage in a +small boat." + +"Isn't the house rather empty?" + +"Oh, well!" + +Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant bit of lace into +Hilda's bosom. "I can tell you who is interested," she cried. "The +Archdeacon--the Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry. They both dined here last +night; and you lasted from the fish to the pudding. I got so bored with +you, my dear, in your new capacity." + +A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the novice. "What did they +say? Do tell me what they said." + +"There was a difference of opinion. The Archdeacon held that with God +all things were possible. He used an expression more suitable to a +dinner-party, but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. Barberry thought +it wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very cynical. She said anyone could +see that you were as emotional as ever you could be." + +The eyes of the two women met and they laughed frankly. A sense of +expansion came between them, in which for an instant they were silent. + +"Tell me about the hospital," Alicia said presently. + +"Ah, the hospital!" Hilda's face changed. There came into her eyes the +moved look that always waked a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if she +were suddenly aware that she had stepped upon ground where feet like +hers passed seldom. + +"There is nothing to tell you that is not--sad. Such odds and ends of +life, thrown together!" + +"Have you had any experiences yet?" + +Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, and then turned her +head aside to answer as if she closed her eyes on something. + +"Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your language, no. You are +thinking of the resident surgeon, the medical student, the interesting +patient. My resident surgeon is fifty years old; the medical student is +a Bengali in white cotton and patent-leather shoes. I am occupied in a +ward full of deck hands. For these I hold the bandage and the basin; +they are hardly aware of me." + +"You are sure to have them," Alicia said. "They crop up wherever you go +in this world, either before you or behind you." + +Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her companion. "Sometimes," she +said, "you say things that are extremely true in their general bearing. +A fortune-teller with cards gives one the same shock of surprise. Well, +let me tell you, I have been promoted to temperatures. I took +thirty-five to-day. Next week I am to make poultices; the week after +baths and fomentations." + +"What are the others like--the other novices?" + +"Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow--the Sisters are almost +demonstrative to her--and one or two local European girls; the +Commissariat-Sergeant class, I should think." + +"They don't sound attractive and I am glad. You will depend the more +upon me." + +Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. "I will depend," she +said, "a good deal upon you." + +It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again that evening at +dinner. "And is she really throwing her heart into the work?" asked that +dignitary, referring to Miss Howe. + +"Oh, I think so," Alicia said; "Yes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +The labours of the Baker Institution and of the Clarke Mission were very +different in scope, so much so that if they had been secular bodies +working for profit there would have been hardly a point of contact +between them. As it was, they made one, drawing together in affiliation +for the comfort of mutual support in a heathen country where all the +other Englishmen wrote reports, drilled troops, or played polo, with all +the other Englishwomen in the corresponding female parts. Doubtless the +little communities prayed for each other. One may imagine, not +profanely, their petitions rising on either side of the heedless, +multitudinous, idolatrous city, and meeting at some point in the purer +air above the yellow dust-haze. I am not aware that they held any other +mutual duty or privilege, but this bond was known and enabled people +whose conscience pricked them in that direction to give little garden +teas to which they invited Clarke Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure in +doing a benevolent thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody, +except, possibly, the Archdeacon, who was officially exposed to being +asked as well and had no right to complain. The affiliation was thus a +social convenience, since it is unlikely that without it anybody would +have hit upon so ingenious a way of killing, as it were, a Baker Sister +and a Clarke Brother with one stone. It is not surprising that this +degree of intelligence should fail to see the profound official +difference between Baker Sisters and Baker Novices. As the Sister +Superior said, it did not seem to occur to people that there could be, +in connection with a religious body, such words as discipline and +subordination, which were certainly made ridiculous for the time being, +where she and Sister Ann Frances were asked to eat ices on the same +terms with Miss Hilda Howe. It must have been more than ever painful to +these ladies, regarded from the official point of view, when it became +plain, as it usually did, that the interest of the afternoon centred in +Miss Howe, whether or not the Archdeacon happened to be present. Their +displeasure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda felt +obliged, when the next one came, to fall back on her original talent, +and ate her ice abashed and silent, speaking only when she was spoken +to, and then in short words and long hesitations. Thereupon the Sisters +were of opinion that, after all, poor Miss Howe could not help her +unenviable note--she was perhaps more to be pitied on account of it than +anything else. It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even had an +exhibitor's pride in her, and Hilda knew the sensations of a barbarian +female captive in the bonds of the Christians. But she could not afford +to risk being cut off from those little garden teas. All told, they were +few; ladies disturbed by ideas of social duties toward missionaries +being so uncommon. + +She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with +being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity +which contained an element of satisfaction. "It is, of course, a +pleasure to us to meet," he said, "a pleasure to us both." That was part +of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same +openness. He was not even afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave +him always and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told her how, +after a talk with her, he had lain awake until the small hours unable to +stop his excited rush of thought. He added that he was now personally +and selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months before; it +made a difference to him, her being in Calcutta, a sensible and material +difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last +luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; +but since life had brought it in the oddest way, the boon should be met +with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into +his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look +of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them +acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical +complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice firmer, and the +things he found to say more decisive. Nor did any consideration of their +relations disturb him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he +breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda. + +They were walking toward the Institution together the day he explained +to her his gratification that she had elected to remain. Sister Ann +Frances and Sister Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He had an +errand to the Sister Superior--he would go all the way. It was late in +May and late in the afternoon; all the tree-tops on the Maidan were bent +under the sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness from the +sea. It spread fragrances about and shook down blossoms from the +gold-mohur trees. One could see nothing anywhere so red and yellow as +they were except the long coat of a Government messenger, a point of +scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty road. The spreading acres +of turf were baked to every earth colour. Wherever a pine dropped +needles and an old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling +along the ground like smoke. The little party was unusual in walking; +glances of uncomprehending pity were cast at them from victorias and +landaus that rolled past. Even the convalescent British soldiers facing +each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by humped bullocks, and marked +_Garrison Dispensary_, stared at the black skirts so near the powder of +the road. The Sisters in front walked with their heads slightly bent +toward one another; they seemed to be consulting. Hilda reflected, +looking at them, that they always seemed to be consulting: it was the +normal attitude of that long black veil that flowed behind. + +Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands loosely clasped behind +him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes have +with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his +satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them for +a married pair. + +"There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying it," he said, "but you +have done--you do--a great deal for me." + +She turned her tired face upon him with a wistful, measuring look. It +searched his face for an instant and came back baffled. Arnold spoke +with so much kindness, so much appreciation. + +"Very little," she said mechanically, looking at the fresh footprints of +Sister Ann Frances and Sister Margaret. + +"But I know. And can't you tell me--it would make me so very happy--that +I have done something for you too--something that you value?" + +Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into them, and a smile. +She answered as if she spoke to herself, "I should not know how to tell +you." + +Then, scenting wonder in him, she added, "You were thinking of +something--in particular." + +"You have sometimes made me believe," Stephen returned, "that I may +account myself, under God, the accident which induced you to take up +your blessed work. I was thinking of that." + +"Oh," she said, "of that!" and seemed to take refuge in silence. + +"Yes," Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. + +"Oh, you were profoundly the cause! I might say you are, for without you +I doubt whether I should have the--courage----" + +"Oh, no! Oh, no! He who inspired you in the beginning will sustain you +to the end. Think that. Believe that." + +"Will He?" Her voice was neutral, as if it would not betray too much, +but there was a listlessness that spoke louder in the bend of her head, +the droop of her shoulder. + +"For you perhaps," Arnold said, thoughtfully, "there is only one +assurance of it--the satisfaction your vocation brings you now. That +will broaden and increase," he went on, almost with buoyancy, "growing +more and more your supreme good as the years go on." + +"How much you give me credit for!" + +"Not nearly enough--not nearly. Who is there like you?" he demanded, +simply. + +His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her face after them, and the +trace of them was on her eyes and lips. "I have passed two examinations, +at all events," she informed him, with sudden gaiety, "and Sister Ann +Frances says that in two or three months I shall probably get through +the others. Sister Ann Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be +expected. And if I do pass those examinations I shall be what they call +a quick-time probationer. I shall have got it over in six months. Do you +think," she asked, as if to please herself, "that six months will be +long enough?" + +"It depends. There is so much to consider." + +"Yes--it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, but oftener I think it +will take longer." + +"I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the Sisters." + +"I am so undisciplined," murmured Hilda. "I fear I shall cling to my own +opinion. Now we must overtake the others and you must walk the rest of +the way with Sister Ann--no, Sister Margaret, she is senior." + +"I don't at all see the necessity," Stephen protested. He was wilful and +wayward; he adopted a privileged air, and she scolded him. In their +dispute they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances turned her +draped head to look back at them. Then they quickened their steps and +joined the elder ladies, and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the +door of the Institution. She mentioned to the Sister Superior afterward +that young Mr. Arnold was really a delightful conversationalist. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the way the time was passing +in Calcutta during those last three months before Laura should return, +the months of the rains. "Now," said Mrs. Simpson, early in July, "it +will be pouring every day, with great patches of the Maidan under water, +and rivers, my dear, _rivers_, in the back streets," and Laura had a +reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green mould used to +spread itself fresh every morning on the matting under her bed in +Bentinck street. Later on they would agree that perhaps by this time +there was a "break in the rains," and that nothing in the world was so +trying as a break in the rains, the sun grilling down and drawing up +steam from every puddle. In September things, they remembered, would be +at their very worst and most depressing: one had hardly the energy to +lift a finger in September. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort +she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a kind of regret +that it was irretrievably over; she lingered upon a severe illness which +had been part of the experience. She seemed to think that with a little +judicious management she might have spent more time in that climate and +less in England. There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of +Laura, going forth to these dismal conditions with her young life in her +hands, all tricked out for the sacrifice, which left Duff Lindsay and +his white and gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any +sacrifice to Mrs. Simpson was alluring; she would be killed all day +long, in a manner, for its own sake. + +The victim had taken her passage early in October, and during the first +week of that month Plymouth gathered itself into meetings to bid her +farewell. A curiously sacred character had fastened itself upon her. It +was not in the least realised that she was going out to be married to an +altogether secular young broker moving in fashionable circles in one of +the gayest cities in the world. One or two reverend persons, in the +course of commending their young sister to the protection of the +Almighty in her approaching separation from the dear friends who +surrounded her in Plymouth, made references implying that her labours +would continue to the glory of God, taking it as a matter of course. +Miss Filbert was by this time very much impregnated with the idea that +they would, she did not know precisely how, but that would open itself +out. Duff had long been assimilated as part of the programme. All that +money and humility could contribute should be forthcoming from him; she +had a familiar dream of him as her standard-bearer, undistinguished but +for ever safe. + +Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the confusion +of the _Coromandel's_ preparations for departure at London Docks, heard +the familiar strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura immediately +cried, "I shall have friends among the passengers," and Mrs. Simpson so +fair forgot herself as to say, "Yes, if they are nice." The ladies were +sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior cabin luggage. +Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a kind of corroboration of +the necessity of their being nice. "There are always a few delightful +Christian people, if one takes the trouble to find them out, at this end +of the ship," she said, defensively. "I have never failed to find it +so." + +"I don't think much of Christians who are so hard to discover," Laura +said, with decision, and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the +mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself--had she not been +drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the ship; and +who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, could +compare with Laura? The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy with +those dear people who were so strenuously calling down a blessing on the +_Coromandel_ somewhere behind the smoke-stacks, embittered poor Mrs. +Simpson's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell rang the signal +for the last good-bye she embraced her young friend with the fervent +request, "Do make friends with them, dear one--make friends with them at +once;" and Laura said, "If they will make friends with me." + +By the time the ship had well got her nose down the coast of Spain, Miss +Filbert had created her atmosphere and moved about in it from end to end +of the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her atmosphere; one +never knew when it would discharge a question relating to eternity. And +persons unprepared to give satisfaction upon this point--one fears there +are always many on a ship bound east of Suez--found it blighting. They +moved their long chairs out of the way, they turned pointedly +indifferent backs, the lady who shared Miss Filbert's cabin--she +belonged to a smart cavalry regiment at Mhow--went about saying things +with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted all the means. She +attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for +elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this +the Captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the +whist-players inside. In the evening after dinner she established +herself in a sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered voice lifted +itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about the poverty of +the world and the riches of Heaven. The notes mingled with the churning +of the screw and fell in the darkness beyond the ship's lights abroad +upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof. The _Coromandel_ was +crowded, but you could have drawn a wide circle round her chair. On the +morning of the fourth day out--she had not felt quite well enough for +adventures before--she found her way to the second-class saloon, being +no doubt fully justified of her conscience in abandoning the first to +the flippancies of its preference. + +In the second-class end the tone was certainly more like that of +Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of this in coming, almost at once, +upon a little group gathered together for praise and prayer, of which +four or five persons of both sexes, labelled "S. A.," naturally formed +the centre. They were not only praying and praising without +discouragement, they had attracted several other people who had brought +their chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined sometimes +in the chorus of the hymns. There was a woman in mourning who cried a +good deal--her tears seemed to refresh the salvationists and inspired +them to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man in a wide, +soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in the hollows under his +eyes; there was a Church Missionary with an air of charity and +forbearance, and the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment, looking +vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round, red little face +continually waxed and waned in a smile of true contentment. It was not +till later that Laura came to know them all so very well, but her eye +rested on them one after another with approval as she drew near. Without +pausing in his chant--it happened to be one of triumph--without even +looking at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was his own +chair. "Colonel Markin, S. A.," was printed in black letters on its +striped canvas back; Laura noticed that. + +After it was over, the little gathering, Colonel Markin specially +distinguished her. He did it delicately. "I hope you won't mind my +expressin' my thanks for the help you gave us in the singin'," he said. +"Such a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. May I ask where +you got it trained?" + +He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin features. +His eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead very high and +white. There was a pinkness about the root of his nose and a scanty +yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his chin was partly hidden by +a beard equally scanty and even more yellow. He had extremely long white +hands: one could not help observing them as they clasped his book of +devotion. + +Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details. She +knew Colonel Markin by reputation--he had done a great work among the +Cingalese. "It was trained," she said, casting down her eyes, "on the +battlefields of our Army." + +Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen his +chin. He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which might make +it necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something. +But the impression was transitory. Instead of using any rigour he held +out his hand. Laura took it reverently, and the bones shut up, like the +sticks of a fan, in her grasp. "Welcome, comrade!" he said, and there +was a pause, as there should be after such an apostrophe. + +"When you came among us this afternoon," Colonel Markin resumed, "I +noticed you. There was something about the way you put your hand over +your eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father in prayer that spoke to +me. It spoke to me and said, 'Here we have a soul that knows what +salvation means--there's no doubt about that.' Then when, you raised a +Hallelujah, I said to myself, 'That's got the right ring to it.' And so +you're a sister in arms!" + +"I was," Laura murmured. + +"You was--you were. Well, well--I want to hear all about it. It is now," +continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a steward passed them +with a bugle, "the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that you, too," he +bent his head respectfully toward the other half of the ship, "partake +of some meal at this time. But if you will seek us out again at the +meeting between four and five I shall be at your service afterward, and +pleased," he look her hand again, "_pleased_ to see you." + +Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none of +these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, and then +her position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did +not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance +and admired her clothes. Very soon, at her special request, she was +allowed to resign her original place at the table and take a revolving +chair at the nine o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, and six o'clock +tea which sustained the second saloon. Daily ascending the +companion-ladder to the main-deck aft, she gradually faded from +cognisance forward. There they lay back in their long cabin chairs and +sipped their long drinks, and with neutral eyes and lips they let the +blessing go. + +In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went in the +cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex. They could always +make room for her, difficult as it may appear; she held for them an +indefinite store of fascination. Laura would extend herself on a top +berth beside the round-eyed Norwegian to whom it belonged, with the +cropped head of the owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they +passed hours, discussing conversions as medical students might discuss +cases, relating, comparing. They talked a great deal about Colonel +Markin. They said it was a beautiful life. More beautiful, if possible, +had been the life of Mrs. Markin, who was his second wife, and who had +been "promoted to glory" six months before. She had gained promotion +through jungle fever, which had carried her off in three days. The first +Mrs. Markin had died of drink--that was what had sent the Colonel into +the Army, she, the first Mrs. Markin, having willed her property away +from him. Colonel Markin had often rejoiced publicly that the lady had +been of this disposition, the results to him had been so blessed. +Apparently he spoke without reserve of his domestic affairs in +connection with his spiritual experiences, using both the Mrs. Markins +when it was desirable as "illustrations." The five had reached this +degree of intimacy by the time the _Coromandel_ was nearing Port Said, +and every day the hemispheres of sea and sky they watched through the +port-hole above the Norwegian girl's berth grew bluer. + +From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Filbert's immediate return +to the Army. He found her sympathetic to the idea, willing, indeed, to +embrace it with open arms, but there were difficulties. Mr. Lindsay, as +a difficulty, was almost inseparable to anything like a prompt step in +that direction. Colonel Markin admitted it himself. He was bound to +admit it, he said, but nothing, since he joined the Army, had ever been +so painful to him. "I wish I could deny it," he said with frankness, +"but there is no doubt that for the present your first duty is toward +your gentleman, toward him who placed that ring upon your finger." There +was no sarcasm in his describing Lindsay as a gentleman; he used the +term in a kind of extra special sense, where a person less accustomed to +polite usages might have spoken of Laura's young man. "But remember, my +child," he continued, "it is only your poor vile body that is yours to +dispose of. Your soul belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly husband, +especially as you say he is still in his sins, is going to have the +right to interfere." This may seem vague as the statement of a position, +but Laura found it immensely fortifying. That and similar arguments +built her up in her determination to take up what Colonel Markin called +her life-work again at the earliest opportunity. She had forfeited her +rank, that she accepted humbly as a proper punishment, ardently hoping +it would be found sufficient. She would go back as a private, take her +place in the ranks, and nothing in her married life should interfere +with the things that cried out to be done in Bentinck street. Somehow +she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a spiritual companion in arms +since she had confided the affair to Colonel Markin. As he said, they +must hope for the best, but he could not help admitting that he took a +gloomy view of Lindsay. + +"Once he has secured you," the Colonel said, with an appreciative glance +at Laura's complexion, "what will he care about his soul? Nothing." + +Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to expand, their mutual bond to +strengthen, in the close confines of life on board ship, and as if to +seal it and sanctify it permanently, a conversion took place in the +second saloon, owning Laura's agency. It was the maid of the lady in the +cavalry regiment, a hardened heart, as two stewards and a bandmaster on +board could testify. When this occurred, the time that was to elapse +between Laura's marriage and her return to the ranks was shortened to +one week. "And quite long enough," Colonel Markin said, "considering how +much more we need you than your gentleman does, my dear sister." + +It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had very special views +about his dear sister. The other dear sisters looked on with pleasurable +interest, admitting the propriety of it, as Colonel Markin walked up and +down the deck with Laura, examining her lovely nature, "drawing her out" +on the subject of her faith and her assurance. It was natural, as he +told her, that in her peculiar situation she should have doubts and +difficulties. He urged her to lay bare her heart, and she laid it bare. +One evening--it was heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they +were two days past Aden, on the long southeast run to Ceylon--she came +and stood before him with a small packet in her hand. She was all in +white, and more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see anything +in this world, though as to the next his anticipations may have been +extravagant. + +"Now I wonder," said he, "where you are going to sit down?" + +A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his chair forward, but Laura +shook her head. + +"I am going out there," she said, pointing to the furthermost stern, +where passengers were not encouraged to sit, "and I want to consult +you." + +Markin got up. "If there's anything pressin' on your mind," he said, +"you can't do better." + +Laura said nothing until they were alone with the rushing of the screw, +two Lascars, some coils of rope, and a couple of brass compasses. Then +she opened the packet. "These," she said, "these are pressing on my +mind." + +She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls and turquoises, a +heavy band bracelet, studded, Delhi fashion, with gems, and one or two +lesser fantasies. + +"Jewelry!" said Markin. "Real or imitation?" + +"So far as that goes, they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. But +what have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of the +world, the desire that itches in palms that crucify Him afresh daily, +the price of sin?" She leaned against the masthead as she spoke. The +wind blew her hair and her skirt out toward the following seas. With +that look in her eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted on the ship +but who could not stay. + +Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. + +"They must have cost something to buy," he said. + +Laura was silent. + +"And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken them to the Lord in +prayer?" + +"Oh, many times." + +"Couldn't seem to hear any answer?" + +"The only answer I could hear was, 'So long as you have them I will not +speak with you.'" + +"That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet," said the Colonel, fondling +the turquoises, "nobody can say there's any harm in such things, +especially if you don't, wear them." + +"Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I wouldn't +wear them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing +holy. When they were given to me I used--I used to get up in the night +to look at them." + +"Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a remarkably +good clasp." + +"Oh no--no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night----" + +"There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them." + +"I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my +hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!" + +"You can't return them to-night." + +"I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them." + +"Then what--oh, I see--" exclaimed Markin. "You want to give them to the +Army! Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth----" + +"No," cried Laura, with sudden excitement, "not that either. I will give +them to nobody. But this is what I will do!" She seized the bracelet and +flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the smaller +objects, before her companion could stop her, followed it. Then he +caught her wrist. + +"Stop!" he cried. "You've gone off your head--you've got fever. You're +acting wicked with that jewelry. Stop and let us reason it out +together." + +She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand she +freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail +as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and +stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling +she had known, looking at the pearls. As he stared, she kissed them +twice, and then, leaning over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out +of her fingers and fall, into the waves below. The moonlight gave them a +divine gleam as they fell. She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. +"Now," she faltered, "I can be happy again. But not to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +While the _Coromandel_ was throbbing out her regulation number of knots +toward Colombo, October was passing over Bengal. It went with lethargy, +the rains were too close on its heels; but at the end of the long hot +days, when the resplendent sun struck down on the glossy trees and the +over-lush Maidan, there often stole through Calcutta a breath of the +coming respite of December. The blue smoke of the people's cooking fires +began to hang again in the streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant +in the still air. The south wind turned back at the Sunder-bunds; +instead of it, one met around corners a sudden crispness that stayed +just long enough to be recognised and melted damply away. A week might +have two or three of such promises and foretastes. + +Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation at the Baker +Institution, threw the dormitory window wide to them, went out to seek +them. They brought her a new stirring of vitality, something deep within +her leaped up responding to the voucher the evenings brought that +presently they would bring something new and different. She vibrated to +an irrepressible pulse of accord with that: it made her hand strong and +her brain clear for the unimportant matters that remained within the +scope of the monotonous moment. Her spirits gained an enviable +lightness, she began again to see beautiful, touching things in the life +that carried her on with it. She explained to Stephen Arnold that she +was immensely happy at having passed the last of her nursing +examinations. + +"I hardly dare ask you," he said, "what you are going to do now." + +He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he did. + +"I hardly dare ask myself," she answered, and was immediately conscious +that for the first time in the history of their relations she had spoken +to him that which was expedient. + +"I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you," he said firmly. + +"Fancy!" she cried irrelevantly. "I heard the other day that Sister Ann +Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker Institution!" She +laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. When she +laughed he seemed nearly always now to have confidence enough to smile +too. + +"You might ask for another six months." + +"Heavens, no! No--I shall make up my mind." + +"Then you may go away," Arnold said. They were standing at the crossing +of the wide red road from which they would go in different directions. +She saw that the question was momentous to him. She also saw how +curiously the sun sallowed him and how many more hollows he had in his +face than most people. She had a pathetic impression of the figure he +made, in his dusty gown and shoes. "God's wayfarer," she murmured. + +"Come too," she said aloud. "Come and be a Clarke Brother where the +climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke Brothers +everywhere." + +He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He opened +them in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away silently, +lifting his hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His figure +took strange proportions through the tears in her eyes, and she +marvelled at the lightness with which she had touched, had almost +revealed, her heart's desire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +"I knew it would happen in the end," Hilda said, "and it has happened. +The Archdeacon has asked me to tea." + +She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the dormitory, changing at the +same time for a "turn" at the hospital. It was six o'clock in the +afternoon. Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker Institution. +She had come to find that Miss Howe was just going on duty and could not +be taken for a drive. + +"When?" asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a +tamarind tree. + +"Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the pleasure +of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they were his best +friends, on all his committees." + +"Only ladies?" The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in +particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her +attention. + +"Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And _lesquelles +pense-tu, mon Dieu!_" + +"_Lesquelles?_" + +"Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz--what you may call him up on the +frontier, the Brigadier gentleman--Lady Dolly!" + +"You were well chaperoned." + +"And--my dear--he didn't ask a single Sister!" Hilda turned upon her a +face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the Archdiaconal +function. "And--it was wicked considering the occasion--I dropped the +character. I let myself out!" + +"You didn't shock the Archdeacon?" + +"Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself the +reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?" + +"Hilda, you shall not! We all love him--you shall not lead him astray!" + +"You would not think of--the altar--?" + +Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snow-flake upon Hilda's +mood and was swallowed up. "You are very preposterous," she said. "Go +on. You always amuse one." Then as if Hilda's going on were precisely +the thing she could not quite endure, she said quickly, "The +_Coromandel_ is telegraphed from Colombo to-day." + +"Ah!", said Hilda. + +"He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, you +know." + +"Then nothing but shipwreck can save him." + +"Nothing but--what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be happy? I +really think they may." + +"There is not one of the elements that give people, when they commit the +paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be +miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. But +he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his friends, his +circumstances." + +Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon an +accidental phrase. She did not repeat it, she turned it over in her +mind. + +"You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What are you thinking +about?" + +"Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday, I thought him looking rather +wretched." + +A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes. + +"He works so much too hard," she said. "It is an appalling waste. But he +will offer himself up." + +Alicia looked unsatisfied. "He brought Mr. Lappe to tea," Miss Howe +said. + +The shadow went. "Should you think Brother Lappe," she demanded, +"specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, could I allow the +process of my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. He has such a +little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, and such fat, sloping shoulders. +Dear succulent Brother Lappe!" + +A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. Alicia +bowed sweetly and the Sister inclined herself briefly with a cloistered +smile. As she disappeared, Hilda threw a black skirt over her head, +making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered the visit, the +noiseless measured, step, the little deprecating movements of inquiry, +the benevolent recognition of a visitor from a world where people +carried parasols and wore spotted muslins. She even effaced herself at +the door on the track of the other to make it perfect, and came tack in +the happy expansion of an artistic effort to find Alicia's regard +penetrated with the light of a new conviction. + +"Hilda," she said, "I should like to know what this last year has really +been to you." + +"It has been very valuable," Miss Howe replied. Then she turned quickly +away to hang up the black petticoat, and stood like that, shaking out +its folds, so that Alicia might not see anything curious in her face as +she heard her own words and understood what they meant. + +A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to where Hilda stood. She +had the olive cheeks and the liquid eyes of the country; her lips were +parted in a smile. + +"Miss Howe," she said in the quick, clicking syllables of her race, +"Sister Margaret wishes you to come immediately to the surgical ward. A +case has come in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister Margaret will +not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says you are due by right in +five minutes"--the messenger's smile broadened irresponsibly, and she +put a fondling touch upon Hilda's apron string--"so will you please to +make haste?" + +"What's the case?" asked Hilda, "I hope it isn't another ship's-hold +accident." But Alicia, a shade paler than before, put up her hand. "Wait +till I'm gone," she said, and went quickly. The girl had opened her +lips, however, but to say that she didn't know, she had only been seized +to take the message, though it must be something serious, since they had +sent for both the resident surgeons. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +Doctor Livingstone's concern was personal, that was plain in the way he +stood looking at the floor of the corridor with his hands in his +pockets, before Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the lines +of his pausing figure, with the compressed irritation which saved that +feeling, in the Englishman's way, from being too obvious. + +"This is a bad business, Miss Howe." + +"I've just come over--I haven't heard. Who is it?" + +"It's my cousin, poor chap--Arnold, the padre. He's been badly knifed in +the bazaar." + +The news passed over her and left her looking with a curious face at +chance. It was lifted a little, with composed lips, and eyes which +refused to be taken by surprise. There was inquiry in them, also a +defence, a retreat. Chance looking back saw an invincible silent +readiness and a pallor which might be that of any woman. But the doctor +was also looking, so she said, "That is very sad," and moved near enough +to the wall to put her hand against it. She was not faint, but the wall +was a fact on which one could, for the moment, rely. + +"They've got the man--one of those Cabuli moneylenders. The police had +no trouble with him. He said it was the order of Allah--the brute. Stray +case of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold was walking along as +usual, without a notion, and the fellow sprang on him and in two seconds +the thing was done. Hadn't a chance, poor beggar." + +"Where is it?" + +"Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. The artery pretty well +cut through, I fancy." + +"Then----" + +"Oh no--we can't do anything. The haemorrhage must be tremendous. But he +may live through the night. Are you going to Sister Margaret?" + +His nod took it for granted and he went on. Hilda walked slowly forward, +her head bent, with absorbed, uncertain steps. A bar of evening sunlight +came before her, she looked up and stepped outside the open door. She +was handling this thing that had happened, taking possession of it. It +lay in her mind in the midst of a suddenly stricken and tenderly +saddened consciousness. It lay there passively; it did not rise and +grapple with her, it was a thing that had happened--in Bura Bazaar. The +pity of it assailed her. Tears came into her eyes, and an infinite +grieved solicitude gathered about her heart. "So?" she said to herself, +thinking that he was young and loved his work, and that now his hand +would be stayed from the use it had found. One of the ugly outrages of +life, leaving nothing on the mouth but that brief acceptance. It came to +her with a note of the profound and of the supreme. "So," she said, and +pressed her lips till they stopped trembling, and went into the +hospital. + +She asked a question or two, in search of Sister Margaret and the new +case. It was "located," an assistant surgeon told her, in Private Ward +Number 2. She went more and more slowly toward Private Ward Number 2. + +The door was open. She stood in it for an instant with eyes nerved to +receive the tragedy. The room seemed curiously empty of any such thing. +A door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah outside; the low +sun streamed through this upon the floor with its usual tranquillity. +Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with +the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused +outline under the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister--the +whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her black draperies--sitting with a +book in her hands. Some scraps of lint were on the floor beside the bed +and hardly anything else, except the silence, which had almost a +presence, and a faint smell of carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of +impotence and abandonment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. +Arnold moved on the pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of +the bed's foot were in the way. He tried to lift his head to surmount +the obstruction, and the Sister perceived her too. + +"I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?" she +said, with her little pink smile. "And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in +time to be of much use to us, is she?" It was the bedside pleasantry +that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one. + +"I'm sorry," Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her +eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing +something. + +"There was so little to do," Sister Margaret said. "Surgeon-Major Wills +saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, +was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's an easy +prescription to take." She had rather prominent, very blue eyes, and an +aquiline nose and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were beginning +to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her silently, noting +about her authority and her flowing draperies something classical. Was +she like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do something to the +pillow--Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the cry, "It is not +time yet--Atropos!" + +"I must go now for an hour or so," the Sister went on. "That poor +creature in Number 6 needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia. +You don't need it--happy boy!" she said to Stephen, and at the look he +sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, +she was none of the Fates. She was obliged to give directions to Hilda, +standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved +reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute +that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the +hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on, when the +doctor came again, there would be another. + +She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had +vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the +background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had +given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to the +bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was +nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her +dress. + +The room filled itself with something that had not been there before. In +obedience to it Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her forehead +against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little more to +do. Then Arnold spoke. + +"You dear woman!" he said. "You dear woman!" + +She kept her head bowed like that and did not answer. It was his +happiest moment. One might say he had lived for this. Her tears fell +upon his hand, a kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again. + +"We must bear this," he panted. "It is--less cruel--than it seems. You +don't know how much it is for the best." + +She lifted her wet face. "You mustn't talk," she faltered. + +"What difference--" he did not finish the sentence. His words were too +few to waste. He paused and made another effort. + +"If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the +unfaithful," he said. "I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And +gladly--without regret--for you." + +"Ah!" Hilda cried with a vivid note of pain, "I am sorry! I am sorry!" + +She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive, +delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with +the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have +had to do with the forging of those shackles. + +"My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. "He has delivered me--into His +own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content." + +"No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your God +with it." + +His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. "You +did love me," he said. He spoke as if he were already dead. + +"I did indeed," Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands +again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the +affirmation in it. + +He stroked her hair. "It is good to know that," he said, "very good. I +should have married you." He went on with sudden boldness and a new note +of strength in his voice. "Think of that! You would have been mine--to +protect and work for. We should have gone together to England--where I +could easily have got a curacy--easily." + +Hilda looked-up. "Would you like to marry me now?" she asked eagerly, +but he shook his head. "You don't understand," he said. "It is the dear +sin God has turned my back upon." + +Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going +unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only +his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, "It is a +little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone out, +and presently the grave will extinguish that." She sat quiet and sombre +in the growing darkness and presently Arnold slept. + +He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, subdued +knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the bulletin--the visit +of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him. +"Holding out wonderfully," the doctor said. "Don't rouse him for the +soup. He'll go out in about six hours without any pain. May not wake at +all." + +The door opened again to admit the probationer come to relieve Miss +Howe. Hilda beckoned her into the corridor. "You can go back," she said; +"I will take your turn." + +"But the Sister Superior--you know how particular about the rules--" + +"Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not coming." + +"Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it." + +"Report and be--report, if you like. There is nothing for you to do here +to-night," and Hilda softly closed the door. There was a whispered +expostulation when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss Howe said, "It is +arranged," and with a little silent nod of appreciation the Sister +settled into her chair, her finger marking a place in her Church +Service. Hilda sat nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading +her eyes from the lamp, and watched. + +"Is it not odd?" whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on. "He +has refused to be confessed before he goes. He will not see the Brother +Superior--or any of them. Strange, is it not?" + +Together they watched the quick, short breathing. It seemed strangely +impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the lines of the face +grow sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious +roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. There were times when they +looked at each other in the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse +persisted--persisted. + +"I believe now," said Sister Margaret, "that he may go on like this +until the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at +once if he wakes," and she took an attitude of casual repose, turning +the prayer-book open on her knee for readier use, open at "Prayers for +the Dying." + +The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark period +when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the hospital garden +came between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had at that hour of +the value and significance of the earthly lot. She lifted her head and +listened to that; it seemed a comment. Then a harsh quarrelling of +dogs--Christian dogs--arose in the distance and died away, and again +there was night and silence. Suddenly the long singing drone of a +steamer's signal came across the city from the river, once, twice, +thrice; and presently the sparrows began their twittering in the bushes +near the verandah, an unexpected unanimous bird talk that died as +suddenly and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart lumbered past, +creaking, the far shrill whistle of an awakening factory cut the air +from Howrah, the first solitary foot smote through the dawn upon the +nearest pavement. The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A +noise of something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and +Arnold opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, and he +fixed them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She leaned nearer +him and made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the +farewells, the commendations of poor mortality speeding itself forth, +lying upon her lap. Arnold comprehended, and she was amazed to see the +mask of his face change itself with a faint smile as he shook his head. +He made a little movement; she saw what he wanted and took his hand in +hers. The smile was still in his eyes as he looked at her and then at +the cheated Sister. + +So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mortal love to bear his +soul to its immortality. They carried their burden buoyantly, it was +such a little way. The lamp was still holding its own against the +paleness from the windows when the meaning finally went out of his clasp +of Hilda's hand, without a struggle to stay, and she saw that in an +instant when she was not looking he had closed his eyes, upon the world. +She sat on beside him for a long time after that, watching tenderly, and +would not withdraw her hand--it seemed an abandonment. + + * * * * * + +Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the hospital gate, was +overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, with a look of singular animation and +vigour. He flung himself off his horse to speak to her, and as he +approached he drew from his inner coat-pocket the brown envelope of a +telegram. + +"Good-morning," he said. "You do look fagged. I have a--curious--piece +of news." + +"Alicia told me that you were starting early this morning for Madras!" + +"I should have been but for this." + +"Read it to me," Hilda said, "I'm tired." + +"Oh, do you very much mind? I would rather----" + +She took the missive; it was dated the day before, Colombo, and read: + + "Do not expect me. Was married this morning to Colonel Markin. S. + A. We may not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Glory + be to God. + + "Laura Markin." + +She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest irony. + +"Then you--you also are delivered," she said. But he said, "What?" +without special heed; and I doubt whether he ever took the trouble to +understand. + +"One hopes he isn't a brute," Lindsay went on with most impersonal +solicitude, "and can support her. I suppose there isn't any way one +could do anything for her. I heard a story only yesterday about a girl +changing her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't suppose it would +happen to me!" + +"If you are hurt anywhere," Hilda said, absently, "it is only your +vanity, I fancy." + +"Ah, my vanity is very sore." He paused for an instant, wondering to +find so little expansion in her. "I came to ask after Arnold," he said. +"How is he?" + +"He is dead. He died at half-past five this morning." + +She left him with even less than her usual circumstance, and turned in +at the gate of the Baker Institution. It happened to be the last day of +her probation. + + * * * * * + +There has never been any difficulty in explaining Lindsay's marriage +with Alicia Livingstone even to himself. The reasons for it, indeed, +were so many and so obvious that he wondered often why they had not +struck him before. But it is worth noting, perhaps, that the immediate +precipitating cause arose in one evening service at the Cathedral, where +it had its birth in the very individual charm of the nape of Alicia's +neck, as she knelt upon her hassock in the fitting and graceful act of +the responses. His instincts in these matters seem to have had a +generous range, considering the tenets he was born to, but it was to him +then a delightful reflection, often since repeated, that in the +sheltered garden of delicate perfumes where this sweet person took her +spiritual pleasure there was no rank vegetation. + +It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid the overwhelming +distractions of her most successful London season she never quite +abandons these two to the social joys that circle round the Ochterlony +Monument and the arid scenic consolations of the Maidan. Her own +experience there is one of the things, I fancy, that make her fond of +saying that the stage is the merest cardboard presentation, and that one +day she means to leave it, to coax back to her bosom the life which is +her heritage in the wider, simpler ways of the world. She never mentions +that experience more directly or less ardently. But I fear the promise I +have quoted is one that she makes too often. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hilda, by Sarah Jeanette Duncan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILDA *** + +***** This file should be named 18051.txt or 18051.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/5/18051/ + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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