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diff --git a/31595.txt b/31595.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11168db --- /dev/null +++ b/31595.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13178 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of the Prodigal, by May Sinclair + +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: The Return of the Prodigal + +Author: May Sinclair + +Release Date: March 10, 2010 [EBook #31595] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + THE RETURN OF + THE PRODIGAL + + + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + NEW YORK--BOSTON--CHICAGO + DALLAS--ATLANTA--SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., Limited + + LONDON--BOMBAY--CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. + + TORONTO + + + + + THE RETURN OF + THE PRODIGAL + + + BY + MAY SINCLAIR + + AUTHOR OF "THE DIVINE FIRE," ETC. + + + New York + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1914 + + + + + Copyright, 1914 + + By MAY SINCLAIR + + Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1914. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL 1 + + THE GIFT 25 + + THE FAULT 59 + + WILKINSON'S WIFE 81 + + MISS TARRANT'S TEMPERAMENT 97 + + APPEARANCES 153 + + THE WRACKHAM MEMOIRS 177 + + THE COSMOPOLITAN 221 + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL + + +I + +"Stephen K. Lepper, Pork-Packing Prince, from Chicago, U. S. A., by +White Star Line, for Liverpool." Such was the announcement with +which the _Chicago Central Advertiser_ made beautiful its list of +arrivals and departures. + +It was not exactly a definition of him. To be sure, if you had +caught sight of him anywhere down the sumptuous vista of the +first-class sleeping-saloon of the New York and Chicago Express, you +would have judged it adequate and inquired no more. You might even +have put him down for a Yankee. + +But if, following him on this side of the Atlantic, you had found +yourself boxed up with him in a third-class compartment on the +London and North-western Railway, your curiosity would have been +aroused. The first thing you would have noticed was that everything +about him, from his gray traveling hat to the gold monogram on his +portmanteau, was brilliantly and conspicuously new. Accompanied by a +lady, it would have suggested matrimony and the grand tour. But +there was nothing else to distract you from him. He let himself be +looked at; he sat there in his corner seat, superbly, opulently +still. And somehow it dawned on you that, in spite of some +Americanisms he let fall, he was not, and never could have been, a +Yankee. He had evidently forged ahead at a tremendous speed, but it +was weight, not steam, that did it. He belonged to the race that +bundles out on the uphill grade and puts its shoulders to the wheel, +and on the down grade tucks its feet in, sits tight, and lets the +thing fly, trusting twenty stone to multiply the velocity. + +Then it would occur to you that he must have been sitting still for +a considerable period. He was not stout--you might even have called +him slender; but the muscles about his cheeks and chin hung a little +loose from the bony framework, and his figure, shapely enough when +he stood upright, yielded in a sitting posture to the pressure of +the railway cushions. That indicated muscular tissue, once developed +by outdoor exercise, and subsequently deteriorated by sedentary +pursuits. The lines on his forehead suggested that he was now a +brain-worker of sorts. + +Other lines showed plainly that, though his accessories were new, +the man, unlike his portmanteau, had knocked about the world, and +had got a good deal damaged in the process. The index and middle +fingers of the left hand were wanting. You argued, then, that he had +changed his trade more than once; while from the presence of two +vertical creases on either side of a large and rather fleshy mouth, +worn as it were by the pull of a bit, you further inferred that the +energy he must have displayed somewhere was a thing of will rather +than of temperament. He was a paradox, a rolling stone that had +unaccountably contrived to gather moss. + +And then you fell to wondering how so magnificently mossy a person +came to be traveling third-class in his native country. + +To all these problems, which did actually perplex the clergyman, his +fellow-passenger, he himself provided the answer. + +He had taken out his gold watch with a critical air, and timed the +run from Liverpool to Crewe. + +"Better service of trains than they used to have," he observed. +"Same old snorer of an engine, though." + +"You seem to know the line." + +"It's not the first time I've ridden by it; nor yet the first time +I've crossed the herring-pond." + +"Are you making any stay in this country?" + +"I am, sir." + +He lapsed into meditation evidently not unpleasing; then he +continued: "When you've got a mother and two sisters that you +haven't seen for over fifteen years, naturally you're not in such a +particular durned hurry to get away." + +"Your home is in America, I presume?" + +"My home is in England. I've made my pile out there, sir, and I've +come to stay. Like to see the _Chicago Advertiser_? It may amuse +you." + +The clergyman accepted the paper gratefully. It did amuse him. So +much so that he read aloud several paragraphs, among others the one +beginning "Stephen K. Lepper, Pork-packing Prince." + +It was a second or two before the horror of the situation dawned on +him. That dawn must have been reflected on his face, for his +fellow-passenger began to snigger. + +"Ah," said he, "you've tumbled to it. Sorry you spoke? Don't +apologize for smiling, sir. I can smile, myself, now; but the first +time I saw that paragraph it turned me pretty faint and green. +That's the way they do things out there. Of course," he added, "I +_had_ to be put in; but I'm no more like a prince than I'm like a +pork-packer." + +What was he like? With the flush on his cheeks the laughter in his +eyes he might have been an enormous schoolboy home for the +holidays, and genially impudent on the strength of it. + +"Fact is," he went on, "you didn't expect to find such a high +personage in a third-class compartment. That put you off." + +"Yes, I suppose it was that." It did seem absurd that a pork-packing +prince, who could probably have bought up the entire rolling stock +of the London and North-western, should be traveling third. + +"You see, I never used to go anything but third on this old line or +any other. I'm only doing it now to make sure I'm coming home. I +_know_ I'm coming home, but I want the feel of it." + +He folded the _Chicago Advertiser_ and packed it carefully in his +portmanteau. "I'm keeping this to show my people," he explained. +"It's the sort of thing that used to make my young sister grin." + +"You have--er--a young sister?" + +"I had two--fifteen years ago." + +The clergyman again looked sorry he had spoken. + +"All right--this time. They're not dead. Only one of them isn't +quite so young as she used to be. The best of it is, it's a surprise +visit I'm paying them. They none of them know I'm coming. I simply +said I might be turning up one of these days--before very long." + +"They won't be sorry to have you back again, I imagine." + +"Sorry?" + +He smiled sweetly and was silent for some minutes, evidently +picturing the joy, the ecstasy, of that return. Then, feeling no +doubt that the ice was broken, he launched out into continuous +narrative. + +"Going out's all very well," he said, "but it isn't a patch on +coming home. Not but what you can overdo the thing. I knew a man who +was always coming home--seemed as if he couldn't stop away. I don't +know that _his_ people were particularly glad to see him." + +"How was that?" + +"A bit tired of it, I suppose. You see, they'd given him about nine +distinct starts in life. They were always shipping him off to +foreign parts, with his passage paid and a nice little bit of +capital waiting for him on the other side. And, if you'll believe +me, every blessed time he turned up again, if not by the next +steamer, by the next after that." + +"What became of the capital?" + +"Oh, _that_ he liquidated. Drank it--see? We've all got our own +particular little foibles, and my friend's was drink." + +"I don't wish to appear prejudiced, but I think I should be inclined +myself to call it a sin." + +"You may _call_ it a sin. It was the only one he'd got, of any +considerable size. I suppose you'd distinguish between a sin and its +consequences?" + +"Most certainly," replied the clergyman unguardedly. + +"Well. Then--there were the women----" + +"Steady, my friend, that makes two sins." + +"No. You can't count it as two. You see, he never spoke to a girl +till he was so blind drunk he couldn't tell whether she was pretty +or ugly. Women were a consequence." + +"That only made his sin the greater, sir." + +"Ye--es. I reckon it did swell it up some. I said it was a big one. +Still, it's not fair to him to count it as more than one. But then, +what with gambling and putting a bit on here, and backing a friend's +bill there, he managed to make it do duty for half a dozen. He +seemed to turn everything naturally to drink. You may say he drank +his widowed mother's savings, and his father's life insurance; and, +when that was done, he pegged away at his eldest sister's marriage +portion and the money that should have gone for his younger sister's +education. Altogether he reduced 'em pretty considerably. Besides +all that, he had the cussedest luck of any beggar I know. + +"Not that he cared for his luck, as long as he got enough to drink. +But he wore his friends out. At last they said they'd get up a +subscription and pay his passage out to the States, if he'd swear +never to show his ugly face in England again. Or at least not till +he knew how to behave himself, which was safe enough, and came to +the same thing, seeing that they didn't believe he'd ever learn. He +didn't believe it himself, and would have sworn to anything. So they +scraped together ten pounds for his passage, intermediate. He went +steerage and drank the difference. They'd sent on five pounds +capital to start him when he landed, and thought themselves very +clever. The first thing he did was to collar that capital and drink +it too. Then he went and worked in the store where he'd bought the +drink, for the sake of being near it--he loved it so. Then--this is +the queer part of the story--something happened. I won't tell you +what it was. It happened because it was the worst thing that could +have happened--it was bound to happen, owing to his luck. Whatever +it was it made him chuck drinking. He left the store where the stuff +was, and applied for a berth in a big business in Chicago. It was a +place where they didn't know him, else he wouldn't have got it. + +"Then his luck turned. If it wasn't the same luck. Just because he +hadn't an object in life now--didn't care about drinking any longer, +nor yet about women, because of the thing that had happened, and so +hadn't got any reasonable sort of use for money--he began to make +it. That's the secret of success, that is. Because he didn't care +what he called a tinker's cuss about being foreman he was made +foreman--then, for the same reason, manager. Then he got sort of +interested in seeing the money come in. He didn't want it himself, +but it struck him that it wouldn't be a bad thing to pay back his +mother and his sisters what they'd lost on him, besides making up +for any little extra trouble and expense he might have been to them. +He began putting dollars by just for that. + +"I suppose you think that when he'd raked together enough dollars he +sent them home straightaway? Not he. He wasn't such a blamed idiot. +He knew it was no manner of good being in a hurry if you wanted to +do a thing in style. He pouched those dollars himself and bought a +small share in the business. He bought it for _them_, mind you. +You'd have thought, now he was interested and had got back a sort of +object in life, that his luck would have turned again, just to spite +him. But it didn't. He rose and he rose, and after a bit they made +him a partner. They had the capital, and he had the brain. He'd +found out that he'd more brain than he knew what to do with. Regular +nuisance it was--so beastly active. Used to keep him awake at night, +thinking, when he didn't want to. However, it dried up and let him +alone once he gave it the business to play with. At last the old +partners dropped off the concern--gorged; and he stuck to it. By +that time he had fairly got his hand in; and the last year it was +just a sitting still and watching the long Atlantic roll of the +dollars as they came tumbling in. He stuck till he'd piled them up +behind him, a solid cold five million. And now he's ramping on the +home-path as hard as he can tear. The funny thing is that his people +are as poor as church mice--three brown mice in a fusty little +house like a family pew. But that's the house he's going to. And +that five million's just as much theirs as it is his, and perhaps a +little more." + +"Ah," said his fellow-passenger, "that's pretty. That sort of thing +doesn't often happen outside a fairy tale." + +"No," said Stephen Lepper simply, "but he made it happen." + +"Well?" + +"Well? Do you think they'll be _sorry_ to see him? I don't mean +because of the dollars--they won't care about them." + +"Of course they won't. My dear sir, it's fine--that story of yours. +It's the Prodigal Son--with a difference." + +"A difference? I believe you!" + +At this point Stephen Lepper was struck with a humorous idea. It +struck him on the back, as it were, in such a startling manner that +he forgot all about the veil he had woven so industriously. (His +companion, indeed, judged that he had adopted that subterfuge less +as a concealment for his sins than as a decent covering for his +virtues.) + +"That prodigal knew what to do with his herd of swine, anyhow. He +killed and cured 'em. And I reckon he'll order his own fatted +calf--and pay for it." + +He stood revealed. + +The clergyman got down at Rugby. In parting he shook Mr. Stephen K. +Lepper by the hand and wished him--for himself a happy home-coming, +for his friend a good appetite for the fatted calf. + +His hand was gripped hard, so that he suffered torture till the +guard slammed to the door of the compartment and separated them. + +Mr. Lepper thrust his head out of the window. "No fear!" he shouted. + +The clergyman looked back once as the train moved out of the +station. The head was there, uncovered, but still shouting. + +"No durned----" + +He saw the gray hat waved wildly, but the voice was ravished from +him by the wind of the train. + + +II + +The train reached Little Sutton at seven. Just as he had traveled +third-class, so he had preposterously planned to send his luggage on +by carrier, and plod the five miles between town and station on +foot. He wanted to keep up the illusion. + +The station, anyhow, was all right. They had enlarged it a bit, but +it was still painted a dirty drab (perhaps there used to be a shade +more yellow ochre in the drab), and the Virginian creeper still +climbed over the station master's box, veiling him as in a bower. If +he could have swallowed up time (fifteen years of it) as the New +York and Chicago Express swallowed up space, he might have felt +himself a young man again, a limp young man, slightly the worse for +drink, handed down to the porter like a portmanteau by the friendly +arm of a fellow-passenger, on one of those swift, sudden, and +ill-timed returns that preceded his last great exodus. Only that, +whereas Stephen Lepper at thirty-nine was immaculately attired, the +coat of that unfortunate young man hung by a thread or two, and his +trousers by a button; while, instead of five million dollars piled +at his back, he had but eighteenpence (mostly copper) lying loose in +his front pockets. But Stephen Lepper had grown so used to his +clothes and his millions that he carried them unconsciously. They +offered no violence to the illusion. What might have destroyed it +was the strange, unharmonizing fact that he was sober. But he had +got used to being sober, too. + +The road unrolled itself for two miles over the pale green downs. It +topped the spine of a little hog-backed hill and dipped toward the +town (road all right). To his left, on the crest of the hill, stood +the old landmark, three black elms in a field that was rased and +bleached after the hay-harvest. They leaned toward each other, and +between their trunks the thick blue-gray sky showed solid as paint +(landmark all right). + +In the queer deep light that was not quite twilight things were +immobile and distinct, as if emphasizing their outlines before +losing them. The illusion was acute, almost intolerable. + +Down there lay the town, literally buried in the wooded combe. Slabs +of gray wall and purple roof, sunk in the black-green like graves in +grass. A white house here and there faced him with the stare of +monumental marble. In the middle a church with a stunted spire +squatted like a mortuary chapel. They had run up a gaudy red-brick +villa or two outside, but on the whole Little Sutton was all right, +too. He had always thought it very like a cemetery--a place where +people lay buried till the Day of Judgment. + +The man he had been was really dead and buried down there. It was as +if a glorified Stephen Lepper stood up and contemplated his last +resting-place. The clothes he wore were so many signs and symbols of +his joyful resurrection. If any doubted, he could point to them in +proof. Not that he anticipated this necessity. To be sure, his +people had once regarded the possibility of a resurrection as, to +say the least of it, antecedently improbable. They had even refused +to accept his authentic letters, written on the actual paper of a +temperance hotel, as sufficient proof of it. He had not altogether +blamed them for their Sadducean attitude, being a little skeptical +himself. + +Nevertheless, the resurrection was an accomplished fact. There had +been a woman in it. She was to have been his wife if she had lived. +But she had not lived, and her death was the one episode as to +which he had been reticent. She was the sort of woman that drives +men to drink by marrying them; for she had a face like an angel and +a tongue like a two-edged sword, sheathed in time of courtship. The +miracle had happened so long ago that it had passed into the region +of things unregarded because admitting of no doubt. He had never +been what you might call a confirmed drunkard--he hadn't been +steady enough for that--and fifteen years of incontrovertible +sobriety had effaced the fitful record of his orgies. So it never +occurred to him now that his character could be regarded otherwise +than with the confidence accorded to such solid and old-established +structures as the Church or Bank. He dreaded no shrinking in the +eyes of the three women he had come to see. But supposing--merely +supposing--anything so unlikely as a mental reservation or +suspension of judgment on their part, there was that solid pile of +dollars at his back for proof. And because the better part of five +million dollars cannot be produced visibly and bodily at a moment's +notice, and because the female mind has difficulty in grasping so +abstract an idea as capital, he had brought with him one or two +little presents--tangible intimations, as it were, of its +existence. + +He had had two hours to spare at Liverpool before his train left +Lime Street. They had flown in the rapture of his shopping. To +follow his progress through Castle Street and Bond Street, the +casual observer would have deemed him possessed by a blind and +maniac lust of miscellaneous spending. But there had been method in +that madness, a method simple and direct. He had stalked first of +all into a great silk-mercer's and demanded a silk suitable for an +old lady, a satin suitable for a young lady, another satin for a +lady--not so young. Then, suddenly remembering that his mother used +to yearn even in widowhood for plum color, while Minnie (who was +pretty and had red hair) fancied a moss-green, and Kate (who was not +pretty) a rose-pink, he neither paused nor rested till he had +obtained these tints. Lace, too--his mother had had a perfect +passion for lace, unsatisfied because of its ideal nature--a lace of +her dreams. He had decided on one or two fine specimens of old +point. He supposed this would be the nearest approach to the ideal, +being the most expensive. Then he had to get a few diamond pins, +butterflies, true-love knots, and so on, to fix it with. And, while +he was about it, a diamond necklace, and a few little trifles of +that sort for Minnie and Kate. Then their figures (dimly dowdy) had +come back to him across the years, one plain, the other pretty but +peculiar. He accounted for that by remembering that Kate had been +literary, while Minnie was musical. + +So he had just turned in at a bookseller's and stated that he +wanted some books--say about twenty or thirty pounds' worth. The +man of books had gauged his literary capacity in a glance, and +suggested that he had better purchase the Hundred Best Books. +"Well," he had said (rather sharply, for time was getting on), "I +reckon I don't want any but the best." In the same spirit he had +approached the gentleman in the piano-forte emporium and ordered a +Steinway Grand to be forwarded when he knew his permanent address. +For as yet it was uncertain which county contained it, that +princely residence--the old manor-house or baronial hall--in which +henceforth they would live together in affluence. He didn't exactly +see them there, those three queer, dowdy little women. God forgive +him, it was his fault if they went shabby. He remembered how they +used to stint themselves, eating coarse food and keeping no +servant, so that Kate had never any time for her books nor Minnie +for her music. He would change all that now. + +As he walked on he dreamed a dream. + +In the foreground of his dream (rich parqueterie) three figures went +to and fro, one adorable in plum color and point lace; one, the one +with the red hair, still beautiful in green; and one, not beautiful, +but--well--elegant in pink. Now he saw a dining-room sumptuously +furnished, a table white with silver and fine linen, and the same +figures sitting at it, drinking champagne and eating the fool messes +that women love to eat, queer things cooked in cream, and +ice-puddings, and so on. And now it was a lofty music room, and +Minnie taking the roof off with one of her So-nahters on the +Steinway Grand; and now a library (the Hundred Best Books had grown +into a library), and Kate, studious, virgin, inviolate in leisure. +Then slap through it all went the little mother driving in her own +carriage, a victoria for fine weather, a brougham for wet. (It was +before the days of motor-cars.) Somewhere on the outskirts of his +dream (moorland for choice) there hovered a gentleman in shooting +clothes, carrying a gun, or on the uttermost dim verge, the sky-line +of it, the same vague form (equestrian) shot gloriously by. But he +took very little interest in him. + +Ah, there were the cross-roads and the Bald-faced Stag at the +corner. Not a scrap changed since the last time he visited it--day +when he rode the Major's roan mare slap through the saloon bar into +the bowling-alley. Did it for a bet, and won it, too, and bought his +mother a stuffed badger in a glass case with the money, as a +propitiatory offering. Only another mile. + +His road ran into the lighted High Street, through a black avenue of +elms as through a tunnel. Reality assailed him with a thousand +smells. No need to ask his way to the North End. + +He turned off through an alley into a dark lane, bordered with +limes. The thick, sweet scent dropped from the trees, a scent dewy +with the childhood of the night. It felt palpable as a touch. It was +as if he felt his mother's fingers on his face, and the kisses of +his innocent girl-sisters. + +He went slowly up the lane toward a low light at the end of it. At +the corner, where it turned, was a small house black with ivy and +fenced with a row of espalier limes. The light he made for came from +the farthest window of the ground floor. Through a gap in the lime +fence he could see into the room. + +The house was sunk a little below the level of the lane, so that he +seemed to be looking straight down into a pit of yellow light +hollowed out of the blackness. Two figures sat knitting at the +window on the edge of the pit. His mother and Kate. A third, in the +center of the light, leaned her elbows on the table and propped her +head on her hands. He knew her for Minnie by her red hair. Beyond +them a side window was open to the night. + +There were two ways by which he could approach them. He could go +boldly in at the iron gate and up the flagged path to the front +door. Or he could go round to the side, up the turning of the lane, +where the garden wall rose high, into the back garden. Thence, +through a thick yew arch into a narrow path between the end of the +house and the high wall. By the one way they would be certain to see +him through the front window. By the other he would see them +(through the side window) without being seen. Owing to a certain +moisture and redness about his eyes and nose he was not yet quite +ready to be seen. Therefore he chose the side way. Sitting on a +garden seat in the embrasure of the arch, he commanded a slanting +but uninterrupted view of the room and its inmates. + +There, in the quiet, he could hear the clicking needles of the +knitters, and the breathing of the red-haired woman. And he longed +with a great longing for the sound of their voices. If one of them +would only speak! + + +III + +"The question is"--it was the red-haired girl who spoke, and her +tone suggested that the silence marked a lull in some debate--"how +much do you mean to advance me this year from the housekeeping?" + +The younger of the two knitters answered without looking up. + +"I've told you before; it depends upon circumstances." + +"I see no circumstances." + +"Don't you? I thought it was you who were so sure about Stephen's +coming home?" + +"That makes no difference. If he doesn't come I shall go away. If +he does I shall go away and stay away. In that case I shall want +more money, shan't I? not less." Minnie dug her sharp elbows into +the table and thrust out her chin. + +"You'll have to want," said Kate. "You know perfectly well that if +he is here none of us can go away. We must keep together." + +"Why must we?" + +"Because it's cheaper." + +"And suppose I choose to go? What's to keep me?" + +"To _keep_ you?" + +"I see. You mean there won't be a penny to keep me?" + +Kate was silent. + +"If it hadn't been for Stephen I could have kept myself long ago--by +my music. That's what I wanted." + +"Well, you didn't get what you wanted. Women seldom do." + +"I want to go to the Tanquerays. There's no reason why I shouldn't +get that." + +"You can't go to the Tanquerays as you are." + +Minnie gazed at her clothes, then at her reflection in the opposite +looking-glass. + +She wore a shabby, low-necked gown of some bluish-green stuff, with +a collar of coarse lace; also a string of iridescent shells. Under +the flame of her hair her prettiness showed haggard and forlorn. + +"Yes, you may well look at yourself. You must have new things if you +go. That means breaking into five pounds." + +Minnie's eyes were still fixed on the face in the looking-glass. + +"It would be worth it," said she. + +"It might be if you stopped five months. Not unless." + +"Look here, Kate. It's all very well, but I consider that the house +owes me that five pounds. Mayn't I have it, Stephen or no Stephen?" + +"It's no use asking me now. It will depend on Stephen." + +"And Stephen, I imagine, will depend on us." + +"Probably. Do you hear what Minnie says, Mother?" + +The old woman's hands knitted fiercely, while her sharp yellow face +crumpled into an expression half peevish, half resigned. + +"I hear what you both say, and I think I've got enough to worry me +without you talking about Stephen coming home." + +Her voice was so thin that even Minnie, not hearing, had missed the +point. As for the man outside, he was still struggling with emotion, +and had caught but a word here and there. + +Kate's voice was jagged like a saw and carried farther. It was now +that he really began to hear. + +"Do you suppose he's made any money out there?" + +"Did you ever hear of Stephen making money anywhere?" + +"If he has he ought to be made to pay something to the housekeeping. +It's only fair." + +"If he's made anything," said Minnie, "he's spent it all. That's why +he's coming. Look at the supper!" + +The table before her was laid for the evening meal. She pointed to +the heels of two loaves, a knuckle of ham, a piece of cheese, and +some water in a glass jug. Oatmeal simmered on a reeking oil-stove +in a corner of the room. + +"How much will it cost to keep him?" + +Kate's narrow, peaked face was raised in calculation. Kate's eyes +became mean homes for meaner thoughts of which she was visibly +unashamed. + +"Ten shillings a week at the very least. Fifty-two weeks--that's +twenty-six pounds a year. Or probably fifteen shillings--a man eats +more than a woman, at any rate more butcher's meat--that's +thirty-nine pounds. That's only what he _eats_," she added +significantly. "_What_ did you say, Mother?" + +The old lady raised her voice, and the man outside took hope. "I say +I think you're both very unfeeling. For all you know, poor fellow, +he may be quite reformed." + +"He may be. I know the chances are he won't," said Kate. + +"How do you know anything about it, my dear?" + +"I asked Dr. Minify. He has a wide enough experience of these +cases." + +Minnie turned fiercely round. "And what made you go and blab to him +about it? I think you might wash your dirty linen at home." + +"It's only what you'd have done yourself." + +"Not to him." + +"Why not?" + +There was terror in Minnie's face. "He knows the Tanquerays." + +"Well--it's your own fault. You went on about it till it got on my +nerves, and the anxiety was more than I could bear. The porridge +will be boiling over." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I can't mind porridge and my knitting at the same time." + +Minnie threw herself back, pushing her chair with her feet. She rose +and trailed sulkily across to the stove. As she moved a wisp of red +hair, loosened from its coil, clung to her sallow neck. She was +slip-shod and untidy. + +She removed the porridge abstractedly. "What did he say?" she asked. + +"He was extremely kind and sympathetic. He treated it as a disease. +He said that in nine cases out of ten recovery is impossible." + +"Well, _I_ could have told you that. Anything more?" + +"He says the chances are that he won't hold out much longer; his +health must have broken up after all these years. I don't know how I +_can_ stand it, if it is. When I think of all the things that may +happen. Paralysis perhaps, or epilepsy--that's far more likely. He's +just the age." + +"Is he? How awful! But, then, he'll have to go somewhere. You know +we can't have him epilepsing all over the place here." + +The old lady dropped her knitting to raise her hands. + +"Minnie! Minnie! Have a little Trust. He may never come at all." + +"He will. Trust _him_." + +"After all," said Kate reflectively, "why should he?" + +"Why? Why?" The girl came forward, spreading her large red hands +before her. "Because we've paid all his debts. Because we've saved +money and got straight again. Because we're getting to know one or +two decent people, and it's taken us fifteen years to do it. Because +we're beginning to enjoy ourselves for the first time in all our +miserable lives. Because I've set my heart on staying with the +Tanquerays, and Fred Tanqueray will be there. Because"--a queer, +fierce light came into her eyes--"because I'm happy, and he means to +spoil it all, as he spoilt it all before! As if I hadn't suffered +enough." + +"You? What have you suffered?" Kate's sharp face was red as she +bent over a dropped stitch. Her hands trembled. "You were too young +to feel anything." + +"I wasn't too young to feel that I had a career before me, nor to +care when it was knocked on the head. If it hadn't been for him my +music wouldn't have come to an end as it did." + +"Your music! If it hadn't been for him my engagement wouldn't have +been broken off--as it was." + +"Oh _that_? It was the one solitary good day's work Stephen ever +did." + +The old lady nodded shrewdly over her needles. "Yes, my dear, you +might be thankful for that mercy. You couldn't have married Mr. +Hooper. I'm afraid he wasn't altogether what he ought to be. You +yourself suspected that he drank." + +"Like a fish," interposed Minnie. + +"I know"--Kate's hands were fumbling violently over her +stitch--"but--but I could have reclaimed him." + +Her eyes lost their meanness with the little momentary light of +illusion. + +Minnie laughed aloud. "If that's all you wanted, why didn't you try +your hand on Stephen?" + +"Don't, Minnie." + +But Minnie did. "Fred Tanqueray doesn't drink; I wouldn't look at +him if he did. What's more, he's a gentleman; I couldn't stand him +if he wasn't. Catch him marrying into this family when he's seen +Stephen." + +"Minnie, you are _too_ dreadful." + +"Dreadful? You'd be dreadful if you'd cared as much for Charlie +Hooper as I do for Fred Tanqueray." + +"And how much does Mr. Tanqueray care for you?" + +A dull flush spread over Minnie's sallow face; her lips coarsened. +"I don't know; but it's a good deal more than your Hooper man ever +cared for anybody in his life; and if you weren't such a hopeless +sentimentalist you'd have seen that much. Of course I shan't know +whether he cares or not--now." + +And she wept, because of the anguish of her thirty years. + +Then she burst out: "I _hate_ Stephen. I don't care what you say--if +he comes into this house I'll walk out of it. Oh, how I hate him!" +Her loose mouth dropped, still quivering with its speech. Her face +was one flame with her hair. + +But Kate was cool and collected. + +"Don't excite yourself. If it's only to influence Fred Tanqueray, he +won't come," said Kate. + +Then the red-haired woman turned on her, mad with the torture of her +frustrate passion. + +"He _will_ come! He _will_ come, I tell you. I've felt him coming. +I've felt it in my bones. I've dreamt about it night after night. +I've been afraid to meet the postman lest he should bring another +letter. I've been afraid to go along the station road lest I should +meet _him_. I'm afraid now to look out of that window lest I should +see him standing there with his face against the pane." + +She crossed to the window and drew down the blind. For a moment her +shadow was flung across it, monstrously agitated, the huge hands +working. + +The man outside saw nothing more, but he heard his mother's voice +and he took hope again. + +"For shame, Minnie, for shame, to speak of poor Steevy so. One would +think you might have a little more affection for your only brother." + +"Look here, Mother" (Minnie again!), "that's all sentimental humbug. +Can you look me in the face and honestly say you'd be glad to see +your only son?" + +(The son's heart yearned, straining for the answer. It came +quavering.) + +"My dear, I shall not see him. I'm a poor, weak old woman, and I +know that the Lord will not send me any burden that I cannot bear." + +He crept from his hiding-place out into the silent lane. He had +drawn his breath tight, but his chest still shook with the sob he +had strangled. "My God!" he muttered, "I'll take off the burden." + +Then his sob broke out again, and it sounded more like a laugh than +a sob. "The dollars--they shall have them. Every blessed one of the +damned five million!" + +He looked at his watch by the light of the gas-lamp in the lane. He +had just time to catch the last train down; time, too, to stop the +carrier's cart with the gifts that would have told the tale of his +returning. + +So, with a quick step, he went back by the way he had come, out of +the place where the dead had buried their dead--until the Day of +Judgment. + + + + +THE GIFT + + +I + +He had not been near her for two months. It was barely five minutes' +walk from his house in Bedford Square to her rooms in Montagu +Street, and last year he used to go to see her every week. He did +not need the reminder of her letter, for he had been acutely aware, +through the term that separated them, of the date when he had last +seen her. Still, he was not sure how much longer he might have kept +away if it had not been for the note that told him in two lines that +she had been ill, and that she had--at last--something to show him. +He smiled at the childlike secrecy of the announcement. She had +something to show him. Her illness, then, had not impaired her gift, +her charming, inimitable gift. + +If she had something to show him he would have to go to her. + +He let his eyes rest a moment on her signature as if he saw it for +the first time, as if it renewed for him the pleasing impression of +her personality. After all, she was Freda Farrar, the only woman +with a style and an imagination worth considering; and he--well, he +was Wilton Caldecott. + +He would go over and see her now. He had an hour to spare before +dinner. It was her hour, between the lamplight and the clear April +day, when he was always sure of finding her at home. + +He found her sitting in her deep chair by the hearth, her long, +slender back bent forward to the fire, her hands glowing like thin +vessels for the flame. Her face was turned toward him as he came in. +Its small childlike oval showed sharp and white under her heavy +wreath of hair--the face of a delicate Virgin of the Annunciation, a +Musa Dolorosa, a terrified dryad of the plane-trees (Freda's face +had always inspired him with fantastic images); a dryad in exile, +banished with her plane-tree to the undelightful town. + +She did not conceal from him her joyous certainty that he would +come. She made no comment on his absence. It was one of her many +agreeable qualities that she never made comments, never put forth +even the shyest and most shadowy claim. She took him up where she +had left him, or, rather, where he had left her, and he gathered +that she had filled the interval happily enough with the practice of +her incomparable art. + +The first thing she did now was to exhibit her latest acquisitions, +her beautiful new reading-lamp, the two preposterous cushions that +supported and obliterated her; while he saw (preposterous Freda, who +had not a shilling beyond what the gift brought her) that she had on +a new gown. + +"I say," he exclaimed, "I say, what next?" + +And they looked at each other and laughed. He liked the spirit in +which Freda now launched out into the strange ocean of expenditure. +It showed how he had helped her. He was the only influence which +could have helped a talent so obscure, so uncertain, so shy. + +It was the obscurity, the uncertainty, the shyness of it that +charmed him most. It was the shyness, the uncertainty, the obscurity +in her that held him, made it difficult to remove himself when he +sank into that deep chair by her fireside, and she became silent +and turned from him her small brooding face. It was as if she +guarded obstinately her secret, as if he waited, was compelled to +wait, for the illuminating hour. + +"It's finished," she said, as if continuing some conversation they +had had yesterday. + +"Ah." He found himself returning reluctantly from his quest. + +She rose and unlocked the cabinet where her slender sheaves were +garnered. He came and took from her a sheaf more slender than the +rest. + +"Am I to read it, here and now?" + +"If you will." + +He sat down and read there and then. From time to time she let her +eyes light on him, shyly at first, then rest, made quiet by his +abstraction. She liked to look at him when he was not thinking of +her. He was tall and straight and fair; his massive, clean-shaven +face showed a virile ashen shade on lip and chin. He had keen, kind +eyes, and a queer mouth with sweet curves and bitter corners. + +He folded the manuscript and turned it in his hands. He looked from +it to her with considering, caressing eyes. What she had written was +a love-poem in the divinest, the simplest prose. Such a poem could +only have been written by his listening virgin, his dreaming dryad. +He was afraid to speak of it, to handle its frail, half-elemental, +half-spiritual form. + +"Has it justified my sending for you?" + +It had. It justified her completely. It justified them both. It +justified his having come to her, his remaining with her, dining +with her, if indeed they did dine. She had always justified him, +made his coming to see her the natural, inevitable thing. + +They sat late over the fire. They had locked the manuscript in its +drawer again, left it with relief. + +They talked. + +"How many years is it since I first saw you?" + +"Three years," she said, "and two months." + +"And two months. Do you remember how I found you, up there, under +the roof, in that house in Charlotte Street?" + +"Yes," she said, "I remember." + +"You were curled up on that funny couch in the corner, with your +back against the wall----" + +"I was sitting on my feet to keep them warm." + +"I know. And you wore a white shawl----" + +"No," she entreated, "not a shawl." + +"A white something. It doesn't matter. I don't really remember +anything but your small face, and your terrified eyes looking at me +out of the corner, and your poor little cold hands." + +She wondered, did he remember her shabby gown, her fireless room, +the queer couch that was her bed, the hunger and the nakedness of +her surroundings? + +"You sat," she said, "on my trunk, the wooden one with the nails on +it. It must have been so uncomfortable." + +He said nothing. Even now, when those things were only a +remembrance, the pity of them made him dumb. + +"And the next time you came," said she, "you made a fire for me. +Don't you remember?" + +He remembered. He felt again that glow of self-congratulation which +warmed him whenever he considered the comfort of her present state; +or came into her room and found her accumulating, piece by piece, +her innocent luxuries. Nobody but he had helped her. It was +disagreeable to him to think that another man should have had a hand +in it. + +Yet there would be others. He had already revealed her to two or +three. + +"I wonder how you knew," she said. + +"How I knew what?" + +"That I was worth while." + +He gave an inward start. She had made him suddenly aware that in +those days he had not known it. He had had no idea what was in her. +She had had nothing then "to show" him. + +It was as if she were asking him, as if he were asking himself, what +it was that had drawn him to her, when, in the beginning, it wasn't +and couldn't have been the gift? Why had he followed her up when he +might so easily have dropped her? He had found her, in the +beginning, only because his old friend, Mrs. Dysart, had written to +him (from a distance that left her personally irresponsible), and +had asked him to look for her, to discover what had become of her, +to see if there was anything that he could do. Mrs. Dysart had +intimated that she hardly thought anything could be done; that there +wasn't, you know, very much in her--very much, that is to say, that +would interest Wilton Caldecott. They had been simply pitiful, the +girl's poor first efforts, the things that, when he had screwed his +courage to the point of asking for them, were all she had to show +him. + +"I was too bad for words, you know," said she, tracking his thought. + +"You were. You were." + +"There wasn't a gleam, a spark----" + +"Not one." + +They laughed. The reminiscence of her "badness" seemed to inspire +them both with a secret exultation. They drew together, uncovering, +displaying to each other the cherished charm of it. Neither could +say why the thought of it was so pleasing. + +"And look at you now," said Caldecott. + +"Yes," she cried, "look at me now. What was it, do you think, that +made the difference?" + +That he had never really known. + +"Oh, well, I suppose you're stronger, you know; and things are +different." + +"Things?" she repeated. Her lips parted and closed, as if she had +been about to say something, and recalled it with a sharp indrawing +of her breath. + +"And so," she said presently, "you think that was it?" + +"It may have been. Anyhow, you mustn't go getting ill." + +"I don't think," she said, "there's any need. But don't be +frightened. It won't go away." + +"What won't?" + +"The gift." + +They laughed again. It was their own name for it. + +"I wasn't thinking of it. I was thinking of you." + +"It's the same thing," said she. "No. It won't go. It can't go. I've +got it fast." + +He rose. He looked down on her; he seemed to hesitate, to consider. + +"I wonder," he said, "if I might ask my friend, Miss Nethersole, to +call on you? She's Mrs. Dysart's niece." + +She consented, and with a terse good night he left her. + +She, too, wondered and considered. She knew that she would some day +have to reckon with his life, with the world that knew him, with the +women whom he knew. + + +II + +Freda and Miss Nethersole had met several times before the +remarkable conversation that made them suddenly intimate. + +That she would have, sooner or later, some remarkable conversation +with Miss Nethersole was an idea that had dawned upon Freda from the +first. But until the hour struck for them their acquaintance had +been distant. + +It had the fascination of deep distance. Freda had not been sure +that she desired to break the charm. It seemed somehow to hold her +safe. From what danger she would have found it hard to say, when +Miss Nethersole covered her with so large and soft a wing. Still, +they had come no nearer to the friendship which the older woman had +offered as the end of their approaches. + +It was as if Miss Nethersole were also bound under the charm. When +Freda allowed herself to meditate profoundly she divined that what +drew them on and held them back was an uncertainty regarding Wilton +Caldecott. Neither knew in what place the other really held him. The +first day they met each had searched, secretly, the other's face for +some betrayal of his whereabouts; each, it had seemed to Freda, had +shrunk from finding what she looked for; shrunk even more from +owning that there might be anything to find. + +And he had hoped that she would "like Julia." + +If reticence were required of them, Freda felt that her poor little +face could never rival the inimitable reserves, the secure +distinction of Miss Nethersole's. There was nothing, so to speak, to +take hold of in Julia's dark, attenuated elegance; nothing that +betrayed itself anywhere, from the slender brilliance of her +deep-lidded, silent eyes, to her small flat chin, falling sheer from +the immobile lower lip. Miss Nethersole's features and her figure +were worn away to the last expression of a purely social intention. +Quite useless to look for any signs of Wilton Caldecott's +occupation. Freda was convinced that, if the lady possessed any +knowledge of him, she would keep it concealed about her to the end +of time. She was aware of Miss Nethersole's significance as a woman +of the larger world. It was wonderful to think that she held the +clue to the social labyrinth, in which, to Freda's vision, their +friend's life was lost. She knew what ways he went. She could follow +all his turnings and windings there; perhaps she could track him to +the heart of the maze; perhaps she herself was the heart of it, the +very secret heart. She sat alone for him there, in the dear silent +place where all the paths led. The very thickness and elaboration of +the maze would make their peace. Freda's heart failed her before the +intricacy of Miss Nethersole's knowledge of him, the security of her +possession. Miss Nethersole was valuable to him for her own sake, it +being evident that she had no "gift." + +It was her personal sufficiency, unsustained as she was by anything +irrelevant, that made Julia so formidable. + +She had never seemed more so to Freda than on this afternoon when +they sat together among the adornments of her perfect drawing-room. +Everything about Miss Nethersole was as delicate and finished as her +own perfection. She was finely unconscious of all that Freda +recognized in her. It seemed as if what she chiefly recognized in +Freda was her gift. She had been superbly impersonal in her praise +of it. It was the divine thing given to Freda, hers and yet not +hers, so wonderful, compared with the small pale creature who +manipulated it, that it could be discussed with perfect propriety +apart from her. + +And to-day Wilton Caldecott's name had risen again in the +discussion, when Julia had the air of insisting more than ever on +the gift. It was almost as if she narrowed Freda down to that, +suggesting that it was the only thing that counted in her intimacy +with their friend. + +"Yes," said Freda, "but the extraordinary thing is that I hadn't it +when first he knew me." + +"He saw what was in you." + +"He said the other day he saw nothing. I was too bad for words." + +"Oh, I know all about that. He told me." + +"What did he tell you?" + +"That you were like a funny little unfledged bird, trying to fly +before its wing feathers were grown." + +"I hadn't any. I hadn't anything of my own. Everything I have I owe +to him." + +"Don't say that. Why should you pluck off all your beautiful +feathers to make a nest for his conceit?" + +"Is he conceited?" + +Freda said to herself, "After all, she doesn't count. She doesn't +know him." + +Miss Nethersole smiled. "He's a male man, my dear. If you want him +to have an even higher idea of your genius than he has already, tell +him--tell him you owe it all to him." + +"Ah," said Freda, "you don't know him." + +"I have known him," said Miss Nethersole, "for fifteen years. I knew +him before he married." + +She had proved incontestably the superiority of her knowledge. Freda +felt as if Miss Nethersole were looking at her to see how she would +take it. There was an appreciable moment in which she adjusted her +mind to the suddenness of the revelation. Then she told herself that +there was nothing in it that she had not reckoned with many times +before. It left her relations with Wilton Caldecott where they were. + +There was nothing in it that could change for her the unique and +immaterial tie. She was even relieved by the certainty that it was +not Julia Nethersole, then, after all. She had an idea that she +would have grudged him to Julia Nethersole. + +Julia was much too well-bred to show that she had the advantage. She +took it for granted that Miss Farrar was also acquainted with the +circumstances of Wilton Caldecott's marriage. + +"That," said she, "is what makes him so extraordinarily +interesting." + +"His marriage"--Freda hesitated. She wondered if Miss Nethersole +would really go into it. + +"Some people's marriages are quite unilluminating. Wilton's, I +always think, is the key to his character, sometimes to his +conduct." + +Freda held her breath. She saw that Miss Nethersole was about to go +in deep. + +"He has suffered"--Miss Nethersole went on--"all his life, from an +over-developed sense of honor. He could see honor in situations +where you wouldn't have said there was the ghost of an obligation. +His marriage was not an affair of the heart. It was an affair of +honor. The woman--she's dead now--was in love with him." + +"Did you know her?" + +"No. She was not the sort of person you do know. She was simply a +pretty, underbred little governess. He met her--on the staircase, I +imagine--in some house he was staying in, and, as I say, she was in +love with him. She was a scheming little wretch, and she and her +people made him believe that he had compromised her in some shadowy +way. I suppose he _had_ paid her a little ordinary attention--I +don't know the details. Anyhow, he was so fantastically honorable +that he married her." + +"Poor thing. It must have been awful for her, to be married in that +way--for honor!" + +"She didn't consider it awful in the least. She didn't mind what she +was married _for_, so long as she _was_ married. She was that sort. +Do I bore you?" + +"No. You interest me immensely." + +"Of course they were miserable. He couldn't make her happy. Wilton +is, in his way, a rather spiritual person, and his wife was anything +but. Marriage can be an awful revelation to a nice woman. Sometimes +it's a shock to a nice man. Wilton never got over _his_ shock. It +left him with a morbid horror of the thing. That's what has +prevented him from marrying again." + +Miss Nethersole drew a perceptible breath before going in deeper. + +"I've heard people praising his faithfulness to his wife's memory. +They little know. He was loyal enough to the poor woman while she +lived, but he's giving her away now with a vengeance. Several very +nice women would have been more than willing to marry him; but as +soon as he knew it----" + +"Knew it? How could he know it?" + +"Well, the ladies were very transparent, some of them. And when they +weren't there was always some kind person there to make them so. And +when he saw through them--he was off. You could see the horror of it +coming over him, and his poor terrified eyes protesting--'I'd do +anything for you--anything, my dear girl, but that.'" + +Julia paused, as if on the brink of something still profounder. +Evidently she abhorred the plunge, while Freda shrank from the +horrible exposure of the shallower waters. + +"And those women," said Julia, after meditation, "wondered why they +lost their friend. They might have kept him if they'd only kept +their heads." + +It was at this point that Freda felt that Julia was trying to drag +her in with her. + +"How awful," said she, "to feel that you'd driven a man away!" + +"It might be more awful," said Julia, "for him to feel he had to +go." + +"That's it," said Freda. "_Had_ he?" + +"Well, if he was honorable, what else was there for him to do?" + +"To stay by those women, and see them through--if he was honorable." + +"Oh--if they'd have been content with that. But you see, my dear, +they all wanted to marry him." + +"If they did," said Freda, "that shows that they didn't really +care." + +"They cared too much, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, no. Not enough. If they'd cared enough they'd have got beyond +that. However much they wanted it, they'd have given it up, rather +than let him go." + +As she said it she felt a blessed sense of relief. The deeper they +went the more the waters covered her. + +"You'll never get a man," said Julia, "to understand that. If _he_ +cares for a woman he won't be put off with anything short of +marrying her. So he naturally supposes----" + +Julia had now gone as deep as she could go. + +"Yes," said Freda. "It's in the things he naturally supposes that a +man goes so wrong." + +"Is it?" Julia paused again. "I don't know whether you realize it, +but you and I are the only women Mr. Caldecott ever goes to see. I +dare say you were surprised when he told you about me. I was amazed +when he told me about you. I've no doubt he made each of us think we +were the one exception. You see, we are rather exceptional women, +from his unhappy point of view. He knows that I understand him, and +I'm sure he thinks that he understands you----" + +"So he feels safe with me?" + +"Gloriously safe. _You_ are a genius, above all the little feminine +stupidities that terrify him so. From you he expects nothing but the +unexpected. You're outside all his rules. I'm so much inside them +that he knows exactly what to expect. So he's safe with both of us. +It's the betwixt-and-between people that he dreads." + +Julia rose up from the depths rosy and refreshed. Freda panted with +a horrible exhaustion. + +"I see," she said. And presently she found that it was time for her +to go. + + +III + +The cool, bright air out of doors touched her like a reminding hand. +She turned awkwardly into the street that led from Bedford Square to +her own place. Wilton Caldecott and she had often walked along that +street together. She felt like one called upon to play a new part on +a familiar stage, where every object suggested insanely, +irrelevantly, the older inspiration. + +Not that her conversation with Julia, or, rather (she corrected +herself) Julia's conversation with her, had altered anything. It had +all been so natural, so unamazing, like a conversation between two +persons in a dream. They had both seemed so ripe for their hour +that, when it struck, it brought no sense of the unusual. Only when +she lit her lamp in her room, and received the full shock of the old +intimate reality, did it occur to her that it was, after all, for +Julia Nethersole, a rather singular outpouring. The more she thought +of it the more startling it seemed--Julia's flinging off of the +reticence that had wrapped her round. Freda was specially appalled +by the audacity with which Julia had dragged Wilton Caldecott's +history into the light of day. Her own mind had always approached it +shyly and tenderly, with a sort of feeling that, after all, perhaps +she would rather not know. To Freda Julia seemed to have taken leave +suddenly of her senses, to have abandoned all propriety. One did, at +supreme moments, leave many things behind one; but Freda was not +aware that any moment in their intercourse had yet counted as +supreme. + +Could Julia have meant anything by it? If so, what was it that she +precisely meant? The beginning of their conversation provided no +clue to its end. What possible connection could there be between +her, Freda's gift, such as it was, and Wilton Caldecott's marriage? + +But as she pieced together, painfully, the broken threads she saw +that it did somehow hang together. She recalled that there had been +something almost ominous in the insistence with which Julia had held +her to her gift. Julia's manner had conveyed her disinclination to +acknowledge Wilton's part in it, her refusal to regard him as +indispensable in the case. She had implied, with the utmost possible +delicacy, that it would be well for Freda if she could contrive to +moderate her enthusiasm, to be a little less grateful; to cultivate, +in a word, her independence. + +It was then that she had gone down into her depths. And emerging, +braced and bracing from the salt sea, she had landed Freda safe on +the high ledge, where she was henceforth to stand solitary, guarding +her gift. + +It was, in short, a friendly warning to the younger woman to keep +her head if she wished to keep their friend. + +Freda remembered her first disgraceful fear of Julia, her feeling +that Julia would presently take something--she hardly knew +what--away from her. That came of letting her imagination play too +freely round Wilton Caldecott's friend. What was there to alarm her +in the candid Julia? Wasn't it as if Julia, in their curious +conversation, had given herself up sublimely for Freda to look at +and see for herself that there was nothing in her to be afraid of? + +It was possible that Julia had seen things in _her_. Freda had a +little thrill of discomfort at that thought; but she rallied from it +bravely. What if Julia did see? She was not aware of anything that +she was anxious to conceal from her. Least of all had she desired to +hide her part in Wilton Caldecott. It was, if you came to think of +it, the link between her and Julia, the ground of their +acquaintance. She could not suspect Julia of any vulgar desire to +take _that_ away from her. + +If there had been any lapse from high refinement it had been in her +own little cry of "Ah, you don't know him," into which poor Freda +now felt that she had poured the very soul of passionate possession. +But Julia had been perfect. She had in effect said: "I see--and you +won't mind my seeing--that your friendship for Wilton Caldecott is +your dearest and purest possession, as it's mine. I'm not ashamed to +own it. And I'll show you how to keep it. Take care of the +gift--the gift. It'll see you both through." Julia had been fine. +What else _could_ she be? Of course she had seen; and she had +sacrificed her reticence beautifully, because it was the only way. +It was, said Freda to herself, what _she_ would have done if she had +been in Julia's place, and had seen. + +Having reconstructed Julia, she unlocked the drawer that held the +hidden treasure, the thing that he had said was so perfect, the last +consummate manifestation of the gift. They had found between them +the right word for it. It was only a gift, a thing that he had given +her, that if he chose he could at any moment take away. What had +come from her came only through him. She owned, with a sort of +exultation, that there was nothing in the least creative in her. She +had not one virile quality; only this receptivity of hers, +infinitely plastic, infinitely tender. What lay in the lamplight +under her caressing hand had been born of their friendship. It was +their spiritual child. + +She bowed her head and kissed it. + +She said to herself: "It is not me, but his part in me that he +loves. If I am true to it he will be true to me." + +As she raised her head her eyes were wet with tears. She looked +round the room. Everything in it (but the thing that lay there under +her hand) seemed suddenly to have lost its interest and its charm. +Something had gone from it, something that had been living with her +in secret for many days, that could not live with her now any more. +It had dropped into the deep when Julia stripped herself (it now +seemed to Freda) and took her shining, sacrificial plunge. + +"What, after all," said Freda, "has she taken from me? Nothing that +I ever really had." + + +IV + +It was Sunday afternoon. Caldecott made a point of going to see Miss +Nethersole on Sunday afternoons. He felt so safe with Julia. + +This particular Sunday afternoon was their first since Julia had +become acquainted with Miss Farrar. It was therefore inevitable that +their talk should turn to her. + +"Your friend is charming," said Julia. + +"Yes," he said, "yes." He seemed reluctant to acknowledge it. Julia +made a note of the reluctance. + +"You must be very proud of her." + +He challenged the assertion with a glance which questioned her right +to make it. Julia saw that his mind was balancing itself on some +fine and perilous edge, and that it was as yet unaware of its peril. + +"Of course you're proud of her," said she, in a voice that steadied +him. + +"Of course I am," he agreed. + +"Is it really true that she owes everything to you?" + +"No," he said, "it isn't in the least true." + +"She says so." + +"Oh, that's her pretty way of putting it." + +"She thinks it." + +"Not she. If she does it's because she's made that way. She's +awfully nice, you know." + +"She's too nice--to be allowed to----" + +"Well?" + +"To throw herself away." + +"She isn't throwing herself away. She's found the one thing she can +do, and she's doing it divinely. I never met a woman who was so sure +of herself." + +"Oh, she's sure enough, poor child." + +"I say, you don't mean to tell me you don't believe in her? Not that +it matters whether you do or not." + +"Thank you. I'm not talking about her genius, or whatever the thing +is. I've no doubt it's everything you say. If she'd only keep to +that--the one thing she _can_ be sure of. Unless, of course, you've +made her sure." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Ah, if I only knew what _you_ meant." + +"What I mean?" + +"Yes, what you mean to do." + +He laughed. "I don't mean to 'do' anything at present." + +"Well, then----" + +"Why, what do you suppose I ought to do?" + +"I don't know that it's for me to say." + +"You may as well, while you're about it." + +"If I could only make you see----" She mentally drew back. + +"Well? What do you want to make me see?" + +"What you've done already to that unhappy woman." + +"Unhappy? She's considerably happier than she was when I first knew +her." + +"That's it," she said, "that's just it. Where are your eyes? Can't +you see she's in love with you?" + +He did not meet her advancing gaze. + +"What makes you think so?" he said. + +"The way she talks about you." + +He smiled. "You don't allow for picturesque exaggeration." + +"My dear, when a woman exaggerates to that extent it generally means +one thing." + +"Not with her. She wouldn't do it if it meant that. She'd be afraid +to let herself go. And she isn't afraid. She just piles it on +because she's so sure of herself--so sure that she isn't what you +say she is." + +"I don't say she knows she's in love with you. She doesn't know it." + +"Can you be in love without knowing it?" + +"She could. If she knew it, do you think she'd have let me see it? +And do you think I'd have given her away? I wouldn't now, only I +know what you are, and she doesn't." + +"No, indeed. You're right enough there." + +They paused on that. + +"You're quite sure," she said, "that you can't----" + +It was as if she probed him, delicately, on behalf of their tragic +friend. She turned her eyes away as she did it, that she might not +see him shrink. + +"No," he said. "Never again. Never again." + +She withdrew the pressure of the gentle finger that had given him +pain. "I only thought--" she murmured. + +"What did you think?" + +"That it might be nice for both of you." + +"It wouldn't be nice for either of us. Not nice at all." + +"Well, then, I can only see one thing." + +"I know. You're going to say I must leave off seeing her?" + +"No. I don't say that." + +"I do, though. If I were sure----" + +"You may be sure of one thing. That she doesn't know what's the +matter with her--yet. She mustn't know. If you do go and see her, +you must be careful not to let her find out. I did my best to hide +it, to cover it up, so that she shouldn't see." + +"Your suspicion?" + +"What do you think we're made of? The truth--the truth." + +"If this is the truth, I mustn't, of course, go near her. But I know +you're mistaken." + +"Have I ever been mistaken? Have I ever told you wrong?" + +"Well, Julia, you're a very wise woman, and I'll admit that, when +you've warned me off anybody, you've warned me for my good." + +She colored. "I'm not warning you 'off' anybody now. I've warned you +before for your own sake. I'm warning you this time for hers." + +"I see. I see that, all right. But--you never saw a woman like her, +did you? I wonder if you understand her." + +"I do understand her. You can't look at her and not see that she has +a profound capacity for suffering." + +"I know." + +Of course he knew. Hadn't he called her the Musa Dolorosa? + +"Just because," said Julia, "she has imagination." + +He had said good-bye and was going; but at the doorway he turned to +her again. + +"No," he said, "you're wrong, Julia. She's not like that." + +Julia arched her brows over eyes tender with compassion--compassion +for his infinite stupidity. + +"Oh, my dear!" she cried, and waved him away as a creature hopeless, +impossible to help. + +He closed the door and stood with his back to it, facing her. + +"Well," he said, "you may be right; but before I do anything I must +be sure." + +"How do you propose to make sure?" + +"I shall go and see her." + +"Of course," said Julia, "you'll go and see her." + + +V + +He went on to Montagu Street, so convinced was he that Julia was +mistaken. + +Freda knew well what she was going to say to him. She had chosen her +path, the highest, the farthest from the abyss. Once there she could +let herself go. + +He himself led her there; he started her. He brought praises of the +gift. + +Other people, he said, were beginning to rave about it now. + +"I wish they wouldn't," said she. "It makes me feel so dishonest." + +"Dishonest?" + +"As if I'd taken something that didn't belong to me. It doesn't +belong to me." + +"What doesn't?" + +"It--the gift! I feel as if it had never had anything--really--to do +with me." + +"Ah, that's the way to tell that you've got it." + +"I know, but I don't mean that. I mean--it does belong so very much +to somebody else, that I ought almost to give it back." + +He had always wondered how she did it. Now for one moment he +believed that she was about to clear up her little mystery. She was +going to tell him that she hadn't done it at all, that somebody else +had borrowed her name for some incomprehensible purpose of +concealment. She was going to make an end of Freda Farrar. + +"Of course," she said, "I know you don't want it back." + +"I?" + +"Yes. It's really yours, you know. I should never have had it at all +if it hadn't been for you." + +"I'm very glad," he said gravely, "if I've helped you." + +He was thinking, "She does really rather pile it on." + +Freda went piling it on more. She felt continuously that the gift +would see them through. She would hold it well before him, and turn +it round and round, that he might see for himself that there was +nothing that could be considered sinister behind it. Her passionate +concentration on it would show that there _was_ nothing behind, no +vision of anything darker and deeper. It was as if she said to him, +"I know the dreadful thing you're afraid of. I'm showing you what it +is, so that you needn't think it's that." + +Not that she was afraid of his thinking it. She had set her +happiness high, in a pure serene place, safe from the visitations of +his terror. She conceived that the peace of it might in time come to +constitute a kind of happiness for him. That gross fear could never +arise between him and her. All the same, she perceived that a finer +misgiving might menace his perfect peace. He might, if he were +subtle enough, imagine that she was giving him too much, and that he +owed her something. His chivalry might become uneasy. She must show +him how perfectly satisfied she was. He must see that the thing she +had hold of was great, was immense, that it filled her life to the +brim, so that there wasn't any room for anything else. How could he +owe her anything when he had given her that? + +She must make him see it very clearly. + +"It wasn't only that you _helped_," she said, "to bring it out of +me. It wasn't in me. When it came, it seemed to come from somewhere +outside. Somebody must have put it into me. I believe such a thing +is possible. And there wasn't anybody, you know, but you." + +"I doubt," said he, "the possibility. Anyhow, you may safely leave +me out of it." + +"Think," she said, "think of the time when you were left out of it, +when it was only me. It's inconceivable--the difference----" + +"Let's leave it at that. Why rub the bloom off the mystery?" + +"Do I rub the bloom off?" + +"Yes, if you make out that I had anything to do with it." + +"If it's mystery you want, don't you see that's the greatest mystery +of all--your having had to do with it?" + +"But why should I, of all people? Is there any sign of Freda Farrar +in anything I did before I knew her?" + +"Is there any sign of her in anything she did before she knew you?" + +He was silent. + +"Then," said Freda, "if it isn't you it's we. We've collaborated." + +If he had not been illumined by the horrid light Julia had given him +he would have said that this was only Freda's way, another form of +her adorable extravagance. Now he wondered. + +Poor Freda went on piling up her defenses. "Don't you see?" said +she. "That's why I feel so sure of it. If it had been just me, I +should never have been sure a minute. It might have gone any day, +and I should have known that there was no more where it came from. +But, if it's you, I can simply lean back on it and rest. Don't you +see?" + +"No," he said, "I don't see." + +(He was saying to himself: "I'm afraid Julia was right about her. +Only she doesn't know it.") + +"You must leave me out of it. You mustn't let yourself think that +you rest on anything or anybody but yourself." + +It was what Julia had said, searching her with her woman's eyes. He +did not look at her as he said it. + +Her nerves still shook under Julia's distant and delicate admonition +to her to keep her head. It struck her that he was repeating the +warning in a still more delicate and distant manner. She wondered +was it possible that he was beginning to be afraid? Couldn't he see +that he was safe with her? That they were safe with one another? +What was she doing now but letting him see how safe they were? +Hadn't she just given to their relations the last touch of spiritual +completion? She had made a place for him where he could come and go +at will, and rest without terror. Couldn't he see that she had set +her house of life above all that, so high that nobody down here +could see what went on up there, and wonder at his going out and +coming in? + +Keep her head, indeed! Her untroubled and untrammeled movements on +her heights proved how admirably she kept it. + +"You see," he continued, "it's not as if I could be always here, on +the spot." + +His voice still sounded the distant note of warning. It told her +that there was something that he wished to make _her_ see. + +Her best answer to that was silence, and a sincere front intimating +that she saw everything, and that there was nothing to touch her in +the things _he_ saw. + +"And as it happens" (Caldecott's voice shook a little), "I'm going +away next week. I shall be away a very long time." + +She knew that he did not look at her now lest he should see her +wince. She did not wince. + +"Well," said she, "I shall be here when you come back." + +It was then that she saw the terror in his face. + +"Of course," he said, "I hope--very much--you will be here." + +She felt that he, like Julia, was leading her to the edge of the +deep dividing place, and that he paused miserably where Julia had +plunged. She saw him trying to bridge the gulf, to cover it, with +decent, gentle commonplaces and courtesies. Then he went away. + +What had she done to make him afraid of her? Or was it what she had +said? The other day, before she had seen Julia, she could have said +anything to him. Now it seemed there was nothing that she could say. + +What was it that he had seen in her? + +That was it. With all his wonderful comprehension he had failed her +in the ultimate test--the ability to see what was in her. He had +seen nothing but one thing, the thing he was accustomed to see, the +material woman's passion to pursue, to make captive, to possess. He +would go thinking all his life that it was she who had failed, she +who, by her vulgarity, had made it impossible for him to remain her +friend. She supposed she _had_ piled it up too high. It was her very +defenses that had betrayed her, made her more flagrant and exposed. + +She bowed herself for hours to the scourging of that thought till +the thought itself perished from exhaustion. + +She knew that it was not so. He held her higher than that. + +He was not afraid. He was only sorry for her. He had tried to be +more tender to her than she was herself. He was going away because +his honor, his masculine honor, told him that if he could not marry +her there was nothing else for him to do. He was trying to spare her +pain. It was very honorable of him, she knew. + +But it would have been more honorable still if he had stayed; if he +had trusted her to keep her friendship incorruptible by pain. Or +rather, if he had seen that no pain could touch her, short of the +consummate spiritual torture he was inflicting now. + +There were moments when she stood back from the torture +self-delivered. When she heard herself saying to him: "I know why +you're going. It's because you think I wanted you to give me +something that you can't give me. Don't you see that if you can't +give it me it doesn't matter? It's, after all, so little compared +with what you have given me. Is it honorable to take that away? +Don't you see how you're breaking faith with me? Don't you see that +you've made me ashamed, and that nothing can be worse to bear than +that?" + +Then she knew that she would never be able to say that to him. She +would never be able to say anything to him any more. She wondered +whether he had made those other women ashamed when he broke loose +from them. Was she ashamed, did she suffer, the woman who had caught +and held him, and hurt him so? + +At the thought of his hurt her passion had such pity that it cried +out in her, "What have they done to you that you can't see?" + + +VI + +He went away the following week to the North, and remained there for +six months. His honor prescribed a considerable term of absence. It +compelled him to keep away from her for some time after his return. +He told himself that she had the consolation of her gift. + +Meanwhile no sign of it had reached him since the day he left her. +Julia could give him no news of her; she believed, but was not +certain, that Freda was away. When he called in Montagu Street he +was told that Miss Farrar had given up her rooms and gone abroad. + +He wrote to the address given him, and heard from her by return. She +told him that she was very well; that San Remo was very beautiful; +that she was sure he would be glad to hear that a small income had +been left to her, enough to relieve her from the necessity of +writing--she had not, in fact, written a line in the last +year--otherwise, of course, he would have heard from her. "It rather +looks," she added, "as if poverty had been my inspiration." + +In every word he read her desire to spare him. + +It had not stayed with her, then? The slender flame had died in her, +the sudden spirit had fled. Well, if it had to go, it was better +that it should go this way, all at once, rather than that they +should have had to acknowledge any falling-off from the delicate +perfection of her gift. + +Three months later a letter from his friend, Mrs. Dysart, informed +him of Freda's death at San Remo early in the spring. + +Mrs. Dysart had seen her there. She was now staying with her niece, +Julia Nethersole, and desired to see him. She was sure that he would +want to hear about their friend. + +He remembered Mrs. Dysart as a small, robust, iron-gray +woman--sharp-tongued, warm-hearted, terrifically observant. Though +childless, she had always struck him as almost savagely maternal. +He dreaded the interview, for he had had some vague idea that she +had not appreciated Freda. Besides, his connection with Miss Farrar +was so public that Mrs. Dysart would have no delicacy in approaching +it. + +Mrs. Dysart proved more reticent than he had feared. The full flow +of her reminiscences began only under pressure. + +The news of Miss Farrar's death, she said, came to her as a shock, +but hardly as a surprise. + +"You were not with her, then?" he said. + +"No one was with her." + +The words dropped into a terrible silence. A sound broke it, the +sound of some uneasy movement made by Julia. + +"When did you see her last?" he asked. + +"I saw her last driving on the sea front at San Remo. If you could +call it seeing her. She was all huddled up in furs and rugs and +things. Just a sharp white slip of a face and two eyes gazing at +nothing out of the carriage window. She looked as if something had +scared her." + +And it was of her that he had been afraid! + +"Do you know," he said presently, "what she died of?" + +"No. It was supposed that, some time or other, she must have had +some great shock." + +Caldecott shifted his position. + +"The doctors said there was no reason why she should have died. She +could have lived well enough if she had wanted to. The terrible +thing was that she didn't want. If you ask me what she died of I +should say she was either scared to death or starved." + +"Surely," he said, "surely she had enough?" + +"Oh, she had food enough to eat, and clothes enough to cover her, +and fire enough to warm her. But she starved." + +"What do you suppose," said Julia, "the poor girl wanted?" + +"Nothing, my dear, that you would understand." + +He was at a loss to account for the asperity of the little lady's +tone; but he remembered that Julia had never been a favorite with +her aunt. + +"I'm convinced," said Mrs. Dysart, "that woman died for want of +something. Something that she'd got used to till it was absolutely +necessary to her. Something, whatever it was, that had completely +satisfied her. When she found herself without it, _that_, I imagine, +constituted the shock. And she wasn't strong enough to stand it, +that was all." + +Mrs. Dysart spoke to her niece, but he felt that there was something +in her, fiery and indignant, that hurled itself across Julia at him. + +He changed the subject. + +"She--she left nothing?" + +"Not a note, not a line." + +"Ah, well, what we have is beautiful enough for anybody." + +"I wonder if you have any idea what you might have had? If you even +knew what it was you had?" + +"I never presumed," he said, "to understand her. I've hardly ever +known any woman properly but one." + +"And knowing one woman--properly or improperly--won't help you to +understand another. _I_ never knew there was so much in her." + +"She didn't know it herself. She used to say it wasn't in her. It +was the most mysterious thing I ever saw." + +It was his turn to shelter himself behind Freda's gift. He piled up +words, and his mind cowered behind them, thinking no thought, +seeing nothing but Freda's dead face with its shut eyes. + +"What was it?" he said. "Where did it come from?" + +"It came," said Mrs. Dysart, "from somewhere deep down in her heart, +a part of her that had only one chance to show itself." She rose and +delivered herself of all her fire. "There was something in Freda +infinitely greater, infinitely more beautiful, than her gift. It +showed itself only once in her life. When it couldn't show itself +any more the gift left her. We can't account for it." + +He followed her to the door. She pressed his hand as she said +good-bye to him, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes. + +"I told you," she said, "to do all you could for her. She knew that +you had done--all you could." + +He bowed his head to her rebuke. + + +VII + +Upstairs Julia was waiting for him. Her pale face turned to him as +he came in. + +He saw a hunger in it that was not of the soul. + +He had never been greatly interested in Julia's soul, and till now +her face had told him nothing of it. It had clipped it tight, like +the covers of a narrow book. He had never cared to open it. Freda's +soul was like an illuminated missal, treasured under transparence; +its divine secret flamed, unafraid, in scarlet and gold. + +He did not take his seat beside her, but stood off from her, distant +and uneasy. She rose and laid her hand upon his arm, and he drew +back from her touch. + +"Wilton," she said, "you are not going to let this trouble you?" + +"What's the good of talking? It won't undo what we did." + +"What _we_ did?" + +"I, then." + +"What else could you do?" + +He did not answer, and she murmured, "Or I? I was right. She _was_ +in love with you." + +He turned on her. + +"I wish," he said, "you had never told me." + + + + +THE FAULT + + +I + +Gibson used to say that he would never marry, because no other woman +could be half as nice as his own mother. Then, of course, he broke +his mother's heart by marrying a woman who was not nice at all. + +He was a powerful fellow with a plain, square face, and a manner +that was perfection to the people whom he liked. Unfortunately they +were very few. He did not like any of the ladies whom his mother +wanted him to like, not even when they reproduced for him her +gentle, delicate distinction. + +The younger Mrs. Gibson had none of it. But she had ways with her, +and a power that was said to reside supremely in her hands, her +arms, and her hair. Especially her hair (she was the large white and +golden kind). It was long as a lasso and ample as a cloak. Gibson +loved her hair. The sight and the scent of it filled him with folly. +He liked to braid and unbraid it, to lay his face against it, to +plunge his hands through the coolness into the warmth of it. + +It seemed to him to give out the splendor and vitality of her, to +have a secret sympathy with the thought that stirred beneath it. + +She had a trick, when she was thinking of caressing it, of winding +and unwinding the little curls that sprang, aureolewise, above her +temples. That was one of her ways, and it brought her hands and +arms into play with stupendous effect. + +He would sit opposite her a whole evening, watching it, dumb with +excess of happiness. + +It took him six months to find out that the trick he admired so much +was a sign that his wife was bored to extinction. + +"Is there anything you want?" he said. + +She laughed hysterically. + +"You've only to say what you want, and I'll get it for you, if it +can be got." + +"It could be got all right," said she. "But I doubt whether you'd +care very much to get it." + +"What is it? Tell me--tell me." + +"Well--you're very nice, my dear, I know. But before I married you I +used--though you mightn't think it--to be received in society." + +He took her back to it. He said he was a selfish brute to want to +keep her to himself. That speech amused Mrs. Gibson immensely. She +had a curious and capricious sense of humor. It made her very +adaptable and tided them both over a sharp season of infelicity. + +Hitherto Mrs. Gibson had been merely bored. Now she was seized with +a malady of unrest. Any other man but Gibson would have been driven +mad with her nerves. + +"You're doing too much, you know," he said, soothing her. "You're +tired." + +She raised her eyebrows. + +"Oh, no," she said, "not _tired_." + +He meditated. + +"What you want," said he, "is a thorough change." + +"My dear," said she, "I didn't know you were so clever." + +"Would you like me to take a cottage in the country?" + +"A cottage? In the country?" + +"Well, of course, not too far from town. Some place where I could +run down for the week-ends." + +"You couldn't," said she, "be running down oftener?" + +"No," he said, "I'm afraid I couldn't just at present." + +"Don't you think it might be a trifle lonely?" + +"You can have anyone you like to stay with you." + +She smiled. + +"And you really want to take it? This cottage?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then," said she, "take it by all means, and lose no time." + +He took it, and went down with her for the first week-end. + +It was a tiny place. But some one had built a comfortable +smoking-room at the back. It opened by glass doors into the garden. + +One Sunday evening they were sitting together in the smoking-room +when she flung herself down on the floor beside him and laid her +head on his knee. She seized his hand and drew it down to her. + +"As you are going to leave me to-morrow," she said, "you can stroke +my hair to-night." + +He went down every week-end. And every week-end he found an +improvement in his wife's health. When he complimented her upon her +appearance, she told him she had been gardening. He took it as an +excellent sign that she should be fond of gardening. + +Then one day Gibson (who worked like ten horses to provide all the +things that his wife wanted) got ill and was told to take a month +off in the country. + +That was in the middle of the week. He saw his doctor early in the +evening and took the last train down. The cottage was several miles +from the nearest telegraph office, so that he arrived before the +wire that should have announced his coming. + +A short cut from the station brought him to the back of the house +through a little wood that screened it. The wood path led into his +garden by a private gate which was always locked. + +He climbed the gate and crossed the grass plot to the glass doors of +the smoking-room. The lamps were lit there, and Gibson, as he +approached, could see his wife sitting in the low chair opposite +his. His heart bounded at the sight of her. He was glad to think +that she sat in his room when he was away. He walked quickly over +the grass and stood at the glass doors looking in. + +She was lying back in the low chair. In _his_ chair, which a curtain +had concealed from him until now, there sat a man he knew. He +recognized the narrow shoulders and the head with the sleek brown +hair, showing a little sallow patch of baldness at the back. From a +certain tenseness in the man's attitude he knew that his gaze was +fastened on the woman who faced them. Her left arm was raised, its +long, loose sleeve fell back and bared it. Her fingers twisted and +untwisted a little straying curl. + +The man could bear it no longer. He jumped up and went to her. He +knelt beside her. With one hand he seized her arm by the full white +wrist and dragged it down and held it to his lips. The other hand +smoothed back her hair into its place and held it there. His fine, +nervous fingers sank through the deep, silky web to the white, +sensitive skin. The woman threw back her head and closed her eyes, +every nerve throbbing felinely under the caress she loved. + +The man rose with an uneasy movement that brought him to the back of +her chair. He stooped and whispered something. She flung up her arms +and drew down his face to hers under the white arch they made. + +Gibson did nothing scandalous. He went round quietly to the front +door and let himself in with his latch-key. When he entered the +smoking-room he found his wife there alone. She stood on his hearth, +and met him with hard eyes, desperate and defiant. + +"What have you to say for yourself?" he said. + +"Everything," said she. "Of course you will divorce me." + +"Will a separation not satisfy you?" + +"No," she said, "it will not. If you haven't had proof enough I can +give you more. Or you can ask the servants." + +He had always given her what she wanted. He gave it her now. + + +II + +Gibson went back to his mother. + +The incident left him apparently unscathed. He showed no signs of +trouble until four years after, when his mother died. Then the two +shocks rolled into one, and for a year Gibson was a wreck. + +At last he was told, as he had been told before, to stop work and go +away--anywhere--for a rest. He went to a small seaside town in East +Devon. + +The man's nature was so sound that in a month's time he recovered +sufficiently to take an interest in what was going on around him. + +He was lodged in one of a row of small houses facing the esplanade. +Each had its own plot of green garden spread before it, and a +flagged pathway leading from the gate to the door. Path and garden +were raised a good half-foot above the level of the sidewalk, and +this half-foot, Gibson observed, was a serious embarrassment to his +next-door neighbors. + +Twice a day a bath-chair with an old gentleman in it would emerge +from the doorway of the house next door. It was drawn by two little +ladies, a dark one and a fair one, whom Gibson judged to be the old +gentleman's daughters. He must have weighed considerably, that old +gentleman, and the ladies (especially the dark one) were far too +young and small and tender for such draft-work. Four times a day at +the garden-gate a struggle took place between little ladies and the +bath-chair. Gibson could see them from his window where he lay, +supine in his nervous apathy. Their going out was only less fearful +than their coming in. Going out, it was very hard to prevent the +back wheels from slipping down with a bump on to the pavement and +shaking the old gentleman horribly. Coming in, they risked +overturning him altogether. + +You would not have known that there was any struggle going on. The +old gentleman bore himself with so calm and high a heroism; the +little ladies were sustained by so pure a sense of the humors of the +bath-chair. No sharp, irritating cries escaped them. They did +nothing but laugh softly as they pulled and pushed and tugged with +their women's arms, and heaved with delicate shoulders, or hung on, +in their frenzy, from behind while the bath-chair swayed ponderously +and perilously above the footway. + +Gibson sometimes wondered whether he oughtn't to rush out and help +them. But he couldn't. He didn't really care. + +His landlady told him that the old gentleman was a General +Richardson, that he was paralyzed, that his daughters waited on him +hand and foot, that they were too poor to afford a man-servant to +look after him and push the bath-chair. It wasn't much of a life, +the woman said, for the two young ladies. Gibson agreed that it +wasn't much of a life, certainly. + +What pleased him was the fine levity with which they took it. He was +always meeting them in their walks on the esplanade. Sometimes they +would come racing down the wind with the bath-chair, their serge +skirts blown forward, their hair curling over the brims of their +sailor hats. (The dark one was particularly attractive in a high +wind.) Then they would come back much impeded, their skirts wrapped +tight above their knees, their little bodies bent to the storm, +their faces wearing still that invincible gaiety of theirs. +Sometimes, on a gentle incline, they would let the bath-chair run on +a little by itself, till it threatened a dangerous independence, +when they would fly after it at the top of their speed and arrest it +just in time. Gibson could never make out whether they did this for +their own amusement or the old gentleman's. But sometimes, when the +General came careering past him, he could catch the glance of a +bright and affable eye that seemed to call on him to observe the +extent to which an old fellow might enjoy himself yet. + +Gibson's lodging gave him endless opportunity for studying the +habits of his little ladies. He learned that they did everything in +turns. They took it in turns to pull the bath-chair and to push it. +They took it in turns to read aloud to the old gentleman, and to put +him to bed at night and get him up in the morning. They took it in +turns to go to church (did they become suddenly serious, he +wondered, there?), and in turns to air themselves on a certain +little plateau on the cliffside. + +He was next to find out that they nursed the monstrous ambition of +urging the bath-chair up the hill and landing it on the plateau. +Gibson was sorry for them, for he knew they could never do it. But +such was their determination that each time he encountered them on +the hill they had struggled a little farther up it. + +The road had a sort of hump in it just before it forked off on to +the cliff. That baffled them. + +At last, as he himself was returning from the plateau, he came upon +the sisters right in the middle of the rise, locked in deadly combat +with the bath-chair. Pressed against it, shoulder to shoulder, they +resisted its efforts to hurl itself violently backward down the +hill. The General, as he clung to the arms of the chair, preserved +his attitude of superb indifference to the event. + +Gibson leaped to their assistance. With a threefold prodigious +effort they topped the rise, and in silence, in a sort of solemn +triumph, the bath-chair was wheeled on to the plateau. + +He liked the simplicity with which they accepted his aid, and he +liked the way they thanked him, both sisters becoming very grave all +at once. It was the fair one who spoke. The dark one only bowed and +smiled as he lifted his cap and turned away. + +"It's all very well," he heard her saying, "but how are we going to +get him down again?" + +How were they? + +He hung about the cliffside till the time came for them to return, +when he presented himself as if by accident. + +"You must allow me," he said, "to see you safe to the bottom of the +hill." + +They allowed him. + +"You see" (the General addressed his daughters as they paused +halfway), "we've accomplished it, and no bones are broken." + +"Yes," said Gibson, "but isn't the expedition just a little +dangerous?" + +"Ah," said the General, "I've risked my life too many times to mind +a little danger now." + +Gibson's eyebrows said plainly, "It wasn't _your_ life, old boy, I +was thinking of." + +The sisters looked away. + +"You must never attempt that again," he said gravely, as he parted +from them at the foot of the hill. + +Gibson felt that he had done a good morning's work. He had saved the +lives of the three Richardsons, and he had found out that the fair +one's name was Effie, and the dark one's Phoebe. + +After that the acquaintance ripened. They exchanged salutes whenever +they met. Then Gibson, moved beyond endurance by their daily strife +with the bath-chair, was generally to be seen at their gateway in +time to help them. + +As the days grew longer the Richardsons began to take their tea out +of doors on their grass-plot. And then it seemed to strike them all +at once that the gentleman next door was lonely, and one afternoon +they invited him to tea. + +Then Gibson had his tea served on _his_ grass plot, and invited the +Richardsons, and the Richardsons (they were so absurdly grateful) +invited him to supper and to spend the evening. They thanked him for +coming. "It was such a pleasure," Effie said (Effie was the elder), +"such a great pleasure to Father." + +Gibson hardly thought his society could be a pleasure to anyone, but +he tried to make himself useful. He engaged himself as the General's +bath-chair man. He bowled him along at the round pace he loved, +while the little ladies, Effie and Phoebe, trotted after them, +friendly and gay. + +And he began to go in and out next door as a matter of course, till +it was open to the little sisters to regard him as their own very +valuable property. But they were not going to be selfish about him. +Oh, no! They took him, as they took everything else, in turns. They +tried hard to divide him fairly. If he attached himself to Effie +(the fair one), Effie would grow uneasy, and she would get up and +positively hand him over to Phoebe (the dark one). If Phoebe +permitted herself to talk to him for any while, her eyes would call +to Effie, and when Effie came she would slip away and take up her +sad place by the General's armchair. In their innocent rivalry it +was who could give him more up to the other. And, as Phoebe was +the more determined little person, it was Phoebe who generally had +it her own way. "Father," too, came in for his just share. Gibson +felt that he would not be tolerated on any footing that kept +"Father" out of it. There was also a moment in the evening when he +would be led up to the armchair, and both Effie and Phoebe would +withdraw and leave him to that communion. + +There was a third sister he knew now. She was the eldest, and her +name was Mary. She was away somewhere in the north, recovering, he +gathered, from "Father" (of course, they took it in turns to recover +from him), while Father wandered up and down the south coast, +endeavoring, vainly, to recover from himself. They told Gibson that +the one thing that spoiled it all (the joy, they meant, of their +intercourse with him) was the thought that Mary was "missing it." +Had Mary been there she would have had to have her share, her +fourth. + +Presently he realized that Phoebe (he supposed because of her +superior determination) had effaced herself altogether. She was +always doing dreary things, he noticed, out of her turn. Then he +perceived a change in her. Little Phoebe, in consequence of all +the dreary things she did, was beginning to grow thin and pale. She +looked as though she wanted more of the tonic air of the cliffside. +She did still take her turn at climbing to the plateau and sitting +there all alone. But that, Gibson reflected, was after all, for +Phoebe, a very dreary thing to do. + +One evening he took courage, and asked Phoebe to come for a walk +to the cliffside with him. + +Phoebe did not answer all at once. She shrank, he could see, from +the enormity of having him all to herself. + +"Go," said Effie, "it will do you worlds of good." + +"_You_ go." + +Effie laughed and shook her head. + +"Come too, then. Mr. Gibson, say she's to come too." + +"You know," said Effie, "it's my turn to stay with Father." + +She said it severely, as if Phoebe had been trying unfairly to +deprive her of a privilege and a delight. They were delicious, +Phoebe and Effie, but it was Phoebe that he wanted this time. + +They set out at a brisk pace that brought the blood to Phoebe's +cheeks and made her prettier than ever. Phoebe, of course, had +done her best to make her prettiness entirely unobtrusive. She wore +a muslin skirt and a tie, and a sailor hat that was not specially +becoming to her small head, and her serge skirt had to be both wide +and short because of pushing the bath-chair about through all kinds +of weather. But the sea wind caught her; it played with her hair; +it blew a little dark curl out of place to hang distractingly over +Phoebe's left ear; it blew the serge skirt tight about her limbs, +and showed him, in spite of Phoebe, how prettily Phoebe was +made. + +"Why didn't you back me up?" said Phoebe. "She wanted to come all +the time." + +He turned, as he walked, to look at her. + +"Why didn't I back you up? Do you really want to know why?" + +Whenever he took that tone Phoebe looked solemn and a little +frightened. She was frightened now, too frightened to answer him. + +"Because," said he, "I wanted you all to myself." + +"Oh----" Phoebe drew a long, terrified breath. + +There are many ways of saying "Oh," but Gibson had never, never in +his whole life heard any woman say it as Phoebe said it then. It +meant that she was staggered at anybody's having the temerity to +want anything all to himself. + +"Do you think me very selfish?" + +Phoebe assured him instantly that that had never been her idea of +him. + +"Shall I tell you who is selfish?" + +Phoebe's little mouth hardened. She was so dreadfully afraid that +he was going to say "Your father." + +"You," he said, "you." + +"I'm afraid I am," said she. "It's so hard not to be." + +He stood still in his astonishment, so that she had to stand still, +too. + +"Of course it's hard not to give up things, when you like giving +them up. But your sister likes giving them up, too, and it's selfish +of you to prevent her, isn't it?" + +"Oh, but you don't know what it's been--Effie's life and Mary's." + +"And yours----" + +"Oh, no, I'm happy enough. I'm the youngest." + +"You mean you've had a year or two less of it." + +"Yes. They never told me, for fear of making me unhappy, when +Father's illness came." + +"How long ago was that?" + +"Five years ago. I was at school." + +He made a brief calculation. During the two years of his married +life Phoebe had been a child at school. + +"And two years," said Phoebe, "is a long time to be happy in." + +"Yes," he said, "it's a long time." + +"And then," she went on presently, "I'm so much stronger than Effie +and Mary." + +"Not strong enough to go dragging that abominable bath-chair about." + +"Not strong enough? Look----" + +She held out her right arm for him to look at; under her muslin +blouse he saw its tense roundness, and its whiteness through the +slit above her wrist. + +His heart stirred in him. Phoebe's arms were beautiful, and they +were strong to help. + +"I wish," he said, "I could make it better for you." + +"Oh, but you _have_ made it better for us. You can't think what a +difference you've made." + +"Have I? Have I?" + +"Yes. Effie said so only the other day. She wrote it to Mary. And +Mary says it's a shame she can't be here. It is, you know. It makes +us feel so mean having you all to ourselves like this." + +He laughed. He laughed whenever he thought of it. There was nobody +who could say things as Phoebe said them. + +"I wish," said she, "you knew Mary. You'd like her so." + +"I'm sure I should if she's at all like you." + +(Her innocence sheltered him, made him bold.) + +"Oh, but she isn't." + +And he listened while she gave him a long list of Mary's charms. +(Dear little, tender, unconscious Phoebe.) + +"She sounds," he said, "very like you." + +"She isn't the least bit like me. You don't know me." + +"Don't I?" + +"Mary's coming back at the end of the month. Then either I or Effie +will go away. Do you think you'll still be here?" + +He seemed to her to answer absently. + +"Which of you, did you say, was going away?" + +"Well--it's Effie's turn." + +"Yes," he said, "I think I shall still be here." + +One night, a week later, the two sisters sat talking together long +after "Father" had been put to bed. + +"Phoebe," said Effie, "why did you want me to come with you and +Mr. Gibson?" + +"Because----" said Phoebe. + +"My dear, it's you he likes, not me." + +"Don't, Effie." + +"But it's true," said Effie. + +"How can you tell?" said Phoebe, and she felt perfidious. + +"Isn't he always going about with you?" + +But Phoebe was ingenious in the destruction of her own joy. + +"Oh," said she, "that's his cunning. He likes you dreadfully. He +goes about with me, just to hide it." + +"You goose." + +"Are you sure, Effie, you don't care?" + +"Not a rap." + +"You never have? Not in the beginning?" + +"Certainly not in the beginning. I only thought he might be nice for +you." + +"You didn't even want to divide him?" + +Effie shook her head vehemently. + +"Well--he's the only thing I ever wanted all to myself. If----" Then +Phoebe looked frightened. "Effie," she said, "he's never said +anything." + +"All the same, you _know_." + +"Can you know?" + +"I think so," said Effie. + + +III + +Gibson had been talking a long time to Phoebe. They were sitting +together on the beach, under the shadow of the cliff. He was trying +to form Phoebe's mind. Phoebe's mind was deliciously young, and +it had the hunger and thirst of youth. A little shy and difficult to +approach, Phoebe's mind, but he had found out what it liked best, +and it pleased him to see how confidingly and delicately it, so to +speak, ate out of his hand. + +He puzzled her a good deal. And she had a very pretty way of closing +her eyes when she was puzzled. In another woman it would have meant +that he was boring her; Phoebe did it to shut out the intolerable +light of knowledge. + +"Ah!--don't," he cried. + +"Don't shut my eyes? I always shut my eyes when I'm trying to +think," said Phoebe. + +He said nothing. That was not what he had meant when he had said +"Don't." + +"Am I boring you?" he said presently. His tone jarred a little on +Phoebe; he had such a nice voice generally. + +"No," said she. "Why?" + +"Because you keep on doing that." + +"Doing what?" + +"That." + +"Oh!--this?" + +She put up her hand and untwisted the little tendril of brown hair +that hung deliciously over her left ear. + +"I always do that when I'm thinking." + +He very nearly said, "Then, for God's sake, don't think." + +But Phoebe was always thinking now. He had given her cause to +think. + +He began to hate the little brown curl that hung over her left ear, +though it was anguish to him to hate anything that was Phoebe's. +He looked out with nervous anxiety for the movement of her little +white hand. He said to himself, "If she does it again, I can't come +near her any more." + +Yet he kept on coming; and was happy with her until Phoebe (poor, +predestined little Phoebe) did it again. Gibson shuddered with the +horror of the thing. He kept on saying to himself, "She's sweet, +she's good, she's adorable. It isn't her fault. But I can't--I can't +sit in the room with it." + +And the next minute Phoebe would be so adorable that he would +repent miserably of his brutality. + +Then, one hot, still evening, he was alone with her in the little +sitting-room. Outside, on the grass plot, her father sat in his +bath-chair while Effie read aloud to him (out of her turn). Her +voice made a cover for Gibson's voice and Phoebe's. + +Phoebe was dressed (for the heat) in a white gown with wide, open +sleeves. Her low collar showed the pure, soft swell of her neck to +the shoulder-line. + +She was sitting upright and demure in a straight-backed chair, with +her hands folded quietly in her lap. + +"That isn't a very comfortable chair you've got," he said. + +He knew that she was tired with pushing the bath-chair about all +day. + +"It's the one I always sit in," said Phoebe. + +"Well, you're not going to sit in it now," he said. + +He drew the armchair out of its sacred corner and made her sit in +that. He put a cushion at her head and a footstool at her feet. + +"You make my heart ache," he said. + +"Do I?" + +He could not tell whether the little shaking breath she drew were a +laugh or a sigh. + +She lay back, letting her tired body slacken into rest. + +The movement loosened the little combs that kept the coil of her +brown hair in place. Phoebe abhorred dishevelment. She put up her +hands to her head. Her wide sleeve fell back, showing the full +length of her white arms. + +He saw another woman stretching her arms to the man who leaned above +her. He saw the movement of her hands--hands of the same texture and +whiteness as her body, instinct with its impulses. A long procession +of abominations passed through the white arch of her arms--the arch +she raised in triumph and defiance, immortalizing her sin. + +He was very tender with Phoebe that night, for his heart was wrung +with compunction. + +"She's adorable," he said to himself; "but I can't live with +_that_." + +Gibson left by the early train next day. He went without saying +good-bye and without leaving an explanation or an address. + +Phoebe held her head high, and said, day after day, "There's sure +to be a letter." + +Three weeks passed and no letter came. Phoebe saw that it was all +over. + +One day she was found (Effie found her) on her bed, crying. She was +so weak she let Effie take her in her arms. + +"If I only knew what I had done," she said. "Oh, Effie! what could +have made him go away?" + +"I can't tell, my lamb. You mustn't think about him any more." + +"I can't help thinking. You see, it's not as if he hadn't been so +nice." + +"He couldn't have been nice to treat you that way." + +"He didn't," said Phoebe fiercely. "He didn't treat me any way. I +sometimes think I must have made it all up out of my own head. Did +I?" + +"No, no. I'm sure you didn't." + +"It would have been awful of me. But I'd rather be awful than have +to think that he was. What is my worst fault, Effie?" + +"Your worst fault, in his eyes, is that you have none." + +Phoebe sat up on the edge of the bed. She was thinking hard. And +as she thought her hand went up, caressing unconsciously the little +brown curl. + +"If I only knew," said she, "what I had done!" + +Gibson never saw Phoebe Richardson again. But a year later, as he +turned suddenly on to the esplanade of a strange watering-place, he +encountered the bath-chair, drawn by Effie and another lady. He +made way, lifting his cap mechanically to its occupant. + +The General looked at him. The courteous old hand checked itself in +the salute. The affable smile died grimly. + +Effie turned away her head. The other lady (it must have been +"Mary") raised her eyes in somber curiosity. + +Phoebe was not with them. Gibson supposed that she was away +somewhere, recovering, in her turn. + + + + +WILKINSON'S WIFE + + +I + +Nobody ever understood why he married her. + +You expected calamity to pursue Wilkinson--it always had pursued +him--; but that Wilkinson should have gone out of his way to pursue +calamity (as if he could never have enough of it) really seemed a +most unnecessary thing. + +For there had been no pursuit on the part of the lady. Wilkinson's +wife had the quality of her defects, and revealed herself chiefly in +a formidable reluctance. It was understood that Wilkinson had +prevailed only after an austere struggle. Her appearance +sufficiently refuted any theory of unholy fascination or disastrous +charm. + +Wilkinson's wife was not at all nice to look at. She had an +insignificant figure, a small, square face, colorless hair scraped +with difficulty to the top of her head, eyes with no lashes to +protect you from their stare, a mouth that pulled at an invisible +curb, a sallow skin stretched so tight over her cheek-bones that the +red veins stood stagnant there; and with it all, poor lady, a dull, +strained expression hostile to further intimacy. + +Even in her youth she never could have looked young, and she was +years older than Wilkinson. Not that the difference showed, for his +marriage had made Wilkinson look years older than he was; at least, +so it was said by people who had known him before that unfortunate +event. + +It was not even as if she had been intelligent. Wilkinson had a +gentle passion for the things of intellect; his wife seemed to exist +on purpose to frustrate it. In no department of his life was her +influence so penetrating and malign. At forty he no longer counted; +he had lost all his brilliance, and had replaced it by a shy, +unworldly charm. There was something in Wilkinson that dreamed or +slept, with one eye open, fixed upon his wife. Of course, he had his +blessed hours of deliverance from the woman. Sometimes he would fly +in her face and ask people to dine at his house in Hampstead, to +discuss Roman remains, or the Troubadours, or Nietzsche. He never +could understand why his wife couldn't "enter," as he expressed it, +into these subjects. He smiled at you in the dimmest, saddest way +when he referred to it. "It's extraordinary," he would say, "the +little interest she takes in Nietzsche." + +Mrs. Norman found him once wandering in the High Street, with his +passion full on him. He was a little absent, a little flushed; his +eyes shone behind his spectacles; and there were pleasant creases in +his queer, clean-shaven face. + +She inquired the cause of his delight. + +"I've got a man coming to dine this evening, to have a little talk +with me. He knows all about the Troubadours." + +And Wilkinson would try and make you believe that they had threshed +out the Troubadours between them. But when Mrs. Norman, who was a +little curious about Wilkinson, asked the Troubadour man what they +_had_ talked about, he smiled and said it was something--some +extraordinary adventure--that had happened to Wilkinson's wife. + +People always smiled when they spoke of her. Then, one by one, they +left off dining with Wilkinson. The man who read Nietzsche was quite +rude about it. He said he wasn't going there to be gagged by that +woman. He would have been glad enough to ask Wilkinson to dine with +him if he would go without his wife. + +If it had not been for Mrs. Norman the Wilkinsons would have +vanished from the social scene. Mrs. Norman had taken Wilkinson up, +and it was evident that she did not mean to let him go. That, she +would have told you with engaging emphasis, was not her way. She had +seen how things were going, socially, with Wilkinson, and she was +bent on his deliverance. + +If anybody could have carried it through, it would have been Mrs. +Norman. She was clever; she was charming; she had a house in +Fitzjohn's Avenue, where she entertained intimately. At forty she +had preserved the best part of her youth and prettiness, and an +income insufficient for Mr. Norman, but enough for her. As she said +in her rather dubious pathos, she had nobody but herself to please +now. + +You gathered that if Mr. Norman had been living he would not have +been pleased with her cultivation of the Wilkinsons. She was always +asking them to dinner. They turned up punctually at her delightful +Friday evenings (her little evenings) from nine to eleven. They +dropped in to tea on Sunday afternoons. Mrs. Norman had a wonderful +way of drawing Wilkinson out; while Evey, her unmarried sister, made +prodigious efforts to draw Wilkinson's wife in. "If you could only +make her," said Mrs. Norman, "take an interest in something." + +But Evey couldn't make her take an interest in anything. Evey had no +sympathy with her sister's missionary adventure. She saw what Mrs. +Norman wouldn't see--that, if they forced Mrs. Wilkinson on people +who were trying to keep away from her, people would simply keep away +from them. Their Fridays were not so well attended, so delightful, +as they had been. A heavy cloud of dulness seemed to come into the +room, with Mrs. Wilkinson, at nine o'clock. It hung about her chair, +and spread slowly, till everybody was wrapped in it. + +Then Evey protested. She wanted to know why Cornelia allowed their +evenings to be blighted thus. "Why ask Mrs. Wilkinson?" + +"I wouldn't," said Cornelia, "if there was any other way of getting +him." + +"Well," said Evey, "he's nice enough, but it's rather a large price +to have to pay." + +"And is he," cried Cornelia passionately, "to be cut off from +everything because of that one terrible mistake?" + +Evey said nothing. If Cornelia were going to take him that way, +there was nothing to be said! + +So Mrs. Norman went on drawing Wilkinson out more and more, till one +Sunday afternoon, sitting beside her on the sofa, he emerged +positively splendid. There were moments when he forgot about his +wife. + +They had been talking together about his blessed Troubadours. (It +was wonderful the interest Mrs. Norman took in them!) Suddenly his +gentleness and sadness fell from him, a flame sprang up behind his +spectacles, and the something that slept or dreamed in Wilkinson +awoke. He was away with Mrs. Norman in a lovely land, in Provence of +the thirteenth century. A strange chant broke from him; it startled +Evey, where she sat at the other end of the room. He was reciting +his own translation of a love-song of Provence. + +At the first words of the refrain his wife, who had never ceased +staring at him, got up and came across the room. She touched his +shoulder just as he was going to say "Ma mie." + +"Come, Peter," she said, "it's time to be going home." + +Wilkinson rose on his long legs. "Ma mie," he said, looking down at +her; and the flaming dream was still in his eyes behind his +spectacles. + +He took the little cloak she held out to him, a pitiful and rather +vulgar thing. He raised it with the air of a courtier handling a +royal robe; then he put it on her, smoothing it tenderly about her +shoulders. + +Mrs. Norman followed them to the porch. As he turned to her on the +step, she saw that his eyes were sad, and that his face, as she put +it, had gone to sleep again. + +When she came back to her sister, her own eyes shone and her face +was rosy. + +"Oh, Evey," she said, "isn't it beautiful?" + +"Isn't what beautiful?" + +"Mr. Wilkinson's behavior to his wife." + + +II + +It was not an easy problem that Mrs. Norman faced. She wished to +save Wilkinson; she also wished to save the character of her +Fridays, which Wilkinson's wife had already done her best to +destroy. Mrs. Norman could not think why the woman came, since she +didn't enjoy herself, since she was impenetrable to the intimate, +peculiar charm. You could only suppose that her object was to +prevent its penetrating Wilkinson, to keep the other women off. Her +eyes never left him. + +It was all very well for Evey to talk. She _might_, of course, have +been wiser in the beginning. She might have confined the creature to +their big monthly crushes, where, as Evey had suggested, she would +easily have been mislaid and lost. But so, unfortunately, would +Wilkinson; and the whole point was how not to lose him. + +Evey said she was tired of being told off to entertain Mrs. +Wilkinson. She was beginning to be rather disagreeable about it. She +said Cornelia was getting to care too much about that Wilkinson man. +She wouldn't have minded playing up to her if she had approved of +the game; but Mrs. Wilkinson was, after all, you know, Mr. +Wilkinson's wife. + +Mrs. Norman cried a little. She told Evey she ought to have known it +was his spirit that she cared about. But she owned that it wasn't +right to sacrifice poor Evey. Neither, since he _had_ a wife, was it +altogether right for her to care about Wilkinson's spirit to the +exclusion of her other friends. + +Then, one Friday, Mrs. Norman, relieving her sister for once, made a +discovery while Evey, who was a fine musician, played. Mrs. +Wilkinson did, after all, take an interest in something; she was +accessible to the throbbing of Evey's bow across the strings. + +She had started; her eyes had turned from Wilkinson and fastened on +the player. There was a light in them, beautiful and piercing, as if +her soul had suddenly been released from some hiding-place in its +unlovely house. Her face softened, her mouth relaxed, her eyes +closed. She lay back in her chair, at peace, withdrawn from them, +positively lost. + +Mrs. Norman slipped across the room to the corner where Wilkinson +sat alone. His face lightened as she came. + +"It's extraordinary," he said, "her love of music." + +Mrs. Norman assented. It _was_ extraordinary, if you came to think +of it. Mrs. Wilkinson had no understanding of the art. What did it +mean to her? Where did it take her? You could see she was +transported, presumably to some place of chartered stupidity, of +condoned oblivion, where nobody could challenge her right to enter +and remain. + +"So soothing," said Wilkinson, "to the nerves." + +Mrs. Norman smiled at him. She felt that, under cover of the music, +his spirit was seeking communion with hers. + +He thanked her at parting; the slight hush and mystery of his manner +intimated that she had found a way. + +"I hope," she said, "you'll come often--often." + +"May we? May we?" He seemed to leap at it--as if they hadn't come +often enough before! + +Certainly she had found the way--the way to deliver him, the way to +pacify his wife, to remove her gently to her place and keep her +there. + +The dreadful lady thus creditably disposed of, Wilkinson was no +longer backward in the courting of his opportunity. He proved +punctual to the first minute of the golden hour. + +Hampstead was immensely interested in his blossoming forth. It found +a touching simplicity in the way he lent himself to the sympathetic +eye. All the world was at liberty to observe his intimacy with Mrs. +Norman. + +It endured for nine weeks. Then suddenly, to Mrs. Norman's +bewilderment, it ceased. The Wilkinsons left off coming to her +Friday evenings. They refused her invitations. Their behavior was so +abrupt and so mysterious that Mrs. Norman felt that something must +have happened to account for it. Somebody, she had no doubt, had +been talking. She was much annoyed with Wilkinson in consequence, +and, when she met him accidentally in the High Street, her manner +conveyed to him her just resentment. + +He called in Fitzjohn's Avenue the next Sunday. For the first time +he was without his wife. + +He was so downcast, and so penitent, and so ashamed of himself that +Mrs. Norman met him halfway with a little rush of affection. + +"Why have you not been to see us all this time?" she said. + +He looked at her unsteadily; his whole manner betrayed an extreme +embarrassment. + +"I've come," he said, "on purpose to explain. You mustn't think I +don't appreciate your kindness, but the fact is my poor wife"--(She +knew that woman was at the bottom of it!)--"is no longer--up to it." + +"What is the wretch up to, I should like to know?" thought Mrs. +Norman. + +He held her with his melancholy, unsteady eyes. He seemed to be +endeavoring to approach a subject intimately and yet abstrusely +painful. + +"She finds the music--just at present--a little too much for her; +the vibrations, you know. It's extraordinary how they affect her. +She feels them--most unpleasantly--just here." Wilkinson laid two +delicate fingers on the middle buttons of his waistcoat. + +Mrs. Norman was very kind to him. He was not very expert, poor +fellow, in the fabrication of excuses. His look seemed to implore +her pardon for the shifts he had been driven to; it appealed to her +to help him out, to stand by him in his unspeakable situation. + +"I see," she said. + +He smiled, in charming gratitude to her for seeing it. + +That smile raised the devil in her. Why, after all, should she help +him out? + +"And are you susceptible to music--in the same unpleasant way?" + +"Me? Oh, no--no. I like it; it gives me the very greatest pleasure." +He stared at her in bewilderment and distress. + +"Then why," said Mrs. Norman sweetly, "if it gives you pleasure, +should you cut yourself off from it?" + +"My dear Mrs. Norman, we have to cut ourselves off from a great many +things--that give us pleasure. It can't be helped." + +She meditated. "Would it be any good," she said, "if I were to call +on Mrs. Wilkinson?" + +Wilkinson looked grave. "It is most kind of you, but--just at +present--I think it might be wiser not. She really, you know, isn't +very fit." + +Mrs. Norman's silence neither accepted nor rejected the preposterous +pretext. Wilkinson went on, helping himself out as best he could: + +"I can't talk about it; but I thought I ought to let you know. We've +just got to give everything up." + +She held herself in. A terrible impulse was upon her to tell him +straight out that she did not see it; that it was too bad; that +there was no reason why she should be called upon to give everything +up. + +"So, if we don't come," he said, "you'll understand? It's better--it +really is better not." + +His voice moved her, and her heart cried to him, "Poor Peter!" + +"Yes," she said; "I understand." + +Of course she understood. Poor Peter! so it had come to that? + +"Can't you stay for tea?" she said. + +"No; I must be going back to her." + +He rose. His hand found hers. Its slight pressure told her that he +gave and took the sadness of renunciation. + +That winter Mrs. Wilkinson fell ill in good earnest, and Wilkinson +became the prey of a pitiful remorse that kept him a prisoner by his +wife's bedside. + +He had always been a good man; it was now understood that he avoided +Mrs. Norman because he desired to remain what he had always been. + + +III + +There was also an understanding, consecrated by the piety of their +renunciation, that Wilkinson was only waiting for his wife's death +to marry Mrs. Norman. + +And Wilkinson's wife was a long time in dying. It was not to be +supposed that she would die quickly, as long as she could interfere +with his happiness by living. + +With her genius for frustrating and tormenting, she kept the poor +man on tenter-hooks with perpetual relapses and recoveries. She +jerked him on the chain. He was always a prisoner on the verge of +his release. She was at death's door in March. In April she was to +be seen, convalescent, in a bath-chair, being wheeled slowly up and +down the Spaniard's Road. And Wilkinson walked by the chair, his +shoulders bent, his eyes fixed on the ground, his face set in an +expression of illimitable patience. + +In the summer she gave it up and died; and in the following spring +Wilkinson resumed his converse with Mrs. Norman. All things +considered, he had left a decent interval. + +By autumn Mrs. Norman's friends were all on tiptoe and craning their +necks with expectation. It was assumed among them that Wilkinson +would propose to her the following summer, when the first year of +his widowhood should be ended. When summer came there was nothing +between them that anybody could see. But it by no means followed +that there was nothing to be seen. Mrs. Norman seemed perfectly sure +of him. In her intense sympathy for Wilkinson she knew how to +account for all his hesitations and delays. She could not look for +any passionate, decisive step from the broken creature he had +become; she was prepared to accept him as he was, with all his +humiliating fears and waverings. The tragic things his wife had done +to him could not be undone in a day. + +Another year divided Wilkinson from his tragedy, and still he stood +trembling weakly on the verge. Mrs. Norman began to grow thin. She +lost her bright air of defiance, and showed herself vulnerable by +the hand of time. And nothing, positively nothing, stood between +them, except Wilkinson's morbid diffidence. So absurdly manifest was +their case that somebody (the Troubadour man, in fact) interposed +discreetly. In the most delicate manner possible, he gave Wilkinson +to understand that he would not necessarily make himself obnoxious +to Mrs. Norman were he to approach her with--well, with a view to +securing their joint happiness--happiness which they had both earned +by their admirable behavior. + +That was all that was needed: a tactful friend of both parties to +put it to Wilkinson simply and in the right way. Wilkinson rose from +his abasement. There was a light in his eye that rejoiced the +tactful friend; his face had a look of sudden, virile determination. + +"I will go to her," he said, "now." + +It was a dark, unpleasant evening, full of cold and sleet. + +Wilkinson thrust his arms into an overcoat, jammed a cap down on his +forehead, and strode into the weather. He strode into Mrs. Norman's +drawing-room. + +When Mrs. Norman saw that look on his face she knew that it was all +right. Her youth rose in her again to meet it. + +"Forgive me," said Wilkinson. "I had to come." + +"Why not?" she said. + +"It's so late." + +"Not too late for me." + +He sat down, still with his air of determination, in the chair she +indicated. He waved away, with unconcealed impatience, the +trivialities she used to soften the violence of his invasion. + +"I've come," he said, "because I've had something on my mind. It +strikes me that I've never really thanked you." + +"Thanked me?" + +"For your great kindness to my wife." + +Mrs. Norman looked away. + +"I shall always be grateful to you," said Wilkinson. "You were very +good to her." + +"Oh, no, no," she moaned. + +"I assure you," he insisted, "she felt it very much. I thought you +would like to know that." + +"Oh, yes." Mrs. Norman's voice went very low with the sinking of her +heart. + +"She used to say you did more for her--you and your sister, with her +beautiful music--than all the doctors. You found the thing that +eased her. I suppose _you_ knew how ill she was--all the time? I +mean before her last illness." + +"I don't think," said she, "I did know." + +His face, which had grown grave, brightened. "No? Well, you see, she +was so plucky. Nobody could have known; I didn't always realize it +myself." + +Then he told her that for five years his wife had suffered from a +nervous malady that made her subject to strange excitements and +depressions. + +"We fought it," he said, "together. Through it all, even on her +worst days, she was always the same to me." + +He sank deeper into memory. + +"Nobody knows what she was to me. She wasn't one much for society. +She went into it" (his manner implied that she had adorned it) "to +please me, because I thought it might do her good. It was one of the +things we tried." + +Mrs. Norman stared at him. She stared through him and beyond him, +and saw a strange man. She listened to a strange voice that sounded +far off, from somewhere beyond forgetfulness. + +"There were times," she heard him saying, "when we could not go out +or see anyone. All we wanted was to be alone together. We could sit, +she and I, a whole evening without saying a word. We each knew what +the other wanted to say without saying it. I was always sure of her; +she understood me as nobody else ever can." He paused. "All that's +gone." + +"Oh, no," Mrs. Norman said, "it isn't." + +"It is." He illuminated himself with a faint flame of passion. + +"Don't say that, when you have friends who understand." + +"They don't. They can't. And," said Wilkinson, "I don't want them +to." + +Mrs. Norman sat silent, as in the presence of something sacred and +supreme. + +She confessed afterward that what had attracted her to Peter +Wilkinson was his tremendous capacity for devotion. Only (this she +did not confess) she never dreamed that it had been given to his +wife. + + + + +MISS TARRANT'S TEMPERAMENT + + +I + +She had arrived. + +Fanny Brocklebank, as she passed the library, had thought it worth +while to look in upon Straker with the news. + +Straker could not help suspecting his hostess of an iniquitous +desire to see how he would take it. Or perhaps she may have meant, +in her exquisite benevolence, to prepare him. Balanced on the arm of +the opposite chair, the humor of her candid eyes chastened by what +he took to be a remorseful pity, she had the air of preparing him +for something. + +Yes. She had arrived. She was upstairs, over his very head--resting. + +Straker screwed up his eyes. Only by a prodigious effort could he +see Miss Tarrant resting. He had always thought of her as an +unwinking, untiring splendor, an imperishable fascination; he had +shrunk from inquiring by what mortal process she renewed her +formidable flame. + +By a gesture of shoulders and of eyebrows Fanny conveyed that, +whatever he thought of Philippa Tarrant, she was more so than ever. +She--she was simply stupendous. It was Fanny's word. He would see. +She would appear at teatime. If he was on the terrace by five he +would see something worth seeing. It was now a quarter to. + +He gathered that Fanny had only looked in to tell him that he +mustn't miss it. + +Not for worlds would he have missed it. But the clock had struck +five, and Straker was still lingering in the library over the +correspondence that will pursue a rising barrister in his flight to +the country. He wasn't in a hurry. He knew that Miss Tarrant would +wait for her moment, and he waited too. + +A smile of acclamation greeted his dilatory entrance on the terrace. +He was assured that, though late, he was still in time. He knew it. +She would not appear until the last guest had settled peaceably into +his place, until the scene was clear for her stunning, her +invincible effect. Then, in some moment of pause, of expectancy---- + +Odd that Straker, who was so used to it, who knew so well how she +would do it, should feel so fresh an interest in seeing her do it +again. It was almost as if he trembled for her and waited, wondering +whether, this time, she would fail of her effect, whether he would +ever live to see her disconcerted. + +Disconcerting things had happened before now at the Brocklebanks', +things incongruous with the ancient peace, the dignity, the grand +style of Amberley. It was owing to the outrageous carelessness with +which Fanny Brocklebank mixed her house parties. She delighted in +daring combinations and startling contrasts. Straker was not at all +sure that he himself had not been chosen as an element in a daring +combination. Fanny could hardly have forgotten that, two years ago, +he had been an adorer (not altogether prostrate) of Miss Tarrant, +and he had given her no grounds for supposing that he had changed +his attitude. In the absence of authentic information Fanny could +only suppose that he had been dished, regularly dished, first by +young Reggy Lawson and then by Mr. Higginson. It was for Mr. +Higginson that Philippa was coming to Amberley--this year; last year +it had been for Reggy Lawson; the year before that it had been for +him, Straker. And Fanny did not scruple to ask them all three to +meet one another. That was her way. Some day she would carry it too +far. Straker, making his dilatory entrance, became aware of the +distance to which his hostess had carried it already. It had time to +grow on him, from wonder to the extreme of certainty, in his passage +down the terrace to the southwest corner. There, on the outskirts of +the group, brilliantly and conspicuously disposed, in postures of +intimate communion, were young Laurence Furnival and Mrs. Viveash. +Straker knew and Fanny knew, nobody indeed knew better than Fanny, +that those two ought never to have been asked together. In strict +propriety they ought not to have been at Amberley at all. Nobody but +Fanny would have dreamed of asking them, still less of combining +them with old Lady Paignton, who was propriety itself. And there was +Miss Probyn. Why Miss Probyn? What on earth did dear Fanny imagine +that she could do with Mary Probyn--or for her, if it came to that? +In Straker's experience of Fanny it generally did come to that--to +her doing things for people. He was aware, most acutely aware at +this moment, of what, two years ago, she would have done for him. He +had an idea that even now, at this hour, she was giving him his +chance with Philippa. There would no doubt be competition; there +always had been, always would be competition; but her charming eyes +seemed to assure him that he should have his chance. + +They called him to her side, where, with a movement of protection +that was not lost on him, she had made a place for him apart. She +begged him just to look at young Reggy Lawson, who sat in agony, +sustaining a ponderous topic with Miss Probyn. He remembered Reggy? +Her half-remorseful smile implied that he had good cause to remember +him. He did. He was sorry for young Reggy, and hoped that he found +consolation in the thought that Mr. Higginson was no longer young. + +He remarked that Reggy was looking uncommonly fit. "So," he added +irrelevantly, "is Mrs. Viveash. Don't you think?" + +Fanny Brocklebank looked at Mrs. Viveash. It was obvious that she +was giving her her chance, and that Mrs. Viveash was making the very +most of it. She was leaning forward now, with her face thrust out +toward Furnival; and on her face and on her mouth and in her eyes +there burned visibly, flagrantly, the ungovernable, inextinguishable +flame. As for the young man, while his eyes covered and caressed +her, the tilt of his body, of his head, of his smile, and all his +features expressed the insolence of possession. He was sure of her; +he was sure of himself; he was sure of many things. He, at any rate, +would never be disconcerted. Whatever happened he was safe. But +she--there were things that, if one thing happened, she would have +to face; and as she sat there, wrapped in her flame, she seemed to +face them, to fling herself on the front of danger. You could see +she was ready to take any risks, to pay any price for the chance +that Fanny was giving her. + +It really was too bad of Fanny. + +"Why did you ask them?" Straker had known Fanny so long that he was +privileged to inquire. + +"Because--they wanted to be asked." + +Fanny believed, and said that she believed, in giving people what +they wanted. As for the consequences, there was no mortal lapse or +aberration that could trouble her serenity or bring a blush to her +enduring candor. If you came a cropper you might be sure that +Fanny's judgment of you would be pure from the superstition of +morality. She herself had never swerved in affection or fidelity to +Will Brocklebank. She took her excitements, lawful or otherwise, +vicariously in the doomed and dedicated persons of her friends. +Brocklebank knew it. Blond, spectacled, middle-aged, and ponderous, +he regarded his wife's performances and other people's with a +leniency as amazing as her own. He was hovering about old Lady +Paignton in the background, where Straker could see his benignant +gaze resting on Furnival and Mrs. Viveash. + +"Poor dears," said Fanny, as if in extenuation of her tolerance, +"they _are_ enjoying themselves." + +"So are you," said Straker. + +"I like to see other people happy. Don't you?" + +"Yes. If I'm not responsible for their--happiness." + +"Who _is_ responsible?" She challenged. + +"I say, aren't you?" + +"Me responsible? Have you seen her husband?" + +"I have." + +"Well----" she left it to him. + +"Where _is_ Viveash?" + +"At the moment he is in Liverpool, or should be--on business." + +"You didn't ask him?" + +"Ask him? Is he the sort you can ask?" + +"Oh, come, he's not so bad." + +"He's awful. He's impossible. He--he excuses everything." + +"I don't see him excusing this, or your share in it. If he knew." + +"If he knew what?" + +"That you'd asked Furny down." + +"But he doesn't know. He needn't ever know." + +"He needn't. But people like Viveash have a perfect genius for the +unnecessary. Besides----" + +He paused before the unutterable, and she faced him with her smile +of innocent interrogation. + +"Well," he said, "it's so jolly risky. These things, you know, only +end one way." + +Fanny's eyes said plainly that to _their_ vision all sorts of ways +were possible. + +"If it were any other man but----" He stopped short at Furnival's +name. + +Fanny lowered her eyes almost as if she had been convicted of +indiscretion. + +"You see," she said, "any other man wouldn't do. He's the one and +only man. There never was any other. That's the awful part of it for +her." + +"Then why on earth did she marry the other fellow?" + +"Because Furny couldn't marry her. And he wouldn't, either. That's +not his way." + +"I know it's not his way. And if Viveash took steps, what then?" + +"Then perhaps--he'd have to." + +"Good Lord----" + +"Oh, it isn't a deep-laid plan." + +"I never said it was." + +He didn't think it. Marriages had been made at Amberley, and +divorces, too; not by any plan of Fanny's, but by the risks she +took. Seeing the dangerous way she mixed things, he didn't, he +couldn't suspect her of a plan, but he did suspect her of an unholy +joy in the prospect of possible explosions. + +"Of course," she said, reverting to her vision, "of course he'd have +to." + +She looked at Straker with eyes where mischief danced a fling. It +was clear that in that moment she saw Laurence Furnival the profane, +Furnival the scorner of marriage, caught and tied: punished (she +scented in ecstasy the delicate irony of it), so beautifully +punished there where he had sinned. + +Straker began to have some idea of the amusement Fanny got out of +her house parties. + +For a moment they had no more to say. All around them there was +silence, born of Mrs. Viveash and her brooding, of young Reggy's +trouble with Miss Probyn, and of some queer triangular complication +in the converse of Brocklebank, Lady Paignton, and Mr. Higginson. In +that moment and that pause Straker thought again of Miss Tarrant. It +was, he said to himself, the pause and the moment for her +appearance. And (so right was he in his calculation) she appeared. + + +II + +He saw her standing in the great doorway of the east wing where the +three steps led down on to the terrace. She stood on the topmost +step, poised for her descent, shaking her scarf loose to drift in a +white mist about her. Then she came down the terrace very slowly, +and the measured sweep of her limbs suggested that all her movements +would be accomplished to a large rhythm and with a superb delay. + +Her effect (she had not missed it) was to be seen in all its wonder +and perfection on Laurence Furnival's face. Averted suddenly from +Mrs. Viveash, Furnival's face expressed the violence of his shock +and his excitement. It was clear that he had never seen anything +quite like Philippa Tarrant before, and that he found her incredibly +and ambiguously interesting. Ambiguously--no other word did justice +to the complexity of his facial expression. He did not know all at +once what to make of Philippa, and, from further and more furtive +manifestations of Furnival's, Straker gathered that the young man +was making something queer. He had a sort of sympathy with him, for +there had been moments when he himself had not known exactly what to +make. He doubted whether even Fanny Brocklebank (who certainly made +the best of her) had ever really known. + +Whatever her inscrutable quality, this year she was, as Fanny had +said, more so than ever. She _was_ stupendous; and that although she +was not strictly speaking beautiful. She had no color in her white +face or in her black hair; she had no color but the morbid rose of +her mouth and the brown of her eyes. Yet Mrs. Viveash, with all her +vivid gold and carmine, went out before her; so did pretty Fanny, +though fresh as paint and burnished to perfection; as for the other +women, they were nowhere. She made the long golden terrace at +Amberley a desert place for the illusion of her somber and solitary +beauty. She was warm-fleshed, warm-blooded. The sunshine soaked into +her as she stood there. What was more, she had the air of being +entirely in keeping with Amberley's grand style. + +Straker saw that from the first she was aware of Furnival. At three +yards off she held him with her eyes, lightly, balancing him; then +suddenly she let him go. She ceased to be aware of him. In the +moment of introduction she turned from him to Straker. + +"Mr. Straker--but--how delightful!" + +"Don't say you didn't expect to see me here." + +"I didn't. And Mr. Higginson!" She laughed at the positive absurdity +of it. "_And_ Mr. Lawson and Miss Probyn." + +She held herself a little back and gazed upon the group with her +wide and wonderful eyes. + +"You look," she said, "as if something interesting had happened." + +She had seated herself beside Straker so that she faced Mrs. Viveash +and young Furnival. She appeared not to know that Furnival was +staring at her. + +"_She's_ the only interesting thing that's happened--so far," he +muttered. (There was no abatement of his stare.) Mrs. Viveash tried +to look as if she agreed with him. + +Miss Tarrant had heard him. Her eyes captured and held him again, a +little longer this time. Straker, who watched the two, saw that +something passed between them, between Philippa's gaze and +Furnival's stare. + + +III + +That evening he realized completely what Fanny had meant when she +said that Philippa was more so than ever. He observed this increase +in her quality, not only in the broad, massive impression that she +spread, but in everything about her, her gestures, her phrases, the +details of her dress. Every turn of her head and of her body +displayed a higher flamboyance, a richer audacity, a larger volume +of intention. He was almost afraid for her lest she should overdo it +by a shade, a touch, a turn. You couldn't get away from her. The +drawing-room at Amberley was filled with her, filled with white +surfaces of neck and shoulders, with eyes somber yet aflood with +light, eyes that were perpetually at work upon you and perpetually +at play, that only rested for a moment to accentuate their movement +and their play. This effect of her was as of many women, +approaching, withdrawing, and sliding again into view, till you were +aware with a sort of shock that it was one woman, Philippa Tarrant, +all the time, and that all the play and all the movement were +concentrated on one man, Laurence Furnival. + +She never let him alone for a minute. He tried, to do him justice he +tried--Straker saw him trying--to escape. But, owing to Miss +Tarrant's multiplicity and omnipresence, he hadn't a chance. You saw +him fascinated, stupefied by the confusion and the mystery of it. +She carried him off under Mrs. Viveash's unhappy nose. Wherever she +went she called him, and he followed, flushed and shamefaced. He +showed himself now pitifully abject, and now in pitiful revolt. Once +or twice he was positively rude to her, and Miss Tarrant seemed to +enjoy that more than anything. + +Straker had never seen Philippa so uplifted. She went like the +creature of an inspiring passion, a passion moment by moment +fulfilled and unappeased, renascent, reminiscent, and in all its +moments gloriously aware of itself. + +The pageant of Furnival's subjugation lasted through the whole of +Friday evening. All Saturday she ignored him and her work on him. +You would have said it had been undertaken on Mrs. Viveash's +account, not his, just to keep Mrs. Viveash in her place and show +her what she, Philippa, could do. All Sunday, by way of revenge, +Furnival ignored Miss Tarrant, and consoled himself flagrantly with +Mrs. Viveash. + +It was on the afternoon of Sunday that Mr. Higginson was seen +sitting out on the terrace with Miss Tarrant. Reggy Lawson had +joined them, having extricated himself with some dexterity from the +toils of the various ladies who desired to talk to him. His attitude +suggested that he was taking his dubious chance against Mr. +Higginson. It was odd that it should be dubious, Reggy's chance; he +himself was so assured, so engaging in his youth and physical +perfection. Straker would have backed him against any man he knew. + +Fanny Brocklebank had sent Straker out into the rose garden with +Mary Probyn. He left Miss Tarrant on the terrace alone with Mr. +Higginson and Reggy. He left her talking to Mr. Higginson, listening +to Mr. Higginson, behaving beautifully to Mr. Higginson, and +ignoring Reggy. Straker, with Mary Probyn, walked round and round +the rose garden, which was below Miss Tarrant's end of the terrace, +and while he talked to Mary Probyn he counted the rounds. There were +twenty to the mile. Every time he turned he had Miss Tarrant full in +view, which distracted him from Mary Probyn. Mary didn't seem to +mind. She was a nice woman; plain (in a nice, refined sort of way), +and she knew it, and was nice to you whether you talked to her or +not. He did not find it difficult to talk to Mary: she was +interested in Miss Tarrant; she admired her, but not uncritically. + +"She is the least bit too deliberate," was her comment. "She +calculates her effects." + +"She does," said Straker, "so that she never misses one of them. +She's a consummate artist." + +He had always thought her _that_. (Ninth round.) But as her friend +he could have wished her a freer and sincerer inspiration. After +all, there _was_ something that she missed. + +(Tenth round.) Miss Tarrant was still behaving beautifully to Mr. +Higginson. Mary Probyn marveled to see them getting on so well +together. (Fifteenth round.) + +Reggy had left them; they were not getting on together quite so +well. + +(Twentieth round.) They had risen; they were coming down the steps +into the garden; Straker heard Miss Tarrant ordering Mr. Higginson +to go and talk to Miss Probyn. He did so with an alacrity which +betrayed a certain fear of the lady he admired. + +Miss Tarrant, alone with Straker, turned on him the face which had +scared Mr. Higginson. She led him in silence and at a rapid pace +down through the rose garden and out upon the lawn beyond. There she +stood still and drew a deep breath. + +"You had no business," she said, "to go away like that and leave me +with him." + +"Why not? Last year, if I remember----" + +He paused. He remembered perfectly that last year she had contrived +pretty often to be left with him. Last year Mr. Higginson, as the +Liberal candidate for East Mickleham, seemed about to achieve a +distinction, which, owing to his defeat by an overwhelming majority, +he had unfortunately not achieved. He had not been prudent. He had +stood, not only for East Mickleham, but for a principle. It was an +unpopular principle, and he knew it, and he had stuck to it all the +same, with obstinacy and absurdity, in the teeth, the furiously +gnashing teeth, of his constituency. You couldn't detach Mr. +Higginson from his principle, and as long as he stuck to it a +parliamentary career was closed to him. It was sad, for he had a +passion for politics; he had chosen politics as the one field for +the one ponderous talent he possessed. The glory of it had hung +ponderously about Mr. Higginson last year; but this year, cut off +from politics, it was pitiable, the nonentity he had become. +Straker could read that in his lady's alienated eyes. + +"Last year," he continued, "you seemed to find him interesting." + +"You think things must be what they seem?" + +Her tone accused him of insufficient metaphysical acumen. + +"There is no necessity. Still, as I said, last year----" + +"Could Mr. Higginson, in any year, be interesting?" + +"Did you hope," Straker retorted, "to make him so by cultivating +him?" + +"It's impossible to say what Mr. Higginson might become +under--centuries of cultivation. It would take centuries." + +That was all very well, he said to himself. If he didn't say that +Miss Tarrant had pursued Mr. Higginson, he distinctly recalled the +grace with which she had allowed herself to be pursued. She _had_ +cultivated him. And, having done it, having so flagrantly and +palpably and under Straker's own eyes gone in for him, how on earth +did she propose to get out of it now? There was, Straker said to +himself again, no getting out of it. As for centuries---- + +"Let us go back," he persisted, "to last year." + +"Last year he had his uses. He was a good watch-dog." + +"A _what_?" + +"A watch-dog. He kept other people off." + +For a moment he was disarmed by the sheer impudence of it. He smiled +a reminiscent smile. + +"I should have thought his function was rather, wasn't it, to draw +them on?" + +Her triumphing eyes showed him that he had given himself into her +hands. He should have been content with his reminiscent smile. +Wasn't he, her eyes inquired, for a distinguished barrister, just a +little bit too crude? + +"You thought," she said, "he was a decoy-duck? Why, wouldn't you +have flown from your most adored if you'd seen her--with Mr. +Higginson?" + +Thus deftly she wove her web and wound him into it. That was her +way. She would take your own words out of your mouth and work them +into the brilliant fabric, tangling you in your talk. And not only +did she tangle you in your talk, she confused you in your mental +processes. + +"You didn't seriously suppose," she said, "that I could have had any +permanent use for him?" + +Straker's smile paid tribute to her crowning cleverness. He didn't +know how much permanence she attached to matrimony, or to Mr. +Higginson, but he knew that she had considered him in that +preposterous relation. She faced him and his awful knowledge and +floored him with just that--the thing's inherent, palpable +absurdity. And if _that_ wasn't clever of her!---- + +"Of course not." He was eager in his assent; it was wrung from him. +He added with apparent irrelevance, "After all, he's honest." + +"You must be something." + +She turned to him, radiant and terrible, rejoicing in her murderous +phrase. It intimated that only by his honesty did Mr. Higginson +maintain his foothold on existence. + +"I think," said Straker, "it's time to dress for dinner." + +They turned and went slowly toward the house. On the terrace, watch +in hand, Mr. Higginson stood alone and conspicuous, shining in his +single attribute of honesty. + +That evening Furnival sought Straker out in a lonely corner of the +smoke-room. His face was flushed and defiant. He put it to Straker +point-blank. + +"I say, what's she up to, that friend of yours, Miss T-Tarrant?" + +He stammered over her name. Her name excited him. + +Straker intimated that it was not given him to know what Miss +Tarrant might or might not be up to. + +Furnival shook his head. "I can't make her out. Upon my honor, I +can't." + +Straker wondered what Furny's honor had to do with it. + +"Why is she hanging round like this?" + +"Hanging round?" + +"Yes. You know what I mean. Why doesn't somebody marry her?" He made +a queer sound in his throat, a sound of unspeakable interrogation. +"Why haven't you married her yourself?" + +Straker was loyal. "You'd better ask her why she hasn't married me." + +Furnival brooded. "I've a good mind to." + +"I should if I were you," said Straker encouragingly. + +Furnival sighed heavily. "Look here," he said, "what's the matter +with her? Is she difficult, or what?" + +"Frightfully difficult," said Straker, with conviction. His tone +implied that Furnival would never understand her, that he hadn't the +brain for it. + + +IV + +And yet, Straker reminded himself, Furnival wasn't an ass. He had +brain for other things, for other women; for poor Nora Viveash quite +a remarkable sufficiency of brain, but not for Philippa Tarrant. +You could see how he was being driven by her. He was in that state +when he would have done anything to get her. There was no folly and +no extravagance that he would not commit. And yet, driven as he was, +it was clear that he resented being driven, that he was not going +all the way. His kicking, his frantic dashes and plunges, showed +that the one extravagance, the one folly he would not commit was +matrimony. + +Straker saw that very plainly. He wondered whether Miss Tarrant +would see it, too, and if she did whether it would make any +difference in her method. + +It was very clear to Straker that Miss Tarrant was considering +Furnival, as she had considered him, as she had considered young +Reggy Lawson, as she had considered Mr. Higginson, who was not so +young. As for Reggy and his successor, she had done with them. All +that could be known of their fatuity she knew. Perhaps they had +never greatly interested her. But she was interested in Laurence +Furnival. She told Straker that he was the most amusing man of her +acquaintance. She was, Straker noticed, perpetually aware of him. +All Monday morning, in the motor, Miss Tarrant in front with +Brocklebank, Furnival with Mrs. Viveash, and Straker behind, it was +an incessant duel between Furnival's eyes and the eyes that Miss +Tarrant had in the back of her head. All Monday afternoon she had +him at her heels, at her elbow. With every gesture she seemed to +point to him and say: "Look at this little animal I've caught. Did +you ever see such an amusing little animal?" + +She was quite aware that it was an animal, the creature she had +captured and compelled to follow her; it might hide itself now and +then, but it never failed to leap madly forward at her call. The +animal in Furnival, so simple, so undisguised, and so spontaneous, +was what amused her. + +Its behavior that Monday after tea on the terrace was one of the +most disconcerting things that had occurred at Amberley. You could +see that Mrs. Viveash couldn't bear it, that she kept looking away, +that Brocklebank didn't know where to look, and that even Fanny was +perturbed. + +As for Mr. Higginson, it was altogether too much for him and his +honesty. He was visibly alienated, and from that moment he devoted +himself and his honesty to Mary Probyn. + +Young Reggy was alienated, too, so profoundly that he spoke about it +aside to Straker. + +"Between you and me," said young Reggy, "it's a bit too strong. I +can't stick it, the way she goes on. What does she _mean_ by it, +Straker?" + +People were always appealing to Straker to tell them what women +meant by it. As if he knew. + +He was glad to see that young Reggy had turned, that he _could_ +turn. He liked Reggy, and he felt that he owed him a good deal. If +it had not been for Reggy he might, two years ago, have been +numbered as one of the fallen. He had been pretty far gone two years +ago, so far that he had frequently wondered how it was that he had +not fallen. Now it was clear to him. It had been her method with +Reggy that had checked his own perilous approaches. It had offended +his fine sense of the fitting (a fastidiousness which, in one of her +moods of ungovernable frankness, she had qualified as "finicking"). +For Reggy was a nice boy, and her method had somehow resulted in +making him appear not so nice. It nourished and brought to the +surface that secret, indecorous, primordial quality that he shared, +though in less splendor and abundance, with Laurence Furnival. He +had kept his head, or had seemed inimitably to have kept it. At any +rate, he had preserved his sense of decency. He was incapable of +presenting on the terrace at Amberley the flaming pageant of his +passion. Straker was not sure how far this restraint, this +level-headedness of young Reggy, had been his undoing. It might be +that Miss Tarrant had required of him a pageant. Anyhow, Reggy's +case had been very enlightening to Straker. + +And it was through Reggy, or rather through his own intent and +breathless observation of the two, that Straker had received his +final illumination. It had come suddenly in one inspiring and +delivering flash; he could recall even now his subsequent +sensations, the thrilling lucidity of soul, the prodigious swiftness +of body, after his long groping in obscurities and mysteries. For it +had been a mystery to him how she had resisted Reggy in his young +physical perfection and with the charm he had, a charm that +spiritualized him, a charm that should have appealed to everything +that was supersensuous in Philippa Tarrant (and Philippa would have +had you believe that there was very little in her that was not). It +was incomprehensible therefore to Straker how any woman who had a +perfect body, with a perfect heart in it, could have resisted Reggy +at his best--and for Mr. Higginson. + +To be sure, compared with Mr. Higginson he was impecunious; but +that, to Straker's mind, was just what gave him, with the other +things, his indomitable distinction. Reggy's distinction stood +straight and clean, naked of all accessories. An impecuniousness so +unexpressed, so delicate, so patrician could never have weighed with +Philippa against Reggy's charm. That she should deliberately have +reckoned up his income, compared it with Mr. Higginson's, and +deducted Reggy with the result was inconceivable. Whatever Straker +had thought of her he had never thought of her as mercenary. It +wasn't that. He had found out what it was. Watching her at play with +Reggy's fire (for to the inconspicuous observer the young man had +flamed sufficiently), it had struck Straker that she herself was +flameless. + +It was in the nature of Reggy's perfection that it called, it +clamored for response. And Philippa had not responded. She hadn't +got it in her to respond. + +All this came back vividly to Straker as he watched her now on the +terrace, at play with the fiercer conflagration that was Laurence +Furnival. + +She was cold; she had never kindled, never would, never could +kindle. Her eyes did, if you like; they couldn't help it--God made +them lights and flames--but her mouth _couldn't_. To Straker in his +illumination all the meaning of Philippa Tarrant was in her mouth. +The small, exquisite thing lacked fulness and the vivid rose that +should have been the flowering of her face. A certain tightness at +the corners gave it an indescribable expression of secrecy and +mystery and restraint. He saw in it the almost monstrous denial and +mockery of desire. He could not see it, as he had seen Nora +Viveash's mouth, curved forward, eager, shedding flame at the brim, +giving itself to lips that longed for it. Philippa's mouth was a +flower that opened only at the touch, the thrill of her own gorgeous +egoism. He read in it the triumph of Philippa over the flesh and +blood of her race. She had nothing in her of the dead. That was the +wonder of her. The passion of the dead had built up her body to the +semblance and the promise of their own delight; their desire, long +forgotten, rose again, lightening and darkening in her amazing eyes; +the imperishable instinct that impelled them to clothe her in their +flesh and blood survived in her, transfigured in strange impulses +and intuitions, but she herself left unfulfilled their promise and +their desire. + +Yes--that was what her mouth meant; it was treacherous; it betrayed +the promise of her body and her eyes. And Furnival was feeding his +infatuation on the meanings of her eyes and of her body--meanings +that were unmistakable to Straker. + +As if she had known what the older man was thinking of her, Philippa +rose abruptly and turned her back on Furnival and began to make +violent love to old Lady Paignton. Her eyes challenged Straker's +across the terrace. They said: "Look at me. I will be as beautiful +for this old lady as for any male thing on earth. More beautiful. +Have I ever set my cap so becomingly at any of you as I am setting +it now at her? Have you ever seen finer eyes than these that I make +at her, that I lavish on her out of the sheer exuberance of my +nature? Very well, then; doesn't that prove that you're wrong in all +things you've been thinking about me. _I_ know what you've been +thinking!" + +As if she knew what he was thinking she made herself beautiful for +him. She allowed him presently to take her for a walk, for quite a +long walk. The woods of Amberley lured them, westward, across the +shining fields. They went, therefore, through the woods and back by +the village in the cool of the evening. + +He had seldom, he might say he had never, seen Philippa in so +agreeable a mood. She had sunk her sex. She was tired of her +terrible game, the game that Straker saw through; she was playing +another one, a secret, innocent, delightful game. She laid herself +out to amuse Straker, instead of laying _him_ out (as he put it), on +the table, to amuse herself. + +"Philippa," he said, "you've been adorable for the last half hour." + +"For the last half hour I've been myself." + +She smiled as if to herself, a secret, meditative smile. The mystery +of it was not lost on Straker. + +"I can always be myself," she said, "when I'm with you." + +"For half an hour," he murmured. + +She went on. "You're not tiresome, like the others. I don't know +what there is about you, but you don't bore me." + +"Perhaps not--for half an hour." + +"Not for millions of half hours." + +"Consecutive?" + +"Oh, yes." + +She tilted her head back and gazed at him with eyes narrowed and +slanting under their deep lids. + +"Not in an immortality," she said. + +She laughed aloud her joyous appreciation of him. + +Straker was neither uplifted nor alarmed. He knew exactly where +he stood with her. She was not considering him; she was not +trying to get at him; she was aware of his illumination and his +disenchantment; she was also aware of his continuous interest in +her, and it was his continuous interest, the study that he made +of her, that interested Philippa. She was anxious that he should +get her right, that he should accept her rendering of herself. +She knew at each moment what he was thinking of her, and the +thing that went on between them was not a game--it was a duel, an +amicable duel, between her lucidity and his. Philippa respected +his lucidity. + +"All the same," said Straker, "I am not the most amusing man you +know. You don't find me exciting." + +"No." She turned it over. "No; I don't find you at all exciting +_or_ very amusing. How is it, then, that you don't bore me?" + +"How can I say?" + +"I think it is because you're so serious, because you take me +seriously." + +"But I don't. Not for a moment. As for an immortality of +seriousness----" + +"At least," she said, "you would admit that possibly I might have a +soul. At any rate, you behave as if you did." + +He dodged it dexterously. + +"That's where the immortality comes in, is it?" + +"Of _course_," said Philippa. + + +V + +She went on amusing Straker all evening, and after dinner she made +him take her into the conservatory. + +The conservatory at Amberley is built out fanwise from the big west +drawing-room on to the southwest corner of the terrace; it is +furnished as a convenient lounge, and you sit there drinking coffee, +and smoking, and admiring Brocklebank's roses, which are the glory +of Amberley. And all among Brocklebank's roses they came upon +Furnival and Mrs. Viveash. + +Among the roses she shimmered and flushed in a gown of rose and +silver. Among the roses she was lovely, sitting there with Furnival. +And Straker saw that Miss Tarrant was aware of the loveliness of +Mrs. Viveash, and that her instinct woke in her. + +She advanced, trailing behind her the long, diaphanous web of her +black gown. When she was well within the range of Furnival's +sensations she paused to smell a rose, bending her body backward and +sideward so that she showed to perfection the deep curved lines +that swept from her shoulders to her breasts, and from her breasts +downward to her hips. A large diamond star hung as by an invisible +thread upon her neck: it pointed downward to the hollow of her +breasts. There was no beauty that she had that was not somehow +pointed to, insisted on, held forever under poor Furnival's excited +eyes. + +But in a black gown, among roses, she showed disadvantageously her +dead whiteness and her morbid rose. She was aware of that. Mrs. +Viveash, glowing among the roses, had made her aware. + +"Why did we ever come here?" she inquired of Straker. "These roses +are horribly unbecoming to me." + +"Nothing is unbecoming to you, and you jolly well know it," said +Furnival. + +She ignored it. + +"Just look at their complexions. They oughtn't to be allowed about." + +She picked one and laid it against the dead-white hollow of her +breast, and curled her neck to look at it there; then she shook her +head at it in disapproval, took it away, and held it out an inch +from Furnival's face. He recoiled slightly. + +"It won't bite," she murmured. "It'll let you stroke it." She +stroked it herself, with fingers drawn tenderly, caressingly, over +petals smooth and cool as their own skin. "I believe it can feel. I +believe it likes it." + +Furnival groaned. Straker heard him; so did Mrs. Viveash. She +stirred in her seat, causing a spray of Dorothy Perkins to shake as +if it indeed felt and shared her terror. Miss Tarrant turned from +Furnival and laid her rose on Mrs. Viveash's shoulder, where it did +no wrong. + +"It's yours," she said; "or a part of you." + +Mrs. Viveash looked up at Furnival, and her face flickered for a +moment. Furnival did not see her face; he was staring at Miss +Tarrant. + +"Ah," he cried, "how perfect! You and I'll have to dry up, Straker, +unless you can go one better than that." + +"I shouldn't dream," said Straker, "of trying to beat Miss Tarrant +at her own game." + +"If you know what it is. I'm hanged if I do." + +Furnival was tearing from its tree a Caroline Testout, one of +Brocklebank's choicest blooms. Miss Tarrant cried out: + +"Oh, stop him, somebody. They're Mr. Brocklebank's roses." + +"They ain't a part of Brockles," Furnival replied. + +He approached her with Brocklebank's Caroline Testout, and, with his +own dangerous, his outrageous fervor, "You say it f-f-feels," he +stammered. "It's what you want, then--something t-tender and living +about you. Not that s-scin-t-tillating thing you've got there. It +tires me to look at it." He closed his eyes. + +"You needn't look at it," she said. + +"I can't help it. It's part of you. I believe it grows there. It +makes me look at it." + +His words came shaken from him in short, savage jerks. To Straker, +to Mrs. Viveash, he appeared intolerable; but he had ceased to care +how he appeared to anybody. He had ceased to know that they were +there. They turned from him as from something monstrous, +intolerable, indecent. Mrs. Viveash's hands and mouth were +quivering, and her eyes implored Straker to take her away somewhere +where she couldn't see Furnival and Philippa Tarrant. + +He took her out on to the terrace. Miss Tarrant looked after them. + +"That rose belongs to Mrs. Viveash now," she said. "You'd better go +and take it to her." + +Furnival flung the Caroline Testout on the floor. He trod on the +Caroline Testout. It was by accident, but still he trod on it; so +that he seemed much more brutal than he was. + +"It's very hot in here," said she. "I'm going on to the terrace." + +"Let's go down," said he, "into the garden. We can talk there." + +"You seem to be able to talk anywhere," said she. + +"I have to," said Furnival. + +She went out and walked slowly down the terrace to the east end +where Straker sheltered Mrs. Viveash. + +Furnival followed her. + +"Are you coming with me or are you not?" he insisted. "I can't get +you a minute to myself. Come out of this, can't you? I want to talk +to you." + +"And I," said Miss Tarrant, "want to talk to Mrs. Viveash." + +"You don't. You want to tease her. Can't you leave the poor woman +alone for a minute? She's happy there with Straker." + +"I want to see how happy she is," said Miss Tarrant. + +"For God's sake!" he cried. "Don't. It's my last chance. I'm going +to-morrow." Miss Tarrant continued to walk like one who did not +hear. "I may never see you again. You'll go off somewhere. You'll +disappear. I can't trust you." + +Suddenly she stood still. + +"You are going to-morrow?" + +"Not," said Furnival, "if you'd like me to stay. That's what I want +to talk to you about. Let's go down into the east walk. It's dark +there, and they can't hear us." + +"They have heard you. You'd better go back to Mrs. Viveash." + +His upper lip lifted mechanically, but he made no sound. He stood +for a moment staring at her, obstructing her path. Then he turned. + +"I shall go back to her," he said. + +He strode to Mrs. Viveash and called her by her name. His voice had +a queer vibration that sounded to Miss Tarrant like a cry. + +"Nora--you'll come with me, won't you?" + +Mrs. Viveash got up without a word and went with him. Miss Tarrant, +standing beside Straker on the terrace, saw them go down together +into the twilight of the east walk between the yew hedges. + +Philippa said something designed to distract Straker's attention; +and still, with an air of distracting him, of sheltering her sad +sister, Mrs. Viveash, she led him back into the house. + +Furnival returned five minutes later, more flushed than ever and +defiant. + +That night Straker, going down the long corridor to his bedroom, saw +Fanny Brocklebank and Philippa in front of him. They went slowly, +Fanny's head leaning a little toward Philippa's. Not a word of what +Philippa was saying reached Straker, but he saw her turn with Fanny +into Fanny's room. As he passed the door he was aware of Fanny's +voice raised in deprecation, and of Philippa's, urgent, imperative; +and he knew, as well as if he had heard her, that Philippa was +telling Fanny about Furnival and Nora Viveash. + + +VI + +It was as if nothing had happened that Philippa came to him on the +terrace the next morning (which was a Tuesday) before breakfast. +As if nothing had happened, as if she had hardly met Furnival, as +if she were considering him for the first time, she began +cross-questioning Straker. + +"You know everybody. Tell me about Laurence Furnival. _Is_ he any +good?" + +Straker replied that she had better inquire at the Home Office, the +scene of Furnival's industry. + +Philippa waved the Home Office aside. "I mean, will he ever _do_ +anything?" + +"Ask Fanny Brocklebank." + +He knew very well that she had asked her, that she had got out of +Fanny full particulars as to Furnival's family and the probable +amount of his income, and that she had come to him as the source of +a finer information. + +"Fanny wouldn't know," said she. + +"Then," said Straker, "ask Mrs. Viveash." + +She turned on him a cold and steady gaze that rebuked his utterance. +How dare he, it said, how dare he mention Mrs. Viveash in her +presence? + +She answered quietly: "There will hardly be time, I think. Mrs. +Viveash is going to-day." + +Straker turned on her now, and his look expressed a sort of alien +and repugnant admiration. He wondered how far she had gone, how much +she had told, by what intimations she had prevailed with Fanny to +get Mrs. Viveash out of the house. Mrs. Viveash, to be sure, had +only been invited for the week-end, from the Friday to the Tuesday, +but it had been understood that, if her husband prolonged his +business in Liverpool, she was to stay till his return. Viveash was +still in Liverpool--that had been known at Amberley yesterday--and +Mrs. Viveash had not been asked to stay. It had been quite simple. +Mrs. Viveash, not having been asked to stay, would be obliged to go. + +"And is Furnival going, too?" he asked. + +"I believe not," said Philippa. + +An hour later Mrs. Viveash joined them in the avenue where he waited +for Miss Tarrant, who had proposed that he should walk with her to +the village. + +In the clear and cruel light of the morning Mrs. Viveash showed him +a blanched face and eyes that had seen with miserable lucidity the +end of illusion, the end of passion, and now saw other things and +were afraid. + +"You know I'm going?" she said. + +Straker said that he was sorry to hear it; by which he meant that he +was sorry for Mrs. Viveash. + +She began to talk to him of trifles, small occurrences at Amberley, +of the affair of Mr. Higginson and Miss Probyn, and then, as by a +natural transition, of Miss Tarrant. + +"Do you like Miss Tarrant?" she asked suddenly, point-blank. + +Straker jibbed. "Well, really--I--I haven't thought about it." + +He hadn't. He knew how he stood with her, how he felt about her; but +whether it amounted to liking or not liking he had not yet inquired. +But that instant he perceived that he did not like her, and he lied. + +"Of course I like her. Why shouldn't I?" + +"Because"--she was very slow about it--"somehow I should have said +that you were not that sort." + +Her light on him came halting, obscured, shivering with all the +vibrations of her voice; but he could see through it, down to the +sources of her thinking, to something secret, luminous, and +profound--her light on Philippa. + +She was instantly aware of what she had let him see. + +"Oh," she cried, "that was horrid of me. It was feline." + +"It was a little," he admitted. + +"It's because I know she doesn't like me." + +"Why not say at once it's because you don't like her?" + +Her eyes, full, lucid, charged with meaning, flashed to him. She +leaped at the chance he offered her to be sincere. + +"I don't," she said. "How can I?" + +She talked again of trifles, to destroy all cohesion between that +utterance and her next. + +"I say, I want you to do something for me. I want you to look after +Furny." + +"To look after him?" + +"To stand by him, if--if he has a bad time." + +He promised her. And then Miss Tarrant claimed him. She was in her +mood of yesterday; but the charm no longer worked on him; he did not +find her adorable that morning. + +After a longish round they were overtaken by Brocklebank in his +motor-car. He and Furnival were returning from the station after +seeing Mrs. Viveash off (Furny had had the decency to see her off). +Brocklebank gave a joyous shout and pulled up two yards in front of +them. + +As they stood beside the car Straker noticed that Furnival's face +had a queer, mottled look, and that the muscles of his jaw were set +in an immobility of which he could hardly have believed him +capable. He was actually trying to look as if he didn't see Miss +Tarrant. And Miss Tarrant was looking straight at him. + +Brocklebank wanted to know if Miss Tarrant cared for a run across +the Hog's Back before luncheon. + +Miss Tarrant did care--if Mr. Straker did. + +Furnival had got down from his seat beside Brocklebank and had +opened the door of the car, ignoring Straker. He had managed in his +descent to preserve his attitude of distance, so much so that +Straker was amazed to see him enter the car after Miss Tarrant and +take his, Straker's, place beside her. He accomplished this maneuver +in silence, and with an air so withdrawn, so obscurely predestined, +that he seemed innocent of all offense. It was as if he had acted +from some malign compulsion of which he was unaware. + +Now Brocklebank in his motor was an earnest and a silent man. +Straker, left to himself, caught fragments of conversation in the +rear. Miss Tarrant began it. + +"Why did you give up your seat?" + +"You see why," said Furnival. + +Straker could see him saying it, flushed and fervent. Then Furnival +went one better, and overdid it. + +"There's nothing I wouldn't give up for a chance like this." + +Straker heard Philippa laughing softly. He knew she meant him to +hear her, he knew she was saying to him, "Could anything be more +absurd than the creature that I've got in here?" + +There was a pause, and then Furnival broke out again: + +"I've seen Mrs. Viveash off." + +"That," said Miss Tarrant reprovingly, "was the least you could +do." + +Furnival made that little fierce, inarticulate sound of his before +he spoke. "I hope you're satisfied. I hope I've done enough to +please you." + +"Oh, quite enough. I shouldn't attempt to do _anything_ more if I +were you." + +After that there was silence, in which Straker felt that Furnival +was raging. + + +VII + +Fanny Brocklebank came to him the next morning in the library, where +he had hidden himself. She was agitated. + +"Put that book down," she said. "I want to talk to you." + +Straker obeyed. + +"Jimmy--I'm fond of Philippa. I am, really." + +"Well--what's up?" + +"Philippa's making a fool of herself and she doesn't know it." + +"Trust Philippa!" + +"To know it?" + +"To make a fool of anybody on earth--except herself." + +"This is different. It's Larry Furnival." + +"It is. And did you ever see such a spectacle of folly?" + +"He doesn't understand her. That's where the folly comes in." + +"He's not alone in it." + +But Fanny was past the consolations of his cynicism. Her face, not +formed for gravity, was grave. + +"He's got an idea in his head. An awful one. I'm convinced he thinks +she isn't proper." + +"Oh, I say!" + +"Well, really--considering that he doesn't know her--I can't +altogether blame him. I told her so straight out." + +"What did she say?" + +"She said how funny it will be when he finds out how proper she is." + +"So it will, won't it?" + +Fanny considered the point. + +"It's not half as funny as she thinks it. And, funniness and all, +she didn't like it." + +"You can hardly expect her to," said Straker. + +"Of course," said Fanny, musing, "there's a sort of innocence about +him, or else he couldn't think it." + +Straker admitted that, as far as Philippa went, that might be said +of him. + +"That's why I hate somehow to see him made a fool of. It doesn't +seem fair play, you know. It's taking advantage of his innocence." + +Straker _had_ to laugh, for really, Furny's innocence! + +"He always was," Fanny meditated aloud, "a fool about women." + +"Oh, well, then," said Straker cheerfully. "She can't make him----" + +"She can. She does. She draws out all the folly in him. I'm fond of +Philippa----" + +That meant that Fanny was blaming Philippa as much as she could +blame anybody. Immorality she understood, and could excuse; for +immorality there was always some provocation; what she couldn't +stand was the unfairness of Philippa's proceeding, the inequality in +the game. + +"I'm very fond of her, but--she's bad for him, Jimmy. She's worse, +far worse, than Nora, poor dear." + +"I shouldn't worry about him if I were you." + +"I do worry. You see, you can't help liking him. There's something +about Furny--I don't know what it is, unless it's the turn of his +nose----" + +"Do you think Philippa likes him? Do you think she's at all taken +with the turn of his nose?" + +"If she only would be! Not that he means to marry her. That's the +one point where he's firm. That's where he's awful. Why, oh, why did +I ever ask them? I thought he was safe with Nora." + +"Did you?" + +"Something must be done," she cried, "to stop it." + +"Who's to do it?" + +"You or I. Or Will. Anybody!" + +"Look here, Fanny, let's get it quite clear. What are you worrying +about? Are you saving Philippa from Furnival, or Furnival from +Philippa?" + +"Philippa," Fanny moaned, "doesn't want saving. She can take care of +herself." + +"I see. You are fond of Philippa, but your sympathies are with +Furny?" + +"Well he can _feel_, and Philippa----" + +She left it there for him, as her way was. + +"Precisely. Then why worry about Philippa?" + +"Because it's really awful, and it's in my house that it'll happen." + +"How long are they staying?" + +"Lord knows how long." + +"Poor Fanny. You can't get them to go, can you?" + +"I've thought of things. I've told Will he must have an illness." + +"And will he?" + +"Not he. He says, as I asked them, I ought to have the illness. But +if I did she'd stay and nurse me. Besides, if we ousted the whole +lot to-morrow, _they'll_ meet again. He'll see to that; and so will +Philippa." + +There was a long pause. + +"I want _you_ to do it. I want you to tell her." + +"Good Lord, what am I to tell her?" + +"Tell her it isn't nice; tell her it isn't worth while; tell her +Furny isn't fair game; tell her anything you can think of that'll +stop her." + +"I don't see myself----" + +"I do. She won't listen to anybody but you." + +"Why me?" + +"She respects you." + +"I doubt it. Why should she?" + +"Because you've never made yourself a spectacle of folly. You've +never told her you're in love with her." + +"But I'm not," said poor Straker. + +"She doesn't know that. And if she did she'd respect you all the +more." + +"Dear Fanny, I'd do a great deal for you, but I can't do that. I +can't, really. It wouldn't be a bit of good." + +"You could speak," Fanny said, "to Furny." + +"I couldn't." + +"Why _not_?" she cried, in desperation. + +"Because, if I did, I should have to assume things--things that you +cannot decently assume. I can't speak to him. Not, that is, unless +he speaks to me." + + +VIII + +He did speak to him that very night. + +It was after ten o'clock, and Straker, who ought to have been in the +drawing-room playing bridge, or in the billiard-room playing +billiards, or in the smoking-room talking to Brocklebank--Straker, +who ought to have known better, had sneaked into the library to have +a look at a brief he'd just got. He ought to have known better, for +he knew, everybody knew, that after ten o'clock the library at +Amberley was set apart as a refuge for any two persons who desired +uninterrupted communion with each other. He himself, in the library +at Amberley--but that was more than two years ago, so far before +Philippa's time that he did not associate her with the library at +Amberley. He only knew that Furnival had spent a good deal of time +in it with Nora Viveash, and poor Nora was gone. It was poor Nora's +departure, in fact, that made him feel that the library was now open +to him. + +Now the library at Amberley was fitted, as a library should be, with +a silent door, a door with an inaudible latch and pneumatic hinges. +It shut itself behind Straker with a soft sigh. + +The long room was dim and apparently deserted. Drawn blinds obscured +the lucid summer night behind the three windows opposite the door. +One small electric globe hung lit under its opaline veil in the +corner by the end window on the right. + +Straker at the doorway turned on the full blaze of the great ring +that hung above the central table where he meant to work. It +revealed, seated on the lounge in the inner, the unilluminated +corner on the right, Miss Tarrant and Laurence Furnival. + +To his intense relief, Straker perceived that the whole length of +the lounge was between the two. Miss Tarrant at her end was sitting +bolt upright with her scarf gathered close about her; she was +looking under her eyelids and down her beautiful nose at Furnival, +who at his end was all huddled among the cushions as if she had +flung him there. Their attitudes suggested that their interview had +ended in distance and disaster. The effect was so marked that +Straker seized it in an instant. + +He was about to withdraw as noiselessly as he had entered, but Miss +Tarrant (not Furnival; Furnival had not so much as raised his +head)--Miss Tarrant had seen him and signed to him to stay. + +"You needn't go," she said. "_I'm_ going." + +She rose and passed her companion without looking at him, in a sort +of averted and offended majesty, and came slowly down the room. +Straker waited by the door to open it for her. + +On the threshold she turned to him and murmured: "Don't go away. Go +in and talk to him--about--about anything." + +It struck him as extraordinary that she should say this to him, that +she should ask him to go in and see what she had done to the man. + +The door swung on her with its soft sigh, shutting him in with +Furnival. He hesitated a moment by the door. + +"Come in if you want to," said Furnival. "I'm going, too." + +He had risen, a little unsteadily. As he advanced, Straker saw that +his face bore traces of violent emotion. His tie was a little +crooked and his hair pushed from the forehead that had been hidden +by his hands. His moustache no longer curled crisply upward; it hung +limp over his troubled mouth. Furnival looked as if he had been +drinking. But Furnival did not drink. Straker saw that he meant in +his madness to follow Philippa. + +He turned down the lights that beat on him. + +"Don't," said Furnival. "I'm going all right." + +Straker held the door to. "I wouldn't," he said, "if I were you. Not +yet." + +Furnival made the queer throat sound that came from him when words +failed him. + +Straker put his hand on the young man's shoulder. He remembered how +Mrs. Viveash had asked him to look after Furny, to stand by him if +he had a bad time. She had foreseen, in the fierce clairvoyance of +her passion, that he was going to have one. And, by Heaven! it had +come. + +Furnival struggled for utterance. "All right," he said thickly. + +He wasn't going after her. He had been trying to get away from +Straker; but Straker had been too much for him. Besides, he had +understood Straker's delicacy in turning down the lights, and he +didn't want to show himself just yet to the others. + +They strolled together amicably toward the lounge and sat there. + +Straker had intended to say, "What's up?" but other words were given +him. + +"What's Philippa been up to?" + +Furnival pulled himself together. "Nothing," he replied. "It was +me." + +"What did you do?" + +Furnival was silent. + +"Did you propose to her, or what?" + +"I made," said Furnival, "a sort of p-proposal." + +"That she should count the world well lost--was that it?" + +"Well, she knew I wasn't going to marry anybody, and I knew she +wasn't going to marry me. Now was she?" + +"No. She most distinctly wasn't." + +"Very well, then--how was I to know? I could have sworn----" + +He hid his face in his hands again. + +"The fact is, I made the devil of a mistake." + +"Yes," said Straker. "I saw you making it." + +Furnival's face emerged angry. + +"Then why on earth didn't you _tell_ me? I asked you. Why couldn't +you tell me what she was like?" + +"You don't tell," said Straker. + +Furnival groaned. "I can't make it out _now_. It's not as if she +hadn't got a t-t-temperament." + +"But she hasn't. _That_ was the mistake you made." + +"You'd have made it yourself," said Furnival. + +"I have. She's taken me in. She _looks_ as if she had +temperament--she behaves as if she had--oceans. And she hasn't, not +a scrap." + +"Then what does she do it for? What does she do it for, Straker?" + +"I don't know what she does it for. She doesn't know herself. +There's a sort of innocence about her." + +"I suppose," said Furnival pensively, "it's innocence." + +"Whatever it is, it's the quality of her defect. She can't let us +alone. It amuses her to see us squirm. But she doesn't know, my dear +fellow, what it feels like; because, you see, she doesn't feel. She +couldn't tell, of course, the lengths _you'd_ go to." + +Straker was thinking how horrible it must have been for Philippa. +Then he reflected that it must have been pretty horrible for Furny, +too--so unexpected. At that point he remembered that for Philippa it +had not been altogether unexpected; Fanny had warned her of this +very thing. + +"How--did she--take it?" he inquired tentatively. + +"My dear fellow, she sat there--where you are now--and lammed into +me. She made me feel as if I were a cad and a beast and a +ruffian--as if I wanted k-kick-kicking. She said she wouldn't have +seen that I existed if it hadn't been for Fanny Brocklebank--I was +her friend's guest--and when I tried to defend myself she turned +and talked to me about things, Straker, till I blushed. I'm +b-blushing now." + +He was. + +"And, of course, after that, I've got to go." + +"Was that all?" said Straker. + +"No, it wasn't. I can't tell you the _other_ things she said." + +For a moment Furny's eyes took on a marvelous solemnity, as if they +were holding for a moment some sort of holy, supersensuous vision. + +Then suddenly they grew reminiscent. + +"How could I tell, Straker, how could I possibly tell?" + +And Straker, remembering the dance that Philippa had led him, and +her appearance, and the things, the uncommonly queer things she had +done to him with her eyes, wondered how Furny _could_ have told, how +he could have avoided drawing the inferences, the uncommonly queer +inferences, he drew. He'd have drawn them himself if he had not +known Philippa so well. + +"What I want to know," said Furnival, "is what she did it for?" + +He rose, straightening himself. + +"Anyhow, I've got to go." + +"Did she say so?" + +"No, she didn't. She said it wasn't necessary. _That_ was innocent, +Straker, if you like." + +"Oh, jolly innocent," said Straker. + +"But I'm going all the same. I'm going before breakfast, by the +seven-fifty train." + +And he went. Straker saw him off. + + +IX + +That was far and away the most disconcerting thing that had happened +at Amberley within Straker's recollection. + +It must have been very disagreeable for Philippa. + +When, five days ago, he had wondered if he would ever live to see +Philippa disconcerted, he had not contemplated anything like this. +Neither, he was inclined to think, had Philippa in the beginning. +She could have had no idea what she was letting herself in for. That +she had let herself in was, to Straker's mind, the awful part of it. + +As he walked home from the station he called up all his cleverness, +all his tact and delicacy, to hide his knowledge of it from +Philippa. He tried to make himself forget it, lest by a word or a +look she should gather that he knew. He did not want to see her +disconcerted. + +The short cut to Amberley from the station leads through a side gate +into the turning at the bottom of the east walk. Straker, as he +rounded the turning, saw Miss Tarrant not five yards off, coming +down the walk. + +He was not ready for her, and his first instinct, if he could have +yielded to it, would have been to fly. That was his delicacy. + +He met her with a remark on the beauty of the morning. That was his +tact. + +He tried to look as if he hadn't been to see Furnival off at the +station, as if the beauty of the morning sufficiently accounted for +his appearance at that early hour. The hour, indeed, was so +disgustingly early that he would have half an hour to put through +with Philippa before breakfast. + +But Miss Tarrant ignored the beauty of the morning. + +"What have you done," she said, "with Mr. Furnival?" + +It was Straker who was disconcerted now. + +"What have I done with him?" + +"Yes. Where is he?" + +Straker's tact was at a disadvantage, but his delicacy instantly +suggested that if Miss Tarrant was not disconcerted it was because +she didn't know he knew. That made it all right. + +"He's in the seven-fifty train." + +A light leaped in her eyes; the light of defiance and pursuit, the +light of the hunter's lust frustrated and of the hunter's ire. + +"You must get him back again," she said. + +"I can't," said Straker. "He's gone on business." (He still used +tact with her.) "He had to go." + +"He hadn't," said she. "That's all rubbish." + +Her tone trod his scruples down and trampled on them, and Straker +felt that tact and delicacy required of him no more. She had given +herself away at last; she had let herself in for the whole calamity +of his knowledge, and he didn't know how she proposed to get out of +it this time. And he wasn't going to help her. Not he! + +They faced each other as they stood there in the narrow walk, and +his knowledge challenged her dumbly for a moment. Then he spoke. + +"Look here, what do you want him for? Why can't you let the poor +chap alone?" + +"What do you suppose I want him for?" + +"I've no business to suppose anything. I don't know. But I'm not +going to get him back for you." + +Something flitted across her face and shifted the wide gaze of her +eyes. Straker went on without remorse. + +"You know perfectly well the state he's in, and you know how he got +into it." + +"Yes. And I know," she said, "what you think of me." + +"It's more than I do," said Straker. + +She smiled subtly, mysteriously, tolerantly, as it were. + +"What did you do it for, Philippa?" + +Her smile grew more subtle, more tolerant, more mysterious; it +measured him and found him wanting. + +"If I told you," she said, "I don't think you'd understand. But I'll +try and make you." + +She turned with him and they walked slowly toward the house. + +"You saw," she said, "where he was going before I came? I got him +out of that, didn't I?" + +He was silent, absorbed in contemplating the amazing fabric of her +thought. + +"Does it very much matter how I did it?" + +"Yes," said Straker, "if you ask me, I should say it did. The last +state of him, to my mind, was decidedly worse than the first." + +"What do you suppose I did to him?" + +"If you want the frankness of a brother, there's no doubt you--led +him on." + +"I led him on--to heights he'd never have contemplated without me." + +Straker tried to eliminate all expression from his face. + +"What do you suppose I did to him last night?" + +"I can only suppose you led him further, since he went further." + +By this time Straker's tact and delicacy were all gone. + +"Yes," said Miss Tarrant, "he went pretty far. But, on the whole, +it's just as well he did, seeing what's come of it." + +"What _has_ come of it?" + +"Well, I think he realizes that he has a soul. That's something." + +"I didn't know it was his soul you were concerned with." + +"He didn't, either. Did he tell you what I said to him?" + +"He told me you gave him a dressing down. But there was something +that he wouldn't tell. What _did_ you say to him?" + +"I said I supposed, after all, he had a soul, and I asked him what +he meant to do about it." + +"What does he?" + +"That's what I want him back for," she said, "to see. Whatever he +does with it, practically I've saved it." + +She turned to him, lucid and triumphant. + +"Could any other woman have done it? Do you see Mary Probyn doing +it?" + +"Not that way." + +"It was the only way. You must," she said, "have temperament." + +The word took Straker's breath away. + +"You didn't like the way I did it. I can't help that. I had to use +the means at my disposal. If I hadn't led him on how could I have +got hold of him? If I hadn't led him further how could I have got +him on an inch?" + +"So that," said Straker quietly, "is what you did it for?" + +"You've seen him," she answered. "You don't seriously suppose I +could have done it for anything else! What possible use had I for +that young man?" + +He remembered that that was what she had said about Mr. Higginson. +But he confessed that, for a lady in a disconcerting situation, she +had shown genius in extricating herself. + +Fanny's house party broke up and scattered the next day. A week +later Straker and Will Brocklebank saw Furnival in the Park. He was +driving a motor beyond his means in the society of a lady whom he +certainly could not afford. + +"Good God!" said Brocklebank. "That's Philippa." + +By which he meant, not that Furnival's lady in the least resembled +Philippa, but that she showed the heights to which Philippa had led +him on. + + +X + +Brocklebank agreed with Straker that they had got to get him out of +that. + +It was difficult, because the thing had come upon Furnival like a +madness. He would have had more chance if he had been a man with a +talent or an absorbing occupation, a politician, an editor, a +journalist; if he had even been, Brocklebank lamented, on the London +Borough Council it might have made him less dependent on the +sympathy of ruinous ladies. But the Home Office provided no +competitive distraction. + +What was worse, it kept him on the scene of his temptation. + +If it hadn't been for the Home Office he might have gone abroad with +the Brocklebanks; they had wanted him to go. Straker did what he +could for him. He gave him five days' yachting in August, and he +tried to get him away for week-ends in September; but Furnival +wouldn't go. Then Straker went away for his own holiday, and when he +came back he had lost sight of Furnival. So had the Home Office. + +For three months Furnival went under. Then one day he emerged. The +Higginsons (Mary Probyn and her husband) ran up against him in +Piccadilly, or rather, he ran up against them, and their forms +interposed an effective barrier to flight. He was looking so +wretchedly ill that their hearts warmed to him, and they asked him +to dine with them that evening, or the next, or--well, the next +after that. He refused steadily, but Mary managed to worm his +address out of him and sent it on to Fanny Brocklebank that night. + +Then the Brocklebanks, with prodigious forbearance and persistence, +went to work on him. Once they succeeded in getting well hold of him +they wouldn't let him go, and between them, very gradually, they got +him straight. He hadn't, Fanny discovered, been so very awful; he +had flung away all that he had on one expensive woman and he had +lost his job. Brocklebank found him another in an insurance office +where Fanny's brother was a director. Then Fanny settled down to the +really serious business of settling Furnival. She was always asking +him down to Amberley when the place was quiet, by which she meant +when Philippa Tarrant wasn't there. She was always asking nice girls +down to meet him. She worked at it hard for a whole year, and then +she said that if it didn't come off that summer she would have to +give it up. + +The obstacle to her scheme for Furny's settlement was his +imperishable repugnance to the legal tie. It had become, Fanny +declared, a regular obsession. All this she confided to Straker as +she lunched with him one day in his perfectly appointed club in +Dover Street. Furny was coming down to Amberley, she said, in July; +and she added, "It would do you good, Jimmy, to come, too." + +She was gazing at him with a look that he had come to know, having +known Fanny for fifteen years. A tender, rather dreamy look it was, +but distinctly speculative. It was directed to the silver streaks in +Straker's hair on a line with his eyeglasses, and he knew that Fanny +was making a calculation and saying to herself that it must be quite +fifteen years or more. + +Straker was getting on. + +A week at Amberley would do him all the good in the world. She +rather hoped--though she couldn't altogether promise him--that a +certain lady in whom he was interested (he needn't try to look as if +he wasn't) would be there. + +"_Not_ Philippa?" he asked wearily. + +"No, Jimmy, not Philippa. You know whom I mean." + +He did. He went down to Amberley in July, arriving early in a golden +and benignant afternoon. It was precisely two years since he had +been there with Philippa. It was very quiet this year, so quiet that +he had an hour alone with Fanny on the terrace before tea. +Brocklebank had taken the others off somewhere in his motor. + +She broke it to him that the lady in whom he was interested wasn't +there. Straker smiled. He knew she wouldn't be. The others, Fanny +explained, were Laurence Furnival and his Idea. + +"His Idea?" + +"His Idea, Jimmy, of everything that's lovable." + +There was a luminous pause in which Fanny let it sink into him. + +"Then it's come off, has it?" + +"I don't know, but I think it's coming." + +"Dear Mrs. Brockles, how did you manage it?" + +"I didn't. That's the beauty of it. He managed it himself. He asked +me to have her down." + +She let him take that in, too, in all its immense significance. + +"Who is she?" + +"Little Molly Milner--a niece of Nora Viveash's. He met her there +last winter." + +Their eyes met, full of remembrance. + +"If anybody managed it, it was Nora. Jimmy, do you know, that +woman's a perfect dear." + +"I know you always said so." + +"_He_ says so. He says she behaved like an angel, like a saint, +about it. When you think how she cared! I suppose she saw it was the +way to save him." + +Straker was silent. He saw Nora Viveash as he had seen her on the +terrace two years ago, on the day of Philippa's arrival; and as she +had come to him afterward and asked him to stand by Furnival in his +bad hour. + +"What is it like, Furny's Idea?" he asked presently. + +"It's rather like Nora, only different. It's her niece, you know." + +"If it's Nora's niece, it must be very young." + +"It is. It's absurdly young. But, oh, so determined!" + +"Has she by any chance got Nora's temperament?" + +"She's got her own temperament," said Fanny. + +Straker meditated on that. + +"How does it take him?" he inquired. + +"It takes him beautifully. It makes him very quiet, and a little +sad. That's why I think it's coming." + +Fanny also meditated. + +"Yes. It's coming. There's only one thing, Jimmy. Philippa's coming, +too. She's coming to-day, by that four-something train." + +"My dear Fanny, how you _do_ mix 'em!" + +It was his tribute to her enduring quality. + +"I asked her before I knew Laurence Furnival was coming." + +"_She_ knew?" + +"I--I think so." + +They looked at each other. Then Fanny spoke. + +"Jimmy," she said, "do you think you could make love to Philippa? +Just, _just_," she entreated (when, indeed, had she not appealed to +him to save her from the consequences of her indiscretions?), "until +Furny goes?" + +Straker's diplomatic reply was cut short by the appearance of +Laurence Furnival and Molly Milner, Nora's niece. They came down the +long terrace with the sun upon them. She was all in white, with here +and there a touch of delicate green. She was very young; and, yes, +she was very like Mrs. Viveash, with all the difference of her youth +and of her soul. + +Furnival was almost pathetically pleased to see Straker there; and +Miss Milner, flushed but serene in the moment of introduction, said +that she had heard of Mr. Straker very often from--she hesitated, +and Straker saw what Fanny had meant when she said that the young +girl had a temperament of her own--from Mr. Furnival. Her charming +smile implied that she was aware that Straker counted, and aware of +all that he had done for Furnival. + +As he watched her he began to see how different she was from Nora +Viveash. She was grave and extraordinarily quiet, Furnival's young +girl. He measured the difference by the power she had of making +Furnival--as Straker put it--different from himself. She had made +him grave and quiet, too. Not that he had by any means lost his +engaging spontaneity; only the spontaneous, the ungovernable thing +about him was the divine shyness and the wonder which he was +utterly unable to conceal. + +It was at its height, it had spread its own silence all around it, +when, in that stillness which was her hour, her moment, Philippa +appeared. + +She came down the terrace, golden for her as it had been two years +ago; she came slowly, more slowly than ever, with a touch of +exaggeration in her rhythm, in her delay, in the poise of her head, +and in all her gestures; the shade too much that Straker had +malignly prophesied for her. But with it all she was more beautiful, +and, he could see, more dangerous, than ever. + +She had greeted the three of them, Fanny, Brocklebank, and Straker, +with that increase, that excess of manner; and then she saw Furnival +standing very straight in front of her, holding out his hand. + +"Mr. Furnival--but--how _nice_!" + +Furnival had sat down again, rather abruptly, beside Molly Milner, +and Fanny, visibly perturbed, was murmuring the young girl's name. + +Something passed over Miss Tarrant's face like the withdrawing of a +veil. She was not prepared for Molly Milner. She had not expected to +find anything like that at Amberley. It was not what she supposed +that Furnival had come for. But, whatever he had come for, that, the +unexpected, was what Furnival was there for now. It was +disconcerting. + +Philippa, in fact, was disconcerted. + +All this Straker took in; he took in also, in a flash, the look that +passed between Miss Tarrant and Miss Milner. Philippa's look was +wonderful, a smile flung down from her heights into the old dusty +lists of sex to challenge that young Innocence. Miss Milner's look +was even more wonderful than Philippa's; grave and abstracted, it +left Philippa's smile lying where she had flung it; she wasn't +going, it said, to take _that_ up. + +And yet a duel went on between them, a duel conducted with proper +propriety on either side. It lasted about half an hour. Philippa's +manner said plainly to Miss Milner: "My child, you have got hold of +something that isn't good for you, something that doesn't belong to +you, something that you are not old enough or clever enough to keep, +something that you will not be permitted to keep. You had better +drop it." Miss Milner's manner said still more plainly to Philippa: +"I don't know what you're driving at, but you don't suppose I take +you seriously, do you?" It said nothing at all about Laurence +Furnival. That was where Miss Milner's manner scored. + +In short, it was a very pretty duel, and it ended in Miss Milner's +refusing to accompany Furnival to the Amberley woods and in +Philippa's carrying him off bodily (Straker noted that she scored a +point there, or seemed to score). As they went Miss Milner was seen +to smile, subtly, for all her innocence. She lent herself with great +sweetness to Brocklebank's desire to show her his prize roses. + +Straker was left alone with Fanny. + +Fanny was extremely agitated by the sight of Furnival's capture. +"Jimmy," she said, "haven't I been good to you? Haven't I been an +angel? Haven't I done every mortal thing I could for you?" + +He admitted that she had. + +"Well, then, now you've got to do something for me. You've got to +look after Philippa. Don't let her get at him." + +"No fear." + +But Fanny insisted that he had seen Philippa carrying Furnival off +under Molly Milner's innocent nose, and that her manner of +appropriating him, too, vividly recalled the evening of her arrival +two years ago, when he would remember what had happened to poor +Nora's nose. + +"She took him from Nora." + +"My dear Fanny, that was an act of the highest moral----" + +"Don't talk to me about your highest moral anything. _I_ know what +it was." + +"Besides, she didn't take him from Nora," she went on, ignoring her +previous line of argument. "He took himself. He was getting tired of +her." + +"Well," said Straker, "he isn't tired of Miss Milner." + +"She's taken him off _there_," said Fanny. She nodded gloomily +toward the Amberley woods. + +Straker smiled. He was looking westward over the shining fields +where he had once walked with Philippa. Already they were returning. +Furnival had not allowed himself to be taken very far. As they +approached Straker saw that Philippa was pouring herself out at +Furnival and that Furnival was not absorbing any of it; he was +absorbed in his Idea. His Idea had made him absolutely impervious to +Philippa. All this Straker saw. + +He made himself very attentive to Miss Tarrant that evening, and +after dinner, at her request, he walked with her on the terrace. +Over the low wall they could see Furnival in the rose garden with +Miss Milner. They saw him give her a rose, which the young girl +pinned in the bosom of her gown. + +"Aren't they wonderful?" said Philippa. "Did you ever see anything +under heaven so young?" + +"She is older than he is," said Straker. + +"Do you remember when he wanted to give _me_ one and I wouldn't take +it?" + +"I have not forgotten." + +The lovers wandered on down the rose garden and Philippa looked +after them. Then she turned to Straker. + +"I've had a long talk with him. I've told him that he must settle +down and that he couldn't do a better thing for himself than----" + +She paused. + +"Well," said Straker, "it _looks_ like it, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," said Philippa. "It looks like it." + +They talked of other things. + +"I am going," she said presently, "to ask Miss Milner to stay with +me." + +Straker didn't respond. He was thinking deeply. Her face was so +mysterious, so ominous, that yet again he wondered what she might be +up to. He confessed to himself that this time he didn't know. But he +made her promise to go on the river with him the next day. They were +to start at eleven-thirty. + +At eleven Fanny came to him in the library. + +"She's gone," said Fanny. "She's left a little note for you. She +said you'd forgive her, you'd understand." + +"Do _you_?" said Straker. + +"She said she was going to be straight and see this thing through." + +"What thing?" + +"Furny's thing. What else do you suppose she's thinking of? She said +she'd only got to lift her little finger and he'd come back to her; +she said there ought to be fair play. Do you see? She's gone +away--to save him." + +"Good Lord!" said Straker. + +But he saw. + + +XI + +It was nearly twelve months before he heard again from Miss Tarrant. +Then one day she wrote and asked him to come and have tea with her +at her flat in Lexham Gardens. + +He went. His entrance coincided with the departure of Laurence +Furnival and a lady whom Philippa introduced to him as Mrs. +Laurence, whom, she said, he would remember under another name. + +Furnival's wife was younger than ever and more like Nora Viveash and +more different. When the door closed on them Philippa turned to him +with her radiance (the least bit overdone). + +"_I_ made that marriage," she said, and staggered him. + +"Surely," he said, "it was made in heaven." + +"If this room is heaven. It was made here, six months ago." + +She faced him with all his memories. With all his memories and her +own she faced him radiantly. + +"You know now," she said, "_why I did it_. It was worth while, +wasn't it?" + +His voice struggled with his memories and stuck. It stuck in his +throat. + +Before he left he begged her congratulations on a little affair of +his own; a rather unhappy affair which had ended happily the week +before last. He did not tell her that, if it hadn't been for the +things dear Fanny Brocklebank had done for him, the way she had +mixed herself up with his unhappy little affair, it might have ended +happily a year ago. + +"But," said Philippa, "how beautiful!" + +He never saw Miss Tarrant again. Their correspondence ceased after +his marriage, and he gathered that she had no longer any use for +him. + + + + +APPEARANCES + + +I + +All afternoon since three o'clock he had sat cooling his heels in a +corner of the hotel veranda. And all afternoon he had been a +spectacle of interest to the beautiful cosmopolitan creature who +watched him from her seat under the palm tree in the corresponding +corner. + +She had two men with her, and when she was not occupied with one or +both of them she turned her splendid eyes, gaily or solemnly, on +Oscar Thesiger. And every time she turned them Thesiger in his +corner darkened and flushed and bit his moustache and twirled it, +while his eyes answered hers as he believed they meant him to +answer. Oscar Thesiger was not a cosmopolitan himself for nothing. + +And all the time while he looked at her he was thinking, thinking +very miserably, of little Vera Walters. + +She had refused him yesterday evening without giving any reason. + +Her cruelty (if it wasn't cruelty he'd like to know what it was) +remained unexplained, incomprehensible to Oscar Thesiger. + +For, if she didn't mean to marry him, why on earth had they asked +him to go abroad with them? Why had they dragged him about with them +for five weeks, up and down the Riviera? Why was he there now, +cooling his heels in the veranda of the Hotel Mediterranee, Cannes? +That was where the cruelty, the infernal cruelty came in. + +And her reasons--if she had only given him her reasons. It was all +he asked for. But of course she hadn't any. + +What possible reason could she have? It wasn't as if he'd been a bad +lot like her French brother-in-law, Paul de Vignolles (good Lord, +the things he knew about de Vignolles!). He was, as men go, a decent +sort. He had always known where to draw the line (de Vignolles +didn't). And he wasn't ugly, like de Vignolles. On the contrary, he +was, as men go, distinctly good looking; he knew he was; the glances +of the beautiful and hypothetical stranger assured him of it, and he +had looked in the glass not half an hour ago to reassure himself. +Solid he was, and well built, and he had decorative points that +pleased: a fresh color, eyes that flashed blue round a throbbing +black, a crisp tawny curl in his short moustache and shorter hair. +He was well off; there wasn't a thing she wanted that he couldn't +give her. And he was the admired and appreciated friend of her +admired and appreciated sister, Agatha de Vignolles. + +And for poor little Vera, as far as he could see, the alternatives +to marrying him were dismal. It was either marrying a Frenchman, +since Agatha had married one, or living forever with that admired +and appreciated woman, looking after the little girls, Ninon and +Odette. She had been looking after them ever since he had first met +her and fallen, with some violence, in love with her. + +It was a bit late now to go back on all that. It had been an +understood thing. Vera herself had understood it, and she--well, she +had lent herself to it very sweetly, shyly, and beautifully, as Vera +would. If she hadn't he wouldn't have had a word to say against her +decision. + +It wasn't as if she had been a cold and selfish woman like her +sister. She wasn't cold; and, as for selfish, he had seen her with +Agatha and the little girls. It was through the little girls that he +had made love to her, that being the surest and shortest way. He had +worked it through Ninon and Odette; he had carried them on his back +by turns that very afternoon, in the heat of the sun, all the way, +that terrible winding way, up the Californie Hill to the Observatory +at the top, where they had sat drinking coffee and eating brioches, +he and Vera and Ninon and Odette. What on earth did she suppose he +did it for? + +But she hadn't supposed anything; she had simply understood, and had +been adorable to him all afternoon. Not that she had said much (Vera +didn't say things); but her eyes, her eyes had given her away; they +had been as soft for him as they had been for Ninon and Odette. + +Why, oh why, hadn't he done it, then? + +He couldn't, because of those two infernal, bilingual little +monkeys. They were clinging to her skirts all the way down the hill. + +They were all going to Nice the next day; and that evening the de +Vignolles had gone down to the Casino and Vera hadn't gone. It would +have been all right if the children had not been allowed to sit up +to see the conjuror conjuring in the lounge. But they had sat up; +and that had brought it to ten o'clock before he had Vera for a +minute to himself. + +He may have chosen his moment badly (it wasn't easy to choose it +well, living, as the de Vignolles did, in public), and perhaps, if +they hadn't had that little difference of opinion, he and she---- It +was in the evening that they had had it, between the conjuring +tricks and the children's chatter, in the public, the intolerably +public lounge, and it was only a difference of opinion, opinion +concerning the beauty of the beautiful and hypothetical lady who was +looking at him then, who had never ceased to look at him and Vera +and the children when any of them were about. + +Thesiger couldn't get Vera to say that the lady was beautiful, and +the little that she did say implied that you couldn't be beautiful +if you looked like that. She was not beautiful (Thesiger had +admitted it) in Vera's way, and on the whole he was glad to think +that Vera didn't look like that; but there was, he had contended, a +beauty absolute and above opinion, and the lady had it. That was +all. Perhaps, now he came to think of it, he ought not to have drawn +Vera's attention to her; for he knew what Vera had thought of her by +the things she hadn't said, and, what was worse, he knew what Paul +de Vignolles thought by the things he _had_ said, things implying +that, if the lady were honest, appearances were against her. Of her +and of her honesty Thesiger didn't feel very sure himself. He found +himself continually looking at her to make sure. He had been looking +at her then, across the little table in the lounge where she and her +two men sat drinking coffee and liqueurs. She kept thrusting her +face between the two as she talked; she had a rose in her bronze +hair, which made him dubious; and when their eyes met, as they were +always meeting (how could he help it?), his doubt leaped in him and +fastened on her face. Her face had held him for a moment so with all +his doubt, and he had stared at her and flamed in a curious +excitement born of Vera's presence and of hers, while he smiled to +himself furtively under the moustache he bit. + +And then he had seen Vera looking at him. + +For a moment she had looked at him, with wide, grave eyes that +stayed wide until she turned her head away suddenly. + +And the lady, who was the cause of it all, had got up and removed +herself, softly and, for her, inconspicuously, taking her two men +with her out into the garden and the night. + +Of course he had understood Vera. He had seen that it was jealousy, +feminine jealousy. And that was why, in the drawing-room afterward, +he had hurried up with his proposal, to make it all straight. + +And she had refused him without giving any reasons. She had gone off +to Nice by the one-forty-four train with the de Vignolles, Paul and +Agatha and Ninon and Odette; she had left him in the great, gay, +exotic hotel above the palm trees, above the rose and ivory town, +above the sea; left him alone with the loveliness that made him mad +and miserable; left him cooling his heels on the veranda, under the +gaze, the distinctly interested gaze, of the beautiful and +hypothetical stranger. + + +II + +How beautiful she was he realized after a dinner which figured in +his memory as one of those dinners which he had not enjoyed, though +as a matter of fact he _had_ enjoyed it or the mere distraction of +it. By way of distraction he had taken the table next to hers, +facing her where she sat between her two men. + +She was an American; that fact had at first made his doubt itself a +little dubious. And she was probably from the South (they were +different there). Hence her softness, her full tone, her richness +and her glow. Hence her exotic strain that went so well with the +false tropics of the scene. But whether she were a provincial or an +urban, or, as she seemed, a cosmopolitan splendor, Thesiger was not +cosmopolitan enough to tell. She might have been the supreme flower +of her astounding country. She might have been, for all he knew, +unique. + +She was tall, and her body, large and massive, achieved the grace of +slenderness from the sheer perfection of its lines. Her attire, +within the bounds of its subservience to Paris, was certainly +unique. It was wonderful the amount of decoration she could carry +without being the worse for it. Her head alone, over and above its +bronze hair, coil on coil and curl on curl, sustained several large +tortoise-shell pins, a gold lace fillet, and a rose over each ear. +It was no more to her than a bit of black ribbon to a young girl. +Old rose and young rose mingled delicately in the silks and gauzes +of her gown; here and there a topaz flashed rose from her bodice and +from the dusk of her bared neck. There was a fine dusk in her +whiteness and in the rose of her face, and in the purplish streaks +under her eyes, and deeper dusks about the roots of her hair. And +gold sprang out of her darkness there; gold and bronze and copper +gleamed and glowed and flamed on every coil and curl. Her eyes held +the light gloriously; they were of a luminous, tawny brown, wide +apart, and slightly round, with a sudden fineness at the corners. +The lids had thick black lashes, so short that when they drooped +they had the effect of narrowing her eyes without darkening them. +Her nose, small and straight, was a shade too broadly rounded at the +tip, but that defect gave a sort of softness to her splendor. Of her +mouth Thesiger could not judge; he hadn't seen it at rest; and when +she talked her white teeth flashed at him and disturbed him. + +As he looked at her, disturbed, and he hoped, disturbing, he +thought of little Vera Walters, of her slender virginal body, of her +small virginal face, smooth, firm, and slightly pointed like a bud, +of her gray eyes, clear as water, and of the pale gold and fawn of +her hair. He thought of her tenderness and of her cruelty. He caught +himself frowning at it over the _mousse de volaille_ he was eating; +and just then he thought that the other woman who was looking at him +smiled. Most certainly she gazed. + +The gaze was condoned and allowed by the two men who followed it. + +She was superb; but the men, the men were awful. To begin with, they +were American, altogether too American for Thesiger. One, whom the +lady addressed with some ceremony as Mr. Tarbuck, was the big, full +type, florid, rough-hewn, civilized by the cut of his clothes and +the excessive cleanness of his shaving. From the first he had +oppressed and offended Thesiger by his large and intolerably genial +presence. The other, whom she familiarly and caressingly called +Binky, was small and lean and yellow; he had a young face with old, +nervous lines in it, the twitching, tortured lines of the victim of +premature high pressure, effete in one generation. The small man +drank, most distinctly and disagreeably he drank. He might have been +the wreck of saloon bars, or of the frequent convivial cocktail, or +of savage, solitary drinking. + +The lady seemed to be traveling under Tarbuck's awful wing, while +the outrageous Binky wandered conspicuously and somewhat +mysteriously under hers. She was attentive to the small man and +peeled his peaches for him, while the large man, smiling largely and +with irrepressible affection, peeled hers. The large man (flagrantly +opulent) had ordered peaches. He supposed they'd be the one thing +that durned hotel hadn't got. + +Thesiger conceived a violent hatred for him and for the small man, +too. He always had hated the male of the American species. He looked +on him as a disagreeable and alien creature; at his best a creature +of predatory instincts who appropriated and monopolized all those +things of power and beauty that belonged, properly speaking, to his +betters; at his worst a defiler of the sacred wells, a murderer and +mutilator of the language, of his, Oscar Thesiger's, language. + +The two were murdering it now, the large man with a terrible slow +assurance in the operation; the small man, as it were, worrying it +between his teeth, disposing of it in little savage snaps and jerks +and nasal snarlings. He would stop eating to do it. That was when +his beautiful and hypothetical companion left him to himself. + +For the lady had a curiously soothing and subduing effect on the +small man. Sometimes, when his snarls were too obtrusive, she would +put out her hand, her small, perfect hand, and touch his sleeve, and +he would cease snarling and begin to peck feebly at the things +before him, or at the things before her, as the case might be. +Thesiger actually saw her transferring the _entree_ she had just +tasted from her own plate to his; he heard her coaxing and cajoling +him, calling on him by his offensive name of Binky. "Eat, little +Binky! Little Binky, eat!" + +There seemed to be some rule in a game they had, by which, if she +first touched or tasted anything, Binky could not honorably refuse +it. + +It was clear that she had a hold on the small man. Thesiger had +noticed that when she cancelled his orders for drinks he made no +resistance, while he bitterly resented Mr. Tarbuck's efforts at +control. She would then inquire gaily of Mr. Tarbuck whether he was +in command of this expedition or was she? + +To-night, her fine eyes being considerably occupied with Thesiger, +the small man asserted his independence and was served, +surreptitiously as it were, with a brimming whisky and soda. + +He had got his hand on it when the lady shot out a sudden arm across +the table, and with a staggering dexterity and impudence possessed +herself of his glass. Over the rim of it she kept her eyes on him, +narrowed eyes, darting mockery of Binky under half-closed lids; and, +with her head tilted back, she drank; she drank daintily, about an +inch down, and then she gave the glass to the large man, and he, as +if honor and chivalry compelled him also, emptied it. + +"Did you that time, Binky," she murmured. + +Thesiger heard her. She was looking at him, obviously to see how his +fastidiousness had taken it. She leaned forward, her elbows on the +table, and her head, propped on her hands, tilted slightly backward, +and she gazed at him under her lowered eyelids with her narrowed, +darting eyes. Then suddenly she lowered her chin and opened her +eyes, and he met them full. + +Her gaze, which had first fascinated, now excited him; very +curiously it excited him, seeing that he was thinking about Vera +Walters all the time. So unabashed it was, and so alluring, it sent +such challenge and encouragement to the adventurous blood, that +under it the passion that Vera would have none of detached itself +from Vera with a fierce revulsion, and was drawn and driven, driven +and drawn toward that luminous and invincible gaze. And Thesiger +began to say to himself that the world was all before him, although +for him Vera had walked out of it; that he was a man of the world; +and that he didn't care. + +It seemed to him that the beautiful American smiled again at him. +Then she got up, and swept down the dining-hall, swinging her rosy +draperies. The two men followed her, and Thesiger was left alone in +that vast place, seated at his table, and staring into a half-empty +wineglass, to the embarrassment of the waiter who hovered by his +chair. + +After all, she left him an ultimate scruple; he could not altogether +trust his doubt. + + +III + +It was a fine night, and the lounge was almost deserted. Thesiger, +searching it for some one he could speak to, counted four old ladies +and their middle-aged companions, three young governesses and their +charges only less young, and one old gentleman, fixed by an extreme +corpulence in his armchair, asleep over _Le Figaro_, while one +ponderous hand retained upon his knee _Le Petit Journal_. Nowhere +any sign of the transatlantic mystery and her companions. It +occurred to Thesiger that it might interest him to know her name (he +hadn't heard it), and even the number of her room. + +He strolled to the racks on each side of the great staircase where +the visitors' names were posted, and after a prolonged investigation +he came upon the three: Miss Roma Lennox, Mr. Frank Bingham-Booker, +and Mr. Theobald G. Tarbuck, of New York City, U. S. A. Their +respective numbers were 74, 75, and 80. What was odd, the opulent +Tarbuck (number 80) occupied a small room looking over the garage at +the back, while 74, Mr. Frank Bingham-Booker, who was visibly +impecunious, and 75, Miss Roma Lennox, luxuriated.--Thesiger shook +his head over the social complication and gave it up. + +The lounge was no place for him. He went out, down the Californie +Hill and along the Avenue des Palmiers, with some idea of turning +eventually into the Casino. He was extraordinarily uplifted. He +thought that he was feeling the enchantment of the lucid night above +the sea, the magic of the white city of the hills, feeling the very +madness of the tropics in the illusion that she made with her palm +trees and their velvet shadows on the white pavement. + +He had come to the little Place before the Casino, set with plane +trees. Under the electric globes the naked stems, the branches, +naked to the tip, showed white with a livid, supernatural, a +devilish and iniquitous whiteness. The scene was further +illuminated, devilishly, iniquitously, as it were, through the doors +and windows of the Casino, of the restaurants, of the brasseries, of +the omnipresent and omnipotent American Bar. If there were really +any magic there, any devilry, any iniquity, it joined hands with the +iniquity and devilry in Oscar Thesiger's soul, and led them forth +desirous of adventure. And walking slowly and superbly, under the +white plane trees, the adventure came. + +As the light fell on her superb and slow approach, he saw that it +was Roma Lennox; Roma Lennox walking, oh Lord! by herself, like +that, after ten at night, in Cannes, on the pavement of the Place. +She was coming toward him, making straight for him, setting herself +unavoidably in his path. He had been prepared for many things, but +he had not been prepared for that, for the publicity, the flagrance +of it. And yet he was not conscious of any wonder; rather he had a +sense of the expectedness, the foregoneness of the event, and a +savage joy in the certainty she gave him, in his sudden absolution +from the ultimate scruple, the release from that irritating, +inhibiting doubt of his doubt. + +He raised his hat and inquired urbanely whether he might be +permitted to walk with her a little way. + +She had stopped and was regarding him with singular directness. + +"Why, certainly," she said. + +They walked the little way permitted, and then, at her suggestion, +they sat together under the plane trees on one of the chairs in a +fairly solitary corner of the Place. + +He saw now that she had changed her gown and that, over some +obscurer thing, she wore a long, dull purple coat with wide hanging +sleeves; her head was bound and wound, half-Eastern fashion, in a +purple veil, hiding her hair. In her dark garb, with all her colors +hidden, her brilliance extinguished, she was more wonderful than +ever, more than ever in keeping with the illusion of the tropics. + +His hands trembled and his pulses beat as he found himself thus +plunged into the heart of the adventure. He might have been put off +by the sheer rapidity and facility of the thing, but for her serious +and somber air that seemed to open up depths, obscurities. + +She sat very still, her profile slightly averted, and with one +raised hand she held her drifting veil close about her chin. They +sat thus in silence a moment, for her mystery embarrassed him. Then +(slowly and superbly) over her still averted shoulder she half +turned her head toward him. + +"Well," she said, "haven't you anything to say for yourself? It's up +to you." + +Then, nervously, he began to say things, to pay her the barefaced, +far from subtle, compliments that had served him once or twice +before on similar occasions (if any occasion could be called +similar). Addressed to her, they seemed somehow inadequate. He said +that, of course, inadequate he knew they were. + +"I'm glad you think so," said Miss Lennox. + +"I--I said I knew it." + +"Oh--the things you know!" + +"And the things _you_ know." He grew fervid. "Don't pretend you +don't know them. Don't pretend you don't know how a man feels when +he looks at you." + +"And why should I pretend?" + +She had turned round now with her whole body and faced him squarely. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" + +Lashed, driven as he judged she meant him to be by her composure, +his passion shook him and ran over, from the tips of his fingers +stroking the flung sleeve of her coat, from the tip of his tongue +uttering the provoked, inevitable things--things that came from him +hushed for the crowd, but, for her, hurried, vehement, unveiled. + +She listened without saying one word; she listened without looking +at him, looking, rather, straight in front of her, and tilting her +head a little backward before the approach of his inflamed, +impetuous face. + +He stopped, and she bent forward slightly and held him with the full +gaze of her serious eyes. + +"What--do you think--you're doing?" she asked slowly. + +He said he supposed that she could see. + +"I can see a good deal. I see you _think_ you're saying these things +to me because you've found me here at this peculiar time, in this +peculiar place, and because I haven't any man around." + +"No, no. That wasn't it, I--I assure you." + +A terrible misgiving seized him. + +"Why did you do it?" she asked sweetly. + +"I--upon my word, I don't know why." + +For it seemed to him now that he really hadn't known. + +"I'll tell you why," said Roma Lennox. "You did it because you were +just crazy with caring for another woman--a nice, sweet girl who +won't have anything to say to you. And you've been saying to +yourself you're durned if she cares, and you're durned if you care. +And all the time you feel so bad about it that you must go and do +something wicked right away. And taking off your hat to me was your +idea of just about the razzlingest, dazzlingest, plumb wickedest +thing you could figure out to do." + +He rose, and took off his hat to her again. + +"If I did," he said, "I beg your pardon. Fact is, I--I--I thought +you were somebody else." + +"I know it," said she, and paused. "Was it a very strong likeness +that misled you?" + +"No. No likeness at all. It's all right," he added hurriedly. "I'm +going--I--I can't think how I made the mistake." + +He looked at the scene, at the nocturnal prowlers and promenaders, +at the solitary veiled and seated figure, and he smiled. In all his +agony he smiled. + +"And yet," he said, "somebody else will be making it if I leave you +here. Somebody who won't go. I'll go if you like, but----" + +"Sit down," she said; "sit down right here. _You_'re not going till +you and I have had a straight talk. Don't you worry about your +mistake. I _meant_ you to come up and speak to me." + +That staggered him. + +"Good Lord! What on earth _for_?" + +"Because I knew that if I didn't you'd go up and speak to somebody +else. Somebody who wouldn't let you go." + +She was more staggering than he could have thought her. + +"But, dear lady, why----?" + +"Why? It's quite simple. You see, I saw you and her together, and I +took an interest--I always do take an interest. So I watched you; +and then--well--I saw what you thought of me for watching. At first +I was just wild. And then, afterward, I said to myself I didn't know +but what I'd just as soon you _did_ think it, and then we'd have it +out, and we'd see what we could make of it between us." + +"Make of it?" he breathed. + +"Well--I suppose you'll have to make something of it, won't you?" + +"Between us?" He smiled faintly. + +"Between us. I suppose if I've made you feel like that I've got to +help you." + +"To help _me_?" + +"To help anyone who wants it.--You don't mind if I keep on looking +at the Casino instead of looking at you? I can talk just the +same.--And then, you see, it was because of me she left you--by the +one-forty-four train." + +"Because of you?" + +"Because of the way you looked at me last night. She saw you." + +He remembered. + +"She saw that you thought I wasn't straight; and she saw that that +was what interested you." + +"Ah," he cried. "I was a cad. Why don't you tell me so? Why don't +you pitch into me?" + +"Because I fancy you've got about enough to bear. You see, I saw it +all, and I was so sorry--so sorry." + +She left it there a moment for him to take it in, her beautiful, +astounding sorrow. + +"And I just wanted to start right in and help you." + +He murmured something incoherent, something that made her smile. + +"Oh, it wasn't for the sake of _your_ fine eyes, Mr. +I-don't-know-your-name. It was because of her. I could see her +saying to her dear little self, 'That woman isn't straight. He isn't +straight, either. He won't do.' That's the sort of man she thought +you were." + +"But it wasn't as if she didn't know me, as if she didn't care. She +did care." + +"She did, indeed." + +"Then why," he persisted, "why did she leave me?" + +"Don't you understand?" (Her voice went all thick and tender in her +throat.) "She was thinking of the children. You couldn't see her +with those teeny, teeny things, and not know that's what she would +think of." + +"But," he wailed, "it wasn't as if they were her own children." + +"Oh, how stupid you are! It was her own children she _was_ thinking +of." + + +IV + +"So that was her reason," he said presently. + +"Of course. Of course. It's the reason for the whole thing. It's the +reason why, when a young man like you sees a young woman like me--I +mean like the lady you thought I was--in an over-stimulating and +tempestuous place like this, instead of taking off his silly hat to +her, he should jam it well down over his silly ears and--quit!" + +"You keep on saying 'what I thought you were.' I can't think how I +could, or why I did." + +"I know why," she replied serenely. "You fancied I had more +decorations in my back hair than a respectable woman can well +carry." + +She meditated. + +"I thought I could afford a rose or two. But it seems I couldn't." + +"You? You can afford anything--anything. All the same----" + +"Well, if I can afford to sit with you, out here, at a quarter past +ten, on this old heathenish piazza, I suppose I can." + +"All the same----" he insisted. + +She meditated again. + +"All the same, if it wasn't those roses, I can't think what it was." + +"Dear lady, it wasn't the roses. You are so deadly innocent I think +I ought to tell you what it was." + +"Do," she said. + +"It was, really, it was seeing you here, walking by yourself. It's +so jolly late, you know." + +She drew herself up. "An American woman can walk anywhere, at any +time." + +"Oh, yes, of course, of course. But for ordinary people, and in +Latin countries, it's considered--well, a trifle singular." + +She smiled. + +"You puzzle me," he said. "Just now you seemed perfectly aware of +it. And yet----" + +"_And_ yet?" she raised her eyebrows. + +"And yet, well--here you are, you know." + +"Here I am, and here I've got to stay, it seems. Well--before that?" + +"Before that?" + +"Before this?" She tapped her foot, impatient at the slow movement +of his thought. "Up there in the hotel?" + +"Oh, in the hotel. I suppose it was seeing you with----" + +It was positively terrible, the look with which she faced him now. +But his idea was that he had got to help her (hadn't she helped +him?), and he was going through with it. It was permissible; it was +even imperative, seeing the lengths, the depths, rather, of intimacy +that they had gone to. + +"Those two," he said. "They don't seem exactly your sort." + +"You mean," said she, "they are not exactly yours." + +She felt the shudder of his unspoken "Heaven forbid!" + +"I suppose," she continued, "if a European man sees any woman alone +in a hotel with two men whom he can't size up right away as her +blood relations, he's apt to think things. Well, for all you know, +Mr. Tarbuck might be my uncle and Mr. Bingham-Booker my +half-brother." + +"But they aren't." + +"No. As far as blood goes, they aren't any more to me than Adam. You +have me there." + +There was a long pause which Thesiger, for the life of him, could +not fill. + +"Well," she reverted, "Mr. Whoever-you-are, I don't know that I owe +you an explanation----" + +"You don't owe me anything." + +"All the same I'm going to give you one, so that next time +you'll think twice before you make any more of your venerable +European mistakes. It isn't every woman who'd know how to turn +them to your advantage. Perhaps you've seen what's wrong with Mr. +Bingham-Booker?" + +He intimated that it was not practicable not to see. "If I may say +so, that makes it all the more unfitting----" + +"That's all you know about it, Mr.----" + +"Thesiger," he supplied. + +"Mr. Thesiger. That boy had to be taken care of. He was killing +himself with drink before we came away. He'd had a shock to his +nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his +one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and +there wasn't anybody he _did_ mind but me. I've known him since he +was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed it that +I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother--he's her +only son--was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for +appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed her +married daughter was taken sick, in the inconsiderate way that +married daughters have, and she couldn't go. And, do you know, there +wasn't a woman that could take her place. They were afraid, every +one of them, because they knew." She lowered her voice to utter it. +"It makes him mad." + +"My dear lady, it was a job for a trained nurse." + +"Trained nurse? They couldn't afford one. And we didn't want a +uniform hanging around and rubbing it into the poor boy and +everybody else that he was an incurable dipsomaniac." + +"But you--_you_?" + +"It was my job. You don't suppose I was going back on them?" + +She faced him with it, and as he looked at her he took the measure +of her magnificence, her brilliant bravery. + +"Going back on _him_? Poor Binky, he was so good and dear--except +for that. You never saw anything so cute. Up to all sorts of +monkey-shines and beautiful surprises. And then"--she smiled with a +tender irony--"he gave us _this_ surprise." From her face you could +not have gathered how far from beautiful his last had been. "I was +going to see that boy through if I had to go with him alone. I said +to myself there are always people around who'll think things, +whatever you do, but it doesn't matter what people who don't matter +think. And then--Mr. Tarbuck wouldn't let me go alone. He said I'd +have to have a man with me. A strong man. He'd known me--never mind +how long--so it was all right. I don't know what I'd have done +without Mr. Tarbuck." + +She paused on him. + +"That man, whom you don't think fit for me to have around, +is--well--he's the finest man I've ever known or want to know. He +does the dearest things." + +She paused again, remembering them. And Thesiger, though her +admiration of Tarbuck was obscurely hateful to him, owned that, fine +as she was, she was at her finest as she praised him. + +"Why," she went on, "just because Binky couldn't afford a good room +he gave him his. He said the view of the sea would set him up better +than anything, and the garage was all the view _he_ wanted, because +he's just crazy on motors. And he's been like that all through. +Never thought of himself once." + +"Oh, didn't he?" said Thesiger. + +"Not once. Do you know, Mr. Tarbuck is a very big man. He runs one +of the biggest businesses in the States; and at twenty-four hours' +notice he left his big business to take care of itself, and came +right away on this trip to take care of me." + +"Is he taking care of you now?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well--if he can leave you--here----?" + +"Why, he's here somewhere, looking for Mr. Bingham-Booker. He's +routing about in those queer saloons and places." + +"And you?" + +"I'm keeping my eye on the Casino. It's my fault he got away. You +can't always tell when it's best to give him his head and when it +isn't. I ought to have let him have that whiskey and soda. Do you +see either of them?" + +He looked round. "I think," he said, "I see Mr. Tarbuck." + +She followed his gaze. Not five yards from them, planted on the +pavement as if he grew there, was Mr. Tarbuck. His large back was +turned to them with an expression at once ostentatious and discreet. +Thesiger had the idea that it had been there for some considerable +time, probably ever since his own appearance. Mr. Tarbuck's back +said plainly that, though Mr. Tarbuck neither looked nor listened, +that he would scorn the action, yet he was there, at his friend's +service if she wanted him. + +"I'm afraid," said Roma Lennox, "he hasn't found him." + +"He doesn't seem to be looking." + +(He didn't.) + +"Oh, I fancy," said she, "he's just squinting round." + +"Can I do anything?" + +"Why, yes, you could sit here and watch the Casino while I go and +speak to Mr. Tarbuck." + +She went and spoke to him. Thesiger saw how affectionately the large +man bent his head to her. + +She returned to Thesiger, and Mr. Tarbuck (whom she had evidently +released from sentry-go) stalked across the Place toward the +American Bar. + +"He is not in the Casino," she said. + +"Have you tried the American Bar?" + +"Of course; we've tried all of them." + +"I say, I want to help you. Can't I?" + +She shook her head. + +"If I stayed on in the hotel, could I be of any use?" + +"You're not going to stay." + +"Why shouldn't I? I've nothing else to do." + +"Oh, haven't you? What _you_ have to do is to take that +one-forty-four train to Nice, to-morrow afternoon." + +"It's no good," he muttered gloomily. "I'm done for. You've made me +see that plain enough." + +"All I made you see was why she turned you down. And now that you do +see----" + +"What difference does it make, my seeing it?" + +"Why, all the difference. Do you think I'd have taken all this +trouble if it wasn't for that--to have you go right away and make it +up with her?" + +"And with you--can I ever make it up?" + +"Don't you worry." + +She rose. "I suppose appearances were against me; but----" + +She held him for a moment with her eyes that measured him; then, as +if she had done all that she wanted with him, she gave him back to +himself, the finer for her handling. + +"It wasn't for appearances you really cared." + + + + +THE WRACKHAM MEMOIRS + + +I + +The publishers told you he behaved badly, did they? They didn't know +the truth about the "Wrackham Memoirs." + +You may well wonder how Grevill Burton got mixed up with them, how +he ever could have known Charles Wrackham. + +Well, he did know him, pretty intimately, too, but it was through +Antigone, and because of Antigone, and for Antigone's adorable sake. +We never called her anything but Antigone, though Angelette was the +name that Wrackham, with that peculiar shortsightedness of his, had +given to the splendid creature. + +Why Antigone? You'll see why. + +No, I don't mean that Wrackham murdered his father and married his +mother; but he wouldn't have stuck at either if it could have helped +him to his literary ambition. And every time he sat down to write a +book he must have been disgusting to the immortal gods. And Antigone +protected him. + +She was the only living child he'd had, or, as Burton once savagely +said, was ever likely to have. And I can tell you that if poor +Wrackham's other works had been one half as fine as Antigone it +would have been glory enough for Burton to have edited him. For he +_did_ edit him. + +They met first, if you'll believe it, at Ford Lankester's funeral. +I'd gone to Chenies early with young Furnival, who was "doing" the +funeral for his paper, and with Burton, who knew the Lankesters, as +I did, slightly. I'd had a horrible misgiving that I should see +Wrackham there; and there he was, in the intense mourning of that +black cloak and slouch hat he used to wear. The cloak was a fine +thing as far as it went, and with a few more inches he really might +have carried it off; but those few more inches were just what had +been denied him. Still, you couldn't miss him or mistake him. He was +exactly like his portraits in the papers; you know the haggard, +bilious face that would have been handsome if he'd given it a +chance; the dark, straggling, and struggling beard, the tempestuous, +disheveled look he had, and the immortal Attitude. He was standing +in it under a yew tree looking down into Lankester's grave. It was a +small white chamber about two feet square--enough for his ashes. The +earth at the top of it was edged with branches of pine and laurel. + +Furnival said afterward you could see what poor Wrackham was +thinking of. _He_ would have pine branches. Pine would be +appropriate for the stormy Child of Nature that he was. And +laurel--there would have to be lots of laurel. He was at the height +of his great vogue, the brief popular fury for him that was absurd +then and seems still more absurd to-day, now that we can measure +him. He takes no room, no room at all, even in the popular +imagination; less room than Lankester's ashes took--or his own, for +that matter. + +Yes, I know it's sad in all conscience. But Furnival seemed to think +it funny then, for he called my attention to him. I mustn't miss +him, he said. + +Perhaps I might have thought it funny too if it hadn't been for +Antigone. I was not prepared for Antigone. I hadn't realized her. +She was there beside her father, not looking into the grave, but +looking at him as if she knew what he was thinking and found it, as +we find it now, pathetic. But unbearably pathetic. + +Somehow there seemed nothing incongruous in _her_ being there. No, I +can't tell you what she was like to look at, except that she was +like a great sacred, sacrificial figure; she might have come there +to pray, or to offer something, or to pour out a libation. She was +tall and grave, and gave the effect of something white and golden. +In her black gown and against the yew trees she literally shone. + +It was because of Antigone that I went up and spoke to him, and did +it (I like to think I did it now) with reverence. He seemed, in +spite of the reverence, to be a little dashed at seeing _me_ there. +His idea, evidently, was that if so obscure a person as I could be +present, it diminished _his_ splendor and significance. + +He inquired (for hope was immortal in him) whether I was there for +the papers? I said no, I wasn't there for anything. I had come down +with Burton, because we---- But he interrupted me. + +"What's _he_ doing here?" he said. There was the funniest air of +resentment and suspicion about him. + +I reminded him that Burton's "Essay on Ford Lankester" had given him +a certain claim. Besides, Mrs. Lankester had asked him. He was one +of the few she had asked. I really couldn't tell him she had asked +me. + +His gloom was awful enough when he heard that Burton had been asked. +You see, the fact glared, and even he must have felt it--that he, +with his tremendous, his horrific vogue, had not achieved what +Grevill Burton had by his young talent. He had never known Ford +Lankester. Goodness knows I didn't mean to rub it into him; but +there it was. + +We had moved away from the edge of the grave (I think he didn't like +to be seen standing there with me) and I begged him to introduce me +to his daughter. He did so with an alacrity which I have since seen +was anything but flattering to me, and left me with her while he +made what you might call a dead set at Furnival. He had had his eye +on him and on the other representatives of the press all the time he +had been talking to me. Now he made straight for him; when Furnival +edged off he followed; when Furnival dodged he doubled; he was so +afraid that Furnival might miss him. As if Furnival could have +missed him, as if in the face of Wrackham's vogue his paper would +have let him miss him. It would have been as much as Furny's place +on it was worth. + +Of course that showed that Wrackham ought never to have been there; +but there he was; and when you think of the unspeakable solemnity +and poignancy of the occasion it really is rather awful that the one +vivid impression I have left of it is of Charles Wrackham; Charles +Wrackham under the yew tree; Charles Wrackham leaning up against a +pillar (he remained standing during the whole of the service in the +church) with his arm raised and his face hidden in his cloak. The +attitude this time was immense. Furnival (Furny was really dreadful) +said it was "Brother mourning Brother." But I caught him--I caught +him three times--just raising his near eyelid above his drooped arm +and peeping at Furnival and the other pressmen to see that they +weren't missing him. + +It must have been then that Burton saw, though he says now he +didn't. He won't own up to having seen him. We had hidden ourselves +behind the mourners in the chancel and he swears that he didn't see +anybody but Antigone, and that he only saw her because, in spite of +her efforts to hide too, she stood out so; she was so tall, so white +and golden. Her head was bowed with--well, with grief, I think, but +also with what I've no doubt now was a sort of shame. I wondered: +Did she share her father's illusion? Or had she seen through it? Did +she see the awful absurdity of the draped figure at her side? Did +she realize the gulf that separated him from the undying dead? Did +she know that we couldn't have stood his being there but for our +certainty that somewhere above us and yet with us, from his high +seat among the Undying, Ford Lankester was looking on and enjoying +more than we could enjoy--with a divine, immortal mirth--the rich, +amazing comedy of him. Charles Wrackham there--at _his_ funeral! + +But it wasn't till it was all over that he came out really strong. +We were sitting together in the parlor of the village inn, he and +Antigone, and Grevill Burton and Furnival and I, with an hour on our +hands before our train left. I had ordered tea on Antigone's +account, for I saw that she was famished. They had come down from +Devonshire that day. They had got up at five to catch the early +train from Seaton Junction, and then they'd made a dash across +London for the 12.30 from Marylebone; and somehow they'd either +failed or forgotten to lunch. Antigone said she hadn't cared about +it. Anyhow, there she was with us. We were all feeling that relief +from nervous tension which comes after a funeral. Furnival had his +stylo out and was jotting down a few impressions. Wrackham had edged +up to him and was sitting, you may say, in Furny's pocket while he +explained to us that his weak health would have prevented him from +coming, but that _he had to come_. He evidently thought that the +funeral couldn't have taken place without him--not with any decency, +you know. And then Antigone said a thing for which I loved her +instantly. + +"_I_ oughtn't to have come," she said. "I felt all the time I +oughtn't. I hadn't any right." + +That drew him. + +"You had your right," he said. "You are your father's daughter." + +He brooded somberly. + +"It was not," he said, "what I had expected--that meager following. +Who _were_ there? Not two--not three--and there should have been an +army of us." + +He squared himself and faced the invisible as if he led the van. + +That and his attitude drew Burton down on to him. + +"Was there ever an army," he asked dangerously, "of 'us'?" + +Wrackham looked at Burton (it was the first time he'd taken the +smallest notice of him) with distinct approval, as if the young man +had suddenly shown more ability than he had given him credit for. +But you don't suppose he'd seen the irony in him. Not he! + +"You're right," he said. "Very right. All the same, there ought to +have been more there besides Myself." + +There was a perfectly horrible silence, and then Antigone's voice +came through it, pure and fine and rather slow. + +"There couldn't be. There couldn't really be anybody--there--_at +all_. He stood alone." + +And with her wonderful voice there went a look, a look of +intelligence, as wonderful, as fine and pure. It went straight to +Burton. It was humble, and yet there was a sort of splendid pride +about it. And there was no revolt, mind you, no disloyalty in it; +the beauty of the thing was that it didn't set her father down; it +left him where he was, as high as you please, as high as his vogue +could lift him. Ford Lankester was beyond him only because he was +beyond them all. + +And yet we wondered how he'd take it. + +He took it as if Antigone had been guilty of a social blunder; as if +her behavior had been in some way painful and improper. That's to +say he took no notice of it at all beyond shifting his seat a little +so as to screen her. And then he spoke--exclusively to us. + +"I came," he said, "partly because I felt that, for all Lankester's +greatness, _this_--" (his gesture indicated us all sitting there in +our mourning)--"_this_ was the last of him. It's a question whether +he'll ever mean much to the next generation. There's no doubt that +he limited his public--wilfully. He alienated the many. And, say +what you like, the judgment of posterity is not the judgment of the +few." There was a faint murmur of dissent (from Furnival), but +Wrackham's voice, which had gathered volume, rolled over it. "Not +for the novelist. Not for the painter of contemporary life." + +He would have kept it up interminably on those lines and on that +scale, but that Antigone created a diversion (I think she did it on +purpose to screen him) by getting up and going out softly into the +porch of the inn. + +Burton followed her there. + +You forgive many things to Burton. I have had to forgive his cutting +me out with Antigone. He _says_ that they talked about nothing but +Ford Lankester out there, and certainly as I joined them I heard +Antigone saying again, "I oughtn't to have come. I only came because +I adored him." I heard Burton say, "And you never knew him?" and +Antigone, "No, how _could_ I?" + +And then I saw him give it back to her with his young radiance. +"It's a pity. He would have adored _you_." + +He always says it was Ford Lankester that did it. + +The next thing Furnival's article came out. Charles Wrackham's name +was in it all right, and poor Antigone's. I'm sure it made her sick +to see it there. Furny had been very solemn and decorous in his +article; but in private his profanity was awful. He said it only +remained now for Charles Wrackham to die. + + +II + +He didn't die. Not then, not all at once. He had an illness +afterward that sent his circulation up to I don't know what, but he +didn't die of it. He knew his business far too well to die then. We +had five blessed years of him. Nor could we have done with less. +Words can't describe the joy he was to us, nor what he would have +been but for Antigone. + +I ought to tell you that he recovered his spirits wonderfully on our +way back from Chenies. He had mistaken our attentions to Antigone +for interest in _him_, and he began to unbend, to unfold himself, to +expand gloriously. It was as if he felt that the removal of Ford +Lankester had left him room. + +He proposed that Burton and I should make a pilgrimage some day to +Wildweather Hall. He called it a pilgrimage--to the shrine, you +understand. + +Well, we made it. We used to make many pilgrimages, but Burton made +more than I. + +The Sacred Place, you remember, was down in East Devon. He'd built +himself a modern Tudor mansion--if you know what that is--there and +ruined the most glorious bit of the coast between Seaton and +Sidmouth. It stood at the head of a combe looking to the sea. They'd +used old stone for the enormous front of it, and really, if he'd +stuck it anywhere else, it might have been rather fine. But it was +much too large for the combe. Why, when all the lights were lit in +it you could see it miles out to sea, twinkling away like the line +of the Brighton Parade. It was one immense advertisement of Charles +Wrackham, and must have saved his publishers thousands. His +"grounds" went the whole length of the combe, and up the hill on the +east side of it where his cucumber frames blazed in the sun. And +besides his cucumbers (anybody can have cucumbers) he had a yacht +swinging in Portland Harbor (at least he had that year when he was +at his height). And he had two motor-cars and a wood that he kept +people out of, and a great chunk of beach. He couldn't keep them off +that, and they'd come miles, from Torquay and Exeter, to snapshot +him when he bathed. + +The regular approach to him, for pilgrims, was extraordinarily +impressive. And not only the "grounds," but the whole interior of +the Tudor mansion, must have been planned with a view to that alone. +It was all staircases and galleries and halls, black oak darknesses +and sudden clear spaces and beautiful chintzy, silky rooms--lots of +them, for Mrs. Wrackham--and books and busts and statues everywhere. +And these were only his outer courts; inside them was his sanctuary, +his library, and inside that, divided from it by curtains, was the +Innermost, the shrine itself, and inside the shrine, veiled by his +curtains, was Charles Wrackham. + +As you came through, everything led up to him, as it were, by easy +stages and gradations. He didn't burst on you cruelly and blind you. +You waited a minute or two in the library, which was all what he +called "silent presences and peace." The silent presences, you see, +prepared you for him. And when, by gazing on the busts of +Shakespeare and Cervantes, your mind was turned up to him, then you +were let in. Over that Tudor mansion, and the whole place, you may +say for miles along the coast, there brooded the shadow of Charles +Wrackham's greatness. If we hadn't been quite so much oppressed by +that we might have enjoyed the silent presences and the motor-cars +and things, and the peace that was established there because of him. +And we did enjoy Antigone and Mrs. Wrackham. + +It's no use speculating what he would have been if he'd never +written anything. You cannot detach him from his writings, nor would +he have wished to be detached. I suppose he would still have been +the innocent, dependent creature that he was: fond, very fond of +himself, but fond also of his home and of his wife and daughter. It +was his domesticity, described, illustrated, exploited in a hundred +papers, that helped to endear Charles Wrackham to his preposterous +public. It was part of the immense advertisement. His wife's gowns, +the sums he spent on her, the affection that he notoriously lavished +on her, were part of it. + +I'll own that at one time I had a great devotion to Mrs. Wrackham +(circumstances have somewhat strained it since). She was a woman of +an adorable plumpness, with the remains of a beauty which must have +been pink and golden once. And she would have been absolutely simple +but for the touch of assurance that was given her by her position as +the publicly loved wife of a great man. Every full, round line of +her face and figure declared (I don't like to say advertised) her +function. She existed in and for Charles Wrackham. You saw that her +prominent breast fairly offered itself as a pillow for his head. Her +soft hands suggested the perpetual stroking and soothing of his +literary vanity, her face the perpetual blowing of an angelic +trumpet in his praise. Her entire person, incomparably soft, yet +firm, was a buffer that interposed itself automatically between +Wrackham and the bludgeonings of fate. As for her mind, I know +nothing about it except that it was absolutely simple. She was a +woman of one idea--two ideas, I should say, Charles Wrackham the +Man, and Charles Wrackham the Great Novelist. + +She could separate them only so far as to marvel at his humanity +because of his divinity, how he could stoop, how he could +condescend, how he could lay it all aside and be delightful as we +saw him--"Like a boy, Mr. Simpson, like a boy!" + +It was our second day, Sunday, and Wrackham had been asleep in his +shrine all afternoon while she piloted us in the heat about the +"grounds." I can see her now, dear plump lady, under her pink +sunshade, saying all this with a luminous, enchanting smile. We were +not to miss him; we were to look at him giving up his precious, his +inconceivably precious time, laying himself out to amuse, to +entertain us--"Just giving himself--giving himself all the time." +And then, lest we might be uplifted, she informed us, still with the +luminous, enchanting smile, that Mr. Wrackham was like that to +"everybody, Mr. Simpson; everybody!" + +She confided a great many things to us that afternoon. For instance, +that she was greatly troubled by what she called "the ill-natured +attacks on Mr. Wrackham in the papers," the "things" that "They" +said about him (it was thus vaguely that she referred to some of our +younger and profaner critics). She was very sweet and amiable and +charitable about it. I believe she prayed for them. She was quite +sure, dear lady, that "They" wouldn't do it if "They" knew how +sensitive he was, how much it hurt him. And of course it didn't +really hurt him. He was above it all. + +I remember I began that Sunday by cracking up Burton to her, just to +see how she would take it, and perhaps for another reason. Antigone +had carried him off to the strawberry-bed, where I gathered from +their sounds of happy laughter that they were feeding each other +with the biggest ones. For the moment, though not, I think, +afterward, Antigone's mother was blind and deaf to what was going on +in the strawberry-bed. I spoke to her of Burton and his work, of the +essay on Ford Lankester, of the brilliant novel he had just +published, his first; and I even went so far as to speak of the +praise it had received; but I couldn't interest her in Burton. I +believe she always, up to the very last, owed Burton a grudge on +account of his novels; not so much because he had so presumptuously +written them as because he had been praised for writing them. I +don't blame her, neither did he, for this feeling. It was +inseparable from the piety with which she regarded Charles Wrackham +as a great figure in literature, a sacred and solitary figure. + +I don't know how I got her off him and on to Antigone. I may have +asked her point-blank to what extent Antigone was her father's +daughter. The luminous and expansive lady under the sunshade was a +little less luminous and expansive when we came to Angelette, as she +called her; but I gathered then, and later, that Antigone was a +dedicated child, a child set apart and consecrated to the service +of her father. It was not, of course, to be expected that she should +inherit any of his genius; Mrs. Wrackham seemed to think it +sufficiently wonderful that she should have developed the +intelligence that fitted her to be his secretary. I was not to +suppose it was because he couldn't afford a secretary (the lady +laughed as she said this; for you see how absurd it was, the idea of +Charles Wrackham not being able to afford anything). It was because +they both felt that Antigone ought not to be, as she put it, +"overshadowed" by him; he wished that she should be associated, +intimately associated, with his work; that the child should have her +little part in his glory. It was not only her share of life which he +took and so to speak put in the bank for her, but an investment for +Antigone in the big business of his immortality. There she was, +there she always would be, associated with Charles Wrackham and his +work. + +She sighed under the sunshade. "That child," she said, "can do more +for him, Mr. Simpson, than I can." + +I could see that, though the poor lady didn't know it, she suffered +a subtle sorrow and temptation. If she hadn't been so amiable, if +she hadn't been so good, she would have been jealous of Antigone. + +She assured us that only his wife and daughter knew what he really +was. + +We wondered, did Antigone know? She made no sign of distance or +dissent, but somehow she didn't seem to belong to him. There was +something remote and irrelevant about her; she didn't fit into the +advertisement. And in her remoteness and irrelevance she remained +inscrutable. She gave no clue to what she really thought of him. +When "They" went for him she soothed him. She spread her warm +angel's wing, and wrapped him from the howling blast. But, as far +as we could make out, she never committed herself to an opinion. All +her consolations went to the tune of "They say. What say they? Let +them say." Which might have applied to anybody. We couldn't tell +whether, like her mother, she believed implicitly or whether she saw +through him. + +She certainly saw beyond him, or she couldn't have said the things +she did--you remember?--at Ford Lankester's funeral. But she had +been overwrought then, and that clear note had been wrung from her +by the poignancy of the situation. She never gave us anything like +that again. + +And she was devoted to him--devoted with passion. There couldn't be +any sort of doubt about it. + +Sometimes I wondered even then if it wasn't almost entirely a +passion of pity. For she must have known. Burton always declared she +knew. At least in the beginning he did; afterwards he was not clear +about it any more than I was then. He said that her knowledge, her +vision, of him was complete and that her pity for him was +unbearable. He said that she would have given anything to have seen +him as her mother saw him and as he saw himself, and that all her +devotion to him, to it, his terrible work, was to make up to him for +not seeing, for seeing as she saw. It was consecration, if you like; +but it was expiation too, the sacrifice for the sin of an unfilial +clarity. + +And the tenderness she put into it! + +Wrackham never knew how it protected him. It regularly spoilt our +pleasure in him. We couldn't--when we thought of Antigone--get the +good out of him we might have done. We _had_ to be tender to him, +too. I think Antigone liked us for our tenderness. Certainly she +liked Burton--oh, from the very first. + + +III + +They had known each other about six months when he proposed to her, +and she wouldn't have him. He went on proposing at ridiculously +short intervals, but it wasn't a bit of good. Wrackham wouldn't give +his consent, and it seemed Antigone wouldn't marry anybody without +it. He _said_ Burton was too poor, and Antigone too young; but the +real reason was that Burton's proposal came as a shock to his +vanity. I told you how coolly he had appropriated the young man's +ardent and irrepressible devotion; he had looked on him as a +disciple, a passionate pilgrim to his shrine; and the truth, the +disillusionment, was more than he could stand. He'd never had a +disciple or a pilgrim of Burton's quality. He could ignore and +disparage Burton's brilliance when it suited his own purpose, and +when it suited his own purpose he thrust Burton and his brilliance +down your throat. Thus he never said a word about Burton's novels +except that he once went out of his way to tell me that he hadn't +read them (I believe he was afraid to). Antigone must have noticed +_that_, and she must have understood the meaning of it. I know she +never spoke to him about anything that Burton did. She must have +felt he couldn't bear it. Anyhow, he wasn't going to recognize +Burton's existence as a novelist; it was as if he thought his +silence could extinguish him. But he knew all about Burton's +critical work; there was his splendid "Essay on Ford Lankester"; he +couldn't ignore or disparage that, and he didn't want to. He had had +his eye on him from the first as a young man, an exceptionally +brilliant young man who might be useful to him. + +And so, though he wouldn't let the brilliant young man marry his +daughter, he wasn't going to lose sight of him; and Burton continued +his passionate pilgrimages to Wildweather Hall. + +I didn't see Wrackham for a long time, but I heard of him; I heard +all I wanted, for Burton was by no means so tender to him as he used +to be. And I heard of poor Antigone. I gathered that she wasn't +happy, that she was losing some of her splendor and vitality. In all +Burton's pictures of her you could see her droop. + +This went on for nearly three years, and by that time Burton, as you +know, had made a name for himself that couldn't be ignored. He was +also making a modest, a rather painfully modest income. And one +evening he burst into my rooms and told me it was all right. +Antigone had come round. Wrackham hadn't, but that didn't matter. +Antigone had said she didn't care. They might have to wait a bit, +but that didn't matter either. The great thing was that she had +accepted him, that she had had the courage to oppose her father. You +see, they scored because, as long as Wrackham had his eye on Burton, +he didn't forbid him the house. + +I went down with him soon after that by Wrackham's invitation. I'm +not sure that he hadn't his eye on me; he had his eye on everybody +in those days when, you know, his vogue, his tremendous vogue, was +just perceptibly on the decline. + +I found him changed, rather pitiably changed, and in low spirits. +"They"--the terrible, profane young men--had been "going for him" +again, as he called it. + +Of course when they really went for him he was all right. He could +get over it by saying that they did it out of sheer malevolence, +that they were jealous of his success, that a writer cannot be great +without making enemies, and that perhaps he wouldn't have known how +great he was if he hadn't made any. But they didn't give him much +opportunity. They were too clever for that. They knew exactly how to +flick him on the raw. It wasn't by the things they said so much as +by the things they deliberately didn't say; and they could get at +him any time, easily, by praising other people. + +Of course none of it did any violence to the supreme illusion. He +was happy. I think he liked writing his dreadful books. (There must +have been something soothing in the act with its level, facile +fluency.) I know he enjoyed bringing them out. He gloated over the +announcements. He drew a voluptuous pleasure from his proofs. He +lived from one day of publication to the other; there wasn't a +detail of the whole dreary business that he would have missed. It +all nourished the illusion. I don't suppose he ever had a shadow of +misgiving as to his power. What he worried about was his prestige. +He couldn't help being aware that, with all he had, there was still +something that he hadn't. He knew, he must have known, that he was +not read, not recognized by the people who admired Ford Lankester. +He felt their silence and their coldness strike through the warm +comfort of his vogue. We, Burton and I, must have made him a bit +uneasy. I never in my life saw anybody so alert and so suspicious, +so miserably alive to the qualifying shade, the furtive turn, the +disastrous reservation. + +But no, never a misgiving about Himself. Only, I think, moments of a +dreadful insight when he heard behind him the creeping of the tide +of oblivion, and it frightened him. He was sensitive to every little +fluctuation in his vogue. He had the fear of its vanishing before +his eyes. And there he was, shut up among all his splendor with his +fear; and it was his wife's work and Antigone's to keep it from +him, to stand between him and that vision. He was like a child when +his terror was on him; he would go to anybody for comfort. I +believe, if Antigone and his wife hadn't been there, he'd have +confided in his chauffeur. + +He confided now in us, walking dejectedly with us in his "grounds." + +"They'd destroy me," he said, "if they could. How they can take +pleasure in it, Simpson! It's incredible, incomprehensible." + +We said it was, but it wasn't in the least. We knew the pleasure, +the indestructible pleasure, he gave us; we knew the irresistible +temptation that he offered. As for destroying him, we knew that they +wouldn't have destroyed him for the world. He was their one bright +opportunity. What would they have done without their Wrackham? + +He kept on at it. He said there had been moments this last year +when, absurd as it might seem, he had wondered whether after all he +hadn't failed. That was the worst of an incessant persecution; it +hypnotized you into disbelief, not as to your power (he rubbed that +in), but as to your success, the permanence of the impression you +had made. I remember trying to console him, telling him that he was +all right. He'd got his public, his enormous public. + +There were consolations we might have offered him. We might have +told him that he _had_ succeeded; we might have told him that, if he +wanted a monument, he'd only got to look around him. After all, he'd +made a business of it that enabled him to build a Tudor mansion with +bathrooms everywhere and keep two motor-cars. We could have reminded +him that there wasn't one of the things he'd got with it--no, not +one bathroom--that he would have sacrificed, that he was capable of +sacrificing; that he'd warmed himself jolly well all over and all +the time before the fire of life, and that his cucumbers alone must +have been a joy to him. And of course we might have told him that he +couldn't have it both ways; that you cannot have bathrooms and +motor-cars and cucumber-frames (not to the extent _he_ had them) +_and_ the incorruptible and stainless glory. But that wouldn't have +consoled him; for he wanted it both ways. Fellows like Wrackham +always do. He wasn't really happy, as a really great man might have +been, with his cucumbers and things. + +He kept on saying it was easy enough to destroy a Great Name. Did +they know, did anybody know, what it cost to build one? + +I said to myself that possibly Antigone might know. All I said to +him was, "Look here, we're agreed they can't do anything. When a man +has once captured and charmed the great Heart of the Public, he's +safe--in his lifetime, anyway." + +Then he burst out. "His lifetime? Do you suppose he cares about his +lifetime? It's the life beyond life--the life beyond life." + +It was in fact, d'you see, the "Life and Letters." He was thinking +about it then. + +He went on. "They have it all their own way. He can't retort; he +can't explain; he can't justify himself. It's only when he's dead +they'll let him speak." + +"Well, I mean to. That'll show 'em," he said; "that'll show 'em." + +"He's thinking of it, Simpson; he's thinking of it," Burton said to +me that evening. + +He smiled. He didn't know what his thinking of it was going to +mean--for him. + + +IV + +He had been thinking of it for some considerable time. That +pilgrimage was my last--it'll be two years ago this autumn--and it +was in the spring of last year he died. + +He was happy in his death. It saved him from the thing he dreaded +above everything, certainty of the ultimate extinction. It has not +come yet. We are feeling still the long reverberation of his vogue. +We miss him still in the gleam, the jest gone forever from the +papers. There is no doubt but that his death staved off the ultimate +extinction. It revived the public interest in him. It jogged the +feeble pulse of his once vast circulation. It brought the familiar +portrait back again into the papers, between the long, long columns. +And there was more laurel and a larger crowd at Brookwood than on +the day when we first met him in the churchyard at Chenies. + +And then we said there had been stuff in him. We talked (in the +papers) of his "output." He had been, after all, a prodigious, a +gigantic worker. He appealed to our profoundest national instincts, +to our British admiration of sound business, of the self-made, +successful man. He might not have done anything for posterity, but +he had provided magnificently for his child and widow. + +So we appraised him. Then on the top of it all the crash came, the +tremendous crash that left his child and widow almost penniless. He +hadn't provided for them at all. He had provided for nothing but his +own advertisement. He had been living, not only beyond his income, +but beyond, miles beyond, his capital, beyond even the perennial +power that was the source of it. And he had been afraid, poor +fellow! to retrench, to reduce by one cucumber-frame the items of +the huge advertisement; why, it would have been as good as putting +up the shop windows--his publishers would instantly have paid him +less. + +His widow explained tearfully how it all was, and how wise and +foreseeing he had been; what a thoroughly sound man of business. And +really we thought the dear lady wouldn't be left so very badly off. +We calculated that Burton would marry Antigone, and that the simple, +self-denying woman could live in modest comfort on the mere proceeds +of the inevitable sale. Then we heard that the Tudor mansion, the +"Grounds," the very cucumber-frames, were sunk in a mortgage; and +the sale of his "effects," the motor-cars and furniture, the books +and the busts, paid his creditors in full, but it left a bare +pittance for his child and widow. + +They had come up to town in that exalted state with which courageous +women face adversity. In her excitement Antigone tried hard to break +off her engagement to Grevill Burton. She was going to do +typewriting, she was going to be somebody's secretary, she was going +to do a thousand things; but she was not going to hang herself like +a horrid millstone round his neck and sink him. She had got it into +her head, poor girl, that Wrackham had killed himself, ruined +himself by his efforts to provide for his child and widow. They had +been the millstones round _his_ neck. She even talked openly now +about the "pot-boilers" they had compelled Papa to write; by which +she gave us to understand that he had been made for better things. +It would have broken your heart to hear her. + +Her mother, ravaged and reddened by grief, met us day after day (we +were doing all we could for her) with her indestructible, luminous +smile. She could be tearful still on provocation, through the smile, +but there was something about her curiously casual and calm, +something that hinted almost complacently at a little mystery +somewhere, as if she had up her sleeve resources that we were not +allowing for. But we caught the gist of it, that we, affectionate +and well-meaning, but thoroughly unbusiness-like young men, were not +to worry. Her evident conviction was that he _had_ foreseen, he +_had_ provided for them. + +"Lord only knows," I said to Burton, "what the dear soul imagines +will turn up." + +Then one day she sent for me; for me, mind you, not Burton. There +was something that she and her daughter, desired to consult me +about. I went off at once to the dreadful little lodgings in the +Fulham Road where they had taken refuge. I found Antigone looking, +if anything, more golden and more splendid, more divinely remote and +irrelevant against the dingy background. Her mother was sitting very +upright at the head and she at the side of the table that almost +filled the room. They called me to the chair set for me facing +Antigone. Throughout the interview I was exposed, miserably, to the +clear candor of her gaze. + +Her mother, with the simplicity which was her charming quality, came +straight to the point. It seemed that Wrackham had thought better of +us, of Burton and me, than he had ever let us know. He had named us +his literary executors. Of course, his widow expounded, with the +option of refusal. Her smile took for granted that we would not +refuse. + +What did I say? Well, I said that I couldn't speak for Burton, but +for my own part I--I said I was honored (for Antigone was looking at +me with those eyes) and of course I shouldn't think of refusing, and +I didn't imagine Burton would either. You see I'd no idea what it +meant. I supposed we were only in for the last piteous turning out +of the dead man's drawers, the sorting and sifting of the rubbish +heap. We were to decide what was worthy of him and what was not. + +There couldn't, I supposed, be much of it. He had been hard pressed. +He had always published up to the extreme limit of his production. + +I had forgotten all about the "Life and Letters." They had been only +a fantastic possibility, a thing our profane imagination played +with; and under the serious, chastening influences of his death it +had ceased to play. + +And now they were telling me that this thing was a fact. The letters +were, at any rate. They had raked them all in, to the last postcard +(he hadn't written any to us), and there only remained the Life. It +wasn't a perfectly accomplished fact; it would need editing, filling +out, and completing from where he had left it off. He had not named +his editor, his biographer, in writing--at least, they could find no +note of it among his papers--but he had expressed a wish, a wish +that they felt they could not disregard. He had expressed it the +night before he died to Antigone, who was with him. + +"Did he not, dearest?" + +I heard Antigone say, "Yes, Mamma." She was not looking at me then. + +There was a perfectly awful silence. And then Antigone did look at +me, and she smiled faintly. + +"It isn't you," she said. + +No, it was not I. I wasn't in it. It was Grevill Burton. + +I ought to tell you it wasn't an open secret any longer that Burton +was editing the "Life and Letters of Ford Lankester," with a +Critical Introduction. The announcement had appeared in the papers a +day or two before Wrackham's death. He had had his eye on Burton. He +may have wavered between him and another, he may have doubted +whether Burton was after all good enough; but that honor, falling to +Burton at that moment, clinched it. _There_ was prestige, _there_ +was the thing he wanted. Burton was his man. + +There wouldn't, Mrs. Wrackham said, be so very much editing to do. +He had worked hard in the years before his death. He had gathered in +all the material, and there were considerable fragments--whole +blocks of reminiscences, which could be left, which _should_ be left +as they stood (her manner implied that they were monuments). What +they wanted, of course, was something more than editing. Anybody +could have done that. There was the Life to be completed in the +later years, the years in which Mr. Burton had known him more +intimately than any of his friends. Above all, what was necessary, +what had been made so necessary, was a Critical Introduction, the +summing up, the giving of him to the world as he really was. + +Did I think they had better approach Mr. Burton direct, or would I +do that for them? Would I sound him on the subject? + +I said cheerfully that I would sound him. If Burton couldn't +undertake it (I had to prepare them for this possibility), no doubt +we should find somebody who could. + +But Antigone met this suggestion with a clear "No." It wasn't to be +done at all unless Mr. Burton did it. And her mother gave a little +cry. It was inconceivable that it should not be done. Mr. Burton +must. He would. He would see the necessity, the importance of it. + +Of course _I_ saw it. And I saw that my position and Burton's was +more desperate than I had imagined. I couldn't help but see the +immense importance of the "Life and Letters." They were bound, even +at this time of day, to "fetch" a considerable sum, and the dear +lady might be pardoned if she were incidentally looking to them as a +means of subsistence. They were evidently what she had had up her +sleeve. Her delicacy left the financial side of the question almost +untouched; but in our brief discussion of the details, from her +little wistful tone in suggesting that if Mr. Burton could undertake +it at once and get it done soon, if they could in fact launch it on +the top of the returning tide--from the very way that she left me to +finish her phrases for her I gathered that they regarded the "Life +and Letters" as Wrackham's justification in more ways than one. They +proved that he had not left them unprovided for. + +Well, I sounded Burton. He stared at me aghast. I was relieved to +find that he was not going to be sentimental about it. He refused +flatly. + +"I can't do him _and_ Lankester," he said. + +I saw his point. He would have to keep himself clean for _him_. I +said of course he couldn't, but I didn't know how he was going to +make it straight with Antigone. + +"I shan't have to make it straight with Antigone," he said. "She'll +see it. She always has seen." + + +V + +That was just exactly what I doubted. + +I was wrong. She always had seen. And it was because she saw and +loathed herself for seeing that she insisted on Burton's doing this +thing. It was part of her expiation, her devotion, her long +sacrificial act. She was dragging Burton into it partly, I believe, +because he had seen too, more clearly, more profanely, more terribly +than she. + +Oh, and there was more in it than that. I got it all from Burton. He +had been immensely plucky about it. He didn't leave it to me to get +him out of it. He had gone to her himself, so certain was he that he +could make it straight with her. + +And he hadn't made it straight at all. It had been more awful, he +said, than I could imagine. She hadn't seen his point. She had +refused to see it, absolutely (I had been right there, anyhow). + +He had said, in order to be decent, that he was too busy; he was +pledged to Lankester and couldn't possibly do the two together. And +she had seen all that. She said of course it was a pity that he +couldn't do it now, while people were ready for her father, willing, +she said, to listen; but if it couldn't be done at once, why, it +couldn't. After all, they could afford to wait. _He_, she said +superbly, could afford it. She ignored in her fine manner the +material side of the "Life and Letters," its absolute importance to +their poor finances, the fact that if _he_ could afford to wait, +_they_ couldn't. I don't think that view of it ever entered into her +head. The great thing, she said, was that it should be done. + +And then he had to tell her that _he_ couldn't do it. He couldn't do +it at all. "That part of it, Simpson," he said, "was horrible. I +felt as if I were butchering her--butchering a lamb." + +But I gathered that he had been pretty firm so far, until she broke +down and cried. For she did, poor bleeding lamb, all in a minute. +She abandoned her superb attitude and her high ground and put it +altogether on another footing. Her father hadn't been the happy, +satisfied, facilely successful person he was supposed to be. People +had been cruel to him; they had never understood; they didn't +realize that his work didn't represent him. Of course she knew (she +seems to have handled this part of it with a bold sincerity) what +he, Burton, thought about it; but he did realize _that_. He knew it +didn't do him anything like justice. He knew what lay behind it, +behind everything that he had written. It was wonderful, Burton +said, how she did that, how she made the vague phrase open up a vast +hinterland of intention, the unexplored and unexploited spirit of +him. He knew, Burton knew, how he had felt about it, how he had felt +about his fame. It hadn't been the thing he really wanted. He had +never had that. And oh, she wanted him to have it. It was the only +thing she wanted, the only thing she really cared about, the only +thing she had ever asked of Burton. + +He told me frankly that she didn't seem quite sane about it. He +understood it, of course. She was broken up by the long strain of +her devotion, by his death and by the crash afterward, by the +unbearable pathos of him, of his futility, and of the menacing +oblivion. You could see that Antigone had parted with her sense of +values and distinctions, that she had lost her bearings; she was a +creature that drifted blindly on a boundless sea of compassion. She +saw her father die the ultimate death. She pleaded passionately with +Burton to hold back the shadow; to light a lamp for him; to prolong, +if it were only for a little while, his memory; to give him, out of +his own young radiance and vitality, the life beyond life that he +had desired. + +Even then, so he says, he had held out, but more feebly. He said he +thought somebody else ought to do it, somebody who knew her father +better. And she said that nobody could do it, nobody did know him; +there was nobody's name that would give the value to the thing that +Burton's would. That was handsome of her, Burton said. And he seems +to have taken refuge from this dangerous praise in a modesty that +was absurd, and that he knew to be absurd in a man who had got +Lankester's "Life" on his hands. And Antigone saw through it; she +saw through it at once. But she didn't see it all; he hadn't the +heart to let her see his real reason, that he couldn't do them both. +He couldn't do Wrackham after Lankester, nor yet, for Lankester's +sake, before. And he couldn't, for his own sake, do him at any time. +It would make him too ridiculous. + +And in the absence of his real reason he seems to have been +singularly ineffective. He just sat there saying anything that came +into his head except the one thing. He rather shirked this part of +it; at any rate, he wasn't keen about telling me what he'd said, +except that he'd tried to change the subject. I rather suspected him +of the extreme error of making love to Antigone in order to keep her +off it. + +Finally she made a bargain with him. She said that if he did it she +would marry him whenever he liked (she had considered their +engagement broken off, though he hadn't). But (there Antigone was +adamant) if he didn't, if he cared so little about pleasing her, she +wouldn't marry him at all. + +Then he said of course he did care; he would do anything to please +her, and if she was going to take a mean advantage and to put it +that way---- + +And of course she interrupted him and said he didn't see her point; +she wasn't putting it that way; she wasn't going to take any +advantage, mean or otherwise; it was a question of a supreme, a +sacred obligation. How _could_ she marry a man who disregarded, who +was capable of disregarding, her father's dying wish? And that she +stuck to. + +I can't tell you now whether she was merely testing him, or whether +she was determined, in pure filial piety, to carry the thing +through, and saw, knowing her hold on him, that this was the way and +the only way, or whether she actually did believe that for him, too, +the obligation was sacred and supreme. Anyhow she stuck to it. Poor +Burton said he didn't think it was quite fair of her to work in that +way, but that, rather than lose her, rather than lose Antigone, he +had given in. + + +VI + +He had taken the papers--the documents--home with him; and that he +might know the worst, the whole awful extent of what he was in for, +he began overhauling them at once. + +I went to see him late one evening and found him at it. He had been +all through them once, he said, and he was going through them again. +I asked him what they were like. He said nothing. + +"Worse than you thought?" I asked. + +Far worse. Worse than anything I could imagine. It was +inconceivable, he said, what they were like. I said I supposed they +were like _him_. I gathered from his silence that it was +inconceivable what _he_ was. That Wrackham should have no conception +of where he really stood was conceivable; we knew he was like that, +heaps of people were, and you didn't think a bit the worse of them; +you could present a quite respectable "Life" of them with "Letters" +by simply suppressing a few salient details and softening the +egoism all round. But what Burton supposed he was going to do with +Wrackham, short of destroying him! You couldn't soften him, you +couldn't tone him down; he wore thin in the process and vanished +under your touch. + +But oh, he was immense! The reminiscences were the best. Burton +showed us some of them. This was one: + +"It was the savage aspects of Nature that appealed to me. One of my +earliest recollections is of a thunderstorm among the mountains. My +nursery looked out upon the mountainside where the storm broke. My +mother has told me that I cried till I made the nurse carry me to +the window, and that I literally leaped in her arms for joy. I +laughed at the lightning and clapped my hands at the thunder. The +Genius of the Storm was my brother. I could not have been more than +eleven months old." + +And there was another bit that Burton said was even better. + +"I have been a fighter all my life. I have had many enemies. What +man who has ever done anything worth doing has not had them? But our +accounts are separate, and I am willing to leave the ultimate +reckoning to time." There were lots of things like that. Burton said +it was like that cloak he used to wear. It would have been so noble +if only he had been a little bigger. + +And there was an entry in his diary that I think beat everything +he'd ever done. "May 3, 1905. Lankester died. Finished the last +chapter of 'A Son of Thunder.' _Ave Frater, atque vale._" + +I thought there was a fine audacity about it, but Burton said there +wasn't. Audacity implied a consciousness of danger, and Wrackham +had none. Burton was in despair. + +"Come," I said, "there must be something in the Letters." + +No, the Letters were all about himself, and there wasn't anything in +_him_. You couldn't conceive the futility, the fatuity, the +vanity--it was a disease with him. + +"I couldn't have believed it, Simpson, if I hadn't seen him empty +himself." + +"But the hinterland?" I said. "How about the hinterland? That was +what you were to have opened up." + +"There wasn't any hinterland. He's opened himself up. You can see +all there was of him. It's lamentable, Simpson, lamentable." + +I said it seemed to me to be supremely funny. And he said I wouldn't +think it funny if I were responsible for it. + +"But you aren't," I said. "You must drop it. You can't be mixed up +with _that_. The thing's absurd." + +"Absurd? Absurdity isn't in it. It's infernal, Simpson, what this +business will mean to me." + +"Look here," I said. "This is all rot. You can't go on with it." + +He groaned. "I _must_ go on with it. If I don't----" + +"Antigone will hang herself?" + +"No. She won't hang herself. She'll chuck me. That's how she has me, +it's how I'm fixed. Can you conceive a beastlier position?" + +I said I couldn't, and that if a girl of mine put me in it, by +heaven, I'd chuck _her_. + +He smiled. "You can't chuck Antigone," he said. + +I said Antigone's attitude was what I didn't understand. It was +inconceivable she didn't know what the things were like. "What do +you suppose she really thinks of them?" + +That was it. She had never committed herself to an opinion. "You +know," he said, "she never did." + +"But," I argued, "you told me yourself she said they'd represent +him. And they do, don't they?" + +"Represent him?" He grinned in his agony. "I should think they did." + +"But," I persisted, because he seemed to me to be shirking the +issue, "it was her idea, wasn't it? that they'd justify him, give +him his chance to speak, to put himself straight with _us_?" + +"She seems," he said meditatively, "to have taken that for granted." + +"Taken it for granted? Skittles!" I said. "She must have seen they +were impossible. I'm convinced, Burton, that she's seen it all +along; she's merely testing you to see how you'd behave, how far +you'd go for her. You needn't worry. You've gone far enough. She'll +let you off." + +"No," he said, "she's not testing me. I'd have seen through her if +it had been that. It's deadly serious. It's a sacred madness with +her. She'll never let me off. She'll never let herself off. I've +told you a hundred times it's expiation. We can't get round _that_." + +"She must be mad, indeed," I said, "not to see." + +"See? See?" he cried. "It's my belief, Simpson, that she hasn't +seen. She's been hiding her dear little head in the sand." + +"How do you mean?" + +"I mean," he said, "she hasn't looked. She's been afraid to." + +"Hasn't looked?" + +"Hasn't read the damned things. She doesn't know how they expose +him." + +"Then, my dear fellow," I said, "you've got to tell her." + +"Tell her?" he cried. "If I told her she _would_ go and hang +herself. No. I'm not to tell her. I'm not to tell anybody. She's got +an idea that he's pretty well exposed himself, and, don't you see, +I'm to wrap him up." + +"Wrap him up----" + +"Wrap him up, so that she can't see, so that nobody can see. +_That's_ what I'm here for--to edit him, Simpson, edit him out of +all recognition. She hasn't put it to herself that way, but that's +what she means. I'm to do my best for him. She's left it to me with +boundless trust in my--my constructive imagination. Do you see?" + +I did. There was no doubt that he had hit it. + +"This thing" (he brought his fist down on it), "when I've finished +with it, won't be Wrackham: it'll be all me." + +"That's to say you'll be identified with him?" + +"Identified--crucified--scarified with him. You don't suppose they'd +spare me? I shall be every bit as--as impossible as he is." + +"You can see all that, and yet you're going through with it?" + +"I can see all that, and yet I'm going through with it." + +"And they say," I remarked gently, "that the days of chivalry are +dead." + +"Oh, rot," he said. "It's simply that--she's worth it." + +Well, he was at it for weeks. He says he never worked at anything as +he worked at his Charles Wrackham. I don't know what he made of him, +he wouldn't let me see. There was no need, he said, to anticipate +damnation. + +In the meantime, while it pended, publishers, with a dreadful +eagerness, were approaching him from every side. For Wrackham (what +was left of him) was still a valuable property, and Burton's name, +known as it was, had sent him up considerably, so that you can see +what they might have done with him. There had been a lot of +correspondence, owing to the incredible competition, for, as this +was the last of him, there was nothing to be said against the open +market; still, it was considered that his own publishers, if they +"rose" properly, should have the first claim. The sum, if you'll +believe me, of five thousand had been mentioned. It was indecently +large, but Burton said he meant to screw them up to it. He didn't +mind how high he screwed them; _he_ wasn't going to touch a penny of +it. That was his attitude. You see the poor fellow couldn't get it +out of his head that he was doing something unclean. + +It was in a fair way of being made public; but as yet, beyond an +obscure paragraph in the _Publishers' Circular_, nothing had +appeared about it in print. It remained an open secret. + +Then Furnival got hold of it. + +Whether it was simply his diabolic humor, or whether he had a +subtler and profounder motive (he says himself he was entirely +serious; he meant to make Burton drop it); anyhow, he put a +paragraph in his paper, in several papers, announcing that Grevill +Burton was engaged simultaneously on the "Life and Letters of Ford +Lankester" and the "Personal Reminiscences" of Mr. Wrackham. + +Furnival did nothing more than that. He left the juxtaposition to +speak for itself, and his paragraph was to all appearances most +innocent and decorous. But it revived the old irresistible comedy of +Charles Wrackham; it let loose the young demons of the press. They +were funnier about him than ever (as funny, that is, as decency +allowed), having held themselves in so long over the obituary +notices. + +And Furnival (there I think his fine motive _was_ apparent) took +care to bring their ribald remarks under Burton's notice. Furny's +idea evidently was to point out to Burton that his position was +untenable, that it was not fitting that the same man should deal +with Mr. Wrackham and with Ford Lankester. He _had_ to keep himself +clean for him. If he didn't see it he must be made to see. + +He did see it. It didn't need Furnival to make him. He came to me +one evening and told me that it was impossible. He had given it up. + +"Thank God," I said. + +He smiled grimly. "God doesn't come into it," he said. "It's +Lankester I've given up." + +"You haven't!" I said. + +He said he had. + +He was very cool and calm about it, but I saw in his face the marks +of secret agitation. He had given Lankester up, but not without a +struggle. I didn't suppose he was wriggling out of the other thing, +he said. He couldn't touch Lankester after Wrackham. It was +impossible for the same man to do them both. It wouldn't be fair to +Lankester or his widow. He had made himself unclean. + +I assured him that he hadn't, that his motive purged him utterly, +that the only people who really mattered were all in the secret; +they knew that it was Antigone who had let him in for Wrackham; they +wouldn't take him and his Wrackham seriously; and he might be sure +that Ford Lankester would absolve him. It was high comedy after +Lankester's own heart, and so on. But nothing I said could move him. +He stuck to it that the people in the secret, the people I said +mattered, didn't matter in the least, that his duty was to the big +outside public for whom Lives were written, who knew no secrets and +allowed for no motives; and when I urged on him, as a final +consideration, that he'd be all right with _them_, _they_ wouldn't +understand the difference between Charles Wrackham and Ford +Lankester, he cried out that that was what he meant. It was his +business to make them understand. And how could they if he +identified himself with Wrackham? It was almost as if he identified +Lankester---- + +Then I said that, if that was the way he looked at it, his duty was +clear. He must give Wrackham up. + +"Give up Antigone, you mean," he said. + +He couldn't. + + +VII + +Of course it was not to be thought of that he should give up his +Lankester, and the first thing to be done was to muzzle Furnival's +young men. I went to Furny the next day and told him plainly that +his joke had gone too far, that he knew what Burton was and that it +wasn't a bit of good trying to force his hand. + +And then that evening I went on to Antigone. + +She said I was just in time; and when I asked her "for what?" she +said--to give them my advice about her father's "Memoirs." + +I told her that was precisely what I'd come for; and she asked if +Grevill had sent me. + +I said no, he hadn't. I'd come for myself. + +"Because," she said, "he's sent them back." + +I stared at her. For one moment I thought that he had done the only +sane thing he could do, that he had made my horrible task +unnecessary. + +She explained. "He wants Mamma and me to go over them again and see +if there aren't some things we'd better leave out." + +"Oh," I said, "is that all?" + +I must have struck her as looking rather queer, for she said, "All? +Why, whatever did you think it was?" + +With a desperate courage I dashed into it there where I saw my +opening. + +"I thought he'd given it up." + +"Given it up?" + +Her dismay showed me what I had yet to go through. But I staved it +off a bit. I tried half-measures. + +"Well, yes," I said, "you see, he's frightfully driven with his +Lankester book." + +"But--we said--we wouldn't have him driven for the world. Papa can +wait. He _has_ waited." + +I ignored it and the tragic implication. + +"You see," I said, "Lankester's book's awfully important. It means +no end to him. If he makes the fine thing of it we think he will, +it'll place him. What's more, it'll place Lankester. He's still--as +far as the big outside public is concerned--waiting to be placed." + +"He mustn't wait," she said. "It's all right. Grevill knows. We told +him he was to do Lankester first." + +I groaned. "It doesn't matter," I said, "which he does first." + +"You mean he'll be driven anyway?" + +It was so far from what I meant that I could only stare at her and +at her frightful failure to perceive. + +I went at it again, as I thought, with a directness that left +nothing to her intelligence. I told her what I meant was that he +couldn't do them both. + +But she didn't see it. She just looked at me with her terrible +innocence. + +"You mean it's too much for him?" + +And I tried to begin again with no, it wasn't exactly that--but she +went on over me. + +It wouldn't be too much for him if he didn't go at it so hard. He +was giving himself more to do than was necessary. He'd marked so +many things for omission; and, of course, the more he left out of +"Papa," the more he had to put in of his own. + +"And he needn't," she said. "There's such a lot of Papa." + +I knew. I scowled miserably at that. How was I going to tell her it +was the whole trouble, that there was "such a lot of Papa"? + +I said there was; but, on the other hand, he needed such a lot of +editing. + +She said that was just what they had to think about. _Did_ he? + +I remembered Burton's theory, and I put it to her point-blank. Had +she read all of him? + +She flushed slightly. No, she said, not all. But Mamma had. + +"Then" (I skirmished), "you don't really know?" + +She parried it with "Mamma knows." + +And I thrust. "But," I said, "does your mother really understand?" + +I saw her wince. + +"Do you mean," she said, "there are things--things in it that had +better be kept out?" + +"No," I said, "there weren't any 'things' in it----" + +"There couldn't be," she said superbly. "Not things we'd want to +hide." + +I said there weren't. It wasn't "things" at all. I shut my eyes and +went at it head downward. + +It was, somehow, the whole thing. + +"The whole thing?" she said, and I saw that I had hit her hard. + +"The whole thing," I said. + +She looked scared for a moment. Then she rallied. + +"But it's the whole thing we want. He wanted it. I know he did. He +wanted to be represented completely or not at all. As he stood. As +he stood," she reiterated. + +She had given me the word I wanted. I could do it gently now. + +"That's it," I said. "These 'Memoirs' won't represent him." + +Subtlety, diabolic or divine, was given me. I went at it like a man +inspired. + +"They won't do him justice. They'll do him harm." + +"Harm?" She breathed it with an audible fright. + +"Very great harm. They give a wrong impression, an impression +of--of----" + +I left it to her. It sank in. She pondered it. + +"You mean," she said at last, "the things he says about himself?" + +"Precisely. The things he says about himself. I doubt if he really +intended them all for publication." + +"It's not the things he says about himself so much," she said. "We +could leave some of them out. It's what Grevill might have said +about him." + +That was awful; but it helped me; it showed me where to plant the +blow that would do for her, poor lamb. + +"My dear child," I said (I was very gentle, now that I had come to +it, to my butcher's work), "that's what I want you to realize. +He'll--he'll say what he can, of course; but he can't say very +much. There--there isn't really very much to say." + +She took it in silence. She was too much hurt, I thought, to see. I +softened it and at the same time made it luminous. + +"I mean," I said, "for Grevill to say." + +She saw. + +"You mean," she said simply, "he isn't great enough?" + +I amended it. "For Grevill." + +"Grevill," she repeated. I shall never forget how she said it. It +was as if her voice reached out and touched him tenderly. + +"Lankester is more in his line," I said. "It's a question of +temperament, of fitness." + +She said she knew that. + +"And," I said, "of proportion. If he says what you want him to say +about your father, what can he say about Lankester?" + +"But if he does Lankester first?" + +"Then--if he says what you want him to say--he undoes everything he +has done for Lankester. And," I added, "_he's_ done for." + +She hadn't seen that aspect of it, for she said: "Grevill is?" + +I said he was, of course. I said we all felt that strongly; Grevill +felt it himself. It would finish him. + +Dear Antigone, I saw her take it. She pressed the sword into her +heart. "If--if he did Papa? Is it--is it as bad as all that?" + +I said we were afraid it was--for Grevill. + +"And is _he_," she said, "afraid?" + +"Not for himself," I said, and she asked me: "For whom, then?" And I +said: "For Lankester." I told her that was what I'd meant when I +said just now that he couldn't do them both. And, as a matter of +fact, he wasn't going to do them both. He had given up one of them. + +"Which?" she asked; and I said she might guess which. + +But she said nothing. She sat there with her eyes fixed on me and +her lips parted slightly. It struck me that she was waiting for me, +in her dreadful silence, as if her life hung on what I should say. + +"He has given up Lankester," I said. + +I heard her breath go through her parted lips in a long sigh, and +she looked away from me. + +"He cared," she said, "as much as that." + +"He cared for _you_ as much," I said. I was a little doubtful as to +what she meant. But I know now. + +She asked me if I had come to tell her that. + +I said I thought it was as well she should realize it. But I'd come +to ask her--if she cared for him--to let him off. To--to---- + +She stopped me with it as I fumbled. + +"To give Papa up?" + +I said, to give him up as far as Grevill was concerned. + +She reminded me that it was to be Grevill or nobody. + +Then, I said, it had much better be nobody. If she didn't want to do +her father harm. + +She did not answer. She was looking steadily at the fire burning in +the grate. At last she spoke. + +"Mamma," she said, "will never give him up." + +I suggested that I had better speak to Mrs. Wrackham. + +"No," she said. "Don't. She won't understand." She rose. "I am not +going to leave it to Mamma." + +She went to the fire and stirred it to a furious flame. + +"Grevill will be here," she said, "in half an hour." + +She walked across the room--I can see her going now--holding her +beautiful head high. She locked the door (I was locked in with +Antigone). She went to a writing-table where the "Memoirs" lay +spread out in parts; she took them and gathered them into a pile. I +was standing by the hearth and she came toward me; I can see her; +she was splendid, carrying them in her arms sacrificially. And she +laid them on the fire. + +It took us half an hour to burn them. We did it in a sort of sacred +silence. + +When it was all over and I saw her stand there, staring at a bit of +Wrackham's handwriting that had resisted to the last the purifying +flame, I tried to comfort her. + +"Angelette," I said, "don't be unhappy. That was the kindest thing +you could do--and the best thing, believe me--to your father's +memory." + +"I'm afraid," she said, "I wasn't thinking--altogether--of Papa." + +I may add that her mother did _not_ understand, and that--when we at +last unlocked the door--we had a terrible scene. The dear lady has +not yet forgiven Antigone; she detests her son-in-law; and I'm +afraid she isn't very fond of me. + + + + +THE COSMOPOLITAN + +PART I + +INLAND + + +I + +Unspeakable, unlikable, worse than all, unsketchable. A woman has no +more formidable rival than her idea in the head of an imaginative +young man, and Maurice Durant had been rash enough to fall in love +with Miss Tancred before sight. + +He was rash in everything. When the Colonel asked him down to Coton +Manor for a fortnight, he accepted the invitation (with much +pleasure) by return, and lay awake half the night with joyous +anticipation. He was in the train steaming into the Midlands before +he realized that he knew nothing of his host beyond a vague family +tradition. He was his (Durant's) godfather; he was a retired Colonel +of militia; he had given him (Durant) a hideous silver cup; but this +was the first time he had given him an invitation. There was +something more, too. Durant had spent the last seven years exploring +every country but his own, and he was out of touch with family +tradition; but now he thought of it he had--he certainly had--a +distinct recollection of hearing his father say that of all his +numerous acquaintance that fellow Tancred was quite the most +intolerable bore. + +He had been a little precipitate. Still, he said to himself, England +was England, and if there was any fishing on the Colonel's land, or +a decent mount in his stables, he thought he could pull through. +Mrs. Tancred was dead; he did not certainly know that there was a +Miss Tancred, but if there were he meant to flirt with her, and if +the worst came to the worst he could always sketch her (the +unsketchable!). + +He had had plenty of time for anticipation during the slow journey +on the branch line from the junction. The train crawled and burrowed +into the wooded heart of the Midlands, passed a village, a hamlet, a +few scattered houses, puffed and panted through endless lengths of +arable and pasture land, drew up exhausted at the little wayside +station of Whithorn-in-Arden, and left him in that prosaic +wilderness a prey to the intolerable bore. + +As ill-luck would have it, he had arrived at Coton Manor three hours +before dinner. At the first sight of his host he had made up his +mind that the Colonel would have nothing to say that could possibly +keep him going for more than three minutes, yet the Colonel had +talked for two hours. Durant had been counting the buttons on the +Colonel's waistcoat and the minutes on the drawing-room clock, and +wondering when it would be dinnertime. Once or twice he had caught +himself looking round the room for some sign or token of Miss +Tancred. He believed in her with a blind, unquestioning belief, but +beyond a work-basket, a grand piano, and some atrocious +water-colors, he could discover no authentic traces of her presence. +The room kept its own dull counsel. It was one of those curious +provincial interiors that seem somehow to be soulless and sexless in +their unfathomable reserve. It was more than comfortable, it was +opulent, luxurious; but the divine touch was wanting. It made Durant +wonder whether there really was a Miss Tancred, much as you might +doubt the existence of a God from the lapses in his creation. Still, +he believed in her because there was nothing else to believe in. He +had gathered from the Colonel's conversation that there was no +fishing on his land, and no animal in his stables but the +respectable and passionless pair that brought him from the station. + +Could it be that there was no Miss Tancred? + +Durant, already veering toward scepticism, had been about to plunge +into the depths of bottomless negation when the Colonel rose +punctually at the stroke of seven. + +"My daughter," he had said, "my daughter will be delighted to make +your acquaintance." + +And Durant had replied that he would be delighted to make Miss +Tancred's. + +There was nothing else to be delighted about. He had divined pretty +clearly that Miss Tancred's society would be the only entertainment +offered to him during his stay, and the most outrageous flirtation +would be justifiable in the circumstances; he had seen himself +driven to it in sheer desperation and self-defense; he had longed +hopelessly, inexpressibly, for the return of the absconding deity; +he had looked on Miss Tancred as his hope, his angel, his deliverer. +That she had not been at home to receive him seemed a little odd, +but on second thoughts he had been glad of it. He would have +distrusted any advances on her part as arguing a certain poverty of +personal resource. Presumably Miss Tancred could afford a little +indifference, a touch of divine disdain. And if indeed she had used +absence as an art to stimulate his devotion, she was to be +congratulated on her success. His dream had been nourished on this +ambrosial uncertainty. + +Upstairs in his bedroom mere emotional belief in Miss Tancred had +risen to rational conviction. The first aspect of the guest-chamber +had inspired him with a joyous credulity. It wooed him with its +large and welcoming light, its four walls were golden white and +warm, and in all its details he had found unmistakable evidences of +design. There was an overruling coquetry in the decorative effects, +in the minute little arrangements for his comfort. A finer hand than +any housemaid's must have heaped that blue china bowl with roses, +laid out that writing-table, and chosen the books in the shelf +beside the bed. A woman is known by her books as by her +acquaintance, and he had judged of the mind of this maiden, turning +over the pages with a thrill of sensuous curiosity. This charming +Providence had fitted his mood to perfection with these little +classics of the hour, by authors too graceful and urbane to bore a +poor mortal with their immortality. Adorable Miss Tancred! He was in +love with her before sight, at half-sight. + +For at the sound of a punctual gong he had hurried out on to the +stairs, a door had opened on some unseen landing, he had heard a +woman's step on the flight below; he had listened, he had watched, +and as he caught the turn of her head, the rustle and gleam of her +gown, some divine and cloudy color, silver or lavender or airy blue, +he had been radiantly certain that his vision had passed before him. +Down there somewhere it was making itself incarnate in the unknown. +He felt already its reviving presence, the mysterious aura of its +womanhood. + +Hitherto his imagination had been guided by a profound sense of the +justice that is in things. Destiny who had brought him to this +deceitful place owed him compensation for the fraud, and an apology +in person was really no more than his due. What if Miss Tancred were +she, the supremely feminine, Destiny herself? + +Under the echoing gallery the drawing-room had opened and closed +upon her, and he had followed, his nerves tingling with the familiar +prophetic thrill. + +And this was Miss Tancred? + +To begin with, he had never seen a woman more execrably dressed. No +doubt it is the first duty of a woman's gown to clothe her, but +apparently Miss Tancred's gown had a Puritan conscience, an almost +morbid sense of its duty. It more than clothed her, it covered her +up as if she had been a guilty secret; there was concealment and +disguise in every crease of the awful garment. In its imperishable +prudery it refused to define her by ever so innocent a curve; all +its folds were implicated in a conspiracy against her sex. The +effect, though striking, was obviously unstudied and inevitable, and +he argued charitably that Miss Tancred was attired, not after her +own mysterious and perverse fancy, but according to some still more +mysterious and perverse doom. Happily she seemed unconscious of her +appearance, and this unconsciousness had saved her. + +For Miss Tancred was plain; and the irritating thing about her +plainness was that it, at any rate, was not inevitable. She had had +a hair's-breadth escape of being handsome in a somewhat original and +eccentric way. And so her plainness was insistent; it would not let +you alone, but forced you to look at it, worrying you with perpetual +suggestions of the beauty it might have been. Her black hair grew +low on the center of her forehead, whence it rose describing a +semicircle above each temple; she had a short and salient Roman +nose, black eyes, and straight black brows laid like an accent on +the jutting eyebones. Her mouth--there might have been hope for her +in her mouth, but for its singular unreadiness to smile; there was +no hope for her in her sallow skin, the dull droop of her eyelids, +her whole insupportable air of secrecy and reserve. A woman has no +business to look like that. + +There could be no hope for any woman whom Maurice Durant had +pronounced unsketchable. He was tolerant with the tolerance of a +clever young modern painter, trained to look for beauty (and find +it, too) in the most unlikely places. He could find no beauty in +Miss Tancred. She was useless for his purposes. Those lips had never +learned to flirt, to chatter, to sing, to do anything spontaneous +and natural and pleasing. + +He shook hands with her in a paralytic manner, battering his brains +for a reply to her polite commonplaces. Inwardly he was furious. He +felt that he had been duped, tricked, infamously cheated of his +legitimate desire; and he hated the woman as if she, poor soul, had +been personally responsible. + +It had bored him to listen to the Colonel, and he was sure it would +bore him still more to talk to Miss Tancred; but for ten minutes he +did his best to sustain a miraculous flow of sparkling monologue. If +Miss Tancred was going to bore him, at any rate it would not be by +her conversation. Some plain women he had known who had overcome +plainness by vivacity and charm. Not so Miss Tancred. Being plainer +than most she was bound to make a more than ordinary effort, yet she +had adopted the ways of a consummately pretty woman who knows that +nothing further is required of her. Did she think that he would go +on forever battering his brains to create conversation out of +nothing, when she clearly intimated that it was not worth her while +to help him? Never in his life had he met a woman who inspired him +with such invincible repugnance. He found himself talking to her at +random like a man in a dream, and so indifferent to her opinion that +he was not in the least distressed at his own imbecility; and Miss +Tancred, like a lady in a dream, seemed to find his attitude +entirely natural; perhaps she had read a similar antagonism in the +faces of other men. (As it happened, repugnance was an emotion that +Durant had frequently felt before, and certain emphatic lines about +his nose and mouth had apparently been drawn there on purpose to +express it.) Anyhow, Miss Tancred made no attempt to engage his +attention, but turned her dull eyes to the Colonel, as if appealing +to him to take the burden of Durant's entertainment on his own +shoulders. + +This the Colonel was perfectly prepared to do. It was evidently an +understood thing that Miss Tancred should sit there, in that +depressing attitude, while her father monopolized their guest. +Durant hastily classified his host and hostess as the bore active +and the bore passive. If Miss Tancred had ever had any interest or +property in life she seemed to have made it over to the Colonel, +together with a considerable portion of her youth. The Colonel wore +his sixty years well out of sight, like an undergarment; you even +felt that there might be something slightly indecorous in the +suggestion that he wore them at all. He was alive to the +finger-tips, alive in every feature of his aristocratic little face. +He seemed at first rather uncertain how to take Durant, and looked +him up and down as if in search of a convenient button-hole; he +smiled innocently on the young man (Durant soon learned to know and +dread that smile); nothing could have been more delicate and +tentative than his approach. He had been silent for the last few +minutes, lying low behind a number of the _Nineteenth Century_, for +if he were a bore he had the dangerous power of masking his deadly +qualities in an unreal absorption. At the signal that followed +Durant's last desperate remark the Colonel's tongue leaped as from +an ambush. + +His first conversational maneuver was a feint. He inquired, with a +certain affected indifference, what sort of weather Durant had met +with on the journey down, and what sort he had left behind him in +London; and then he seemed inclined to let the weather drop. But +before Durant could get a word in edgeways he had taken it up again +and was handling it like a master. Now he was playing with it, +hovering round it lightly, with a tantalizing approach and flight; +now he had gripped it tight, there was no more wandering from the +point than may be seen in the vacillations of a well-behaved +barometer; the slender topic seemed to grow under his touch, to take +on the proportions of his own enormous egotism; he spoke of last +autumn and the next parish as if he were dealing with immensities of +time and space. And now the Colonel was merged and lost in his +theme; he was whirled along with the stream of things, with moons +and meteors, winds and tides, never for an instant compromising his +character as a well-behaved barometer. + +Never for an instant forgetting that he was a Tancred, with a +pedigree dating from the days of feudalism. And after all he looked +such a gentle little fellow that Durant could almost have forgiven +him. He was so beautifully finished off. You could only say of him +that he was fastidious, he had the prejudices of his class. He +scorned to make conversation a sordid traffic in ideas. At any rate, +Durant felt himself released from all obligation to contribute his +share. + +He had given it up, and was wondering how on earth they were to get +through the evening. Various dreadful possibilities occurred to him; +music (Miss Tancred and Beethoven on the grand piano); family +prayers; cards; in some places they sat up half the night playing +whist, a game that bored him to extinction. Thank heaven, as there +were but three of them, it would not be whist. Meanwhile it was past +eight and no dinner bell. + +As if in answer to his thoughts the Colonel turned sharply to his +daughter. + +"Frida, are you sure that you wrote to Mrs. Fazakerly?" + +"Quite sure." + +"And are you equally certain that she is coming?" + +"Quite certain. Unless she has been taken ill." + +"What did you say? Taken ill? Taken ill?" + +"I did not say she was taken ill, papa; I said nothing but illness +would keep her from coming." + +"Ah, a very different thing." He turned to Durant, blushing and +bridling in his stiff collar as if the important distinction had +been a subtlety of his own. + +He curled himself up in his chair, and Durant caught him smiling to +himself, a contemplative, almost voluptuous smile; was it at the +prospect of another victim? + +Who the devil, he wondered, is Mrs. Fazakerly? + + +II + +Mrs. Fazakerly did not keep him wondering long. Already she was +tripping into the room with a gleeful and inquisitive assurance. A +small person, with a round colorless face and snub features finished +off with a certain piquant ugliness. Her eyes seemed to be screwed +up by a habit of laughter, and the same cheerful tendency probably +accounted for the twisting of her eyebrows. Mrs. Fazakerly must have +been forty and a widow. She was dressed with distinction in the +half-mourning of a very black silk gown and a very white neck and +shoulders. She greeted Miss Tancred affectionately, glanced at +Durant with marked approval, and swept the Colonel an exaggerated +curtsey, playfully implying that she had met him before that day. It +struck Durant that nature had meant Mrs. Fazakerly to be vulgar, and +that it spoke well for Mrs. Fazakerly that so far she had frustrated +the designs of nature. He rather thought he was going to like Mrs. +Fazakerly; she looked as if she would not bore him. + +If Mrs. Fazakerly was going to like Durant, as yet her glance merely +indicated that she liked the look of him. Durant, as it happened, +was almost as plain for a man as Miss Tancred was for a woman; but +he was interesting, and he looked it; he was distinguished, and he +looked that, too; he was an artist, and he did not look it at all; +he cultivated no eccentricities of manner, he indulged in no dreamy +fantasies of dress. Other people besides Mrs. Fazakerly had approved +of Maurice Durant. + +Unfortunately the Colonel's instant monopoly of the lady had the +effect of throwing Durant and his hostess on each other's mercy +during dinner, a circumstance that seemed greatly to entertain Mrs. +Fazakerly. Probably a deep acquaintance with Coton Manor made her +feel a delightful incongruity in Durant's appearance there, since, +as her gaze so frankly intimated, she found him interesting. He was +roused from a fit of more than usual abstraction to find her little +gray eyes twinkling at him across the soup. Mrs. Fazakerly, for +purposes of humorous observation, used a _pince-nez_, which +invariably leaped from the bridge of her nose in her subsequent +excitement. It was leaping now. + +"Mr. Durant, Miss Tancred is trying to say something to you." + +He turned with a dim, belated courtesy as his hostess repeated for +the third time her innocent query, "I hope you like your room?" + +He murmured some assent, laying stress on his appreciation of the +flowers and the books. + +"You must thank Mrs. Fazakerly for those; it was she who put them +there." + +"Indeed? That was very pretty of Mrs. Fazakerly." + +"Mrs. Fazakerly is always doing pretty things. I can't say that I +am." + +In Miss Tancred's eyes there was none of the expectancy that betrays +the fisher of compliments. If she had followed that gentle craft she +must have abandoned it long ago; no fish had ever risen to wriggling +worm, to phantom minnow or to May-fly, to Miss Tancred's groveling +or flirting or flight; no breath of flattery could ever have bubbled +in men's eyes--those icy waters where she, poor lady, saw her own +face. Durant would have been highly amused if she had angled; as it +was, he was disgusted with her. It is the height of bad taste for +any woman to run herself down, and the more sincere the depreciation +the worse the offense, as implying a certain disregard for your +valuable opinion. Apparently it had struck Mrs. Fazakerly in this +light, for she shook her head reproachfully at Miss Tancred. + +"If Mr. Durant had been staying with _me_, I should have packed him +into the bachelor's bedroom with his Bible and his Shakespeare." + +Miss Tancred, accused of graciousness, explained herself away. "I +put you on the south side because you've just come from the +Mediterranean; I thought you would like the sun." + +Why could he not say that it was pretty of Miss Tancred? + +The Colonel had pricked up his ears at the illuminating word. + +"What sort of weather did you have when you were in Italy?" + +It was the first time that he had shown the faintest interest in +Durant's travels. He seemed to regard him as a rather limited young +man who had come to Coton Manor to get his mind let out an inch or +two. + +Durant replied that as far as he could remember it was fine when he +arrived in Rome two years ago, and it was fine when he left Florence +the other day. + +The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, I don't call that weather. +I like a variable barometer. I cannot stand monotony." As he spoke +he looked at his daughter. In a less perfect gentleman there would +have been significance in the look. As it was, it remained +unconscious. + +"The Colonel," Mrs. Fazakerly explained, "is studying the +meteorology of Wickshire." + +It seemed that Mrs. Fazakerly was studying the Colonel, that it was +her business to expound and defend him. She had implied, if it were +only by the motion of an eyelid, that all they had heard hitherto +was by way of prologue; that the Colonel had not yet put forth his +full powers. Her effervescent remark was, as it were, the breaking +of the champagne bottle, the signal that launched him. + +Meteorology apart, the Colonel, like more than one great +philosopher, held that science was but another name for ignorance. + +"But with meteorology," he maintained, "you are safe. You've got +down to the bed-rock of fact, and it's observation all along the +line. I've got fifteen little memorandum books packed with +observations. Taken by myself. It's the only way to keep clear of +fads and theories. Look at the nonsense that's talked in other +departments, about microbes, for instance. Fiddlesticks! A microbe's +an abstraction, a fad. But take a man like myself, take a man of +even ordinary intelligence, who has faced the facts, don't tell me +that he hasn't a better working knowledge of the subject than a +fellow who calls himself a bacteriologist, or some other absurd +name." + +Durant remarked meekly that he didn't know, he was sure. But the +Colonel remained implacable; his shirt-front dilated with his wrath; +it was wonderful how so gentle a voice as the Colonel's contrived to +convey so much passion. Meanwhile Miss Tancred sat absorbed in her +dinner and let the storm pass over her head. Perhaps she was used to +it. + +"Fiddlesticks! If you don't know, you ought to know; you should make +it your business to know. If I've got cholera I want to be told +what'll cure me. I don't care a hang whether I'm killed by a comma +bacillus or----" + +"A full-stop bacillus," suggested Mrs. Fazakerly. + +"The full-stop bacillus for choice--put you sooner out of your +agony." + +"For shame, Mr. Durant; you encourage him." + +"I, Mrs. Fazakerly?" + +"Yes, you. It was you who brought the _Nineteenth Century_ into the +house, wasn't it? Depend upon it, he's been reading something that +he's disagreed with, or that's disagreed with him." + +Durant remembered. There were things about bacteriology in that +_Nineteenth Century_, and about hypnotism; the Colonel had +apparently seized on them as on fuel for a perishing fire. + +Heedless of the frivolous interruption, the little gentleman was +working himself into a second intellectual fury. + +"Take hypnotism again--there's another abstraction for you----" + +Here Mrs. Fazakerly threw up her hands. "My dear Colonel, _de +grace!_ If it's an abstraction, why get into a passion about it? +Life isn't long enough. You're worrying your brain into +fiddlesticks--fiddlestrings I mean, of course. This child doesn't +look after you. You ought to have something tied over your head to +keep it down; it's like a Jack-in-the-box, a candle blazing away at +both ends, a sword wearing out its what's-his-name; it's wearing out +your friends, too. _We_ can't live at intellectual high pressure, if +you can." + +The Colonel softened visibly under the delicious flattery of her +appeal; he smiled at her and at Durant; he came down from his +heights and made a concession to the popular taste. "Well, then, +take influenza----" + +"We'd very much rather not take it, if it's all the same to you." + +"Take what?" + +"Why, the influenza--the bacilli, or whatever they are. Or do the +bacilli take _you_?" + +"My dear lady, you don't know what you're talking about. The bacilli +theory is--is--is a silly theory." + +And Durant actually smiled; for his own brain was softening under +the debilitating influence. He would not be surprised at anything he +might do himself; he might even sink into that sickly state in which +people see puns in everything and everything in puns; it would be +the effect of the place. + +"Well, it made you very ill last winter, that's all I know." + +The wrinkles stopped dancing over the Colonel's face; his +shirt-front sank; he was touched with an infinite tenderness and +pity for himself. + +"Yes. But I had a fit of the real thing. It left me without a +particle of muscle--legs mere thread-papers, and no brain----" + +"Cherry-tart, Mr. Durant?" + +The voice was Miss Tancred's. It was keen, incisive; it cut the +Colonel's sentence like a knife. But if she had meant to kill it the +unfilial attempt was foiled. + +"No brain at all, Durant." He held up a forefinger, demonstrating on +the empty air. "That, mind you, is the test, the mark of true +influenza--the _ut_-ter, abso_lute_ collapse of brain power." + +"Im_bacilli_ty, in short." + +Having emitted this feeble spark, Durant's intellect went out +altogether. Trusting to his face not to betray him, he inquired +gravely if it was long since the Colonel's last attack of influenza. + +But he had trusted rather too much to his face. A painful flush +spread over it when he found Miss Tancred looking at him with a +lucid, penetrating gaze. She had recognized his guilt; it was +impossible to tell whether she had measured the provocation. + +He, at any rate, had discovered the secret of her silence; it was +not stupidity, it was shame. The spectacle of the Colonel's +conversational debauches had weaned her forever from the desire of +speech. For the rest of the meal he, too, sat silent, building a +cairn of cherry-stones at the side of his plate; an appropriate +memorial of a young man bored to death at a dinner-table. + + +III + +"Well now," said the Colonel, rousing himself from a brief nirvana +of digestion, "I hope that you will not be dull." He said it with +the confidence of a man who has just laid before you a pretty +convincing sample of his social powers. + +Durant started; he was alone with the Colonel and the wine, and had +just made the discovery that when the Colonel's face was at rest he +was very like an owl. + +"To-morrow we'll go exploring together. I should like to take you +over my little property." + +As a matter of fact, the property was considerable; but Durant +noticed that its owner applied the endearing diminutive to every +object that appealed specially to his egotism. It was a peculiarity +of the Colonel that he was ready to melt with affection over the +things that belonged to himself, and was roused almost to ferocity +by whatever interested other people. + +"I dare say it will be good for you to see some fresh faces and to +be put--in touch--in touch with fresh ideas." + +You would have said that Durant had been sitting for seven years +with his feet on the fender while the Colonel roamed the world. + +Durant agreed. He was being hypnotized by the hooked nose and the +round hazel eyes with their radiating wrinkles. He had been five +hours in Coton Manor, it felt like five years, and the evening had +only just begun. + +His host stared at him, fidgeted nervously for five minutes, plunged +into nirvana again, emerged, and with a shamefaced smile suggested +that the ladies would be getting impatient. In the drawing-room his +nervousness increased; he went on like a person distracted with an +intolerable desire; he sat down and got up again; he pirouetted; he +played with ornaments; he wandered uneasily about the room, opening +and shutting windows, setting pictures straight, and lighting +candles; he was a most uncomfortable little Colonel of militia. And +with every movement he revolved nearer and nearer to a certain +table. The table stood in the background; Durant recognized it as +the kind that opens and discloses the magic circle, the green land +of whist. The table had a sweet and sinful fascination for the +Colonel. + +Durant had just pulled himself together, and determined that he +could bear it if they didn't play some infernal game, if they didn't +play whist. And now it seemed that whist was what they played, that +whist of course was what Mrs. Fazakerly was there for. The Colonel +looked from the table to the group, from the group to the table; +there was calculation in his eye, an almost sensual anticipation. He +seemed to be saying to himself, "One, two, three, four; the perfect +number." Durant affected abstraction, and turning to the window +gazed out into the dim green landscape. His host's eye followed him; +it marked him down as the fourth; it hovered round him, dubious, +vacillating, troubled. The Colonel had still some torturing remnants +of a conscience; he had read the deep repugnance on the young man's +face, and hesitated to sacrifice a guest on his first night. He +turned helplessly to Mrs. Fazakerly, who put an end to his struggle. + +She touched Durant lightly on the shoulder. "Come," she murmured +gently, like a fate that pitied while she compelled. "Come. He wants +his little game." + +It was as if she had said, "My poor dear sacrificial lamb, he wants +his little holocaust. There is no help for it. Let me show you the +way to the altar." + +"Frida!" It was the Colonel who spoke. + +Miss Tancred spread open the table with the air of a high priestess, +hieratic and resigned. The Colonel approached it, a lighted candle +in each hand. For one moment of time the egotist seemed to be rapt +beyond himself; he was serving the great god Whist. Cards were the +Colonel's passion; he loved them with delight that was madness, +madness that was delight. Cards for cards' sake, the pure passion, +the high, immaculate abstraction; no gambling, mind you; no playing +for penny points; no pandering to a morbid appetite for excitement. +With cards in his hand the Colonel was transformed. He might be +wedded to matter of fact, which is the grossest form of materialism; +but at the green table he appeared as a devotee of the transcendent, +the science of sciences, Whist. + +Durant curled his long legs under the table and prepared for a +miserable evening, while the Colonel's face beamed on him from +between two candles. + +"Durant," he said, "you are an acquisition. If it wasn't for you we +should have to play with a dummy." + +Durant replied mournfully that he was not great at the game, but he +thought he was about as good as a dummy. + +"Don't you be too sure of that," said Mrs. Fazakerly. "There's a +great deal to be said for the dummy. He isn't frivolous, he never +revokes, he never loses his little temper, and he plays the game." + +"Yes, I think he can show you some very pretty science, Durant." The +Colonel's mustache and eyebrows and all the wrinkles on his face +were agitated, but he made no sound. The owl was pluming all his +little feathers, was fluttering with mysterious mirth. Oh! he took +the lady's humor, he could enter into the thing, he could keep the +ball going. + +"You see," Mrs. Fazakerly explained, "he has an intelligence behind +him." + +"A dummy inspired by Colonel Tancred would be terrible to +encounter," said Durant. + +Miss Tancred lifted her eyes from the cards she was shuffling. Again +he felt her gaze resting upon him for a moment, the same +comprehensive, disconcerting gaze. This time it had something +pathetic and appealing in it, as if she implored him to take no +further notice of her father's fatuity. + +"Confound the old fellow," he said to himself; "why does he make me +say these things?" + +When they began Durant saw a faint hope of release in his own +stupidity, his obvious unfitness for the game. By a studied +carelessness, an artful exaggeration of his deficiencies, he courted +humiliation, ejection in favor of the dummy. But, as it happened, +either his evil destiny had endowed him with her own detestable +skill, or else his stupidity was supreme. Trying with might and main +to lose, he kept on winning with horrible persistency. He was on the +winning side; he was made one with the terrible Miss Tancred; and +for the first half hour he found a certain painful interest in +watching that impenetrable creature. + +Miss Tancred played the game; she played, now with the rhythm and +precision of a calculating machine, now with the blind impetus and +swoop of some undeviating natural force. It was not will, it was not +intelligence; it was something beyond and above them both, +infinitely more detached, more monotonous and cold; something +independent even of her desire. Durant could see that she had as +little love for the game as he had. She played because she always +had played, by habit, a second nature that had ousted the first. +Her skill was so unerring that for Durant it robbed the game of its +last lingering attraction, the divine element of chance. One tinge +of consciousness, one touch of fire, and it would have been sheer +devilry. As it was he could have been sorry for her, though in her +infinite apathy she seemed to be placed beyond his pity and her own. +With no movement save in her delicate sallow fingers, she sat there +like an incarnate Ennui, the terrible genius of the house. + +The Colonel, though losing rapidly, was in high good humor. He +displayed a chivalrous forbearance with the weakness of Mrs. +Fazakerly, who committed every folly and indiscretion possible to a +partner. He bowed when he dealt to her; he bowed when she dealt to +him; he bowed when she revoked. + +"'To err is human,'" said the Colonel. + +"'To forgive, divine,'" said Mrs. Fazakerly, smiling at Durant, as +much as to say, "You observe his appropriation of the supreme +_role_?" + +And indeed the Colonel bore himself with some consciousness of his +metaphysical dignity. He was pleased with everybody, pleased with +Durant, pleased with Mrs. Fazakerly, most particularly pleased with +Colonel Tancred, late of the Wickshire militia. + +And as the game wore on Durant realized the full horror of his +position. The gallant Colonel was not going to leave that table till +he had won, and he could never win. He frowned on Durant's proposal +to change partners; he would accept no easy victory. They were in +for a night of it. Durant was in torment, but he sat on, fascinated +by the abominable beauty of his own play; he sat with every nerve on +edge, listening to the intolerable tick of time. + +Ten o'clock. He thought it had been midnight. He passed his hand +over his face, as if to feel if it were stiffening in its expression +of agony. + +And all the time Mrs. Fazakerly kept on raising and dropping her +eyeglass. Now and then she gave him a look that plumbed the sources +of his suffering. It seemed to recommend her own courageous +attitude, to say, "My dear young man, we are being bored to death; +you know it, and I know it. But for Goodness' sake, let us die with +pleasant faces, since we can but die." + +And Durant felt that she was right. He fell into her mood, and +passed from it into a sort of delirium. There could be no end to it; +his partner's pitiless hands would never have done shuffling the +cards. Black and red, red and black, they danced before him; they +assumed extravagant attitudes; they became the symbols of tremendous +mysteries. His head seemed to grow lighter; he was visited with +fantastic impulses like the caprices of an intoxicated person. To +turn on the Colonel and ask him what he meant by inflicting this +torture on an innocent man, whose only crime had been to trust him +too well; to shake the inscrutable Miss Tancred by the hand and tell +her that he knew all--_all_, and that she had his sympathy; to fall +on Mrs. Fazakerly's neck and cry like a child, he felt that he was +capable of any or all of these things. As it was, his behavior must +have been sufficiently ridiculous, since it amused Mrs. Fazakerly so +much. The two had reached that topsy-turvy height of anguish that is +only expressible by laughter. Theirs had a ring of insanity in it; +it sounded monstrous and immoral, like the mirth of victims under +the shadow of condign extinction. As for his play, he knew it was +the play of a madman. And yet he still won; with Miss Tancred for +his partner it was impossible to lose. She sat there unmoved by his +wildest aberrations. Once, to be sure, she remarked with a shade of +irritation in her voice (by some queer freak of nature her voice was +unusually sweet), "Oh, _there_! We've got that trick again!" Like +him, she would have preferred to lose, just to break the maddening +monotony of it. + +He pitied her. Once, in a lucid interval, he actually heard himself +paying her a compliment, much as he would have paid a debt of honor. +"Miss Tancred, how magnificently you play!" She answering, "I ought +to. I've been doing nothing else since I was ten years old." It was +simply horrible. The woman was thirty if she was a day. + +Half past eleven. Midnight gathering in the garden outside. The room +was reflected on the window-pane from the solid darkness behind +it--the candles, the green table, the players--a fantastic, illusive +scene, shimmering on the ground of night as on some sinister +reality. Mrs. Fazakerly was dashing down her cards at random, and +even the Colonel shuffled uneasily in his seat. At twelve he +observed that none of them "seemed very happy in whist"; he proposed +loo, a game in which, each person playing for his own hand, he could +not be compromised by the ruinous folly of his partner. + +At loo Miss Tancred, also untrammeled, rose to dizzying heights of +play. She hovered over the green table, motionless like an eagle +victory. Then she swooped, invincible. One against three she laid +about her, slashed, confounded, and defeated the enemy with terrific +slaughter. As Durant stammered, idiotic in his desperation, it was +"a regular Water-loo." + +The Colonel kept it going. He laughed, "Ha-ha! What do you say to a +whiskey-and-water-loo? My head's as clear as daylight. I think I +could stand another little game if we had some whiskey and water." + +A movement of Mrs. Fazakerly's arm swept the pack on to the floor. +"Frida," she cried, "take your father and put a mustard plaster on +the back of his neck." + +Miss Tancred rose. She just raised the black accent of her eyebrows +as she surveyed the disenchanted table, the awful disorder of the +cards. She looked at Durant and Mrs. Fazakerly with a passionless, +interrogatory stare. Then suddenly she seemed to catch the infection +of their dreadful mirth. It wrung from her a deeper note. She too +laughed, and her laughter was the very voice of Ennui, a cry of +bitterness, of unfathomable pain. It rang harsh upon her silence and +was not nice to hear. + +This unlooked-for outburst had the happy effect of bringing the +evening to an end. It seemed to be part of the program that the +Colonel should go home with Mrs. Fazakerly to take care of her, and +that Miss Tancred should go with them both to take care of the +Colonel. They had not far to walk; only through the park and across +the road to a little house opposite the lodge gates. + +While they were looking for their hats Durant was left for a moment +alone with Mrs. Fazakerly. She sank into a seat beside him, +unstrung, exhausted; she seemed to be verging on that state of +nervous collapse which disposes to untimely confidence. + +"I like whist," said Mrs. Fazakerly; "but it must be an awful game +to play if you don't like it." + +He followed her gaze. It was fixed on Miss Tancred's retreating +figure. + +"Why on earth does she play if she doesn't like it?" + +Mrs. Fazakerly turned on him, suddenly serious. + +"She plays because the Colonel likes it--because she is the best +girl in the world, Mr. Durant." + +He stood reproved. + + +IV + +Three days passed; they brought nothing new; each was a repetition +of the other; each merged itself in whist. No relief came from the +outside world; the outside world must have found out long ago that +it was not worth while driving many miles to call on the Tancreds. + +Three days at Coton Manor would have been trying to anyone; to +Durant they were intolerable. For limbs that had roamed the world to +be tucked up under the Colonel's whist table, for a mind equally +vigorous and vagrant to be tied to the apron-strings of the +Colonel's intellect, was really a refinement of torture. Thrice +Durant had tried to find an exit into the surrounding landscape, and +thrice the Colonel had been too quick for him. He hovered +perpetually round him; he watched his goings-out and his comings-in; +there was no escaping his devilish ingenuity. While Durant was +looking for a stick or a hat, he would secure him softly by the arm +and lead him out for a stroll. He would say, "My dear Durant, the +women are all very well in their way, but it is a luxury to have +another man to talk to." He talked to Durant, leaning toward him +lover-like, with the awful passion of the bore for his victim. + +These strolls extended over several miles, without taking them +beyond the bounds of Coton Manor. Durant began to disbelieve in the +existence of a world beyond. Coton Manor had swallowed up the +county; it seemed to have opened its gates and swallowed him up, +too. + +He told himself that he had done nothing to deserve his doom. He was +not more selfish or more exacting than other men; he was not +sensual; he had not made mere physical pleasure his being's end and +aim. He had been content with a somewhat negative ideal, the mere +avoidance of boredom. He never struggled or argued with it, but +whenever and wherever he met it he had simply packed his portmanteau +and gone away. This repugnance of his had entailed endless +traveling, but Durant was a born traveler. Hitherto his life had +been free from any care beyond the trouble of avoiding trouble. But +he had been lax in this matter of Coton Manor; he had had reason +enough to suppose that the visit would bring him face to face with +the thing he feared, and he had rushed into the adventure with open +arms. And now, this horror that he had eluded so successfully for +seven years he was to know more intimately than his own soul; he was +to sound all the depths beyond depths of boredom. He had stayed in +dull places before, but their dulness struck him now as naif and +entertaining by comparison. Other people lapsed helplessly into +dulness; at Coton Manor they cultivated it; they kept it up. What +was worse, they took it for granted in other people. It never seemed +to occur to Miss Tancred or the Colonel that Maurice Durant could be +interesting, that he had done anything worth mentioning. Not that he +was sensitive to their opinion, it was simply that this attitude of +theirs appealed unpleasantly to his imagination, giving it a cold +foretaste of extinction. It was as if his flaming intellectual +youth, with all its achievements, had been dropped into the dark, +where such things are forgotten. At Coton Manor his claim to +distinction rested on the fact that he was the Colonel's godson. The +Colonel had appropriated, absorbed him, swallowed him up. + +The fact that Durant was lapped in material comfort only intensified +his spiritual pangs. The Tancreds were rich, and their wealth was +not of to-day or yesterday; they had the dim golden tone, the deep +opulence of centuries. And they were generous, they gave him of +their best; so that, besides being bored, he had the additional +discomfort of feeling himself a bit of a brute. As he lay awake +night after night in his luxurious bed he wondered how he ever got +there, what on earth had induced him to accept their invitation. He +cursed his infernal rashness, his ungovernable optimism; he had +spent half his life in jumping at conclusions and at things, and the +other half in jumping away from them, however difficult the backward +leap. He had jumped at the Colonel's invitation. + +To tell the truth, he would have jumped at anybody's at the time. + +When he came back from his travels he had found himself a stranger +in his own country. In every place he touched he had left new +friends most agreeably disconsolate at his departure; he supposed +(rashly again) that the old ones would be overjoyed at his return. +As it happened, his reception in England was not cold exactly, but +temperate, like the climate, and Durant had found both a little +trying after the fervors and ardors of the South. The poor fellow +had spent his first week at home in hansoms, rushing passionately +from one end of London to the other, looking up his various +acquaintances. He was disappointed, not to say disgusted, with the +result. (Maurice Durant was always disgusted when other people +failed to come up to his expectations.) His best friends were out of +town, his second best were only too much in it. Many of them had +abjured art and taken to stiff collars and conventions. He called on +these at their offices. They were all diabolically busy in the +morning and insufferably polite in the afternoon; they had flung him +a nod or a smile or a "Glad to see you back again, old fellow," and +turned from him with a preoccupied air. He remembered them as they +were seven years ago, when they were all Bohemians together. They +had no manners, good or bad, in those days, those young men; they +called you by strange names; they posed you in peculiar attitudes +and made abominable caricatures of your noble profile; but they +would lend or borrow a five-pound note with equal readiness; they +would give you a supper and a shake-down at any time of the night or +morning. Now it seemed they thought twice about asking you to +dinner, if indeed they thought about it at all. So Durant had been +pleasantly surprised at his godfather's genial letter. Why, bless +his little heart, the old boy had actually pressed him to stay for a +fortnight. + +Well, how was he to get through that fortnight? He decided that he +would not get through it at all. He kept himself awake devising +schemes for his liberation; he would find some business to take him +up to town to-morrow; or, if he could not find it, he would invent +it; he would send himself a telegram. And then, against his will, +his mind began running on Miss Tancred. As he had been possessed by +the ideal, so now he was haunted by the reality; it had a horrible +fascination for him. He wondered if Miss Tancred had ever been +young; he wondered if Miss Tancred had ever made a joke; he wondered +if Miss Tancred had ever been in love. This third idea was so +incongruous, so impossible, that at last he found himself dallying +with it for the mere extravagant humor of the thing. + +If he had only been able to make himself agreeable to Miss +Tancred--for Miss Tancred, if she had the will, had certainly the +power to help him. The unhappy young man had made a careful +inspection of the stables to see if there was a lingering chance +for him there. The sleek bays that brought him from the +station--impossible; the Colonel's cob, a creature too safe to be +exciting; and--yes, there was Miss Tancred's mare. The sight of the +fiery little beast dancing in her stall had affected him with an +uncontrollable desire to ride her. The groom, not without sympathy, +had interpreted his longing glances. + +"There's a-many casts sheep's eyes at that there mare, sir; but it +'ud be as much as my place is worth, sir, to let you or any other +gentleman get atop of her. Nobody lays a 'and on that annymal but +Miss Tancred. Miss Tancred's orders, sir." + +He might have known it. Miss Tancred was good for nothing, not even +for the loan of a mount. + +Miss Tancred seemed aware that nothing was expected from her, and +kept conscientiously out of his way. He saw nothing of her from +breakfast till dinnertime and the evening, when she appeared as his +official partner in the game of whist. What became of her in the +meanwhile he did not know; he could only vaguely conjecture. She +seemed to vanish, to lose herself in the vast workings of Coton +Manor, or in that vaster entity, the Colonel. + +By the fourth day Durant's irritable mood had changed to +resignation. If he could not altogether adopt Mrs. Fazakerly's +attitude and smile pleasantly into the jaws of dulness, he consented +to be bored to death with a certain melancholy grace. + +He had made a dash for freedom; he had actually started first thing +in the morning with his sketching block and easel, and was +congratulating himself on his benignant chance, when, as he sneaked +round a corner of the house, the Colonel stepped out upon him from a +side window. There was one hope for him. Rain had fallen over +night, and the little gentleman was as yet in his slippers; he was +feeling the damp gravel like a fastidious cat. + +"Ah-ha!" said he, in the tone of joyful encounter. "And what do you +propose to do with yourself this morning?" + +Durant looked at his host with a sad reproachful gaze from which all +bitterness had departed. He had felt inclined to reply that he +proposed to commit suicide; as it was, he only said he thought of +trying to sketch something. + +The Colonel seemed a little offended at the proposal; it certainly +implied that Durant had more confidence in his own resources than in +those of the house. + +"So that's your fad, is it? I think we can do better for you than +that." + +And as Durant had calculated he skipped back into the house, and +before he could return with his boots on, Durant, by another miracle +of chance or his own cunning, had contrived his escape. + +He made his way up a slight slope, whence he could see far over the +landscape. What he had as yet seen was not inspiring, the heavy +full-blown charm of the Midlands in July, lonely, without any of the +poetry of loneliness. As he looked about him he realized again that +he was in the heart of the country, the great, slow, passionless +heart whose pulses are interminable hours. If you love Nature as +Durant loved her, for her sex with its divine caprices, its madness +and its mystery, you will be disappointed with Wickshire. In +Wickshire Mother Nature is no dubious Aphrodite; she is indissolubly +married to man, and behaves like an ordinary British matron, comely +and correct. Durant saw in the immediate foreground a paddock dotted +with young firs, each in a ring fence, beyond the paddock a field +of buttercups shining with a polished gleam, beyond the buttercups a +horizon of trees. Before him to the southeast, soaring above the +roofs of Whithorn-in-Arden, a church spire pointed the way to +heaven; beyond that, traveling low above the railway cutting, a thin +line of smoke indicated the way into the world. Behind him were more +trees; the green crescent of the woods with the white front of Coton +Manor shining in their arms like a heavy, foolish face. He had no +patience with the landscape, with this Nature trimmed and tamed, +these shaven meadows and clean-cut hedges and little rectangular +plantations. It was a typical English landscape, a landscape most +unnecessarily draped, where the bosom of the hills was always +covered, and the very elms were muffled to their feet. A landscape +destitute of passion and sensual charm, a landscape like Miss +Tancred. + +Miss Tancred. He no longer felt any wild resentment against that +poor girl; he had learned to judge her leniently. If you live with +bores you inevitably become a bore; at the same time, he admitted +that she was doing her best not to bore him. Meanwhile he +transferred his hatred to her surroundings. + +This young man had no philosophy beyond the general impression that +the universe was under infinite obligations to be good to him, a +belief that had found itself rather rudely shaken. He chose his view +and pitched his easel and relieved himself by one deep, +metaphysical, soul-satisfying curse at the devilry of things. Then +he set to work, and with the instinct of a born painter he tried to +find possibilities in the despised landscape. Before long he had +discovered mystery in the woods that lifted their heavy rounded +contours to the sky, gathered and massed and piled on one another +like clouds; deep mystery in their green, green drenched with +liquid and aerial gray, pierced by thick black veins and hollowed +into caverns of darkness and blue dusk. And, though he knew that he +was tying himself to the place by taking it seriously, in an hour's +time he was absorbed and happy. + +He was startled by a voice behind him. "Do you think that it's so +very beautiful?" + +He turned round. Miss Tancred stood looking over his shoulders, not +at him nor at his sketch, but at the distant prospect. + +"It's--nice and open," he answered absently. + +"Open? Wait till you've lived in it. To me it's like living with all +the doors shut." + +"Too many woods, perhaps. And yet there's always a charm about a +wooded country; it's English." + +"Yes, and, like everything English, it's much too serious, too +conventional, too"--she paused for her epithet--"too disgustingly +rich." + +He was more startled than ever; she had put his own feeling about it +into words. + +"And then it's so painfully proper and respectable. Look at those +ridiculous trees in their petticoats. English to a degree." + +"Ah!--if you've been abroad----" + +"I haven't been abroad." + +"Proud insular boast!" + +"I wasn't boasting. I was stating a fact." + +"Well, you've some cause to boast. Not to have been abroad is +distinction nowadays." + +"If it comes to that I've never been out of this county, except to +London now and then. You wouldn't think it." + +He smiled, for it happened to be precisely what he had thought. It +explained her somehow; he recognized in Miss Tancred the incurable +provincial. To be sure, her sentiments were somewhat at variance +with her character, an inconsistency not unusual in woman. All he +said was, "It is a little extraordinary." He was wondering when she +was going to go. She did not go. + +"I'm glad you've discovered something to do here. It must be so +deadly dull." + +He found relief in ambiguity. "I am never dull"; adding +irrelevantly, "it's a glorious view." + +She brightened visibly. "If you like I can show you a better one +than this. It's not so very far;"--she hesitated--"we might go +to-morrow, perhaps; though it wouldn't be very amusing, I'm afraid." + +Again he felt a touch of compunction. She had so clearly grasped the +situation; she was so evidently sorry for him, so conscientious, +even if mistaken, in her efforts to make amends, that he found her +positively pathetic. He answered humbly that he would be delighted +if she would be so good. + +Then, conscientiously again, she left him. He watched her tall +figure departing with energetic strides, and he decided that Miss +Tancred was not so bad out of doors, but that she needed a large +background. + +The next morning he had the grace to remind her of her promise. They +started at a rapid pace. Durant left the paraphernalia of his art +behind him by way of intimating delicately that the hour was hers. +Miss Tancred was evidently prepared for vigorous walking. She was +dressed suitably and inoffensively in brown holland. She took him up +a long, gradually rising hill to where a group of firs stood on an +isolated mound. + +Here Miss Tancred paused, with tilted profile, sniffing the ambient +air. "This," she said, "is the highest point in the county; there is +always a fresh breeze here; to-day you can smell the sea." + +"Impossible; we must be right in the very center of England, about +a hundred miles from the nearest coast." + +"You can hear it, then. Shut your eyes and listen." + +He obeyed. The wind moved and the firs gave out their voice. He +opened his eyes and glanced at Miss Tancred. She was leaning up +against a fir; her eyes looked straight past him into the distance; +the wind had loosened the hair about her forehead; her lips were +parted, her eyes shone; there was an eagerness in her face he had +not yet seen there. It was as if a dead woman had been suddenly made +alive before him. She was gazing and listening. + +"If you've never been out of Wickshire, where have you heard the +sea?" + +She answered curtly, "I don't know where I've heard it"; then added, +as if by way of apology for her manner, "Do you like it?" + +"Immensely." + +"Then you must come up whenever you want to. You can always be alone +here." + +She spoke as if she were giving him the freedom of her private +sanctuary. + +"Have you any sketches of those places you've been to abroad?" + +"Sketches? Any amount." + +"Have you brought them with you?" + +He blushed. He had brought many sketches in the hope of showing them +to a wealthy godfather and an admiring god-sister. + +"Some--a few." + +"I wish you'd show them to me." + +"I shall be delighted." He blushed again, this time for pleasure. +With the desire to bestow a little of it, he asked rashly, "Do you +sketch, Miss Tancred? I saw some water-colors----" + +"They were my mother's. I do nothing." + +"Oh, I see." (They were going home now.) "I was wondering what on +earth you found to do here." + +"I? A great many things. Business chiefly. My father is secretary to +the Primrose League. I write all his letters for him." + +"That's one way of being secretary to the Primrose League." + +"The usual way, I think. Secretaries generally have +under-secretaries, haven't they? My father dictates." + +Durant smiled. He could see him doing it. "What else does Colonel +Tancred do?" + +"He does no end of things. All the business of the estate; and he +speaks, at meetings, everywhere. He has lectured----" + +It was pathetic, her eagerness to vindicate his intellect, to record +his achievements, to convince Durant that she was proud of him, not +to let him see. + +For the rest of the way she was silent, the light died out of her +eyes with every turning, and by the time they had reached Coton +Manor Miss Tancred was herself again. + +At whist that evening nobody was pleased. The Colonel looked sulky +and offended, possibly at Durant's disaffection; Durant was moodier +than ever, and even Mrs. Fazakerly seemed depressed. Miss Tancred +remained imperturbable and indifferent, she won every trick without +turning a hair, but when it was all over she left the table +abruptly. She was visibly distressed. Mrs. Fazakerly gazed after her +with an affectionate stare. She turned to Durant. + +"For goodness' sake," she whispered, "say something nice to her." + +For the life of him Durant could think of nothing nice to say, +beyond congratulating her on her success in the accursed game. + +Mrs. Fazakerly chimed in, "With or without a partner Miss Tancred +wins!" + +"I always win. So, I imagine, does Mr. Durant." + +"And why should I always win?" + +"You? You win because you care nothing about the game." + + +V + +If you had told Durant that the end of his first week would find him +sitting under the firs in lonely conversation with Miss Tancred, he +would have smiled at you incredulously. Yet so it was. Her fear of +him, if fear it had been, and not indifference, was wearing away. +She seemed anxious to make friends with him if possible in a less +painfully conscientious manner, and he, on his side, was beginning +to tolerate her. In fact, he went so far as to own that, if it had +not been for that ridiculous idea of his, he would have tolerated +her from the first. It was not her fault if he had been fool enough +to fall in love with her before sight or at half-sight. She had +disappointed him (hence his natural disgust); but the thing had +happened many times before in his experience. After all, he had had +no grounds for his passionate belief in Miss Tancred beyond the +argument from defect, the vague feeling that Destiny owed him amends +for her intolerable shortcomings. But Durant's mind was too sane and +versatile to be long concerned with passion yet unborn. He was not +one of those pitiable sentimentalists who imagine that every +petticoat, or at any rate every well-cut skirt, conceals a probable +ideal. Some women of his acquaintance had defined, not to say +denounced, him as a consummate and dangerous flirt, but these were +not the most discerning of their sex. Durant described himself more +correctly as a sympathetic, though dispassionate, observer of +womankind. In other words, he was not a vulgar flirt; he flirted +with understanding. + +An understanding without flirtation was springing up between him and +Miss Tancred. In this God-forsaken place they were comrades in +boredom and isolation. She had said nothing, but in some impalpable +yet intimate way he knew that she, too, was bored, that the Colonel +bored her. The knowledge lay between them unnamed, untouched by +either of them; they passed it by, she in her shame and he in his +delicacy, with eyes averted from it and from each other. It was as +if the horror had crept out through some invisible, intangible +doorway of confession; unseen, unapproached, it remained their +secret and the source of their mutual pity. Meanwhile she no longer +avoided him; on the contrary, she showed an unmistakable liking for +his society. She would come while he was sketching and sit beside +him for five minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, remaining +silent, or merely exchanging a few frank words with him before she +went her way. In these matters she was gifted with an unerring tact; +without a hint on Durant's part she seemed to know to a nicety how +far her presence was agreeable or otherwise. + +This time he had gone up the hill after dinner, and had found her +sitting in the accustomed place. They had been alone that evening, +for the Colonel was dining intimately with Mrs. Fazakerly. That +lady, with a refined friendliness that did her credit, had refrained +from including Miss Tancred and Durant in the invitation, thereby +insuring them one evening's immunity from whist. Durant could make +no better use of his freedom than by spending it alone out of +doors; it seemed that Miss Tancred had done the same with hers. + +She was sitting there on the edge of the mound, clasping her knees +and gazing into the distance. He apologized for his intrusion, and +she waked from her abstraction with a dreamy air, making a visible +effort to take him in and realize him. But, though she said simply +that she was glad he had come, the effect of his coming was to +plunge her into deeper abstraction. They sat for some time without +speaking. Miss Tancred had a prodigious faculty for silence, and +Durant let her have her way, being indeed indifferent to Miss +Tancred's way. + +At last she spoke. + +"It's odd how some people take Nature," said she; "for instance, +Mrs. Fazakerly says she loves it because it's so soothing. She might +just as well say she liked listening to an orchestra because it +sends her to sleep. She can't love it for its own sake." + +"You'll think me horribly rude, but I doubt if any woman can. That +is the one thing a woman is incapable of--a pure passion for Nature, +a really disinterested love of life. It's an essentially masculine +sentiment." + +"I don't at all agree with you." + +"Don't you? To begin with, it argues more vitality than most women +have got. They take to it as a substitute for other things; and to +be content with it would mean that they had exhausted, outlived the +other things." + +"What other things?" + +She was studying every line of his young, repugnant face, and Durant +was a little embarrassed by her steady gaze. + +"Other interests, other feelings--whatever it is that women do care +for most." + +"I don't know anything about women." + +Her remark might have borne various interpretations, either that she +knew nothing about herself, that she despised her own sex too much +to include herself in it, or that she had tacitly adopted Durant's +attitude, which seemed to leave her altogether outside of the +discussion. He talked to her unconsciously, without any desire to +please, as if he assumed that she expected as little from him as he +from her. She never reminded him that she was a woman. It would have +been absurd if she had insisted on it, and whatever she was Miss +Tancred was not absurd. + +She went on calmly, "So I can't say what they care for most; can +you?" + +"You know my opinion. I wanted yours." + +"Mine isn't worth much. But I should say that in these things no two +women were alike. You talk as if they were all made of the same +stuff." + +"So they are inside--in their souls, I mean." + +"There's more unlikeness in their souls, I imagine, than there ever +is in their bodies; and you wouldn't say an ugly woman was quite the +same as a pretty one, would you?" + +"Yes; in the obvious sense that they are both women. I admit that +there may be an ugliness that cancels sex, to say nothing of a +beauty that transcends it; but in either case the woman is unique." + +"And if the woman, why not her soul?" + +"Because--because--because there is a certain psychical quality that +is eternal and unchangeable; because the soul is the seat of the +cosmic difference we call sex. In man or woman that is the one +unalterable fact--the last reality." + +He spoke coldly, brutally almost, as if he, like herself, was blind +to the pathos of her ignored and rejected womanhood. + +She seemed to be thinking that last point over. + +"Yes," she said, "I'm glad you came. I believe you can help me." + +"I shall be delighted if I can." + +"What do you think of Mrs. Fazakerly?" + +Durant was a little taken aback by the suddenness of the question. + +"What should I think?" + +"I--I hardly know." + +She knitted her black brows till they almost touched, and propped +her chin with her hand, as if she were oppressed with the weight of +her own thoughts. It struck him that her provincial mind entertained +an unreasonable suspicion of the consummate little widow, a woman's +jealousy of the superior creature compact of sex; and a sense of +justice made him inclined to defend Mrs. Fazakerly. Besides, he +liked Mrs. Fazakerly; she, at any rate, was not a bore. + +"She's a very amusing woman, and I should say she was an uncommonly +good sort, too." + +To his surprise her face brightened. "Should you? Should you say +that she had a good heart?" + +"Really, Miss Tancred, I can't see into Mrs. Fazakerly's heart, but +I wouldn't mind betting----" + +"That she's good? And affectionate? And straight?" + +"Straight as a die." + +"And honest?" + +"Oh, Lord, yes." He wondered whatever primitive meaning she attached +to the word. + +"Well, if you think that----" + +"Mind you, my opinion may be utterly worthless." + +"No, no. It's just the very sort of opinion I want." + +"Why should it be?" + +"Because it's the opinion of a man of the world. Mrs. Fazakerly's a +woman of the world, so I thought you'd understand her. I don't." + +"I've known her exactly a week, and you?" + +"Two years. But then I don't observe character, and you do. And yet +I have an intuition." + +"Then by all means trust your intuition." + +"That's it--I daren't. The truth is, I'm afraid of myself--my +motives." + +"Your motives are not yourself." + +"Aren't they? If it wasn't for them I should be certain. I see she's +a dear little woman, and I know that I like her." + +"Then, for Heaven's sake, go on liking her; it's the best thing you +can do." + +"Isn't it rather horrid to like a person just because they may be of +use to you?" + +"Not in the least. You were pleased to say I might be of use to you, +and I'm sure I hope you like me." + +"Yes, I like you; but I think I like you for yourself. I'm afraid of +liking Mrs. Fazakerly from the wrong motive." + +"You can't like her from the wrong motive. You can't have a motive +at all, if it comes to that. You might have a motive for killing +her, or for cultivating her acquaintance, but not for liking her. +You either like a person or not, and there's an end of it." + +"If your motives are not yourself, what are they?" + +"Lord only knows. Forces, tendencies, that determine your actions, +which are the very smallest part of you. What you call intuitions, +your feelings--hate (I should say you were a good hater), and +love----" (her eyes, which had been fixed on his, dropped +suddenly), "don't wait for motives. They're the only spontaneous +things about you, the only realities you know." (And of these he had +said just now that the last reality was sex. It was his point of +view, a point from which it appeared that for him Miss Tancred had +no existence.) "Of course there may be some transcendental sense in +which they're not realities at all; but as far as we are concerned +they're not only real, but positively self-existent." + +As he thus discoursed, Durant blinked critically at the sky, while +his pencil described an airy curve on the infinite blue, symbolizing +the grace, the fluency, and the vastness of his thought. + +"They, if you like, are you. It's very odd that you don't seem to +trust them more." + +She had turned from him till her face was a thin outline against the +sky. She had a fine head, and carried it well, too; and at the +moment the twilight dealt tenderly with her dress and face; it +purified the tragic pallor of her forehead and all but defined that +vague, haunting suggestion of a possible charm. Durant had it a +moment ago--there--then. Ah! now he had lost it. + +"I daren't trust my feelings. I can't. There are too many of them. +They won't work the same way. They're all fighting against each +other." + +"Then let them fight it out, and let the strongest win." + +"If I only knew which _was_ the strongest." + +"You'll know some day. In the long run, you see, the strongest is +bound to win." + +"Not necessarily. There might be a number of little ones that all +together would be stronger still." + +"Oh, kill off the little beggars one at a time--go for them, +throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, +_stamp_!" + +"You can't jump on your own shadow. You can't stamp on them if +they're _you_." + +He groaned. Miss Tancred was getting too subtle; it was like sitting +in the desert and playing at metaphysics with the Sphinx. He had had +about enough of it. He rose, stretching his long limbs, and the +action suggested the hideous tension of his intellect. + +"You must let yourself go, Miss Tancred--let yourself go!" And he +laughed at his own vision of Miss Tancred; Miss Tancred insurgent, +Miss Tancred flamboyant, Miss Tancred voluptuous, volatile, +victorious! + +And then a thought struck him. + +He turned and saw Miss Tancred still sitting motionless, nursing her +knees; her pure inflexible profile glimmered against the dusk. + + +VI + +Durant had an idea, or rather two ideas, one purely comic, the other +comic or tragic, according to the way you took it. He first of all +discovered that the Colonel was laying siege to the heart of Mrs. +Fazakerly, and at the same time conducting his campaign with an +admirable discretion. There never was a little Colonel of militia so +anxious to avoid committing himself. Not that the event could be +considered doubtful for a moment. Measuring all risks, it was in the +highest degree incredible that he would be called upon to suffer the +indignity of repulse. + +There was nothing extraordinary in that. To be sure, on the first +face and blush of it, Durant had wondered how on earth Mrs. +Fazakerly could tolerate the Colonel; but, when he came to think of +it, there was no reason why she should not go a great deal farther +than that. The Colonel's dullness would not depress her, she having +such an eternal spring of gaiety in herself. She might even find it +"soothing," like the neighboring landscape. And as she loved her +laughter, it was not improbable that she loved its cause. Then she +had the inestimable advantage of knowing the worst of him; her +intelligent little eyes had seen him as he was; she could lay a soft +finger on all his weak spots. There was this to be said for the +Colonel, that he was all on the surface; there was nothing, +positively nothing, behind him. Besides, Mrs. Fazakerly was not +exacting. She had not lived forty years in the world without knowing +the world, and no doubt she knew it too well to ask very much from +it. Then the fact remained that the Colonel was an immaculate +gentleman, immaculately dressed, and he was not the only item in the +program. Coton Manor would be thrown in, and there were other +agreeable accessories. Mrs. Fazakerly's tastes were all of the +expensive sort, and her ambition aimed at something vaster than the +mere adornment of her own person. In her household she displayed a +talent, not to say a genius, for luxurious order. But a little +dinner at the cottage opposite the lodge gates had convinced Durant +that this elegance of hers was of a fragile and perishable sort. The +peculiar genius of Mrs. Fazakerly clamored for material and for +boundless scope. It could not do itself justice under two thousand a +year at the very least. As things stood its exuberance was hampered +both as to actual space (her drawing-room was only eighteen feet by +twelve) and as to the more glorious possibilities that depend on +income. At Coton Manor she would have a large field and a free hand. +Heaven only knew what Mrs. Fazakerly's mind was made up of; but +quite evidently it was made up. + +So far so good; but there was less certainty as to the Colonel's +attitude. As yet nothing was to be seen, so to speak, but his +attitudes, which indeed were extremely entertaining. The little +gentleman was balancing himself very deftly on the edge of +matrimony, and Durant watched with a fearful interest the rash +advance and circumspect retreat, the oscillating hair's-breadth +pause, the perilous swerve, and desperate contortion of recovery. + +Durant felt for him; he had so much to lose. Under Miss Tancred the +working of his household was already brought to such exquisite +perfection that any change must be for the worse. He had found out +what became of Miss Tancred in her mysterious disappearances. As far +as he could see the business of the estate was entirely +superintended by the lady. He came across her in earnest +conversation with the gardener; he met her striding across the +fields with the farm-bailiff; he had seen her once on her black mare +inspecting some buildings on the farthest limit of the property, the +obsequious builder taking notes of her directions. She was obviously +a capable woman, a woman of affairs. He presumed that these matters, +with her household and secretarial work, filled up her days; he knew +too well that whist accounted for her evenings. He did not know if +there was any margin, any dim intellectual region, out of time, out +of space, where Miss Tancred's soul was permitted to disport itself +in freedom; she seemed to exist merely in order to supply certain +deficiencies in the Colonel's nature. Mrs. Fazakerly had once +remarked that Frida was "her father's right hand." It would have +been truer to have said that she was right hand and left hand, and +legs and brain to the student of meteorology. There had evidently +been some tacit division of labor, by which she did all the +thinking and all the work while he did the talking. Thus, to +continue Durant's line of argument, the Colonel's comfort was +secured to him without an effort on his part (otherwise it would not +have been comfort); and when all was said and done Mrs. Fazakerly +was a most indifferent player of whist. + +Then there was the Colonel's age. Durant knew a man who had taught +himself the 'cello at fifty-five. But the Colonel was not that sort +of adventurous dilettante. Neither was Mrs. Fazakerly exactly like a +violoncello, she was more like a piano; while Miss Tancred, from the +Colonel's point of view, was like a hurdy-gurdy. Not a difficult +instrument the hurdy-gurdy; you have only to keep on turning a +handle to make it go. To be sure, you can get rather more out of a +piano; but pianos are passionate things, ungovernable and slippery +to the touch. The Colonel was fond of the humbler instrument that +gave him the sense of accomplishment without the effort, the joys of +the _maestro_ without his labor and his pain. + +He was in a double dilemma. If he had to choose between Miss Tancred +and Mrs. Fazakerly his choice would never be made. On the other +hand, if he decided for both, his comfort would be more insecure +than ever. There would be jealousy to a dead certainty; in all mixed +households that was where the shoe pinched. To pursue that vulgar +figure, the Colonel's daughter was like a pair of old and easy shoes +made by a good maker, a maker on whom he could rely; a wife would be +like new boots ordered rashly from an unknown firm. They would be +his best pair, no doubt, but your best pair is generally the +tightest. He had some trying years before him; and well, a man does +not put on new boots for a long uphill scramble. + +So the Colonel's breast was torn with internecine warfare, desire +battling with habit, and habit with desire. No wonder if in that +awful struggle the fate of one insignificant individual counted for +nothing. Frida Tancred never had counted. + +Durant admitted that his imagination was apt to work in somewhat +violent colors, and that there might be a point of view from which +the Colonel would tone down into a very harmless and even pathetic +figure; for Mrs. Fazakerly he had no terrors. But there was the +girl. It was hard to say exactly what he had done to her. Apparently +he had taken her soul while it was young and squeezable, and had +crushed it till it fitted into all his little habits; he had +silenced her heart with commonplaces, and dulled her intellect with +his incomprehensible fatuity. And through it all he had been the +most innocent little gentleman alive. Oh, yes, he was pathetic +enough in his way. He himself was only an instrument in the hands of +irrepressible Nature who couples wild soul with tame, hot blood with +cold blood, genius with folly, and makes her sport of their unhappy +offspring. And Nature was playing a glorious game with Frida Tancred +now. + +That was Durant's second idea; the thought that had struck him so +unpleasantly after his last interview with her. To put it coarsely, +he had a suspicion, a fear, that Miss Tancred was beginning to fall +in love with him. He might have known that it would happen. It was +just the sort of damnable irony most likely to pursue that +unfortunate woman. There could be no mistake about it; he knew it; +he knew it by many subtle and infallible signs. Somewhere he had +heard or read that no nice man ever knows these things. That was all +nonsense; or, if it had any meaning at all, it could only mean that +no nice man ever shows that he knows. The fact remained that if he +had loved her he would not have known. + +For the disagreeable circumstance itself he called Heaven to witness +that he had not been to blame. He had been ready to do his part, to +fall down and worship the unknown Miss Tancred, the Miss Tancred of +his vision. The hour had been ripe, the situation also, and the +mood; the woman alone had failed him. Heaven knew he had done +nothing to make her care for him. True, he had given her a certain +amount of his society; since she found a pleasure in it he would +have been a brute to deny her that poor diversion, that miserable +consolation for the tedium of her existence. Perhaps he had tried +too much to be sympathetic; but who again would not have tried? He +had given her nothing to go upon. What had he ever given her beyond +some infinitesimal portion of his valuable time, at the most some +luminous hour of insight, or perhaps a little superfluous piece of +good advice that was of no possible use to himself? For these things +she had given herself--given herself away. How ludicrously pathetic +some women are! You do them some kindness on an afternoon when you +have nothing better to do and they reward you with the devotion of +eternity; for they have no sense of proportion. The awkward thing is +that it lays you under an eternal obligation to do something or +other for them, you don't know exactly what; an intolerable position +for a nice man. + +So Durant's first feelings were surprise, annoyance, and a certain +shame. Then he began to feel a little flattered, being perfectly +sure that Frida Tancred was not the woman to give herself away to +any ordinary man. He was the first, the only one, the one in a +thousand, who had broken down her implacable reserve. He ended by +feeling positively proud of his power to draw out the soul of a +creature so reticent and passionless and strange. + +His time was not yet up, and the question was: Ought he to go or +stay? He would have found or invented some pretext, and left long +ago, but that in him the love of pleasure brought with it an equal +fear of giving pain. It would give pain to the Colonel (who, after +all, had received him kindly) if he went before his time. By the art +of graceful evasion Durant had escaped many such an old gentleman as +the Colonel; but when it came to doing the really disagreeable and +ungraceful thing it seemed that his courage failed him. + +There was no doubt in Miss Tancred's mind on the delicate point. She +was even capable of making a sacrifice to keep him. + +He met her one morning riding on her black mare. Miss Tancred looked +well on horseback; the habit, the stiff collar, the hard hat, were +positively becoming, perhaps because they left no room for +decorative caprice. She drew up, and Durant ran his hand lovingly +over the warm shining neck and shoulders of the mare. Miss Tancred's +eyes followed the movements of his hand, then they traveled up his +tall figure and down again. + +"Your legs are rather long," said she, "and you're heavier than I +am; but you can ride her if you like." + +"I shouldn't think of it," said Durant, magnificently mendacious. He +had been very early enlightened as to his chances with the mare; but +the temptation to ride her had never died in him. + +"Unless you ride," she continued, "there is nothing for you to do +here. Then you'll be bored to death; and then, I suppose, you'll +go?" + +"And bury myself? And then?" + +"You won't be buried long. You'll rise again fast enough, somewhere +else." + +"And what if I do go and do all these things?" + +"Well, I don't want you to go--and do them." + +She moved on, and he walked beside her, his hand on the mare's mane. + +"I can't think why you've stopped so long. Every morning since you +came I've been expecting you to go. I thought you'd say your father +was dying, or that your partner was ill, and you had urgent business +in town. It's what they all do. Do you know, we've asked no end of +people down, and they never stay more than three days. They always +get letters or telegrams, or something. No, I'm wrong; one man +stopped a week. He sprained his ankle the first day, and left before +he was fit to travel." + +(Durant laughed. She really amused him, this _ingenue_ of thirty, +with the face of a Sphinx and the conversation of a child.) + +"And they never come again. There's something about the place they +can _not_ stand." + +They were walking leisurely together in full sight of Coton Manor. +She gazed at it anxiously. + +"Does it--does it look so very awful?" + +"Well--architecturally speaking--no, of course it doesn't." + +"Ah, you're getting used to it. Do you know you'll have been here a +fortnight next Monday?" + +About the corners of her mouth and eyes there played a dawning +humor. + +"Come, that sounds as if you did want me to go." + +"No it doesn't. How could it? If you don't believe me, here's the +proof--you can ride Polly every day if you'll stop another week." + +Another week! Most decidedly she had a sense of the monstrous humor +of the thing. If she could see it that way she was saved. He had not +the heart to kill that happy mood by a coarse refusal; it would have +been like grinding his heel on some delicate, struggling thing just +lifting its head into life. + +Besides, she had really touched him. His legs, as Miss Tancred had +observed, were a little long, otherwise Durant had the soul and the +physique of a tamer of horses. The sight of Polly filled him with +desire that was agony and rapture; he saw himself controlling the +splendid animal; he could feel her under him, bounding, quivering, +pulsating, he himself made one with every movement of her nervous, +passionate body. It was too much. Beside that large, full-blooded +pleasure, his scruples showed colorless and light as air. + +That happened on a Friday. He had only two clear days more. He found +himself seriously considering the desirability of staying over +Monday. + + +VII + +As ill-luck would have it Saturday was a wet day, and Durant, +instead of riding the mare, was wandering aimlessly about the house. +He had finished all the books in his bedroom and was badly in want +of more. He knocked up against Frida Tancred in a dark passage, +apologized, and confided in her. As usual she was sorry for him. + +"I'm afraid we haven't many books; but you'll find some of mine in +here." She opened a door as she spoke, and passed on. + +Durant found himself in a room which he had not yet investigated. +It was somewhat bare as to furniture; it struck strange to his +senses as if he had stumbled into another world; in some occult +way it preserved a tradition of travel and adventure. The bookcase +he came to inspect was flanked by a small cabinet of coins and +curios--Italian, Grecian, Egyptian, and Japanese; the walls were +hung with bad landscapes interspersed with maps. + +One of these, an uncolored map of Europe, attracted his attention. +It was drawn by hand in Indian ink, a red line and accompanying +arrow heads followed the coast and strung together such inland +places as were marked upon the blank. The line started from +Southampton and reached the Mediterranean by the Bay of Biscay; it +shot inland to the great cities of Italy, returning always to the +sea. It skirted Greece, wound in and out of the Ionian islands, +touched at Constantinople, ringed the Bosporus and the Black Sea, +wheeled to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then swept wildly up the +north of Russia to Archangel and the Arctic Ocean; thence it +followed the Scandinavian coast-line, darted to Iceland, and dipped +southward again to Britain by way of the Hebrides. Off Queenstown +the arrowheads pointed west, winged for the Atlantic. He found the +same red line again on a blank map of Asia heading for India by +China and Japan. An adventurous, erratic line, whose stages were now +the capitals of the world, and now some unknown halting-place in the +immeasurable waste. And what on earth did it mean? Was it the record +of an actual journey, or some yet untraveled visionary route? + +But it was not these things alone that gave the room its fantastic +and alien air. What dominated the place was the portrait of a woman, +a woman who had Frida's queer accented eyebrows and Frida's eyes, +with some more fiery and penetrating quality of her own, something +more inimitably fine and foreign. The portrait (which struck Durant +as decidedly clever) was signed by some unknown Russian artist, and +he recognized it as that of Frida's mother, the lady of the +landscapes. He wondered if it was the demon of _ennui_ that had +driven poor Mrs. Tancred to the practice of her terrible art, if she +had had a spite against Coton Manor, which she vented by covering +its walls with bad pictures. + +He turned to the bookcase. Frida's library offered him an amazing +choice of polyglot fiction. It contained nearly all Balzac and the +elder Dumas, Tolstoi and Turgenieff, Bjoernsen and Ibsen, besides a +great deal of miscellaneous literature, chiefly Russian and +Norwegian. Here and there he came across some odd volumes of modern +Greek. A whole shelf was devoted to books of travel; grammars and +dictionaries made up the rest. Miss Tancred's taste in books was a +little outlandish, but it was singularly virile and robust. He had +been prepared to suspect her of a morbid pedantry, having known more +than one lady in her desperate case who found consolation in the +dead languages. But Miss Tancred betrayed no ghoulish appetites; if +she had a weakness for tongues, she had also the good taste to +prefer them living. + +Durant was so much absorbed in these observations that he did not +hear her come into the room. + +"Have you found anything you can read?" she asked. + +"I've found a great deal that I can't read. You _do_ go in strong +for languages." + +"That's nothing; my mother was a Russian, and Russians know every +language better than their own. I don't know more than seven besides +mine. And I can only read and write them. They will never be any use +to me." + +"How can you tell what may be of use to you? Even Mrs. Fazakerly, or +I?" Durant was anxious to give a playful turn to that remarkable +discussion they once had; he thus hoped to set the tone for all +future conversations with Miss Tancred. "I admit that you can't live +on languages, they are not exactly safety-valves for the emotions; +nobody can swear in more than three of them at a time. I think +music's better. Instead of playing whist you ought to play Chopin." + +"It's better to play whist well than Chopin badly." + +"Better to rule in Hades than fool in the other place, you think? +Miss Tancred, you are as proud as Lucifer." + +"I don't see that any good is got by murdering the masters." + +"It saves some women from worse crimes, I believe. Why didn't you +take to sketching, then? _That_ only kills time." + +Miss Tancred was splendid in her scorn. "Kill time with painting bad +pictures? I'd rather time killed me." + +Ah, that was what he liked about her. She had not revenged herself +on Nature by making hideous caricatures of Nature's face; she did +not draw in milk-and-water colors, and she did not strum. She had +none of the exasperating talents, the ludicrous ambitions of the +amateur; she was altogether innocent of intellectual vanity. + +"That reminds me," said she, "that I've seen nothing of those +wonderful sketches you said you'd show me." + +He had clean forgotten the things. Well, he could hardly do better +than exhibit them; it would keep her quiet, and save him from +perilous personalities. + +At first he thought the exhibition was going to give her more pain +than pleasure. He sat beside her, and she took the sketches from him +gingerly, one by one, and looked at them without a word. A visible +nervousness possessed her; her pulses clamored, she seemed to +struggle with her own unsteady breathing. Once, when in the transfer +of a drawing her hand brushed against his, she drew it back again as +if it had dashed against a flame. Durant had noticed once or twice +before that she avoided his touch. + +Suddenly she awoke out of the agony of her consciousness. One +picture had held her longer than the rest. + +"It's beautiful--beautiful," she murmured. + +"I'm glad you like it," said Durant, pleased at her first sign of +admiration. + +"Oh, I don't mean your picture--I mean the place." + +"It's not a very good picture perhaps----" + +"I don't know whether it's good or bad; it seems to me rather bad, +though I can't say what's wrong with it. It looks unfinished." + +"It _is_ unfinished, but that's not what's wrong with it. These are +better--better painting." + +His hand brushed hers in vain this time. She remained absorbed. "I +don't care two straws about the painting; they may be masterpieces +for all I know; it's _that_--that stretch of sand licked by the sea, +and the grass trodden down by the wind--the agony and beauty and +desolation of it----" She laid it down unwillingly, and took the +others from his hand. + +"Oh, what's this?" + +"A wall in Suza." + +"I've never seen anything like that. The light seems to be +moving--soaking into it and streaming out again. It looks as if it +would burn if you touched it." + +The artist in him laughed for pure pleasure. "It's all very well, +you know, but they must be infernally good if they make you feel +like that." + +"They may be. Have you seen all these things, or have you done any +of them out of your head?" + +"Seen them, of course. I never paint 'out of my head'; I haven't +enough imagination." + +"Show me more places where you've been. Tell me about them. You +might have done that before." + +He obeyed, giving her his experience, his richest and his best; he +drew for her scenes and things, not in their crude and temporary +form, but as they lived for him and for his art, idealized, +eternalized by the imagination that sees them as parts of the +immortal whole; and yet vivid, individual, drenched with the +peculiar color that made them equally and forever one with the soul +of Maurice Durant. She hardly seemed to heed, hardly seemed to +listen or to follow. She looked as if hearing were already absorbed +in sight. + +Durant put a small oil painting into her hand. He had kept his +finest to the last. "If you're fond of the sea that may please you." + +Mid-ocean, the slope and trough of a luminous sea; in the foreground +one smooth, high-bosomed, unbroken wave, the light flung off from +its crest like foam, to slide down its shoulder like oil on rounded +glass. On the sky-line the white peak of a sail; the whole a heaving +waste of wind and water, light and air. It was a consummate bit of +painting, as nobody knew better than Maurice Durant. + +She looked at it as though she would never be tired of looking. A +sudden impulse seized him, a blind instinct to give pleasure at any +cost, to make amends for pain. + +"If you honestly like it, I wish you'd keep it." + +"Keep it? Keep it? Do you really mean it?" + +"It would give me pleasure if you would." + +"But isn't--might it not be valuable?" + +It was valuable, as Durant reflected somewhat regretfully, but he +answered well. "Valuable chiefly to me, I fancy. Which is all the +more reason, if you like it----" + +"Like it? I should lo----" She drew back her breath. "No; I think +I'd better not. Thank you very much, all the same." She laid the +canvas down with a gesture of renunciation. + +"Now that's foolish. Why ever won't you?" + +"I daren't. I daren't live with it. It would remind me of all the +things I want to forget." + +"What things?" He felt that the question was cruel, it was probing +the very heart of pain. But his curiosity was too strong. The +fountains of the deep were breaking up; he knew that he had only to +give the word to witness an astounding transformation of the woman. +He had given the word. Her face was changing; it had taken on the +likeness of her foreign mother, intensified in its subtlety and +fire. + +"What things? The things I want to do and can't; the things I want +to see--the things----" She stopped. "Do you know, I don't even like +to have those sketches of my mother's hanging about; they haunt me +so intolerably, they tempt me to that degree that sometimes I can +hardly bear to look at them." + +He glanced at the drawings. _He_ could hardly bear to look at them +either. Poor wraiths and skeletons of landscapes, he would have +thought them too fleshless and bloodless to touch even the ghost of +longing. + +She took up the picture she had just laid down. "But _this_--it's +not painting, it's real; it's a piece torn out of the living world. +It would bring it so horribly near me--don't you see?" + +He thought he saw. He looked, and she lowered her eyelids. On to +the slope of his wave there splashed a tear, salt to the salt. + +She got up, turned away from him, and leaned against the window +frame, staring out at the gravel walk, the lawn, the paddock, all +the sedate, intolerable scene. Her breast heaved; she was shaken by +a tumult of vision and desire. + +"If only I could get away--get away from this!" + +It was not she that cried out, but some other self, unacknowledged +and unappeased, smothered and crushed and hidden out of sight. + +Durant was moved by the revelation, and a little frightened, too. + +"And why not get away?" he asked gently. + +"Because I can't do anything like other people, by bits and halves. +If I once go, I shall never come back--never. There's no use +thinking about it. I've thought about it till I could have gone +mad." She faced him bravely. "Mr. Durant, if you ever want a thing +as badly as I want that, let me tell you that it will be simpler and +easier to give it up altogether, for always, than to keep on looking +at it and touching it and letting it go." + +"Do you apply that principle to everything?" + +"Nearly everything." + +"H'm. Uncompromising. Yet I doubt if you are wise." + +"Wise? Isn't it wiser to stand a little hunger than to go back to +starvation after luxury?" + +"Oh, of course; at that rate you can bring your soul down to a straw +a day. But in the end, you know, it dies." + +"If it comes to that, mine was dead ages ago, and buried quite +decently, too. I think we won't dig it up again; by this time it +might not look pretty." + +At any other time she would have alienated his sympathy by that +nasty speech; it was the sort of thing he hated women to say. But he +forgave her because of her evident sincerity. + +She dried her eyes and left him to his own reflections. + +So this was Frida Tancred? And he had thought of her as the +Colonel's daughter, a poor creature, subdued to the tyranny of +habit. Habit indeed! She had never known even that comparative calm. +It was not habit that had bound her to that dreadful old man, who +was the father of her body, but with whom her soul recognized no +kinship. Her life must have been an agony of self-renunciation, an +eternal effort not to be. + +He doubted her wisdom; but he was not sure that he did not admire +her courage. That uncompromising attitude was more dignified than +the hesitations of weaker natures. When women set out with the bold +intention of living resolutely in the Whole, the Good, and the +Beautiful, they sometimes find themselves brought up sharply midway +at the threshold of the Good; and there they stand vacillating all +the time, or at the most content themselves now and then with a +terrified rush for the Beautiful and the Whole. They are fascinated +by all three and faithful to none. Frida Tancred scorned their +fatuous procedure. Balked of the best, she would never console +herself with half-measures and the second best; as for all lesser +values, there was something in her which would always mark her from +Mrs. Fazakerly and her kind. With Frida it was either the whole or +nothing; either four bare walls or the open road where there is no +returning. + +She would go no way where the Colonel could not follow. + +Durant, on his way to bed that night, saw something that told him +so much. Father and daughter stood with their backs to him at the +end of the long corridor. The Colonel was putting out the lights. +Frida had just nodded good night to him at her bedroom door, when +she turned impetuously and flung her arms round the little +gentleman. She pressed his head against her neck and held it there +an instant, a passion of remorse and tenderness in the belated +caress. The Colonel was, as it were, taken off his feet; he was +visibly embarrassed. Durant saw his eyes staring over her shoulder, +in their profound stupidity helpless and uncomprehending. + + +VIII + +It was Sunday afternoon, and they had been taking tea with Mrs. +Fazakerly. This was the second time that Durant had had the +opportunity of studying Mrs. Fazakerly at home, of filling in the +little figure on its own appropriate background. The first thing +that struck him was that the background was not appropriate, or +rather that it was inadequate. Mrs. Fazakerly's drawing-room had an +air of uneasy elegance, of appearances painfully supported on the +thin edge of two hundred a year. It was furnished with a too +conspicuous care; the most insignificant details were arranged so as +to lead up to and set off her good things, which were few and far +between. There was no rest in it for the eye that was perpetually +seized and riveted on some bit of old silver, or Oriental drapery, +some Chippendale cabinet or chair. Such things were the commonplaces +of Coton Manor, and there they fell unobtrusively into their place. +Here they were touched up and handled, posed out of all simplicity; +they bore themselves accordingly with a shining consciousness of +their own rarity; they made an unblushing bid for praise. In Mrs. +Fazakerly's drawing-room the note of taste was forced. + +The invitation had come as a sort of farewell attention to Durant. +Its valedictory character was further emphasized by Mrs. Fazakerly's +proposing to walk home with them, and finally falling into the rear +with Durant. + +As a turn in the drive brought them within sight of Coton Manor, +Mrs. Fazakerly balanced her _pince-nez_ on the bridge of her nose. +It remained there, and he judged that Mrs. Fazakerly was in no mood +for mirth. + +"That house," said Mrs. Fazakerly, "annoys me." + +"Why?" + +"Because it hasn't had justice done to it." + +"I should have thought that was a ground for pity rather than +resentment." + +Mrs. Fazakerly shrugged her shoulders ever so little. "That +drawing-room--did you ever see anything like it? And such +possibilities in it, too. I can't bear to think of all those +beautiful things wasted, just for want of a little taste, a little +arrangement--the right touch." + +The widow's white fingers twitched. It was not vulgar cupidity; it +was the passion of the born genius, of the lover of art for art's +sake, who sees his opportunity given into the hands of an inferior. +If only she had the ordering, the decoration of Coton Manor! Durant +thought of the cottage at the gates, her cramped and humble sphere; +it was not her fault so much as the defect of her instrument, that +forcing of the note of taste; no wonder that she longed for the rich +harmonies of Coton Manor under "the right touch," the touch of the +master. + +She continued, "But poor dear Miss Tancred, you know, she will have +it left just as it was in Mrs. Tancred's time; she won't change a +picture or a chair in it. That's Frida all over. She's made that +house a monument to her mother's memory. And think what she might +have made it." + +"I'm thinking what she might have made of her life. She seems to be +making that a monument to her father's memory." + +"Ah! and the things she could have done with it." + +Impossible to say whether Mrs. Fazakerly referred to Miss Tancred's +house or her life. Durant smiled at her probable conception of Coton +Manor, with its tragedy of splendid possibilities gone to waste; but +Mrs. Fazakerly's idea cut both ways. + +She sighed wearily. + +"These drives were not made to be walked up. There's another mile +and a half of it, and I'm half-dead already. I shall sit down." + +She led the way to an elm tree fallen in the grass, examined it +critically, sat down, and made a place for him at her side. + +"So you're going to-morrow? Is that so?" + +"It is--probably." + +"It's a pity--just as you and Miss Tancred have made friends." + +"The best of friends must part," said he lightly. + +"Yes. Well, I'm glad you've managed to be nice to her, after all. +She's come out in the most astonishing manner since you came. What +have you been doing to her?" + +"I've done nothing to her, I assure you." + +"Ah, you mean you've not been making love to her." + +"I don't mean anything of the sort." + +Durant was angry. It was borne in upon him that Mrs. Fazakerly was +vulgar, after all. She looked at him, and her _pince-nez_ balanced +itself on the bridge of her nose, then leapt its suicidal leap. She +was amused with the ambiguity of his reply. + +"_That's_ all right. Heaven help the man who does make love to her, +if he means it. That girl's a riddle to me. I used to think she +cared a little for her father; but it's my belief that Frida Tancred +cares for nobody, not even herself. She simply doesn't know what +love is, and she doesn't want to know. Why am I saying these +alarming things to you? I'm saying them because I'm old enough to be +your mother, and because I like you. You're clever, and you've got a +sense of humor, too, though I can't say it's been much use to you +since you came here. But, with all your cleverness, you'll never +understand Frida Tancred. She's not like other women, the sort +you've flirted with so much. Don't tell me you haven't; for you +have. She can't help it. Her mother was a queer fantastic creature, +and Frida's just like her, only stronger, much stronger, and deeper, +which makes it worse. I'm sorry for her, because you see I'm very +fond of her, and I think there's nothing--positively nothing--I +wouldn't do to help her." + +"It's an intolerable existence for her." + +"Intolerable? Ah, my dear Mr. Durant, you're delightfully young; so +is Frida, though you mightn't think it; and you young people are all +so tragic. Frida's absurd about her father; she's always been going +about with that face of hers, playing at being Antigone, and as the +poor, dear Colonel is as blind as What's-his-name? he naturally +doesn't see it. She's brought it all on herself. She looks on her +father as her fate, and treats him accordingly--in the grand +style--and it doesn't suit him. What a subject like the Colonel +wants is a light touch. With me, for instance, he's a dear." + +"Is he? I thought he rather bored you," said Durant maliciously. + +"When did you think that? Oh, that first night when we all laughed +so much, except poor Frida. I wasn't bored--not a bit; on the +contrary, I was amused at the expression of your face, and at your +atrocious manners and still more atrocious puns. Nothing ever bores +me. It's only you young people who let yourselves be bored. Tragedy +again. Too much tragedy for my taste." + +Mrs. Fazakerly paused to let her communications sink in and take +root. There was a deep hush on the landscape, as if in deference to +her awful confidences. A deer stood knee-deep in the grass and gazed +at them inquiringly. And as Mrs. Fazakerly stared unabashed into the +face of Nature, Durant thought of Frida's remark, and wondered if +she found it "soothing." + +"Mind you, I don't mean to say that she's cold. On the contrary, I +believe she's capable of a tremendous passion for something--I don't +quite know what. It might be a person,"--she rose--"but let me tell +you it's much more likely to be a thing." + +They were talking quite innocently about art and literature when +they appeared at the house. + +Durant vainly tried to unravel the possible motives for her +confidence. They were so many and so mixed. It was possible that she +honestly suspected him of a dawning passion for Frida and that she +meant to warn him of the hopelessness of such an attachment; +apparently she understood her friend. Or the conversation may have +been designed as an apology for her own future conduct. Durant knew +that she would not refuse to marry Colonel Tancred if he made the +offer; he knew, or thought he knew, her inmost opinion of that +ridiculous person. She must be aware that her own dignity was +considerably compromised by the situation; perhaps she hoped by +rehabilitating the Colonel's behavior to justify her own. But why +that insistence on the enigma of Frida Tancred's? Why this +superfluous and elaborate cover for her own very simple meaning? + +Unless, indeed, she was not quite so simple as she seemed. In +courtship the Colonel had shown himself vacillating, to say the +least of it. If Mrs. Fazakerly wanted to bring him to the point it +was obviously her interest to get Miss Tancred out of her way. In +other words, to throw her in Durant's way. His delicacy shrank from +the baseness of this conjecture, but his reason, as well as his +experience, suggested that the thing was not impossible. Mrs. +Fazakerly had been studying him, and she was shrewd enough to see +that the surest way to interest him in Miss Tancred was to set his +intellect to work on her. She had doubtless observed his _fin de +siecle_ contempt for the obvious, his passion for the thing beyond +his grasp, his worship of the far-fetched, the intangible, the +obscure. Thus she thought to inflame his curiosity by hinting that +Frida Tancred was incomprehensible, while she touched the very soul +of desire by representing her as unattainable. All this was no doubt +very clever of Mrs. Fazakerly; but it was not quite what he had +expected of her. + +His suspicions were confirmed by Frida's behavior. Ever since their +last interview she had relapsed into something like her former +reticence. To-night, as if she had an inkling of the atrocious plot, +she avoided him with a sort of terror. + + +IX + +Durant's time was up, but the Colonel had pressed him to stay +another week. He was affectionate; he was firm; he would take no +refusal. He dwelt on the advantages of a prolonged visit. "A little +change," said he, "does us all good. You young fellows are apt to +get into a groove. But you seem brighter since you came. I think +we've shaken you up a bit." + +Indeed, at no time had there been room for any doubt as to the +sincerity of his welcome. Though he was so determined to shake +Durant up, to get him out of his groove, and give him fresh ideas, +he betrayed a pitiable dependence on the young fellow. He endeavored +to meet youth on its own ground; he made piteous experiments in the +frivolous. More than once Durant had suspected that the poor +gentleman had asked him down as a protection from the terrors of his +own society. His intellectual resources were evidently giving out. +The barometer was stationary; a fortnight's almost persistent +sunshine had dried up the source of ideas. Having gutted the +_Nineteenth Century_, his mind seemed to be impotently raging for +fresh matter to destroy. He repeated himself eternally; the same +phrases were always in his mouth. "A fad, a theory, a name for +ignorance." "Don't tell me; it's an insult to my intelligence!" +Durant could have been sorry for him if he had not been so +infinitely sorry for himself. + +On Monday morning Frida Tancred was herself again; not her old self, +but the new one that Durant had learned to know and tolerate. She +sought him out after breakfast and seconded the Colonel's +invitation. + +"If you could possibly stop, Mr. Durant, I wish you would. I'm +asking a favor. My cousin, Georgie Chatterton, is coming down on +Wednesday to stay. I don't know how long. I've never seen her +before, and she's a young girl." + +Frida's voice expressed a certain horror. + +"Well, what of that?" + +"If there's one thing on earth that I'm afraid of, it's a young +girl. If you could only stay on just to amuse her a little, to help +her through her first week! You see, it'll be so desperately dull +for her if you don't." + +He laughed; there was no other way of responding to the _naivete_ of +the request. + +"It doesn't really seem fair to ask her when she hasn't an idea--I +can't think why father did it. Perhaps he didn't. It's odd, but I've +noticed that, when anything like this happens, Mrs. Fazakerly is +always at the bottom of it." + +Another lurid light on Mrs. Fazakerly! + +"Was Mrs. Fazakerly at the bottom of his asking me?" + +She smiled. "To tell you the honest truth, she was. Not but what he +is delighted to have you here. I don't know when I've seen him so +happy, so interested in anyone. But, you see, he's fearfully +conservative; he can't bear to take the first step in anything." + +He saw. The Colonel might be as conservative as he pleased; but the +old order was changing; Coton Manor was on the eve of a revolution. +He saw it all clearly, that deep-laid plot of Mrs. Fazakerly's. He +had been asked down at her suggestion to keep Frida Tancred out of +the way for the moment, or, better still, forever. He had not risen +to the occasion; his time was up, so Miss Chatterton was to be +invited to take his place. Yet, when he came to think of it, so +simple a scheme, the mere substitution of one cat's paw for another, +hardly did justice to Mrs. Fazakerly's imagination. Was she still +convinced of his dawning passion for Miss Tancred? Had she doubts as +to Miss Tancred's willingness or power to return it? and had she +suggested that he should be pressed to prolong his stay in the hope +that the rival presence of the young girl would act as the spark +that fires the mine, kindling Miss Tancred's emotions and revealing +her to herself? + +Meanwhile Miss Tancred's one idea was to make use of him, to hand +over the young girl to him and be rid of her. Her former offer of +the black mare on the condition that he stayed another week appeared +now as a grim jest, a cynical wager. This time she was in earnest. +Whereas, if she had been in love with him---- + +Weighing these matters in his sensitive brain, Durant conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Fazakerly and her plot, together with a +corresponding determination to stay on, if only to prove to that +ingenious lady that she was hopelessly mistaken. Any hasty movement +on his part would but confirm her in her absurd suspicions, while +his actual flight would be the most flattering testimony to the +profundity of her insight. He was not going to behave like the +victim to a desperate infatuation for Miss Tancred. He would stay +on, and Mrs. Fazakerly would see that nothing came of her +psychological intrigue. + +How far the Colonel was her accomplice he had no idea. The old +fellow was a gentleman when all was said and done, and it was more +than likely that he contented himself with a gentlemanly +acquiescence. His dignity might possibly not refuse to draw a profit +either way from the transaction. Durant could reckon on Miss +Tancred, having returned to his original opinion of her. There was +not enough womanhood in her for ordinary elemental jealousy; as for +passion, he had decided that she was as innocent of understanding as +she was incapable of inspiring it. A sentimental coxcomb might beat +a precipitate retreat because he thought or fancied that his hostess +was in love with him, and he would probably call his ridiculous +conduct chivalry; it was more becoming in a gentleman to ignore the +painful circumstance. For all these reasons he determined to stay. + +His acceptance of their renewed invitation gave evident pleasure to +the Colonel and Miss Tancred and very little annoyance to himself. +He had grown used to Coton Manor as a prisoner grows used to his +cell. He had, as he had feared, tied himself to the place by +beginning serious work in it. He was too well pleased with his +landscape studies of the neighborhood to leave them unfinished; and, +as it happened, he had plenty of time to give to them, for the +Colonel was pretty constantly engaged with Mrs. Fazakerly. (Here +again he traced the delicate hand of that lady. She had seen that, +if any guest was to remain at Coton Manor, a limit must be put to +the Colonel's opportunities for tormenting him.) Durant had ceased +to long for distraction; he was sufficiently entertained by the +situation itself. + + +X + +If he had been on the lookout for distraction, he would have found +it in Georgie Chatterton. At Miss Tancred's request he went with her +to the station to meet the expected guest. It was evidently thought +that his presence would break the shock of her arrival. + +It proved an unnecessary precaution. The young girl presented a +smiling face at the carriage window--the Tancred face, somewhat +obscured by a mass of irrelevant detail, sandy hair, freckles, a +sanguine complexion, and so on. She jumped out on to the platform +with a joyous cry of "Fridah!" She embraced "Fridah" impetuously, +and then kept her a moment at arm's length, examining her dubiously. +"You don't seem a bit glad to see me," was her verdict. She smiled +gaily at Durant, and held out a friendly hand. All the way up from +the station she conversed with them in a light-hearted manner. +Thus:-- + +"What do you people do down here?" + +"Ask Mr. Durant; he'll tell you that we vegetate all day and play +whist all night." + +"Oh, do you? Well, you know, I shan't. My goodness, Frida! is that +your house? Whatever is it like? A Unitarian chapel, or the Carlton +Club, or, stop a bit--you don't bury people in it, do you?" Then, as +it occurred to her that she might have hurt her cousin's feelings by +her last suggestion, she added, "It's rather a jolly old mausoleum, +though. I wonder what it's like inside." + +If Miss Chatterton had any premonition of her own approaching death +by boredom, and had seen in Coton Manor more than a mere passing +resemblance to a tomb, she was neither awestruck nor downcast at the +prospect of dissolution. She flung herself into the vault as she had +flung herself onto the platform, all glowing with pleasurable +anticipation. To Durant there was something infinitely sad in the +spectacle of this young creature precipitating herself into the +unknown with such reckless and passionate curiosity. The whole long +evening through he could discover no diminution of her mood, her +gleeful determination to enjoy herself among the shades. She +behaved to Colonel Tancred as if he had been a celebrity whose +acquaintance she had long desired to make, a character replete with +interest and romantic charm. She greeted Mrs. Fazakerly with a +joyous lifting of the eyebrows, as much as to say, "What! another +delightful person?" + +And she was observant in her way, too. When Miss Tancred put a hand +on her shoulder and said, "It will be horribly dull for you, +Georgie; you'll have nothing to do but talk to Mr. Durant," she +replied, "H'm! Mr. Durant looks as if he had been talked to all his +life. I shall talk to you, Frida." + +All through dinner she managed to preserve her spirits, her air of +being among the most curious and interesting people. Durant wondered +how on earth she kept it up. She seemed one of those fortunate +beings whose vivacity is so overpowering that it can subdue even +dulness to itself. She made the Colonel look strangely old; beside +her Mrs. Fazakerly seemed suddenly to become dull and second-rate, +to sink into the position of an attendant, a fatuous chorus, a giddy +satellite. Her laughter swallowed up Mrs. Fazakerly's as a river in +flood devours its tributaries; her spirits quenched Mrs. Fazakerly's +as a blaze licks up a spasmodic flicker. It pleased Durant to look +at her, the abandonment of her manners was in such flagrant +contradiction with the Roman regularity of her Tancred face. Owing, +perhaps, to some dash of the Tancred blood in her, she was neither +pretty nor witty; yet she contrived to get her own way with +everybody. Durant accounted for it by her sheer youth, the obstinacy +of her will to live. + +In twenty-four hours she had put a stop to Frida's disappearances, +to Durant's sketching, and to the Colonel's intellectual +conversation; and this she did by behaving so as to make these +things impossible. In short, she had taken possession of her cousin +and her black mare, of the Colonel and his cigarettes, of Mrs. +Fazakerly and her books, of everybody and everything except Durant. +She was friendly with him, but somehow her friendliness was +infinitely more unflattering than Miss Tancred's former apathy. It +implied that he was all very well in his way, but that she had seen +too many of his sort to be greatly excited about him; while in Frida +Tancred, now, she had found something absolutely and uniquely new. +She was not going to be put off with Durant; she fastened herself +upon Frida, and refused to let her go; she did the thing she had +said she would do--without absolutely ignoring her fellow-guest, she +talked to Frida or at Frida or for Frida alone. And yet, strangely +enough, by dint of much observation she had detected a subtle +resemblance between them, and she proclaimed her discovery with her +natural frankness. + +It was the second evening of her stay, and the three were sitting +out on the lawn together. She had been looking long and earnestly at +her mysterious kinswoman. + +"Frida, you really are a sort of cousin, aren't you?" + +"So I've always been told." + +"And Mr. Durant, is he a sort of cousin, too?" + +"I never heard that." + +"I'm afraid I have not the honor." + +"That's odd. I thought he must be." + +"Why?" asked Miss Tancred. + +"Oh, because there's a likeness somewhere. Not in the face exactly, +but--yes, there! Keep that expression on your face one minute, Mr. +Durant; now don't you see it?" + +"See what?" + +"It--the likeness. He looks terribly reserved somehow--a sort of +wild-horses-shan't-draw-it-out-of-me expression, and yet so +fearfully restless; and that's just like you." + +There was an embarrassed silence; and then Miss Chatterton again +raised her cheerful voice. + +"I say, Frida! you might tell me exactly what I'm in for. Are you +two going to be horribly intellectual and clever and that sort of +thing?" + +"I'm not," said Miss Tancred. + +"I'm not," echoed Durant. + +"Thank Heaven! Because you both look as if you'd a tremendous lot in +you. I wonder if you'll ever let it out." + +"Not if we can help it," said Durant. + +"There you are again! If you're not Frida's first cousin, you ought +to be." + +Durant smiled; he wondered whether the idea was more than the random +frolicking of Miss Chatterton's brain. She was evidently a young +woman of perception; but her perceptions had wings, and she threw +them off from her in a manner altogether spontaneous, impersonal and +free. It was nothing to her if they brushed against the truth +sometimes in their irresponsible flight. + +"You don't mind all these personal remarks, do you?" + +"Not in the least," said Miss Tancred. + +"For my part I rather like them," said Durant; but they both +carefully avoided each other's eyes. + + +XI + +Durant had a grievance against Miss Chatterton. He had been induced +to lengthen his visit in order to entertain her, and Miss Chatterton +refused to be entertained. His position at Coton Manor had thus +become a humiliating sinecure. There was no earthly reason why he +should stay any longer, and yet he stayed. + +The fact was, that by this time he was really interested in other +things beside the landscape. He had wondered how long Miss +Chatterton would keep it up. He watched her, as one haunted guest +watches another, to know if she too has seen the specter of the +house, observing her manner and her appetite at breakfast, the +expression of her face at bedtime, her voice in saying good-morning +and good-night. On the third day he thought he could detect a slight +flagging; Miss Chatterton was a shade less buoyant, less talkative +than before. By the evening she was positively serious, and he +judged that the iron had entered into her soul. Her manner to her +cousin had changed; it was more tentative, more tender, more +maternal. She had begun to pity Frida, as he had pitied her. + +The two were inseparable; they were always putting their heads +together, always exchanging confidences. And it was not only +confidences but characters that they exchanged. It was a positive +fact that as Miss Chatterton flagged Miss Tancred revived, she +seemed to be actually growing young while the young girl grew older. +Not that Miss Tancred grew young without difficulty; the life she +had led was against that. She looked like a woman recovering from a +severe illness, she suffered relapse after relapse, she went about +in a flush and fever of convalescence; it was a struggle for health +under desperate conditions, the agony of a strong constitution still +battling with the atmosphere that poisoned it, recovery simulating +disease, disease counterfeiting recovery. + +A wholesome process, no doubt, but decidedly unpleasant to watch. +Durant, however, had very little opportunity for watching it, as he +was now left completely to himself. Miss Tancred's manner intimated +that she had done with him,--put him away in some dark cupboard of +the soul, like a once desired and now dreaded stimulant,--that she +was trusting to other and safer means for building up her strength. +If Durant had ever longed for solitude, he had more than enough of +it now, and he devoted the rest of his time to finishing the studies +and sketches he had begun. He had made none of Miss Tancred. + +One morning he had pitched his umbrella and his easel below a ridge +on the far slope of the fir plantation. A thorn bush sheltered him +from the wind and made him invisible from the terrace of grass above +him. + +He had emerged from a fit of more than usual absorption when he felt +the stir of footsteps in the grass, and a voice rang out clear from +the terrace. + +"If it would only make papa happy. I want him to be happy." + +Durant could not help but overhear, his senses being sharpened by +the dread of hearing. + +"My poor child" (it was the young girl who spoke), "you don't know +what you want; but you want something more than that." + +Durant rattled his color-box in desperation, but the women were too +much absorbed to heed his warning, and Frida even raised her voice +in answering: + +"Yes, I'm afraid I do want something more. I know what you're +thinking, Georgie. When women of my age go on like this it generally +means that they're in love, or that they want to be married, or +both." + +Durant was considering the propriety of bursting out on them noisily +from the cover of his umbrella, but before he could decide the point +Miss Tancred had continued: + +"I am not in love." + +She spoke in the tone of one stating an extremely uninteresting +fact. + +"You _are_ in love, Frida. You're in love with life, and life won't +have anything to do with you; it's thrown you over, and a beastly +shame, too! You're simply dying for love of it, my sweetheart." + +Frida did not deny the accusation. They passed on, and in the +silence Durant could hear their skirts as they brushed the thorn +bush. He could only pray now that he might remain invisible. + +He felt rather than saw that they turned their heads in passing. + +"Do you think he heard?" + +This time it was Miss Chatterton who raised her voice. + +"It doesn't matter if he did. He's not a fool, whatever else he is." + +Durant overlooked that flattering tribute to himself in his +admiration of Miss Chatterton's masterly analysis and comprehension. +She had, so to speak, taken Frida Tancred to pieces and put her +together again in a phrase--"Dying for love of life." Beside her +luminous intuition his own more logical method seemed clumsy and +roundabout, a constructive process riddled by dangerous fallacies +and undermined by monstrous assumptions. At the same time he +persisted in returning to one of these, the most monstrous, perhaps, +of all. In spite, perhaps because, of her flat denial, he pictured +Frida not only as mysteriously in love with existence, but with a +certain humble spectator of existence. According to the view he had +once expounded to her the two passions were inseparable. + +Before very long he received a new light on the subject. It was his +last day, the two cousins were together somewhere, the Colonel was +in bed with a bilious attack, and Durant was alone in the +drawing-room. + +He had not been alone long before Miss Chatterton appeared. She came +into the room with an air of determination and sat down beside him. +She went straight to her point, a very prickly one; there was no +beating about the thorn bush with Miss Chatterton. + +"Mr. Durant," said she, "I want to talk to you--for once. When you +first came here what did you think of Miss Tancred?" + +"I'm afraid I didn't think anything of Miss Tancred." + +"Did you dislike her?" + +"N-no. I only found her a little difficult to talk to." + +"Oh. Well, that's not what I came to consult you about. I want you +to help me. I am going to elope----" + +"You don't mean to say so----" + +"To elope with Miss Tancred--run away with her--take her out of +this. It's the only way." + +"The only way to what?" + +"To save her. But I shall do nothing rash, nothing that would cause +a scandal in the county. I shall simply take her up to town with me +when I go back on Monday. My week isn't up; but--well--my temper is. +So far it's all open and aboveboard----" + +"Yes--yes. And where do I come in?" + +"Oh, _you_--if you wouldn't mind staying where you are and keeping +the Colonel in play till we've got safe across the Channel----" + +"The Channel?" + +"The Channel, my friend. Where else should we be safe?" + +"That means that I've got to stick here till----" + +"Till Wednesday." + +"Good heavens! Another week! Not if I know it." + +"Yes; it's awful, I know; but not as bad as it might have been. You +won't have to talk to Miss Tancred. By the way, she says you are the +only man who ever tried to talk to her--to understand her. What a +dreadful light on her past! Think what her life must have been." + +"Not very amusing, I imagine." + +"Amusing! _Think_ of it. Thirty years in this hole, where you can't +breathe, and without a soul to speak to except the Colonel. Not that +the Colonel is a soul--he's much too dense." + +"To be anything but a body?" + +"And all the time she has loathed it--loathed it. You see, she's got +cosmopolitan blood in her veins. Her mother--you know about her +mother?" + +"I know nothing about her except that she did a great many bad +things--I mean pictures--for which I hope Heaven may forgive her." + +"Don't be brutal. She's dead now and can't do any more. When she was +alive she was a Russian or a Pole or something funny, and mad on +traveling, always going from one place to another--a regular rolling +stone; till one day she rolled up to the Colonel's feet, and +then----" + +"Well?" + +"He picked her up and put her in his pocket, and she never rolled +any further. He packed her off to England and made her sit in this +dreadful old family seat of his till she died of it. That's the sort +of woman Miss Tancred's mother was, and Miss Tancred takes after her +mother. She's a cosmopolitan, too." + +"Rubbish! No woman can be a cosmopolitan." He said it in the same +tone in which he had told Frida that no woman could have a pure +passion for Nature. "And Miss Tancred, though nice, strikes me as +peculiarly provincial. I shouldn't have thought----" + +"There are things in her you'd never have thought of. It's wonderful +how she comes out when you know her." + +"She certainly has come out wonderfully since you came on the +scene." (The words he used had a familiar ring. It was exactly what +Mrs. Fazakerly had said to him.) + +"I? I've not had anything to do with it. It was you; she told me. It +wasn't just that you understood her; you made her understand +herself; you made her feel; you stirred up all the passion in her." + +"I don't understand you," he said coldly. + +"Well, I think if you can understand Miss Tancred you might +understand _me_. Compared with Frida I'm simplicity itself." + +"When did I do these things?" + +"Why, when you told her to let herself go. When you showed her your +sketches and talked to her about the places, and the sea, all the +things you had seen; the things she had dreamed of and never seen." + +The young girl spoke as if she was indignant with him for reveling +in opportunities that were Frida's by right. + +"But she shall see them. She shall go away from this, and be herself +and nobody else in the world." + +"It's too late--it's not as if she were young." + +"Young? She's a good deal younger than I am, though she's thirty and +I'm twenty-four--twenty-five next September. Frida's young because +she's got the body of a woman, the mind of a man, and the soul of a +baby. She'll begin where other women end, will Frida. Wait till +she's been abroad with me, and you'll see how her soul will come on, +in a more congenial climate." + +"Where are you going?" + +"We're going everywhere. Venice--Rome--Florence--the +Mediterranean--the regular thing. And to all sorts of queer +outlandish places besides--Scandinavia, the Hebrides, and Iceland; +everywhere that you can go to by sea. The sea----That's you again." + +"The deuce it is! I doubt if I've done the kind thing, then. I seem +to have roused passions which will never be satisfied. When she +comes back----" + +Miss Chatterton's voice sank. "She never will come back." + +"Never? How about the Colonel?" + +Miss Chatterton smiled. "That's the beauty of it. It's the neatest, +sweetest, completest little plot that ever was invented, and it's +simplicity itself, like its inventor--that's me. I suppose you know +all about Mrs. Fazakerly?" + +"Well, not all. Who _could_ know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?" + +"You know enough, I daresay. By taking her away--I mean Frida--we +force the Colonel's hand." + +"You might explain." + +"I never saw a man who wanted so many things explained. Don't you +see that, as long as Frida stays at home, petting and pampering him +and doing all his work for him, he'll never take the trouble to +marry; but as soon as she goes away, and stays away----" + +"I see, I see; he marries. You force his hand--and heart." + +"Exactly. And, if he marries, Frida stays away altogether. She's +free." + +"Yes; she's free. If she goes; but she'll never go." + +"Won't she? She's going next Monday. It's all arranged. I've told +her that she's in her father's way, that he wants to marry, and +keeps single for her sake. And she believes it." + +He walked up and down with his hands in his pockets, a prey to +bewildering emotions. + +"It's ingenious and delightful, your plot," said he. "But I can't +say that I grasp all the _minutiae_, the practical details. For +instance (it's a brutal question, but), who's going to provide +the--the funds for this expedition to Scandinavia--or was it +Abyssinia?" + +"Funds? Oh, that's all right. She's got any amount of her own, +though you wouldn't know it." + +"I didn't know it." He champed his upper lip. He could not in the +least account for the feeling, but he was bitterly, basely +disappointed at this last revelation. Miss Tancred was independent. +Up till now he could not bring himself to believe in her flight; he +did not want to believe in it; it would have been a relief to him to +know that the strange bird's wings were clipped. + +"It was her mother's; what the poor lady traveled on, I suppose. +Frida might have been enjoying it all the time, only, you see, there +was the Colonel. That's why she wants him to marry Mrs. Fazakerly, +though she'd rather die than own it." + +"Why shouldn't she own it?" + +"Because she can't trust her motives, trust herself. I never saw a +woman fight so shy of herself." + +"Then that's what she was thinking of when she said she was afraid +of her own feelings." + +"Oh! So she _did_ say it, did she?" + +"She said that or something very like it. You think that's what she +must have meant?" He appealed to her humbly, as to one who had +mastered the difficult subject of Frida Tancred. + +"Why, whatever else _could_ she have meant, stupid?" + +There was an awkward silence, broken, or rather mended, by Miss +Chatterton saying, as she stood with her hand on the door: + +"Look here, you're not going to back out of it. You've promised to +stand by and see us through with it, honor bright." + +"I promised nothing of the sort, but I'll stand by all right." + +"You may have a bad time. The Colonel will kick up an awful fuss; +but remember, you're not in the least responsible. I'm the +criminal." + +It was as if she had said, "Don't exaggerate your importance. I, not +you, am Miss Tancred's savior and deliverer." + +He stiffened visibly. "I shall not quarrel with you for the _role_." + + +XII + +Monday was the day of the great deliverance, the day that was fixed +for Frida Tancred's flight. And, as if it meant to mark an era and a +hegira and the beginning of revolution, it distinguished itself from +other days by suitable signs and portents. It dawned through a +brooding haze that threatened heat, then changed its mind, thickened +and massed itself for storm. While he was dressing, Durant was made +aware of the meteorological disturbance by an incessant tap-tap on +the barometer as the Colonel consulted his oracle in the hall. The +official announcement was made at breakfast. + +"There is a change in the glass," said the Colonel. "Mr. Durant +brought the fine weather with him and Miss Chatterton is taking it +away." + +"I'm taking something else away beside the weather," said she. + +But the spirit of prophecy was upon him. + +"To judge by to-day's forecast, I think we shall see Frida back +again before the fine weather." + +Whereupon Durant smiled and Miss Chatterton laughed, which gave him +an agreeable sense of being witty as well as prophetic. + +By ten o'clock the hand of the barometer had crept far past +"Change"; by noon it had swung violently to "Stormy, with much +rain"; by lunchtime a constrained and awkward dialogue was broken by +the rude voice of the thunder. The Colonel took out his watch, timed +the thunder and lightning, and calculated the approaches of the +storm. "Seven miles away from us at present," said he. + +It hung so low that the growling and groaning seemed to come from +the woods round Coton Manor; the landscape darkened to a metallic +purplish green, then paled to the livid color of jade under a sallow +sky. There was a swift succession of transformation scenes, when, +between the bursts of thunder, the park, swathed in sheet lightning, +shot up behind the windows, now blue, now amethyst, now rose, now +green. Then the storm suddenly shifted its quarters and broke +through a rampart of solid darkness piled high in the southwest. + +"Fifteen seconds," said the Colonel, "between that flash and the +thunder." + +Among these phenomena the Colonel moved like a little gentleman +enchanted; he darted to and fro, and in and out, as if the elements +were his natural home; his hurried notes in the little memorandum +book outsped the lightning. For the last thirty years there had not +been such weather in the meteorological history of Wickshire. + +But the storm was only in its playful infancy; the forked lightning +and the rain were yet to come. The last train up, timed to meet the +express at the junction, left Whithorn-in-Arden at 3.10, and it was +a good hour's drive to the station. As they toyed with the lightning +on their plates Durant and Miss Chatterton looked at Frida. Fate, +the weather, and the Colonel, a trinity of hostile powers, were +arrayed against her, and the three were one. + +At the stroke of two the Colonel remarked blandly, "There will be no +driving to the station to-day, so I have countermanded the +brougham." + +They were dressed ready for the journey, and, as the Colonel spoke +Frida got up, drew down her veil and put on her gloves. + +"That was a pity," she said quietly, "seeing that we've got to go." + +The Colonel was blander than ever; he waved his hand. "Go, by all +means," said he, "but not in my brougham. There I put my foot down." + +("Not there, not there, oh, gallant Colonel," said Durant to +himself, "but where you have always put it, on Frida's lovely +neck.") + +She started, looked steadily at her father, then, to Durant's +surprise, she shrugged her shoulders; not as an Englishwoman shrugs +them, but in the graceful Continental manner. The movement suggested +that the foreign strain in her was dominant at the moment; it +further implied that she was shaking her neck free from the +Colonel's foot. She walked to the window and looked out upon the +storm. With the neck strained slightly forward, her nostrils +quivering, her whole figure eager and lean and tense, she looked +like some fine and nervous animal, say a deerhound ready to slip +from the leash. + +As she looked there was a sound as if heaven were ripped asunder, +and the forked lightning hurled itself from that dark rampart in the +southwest and went zig-zagging against the pane. "Only ten seconds," +said the Colonel; "the storm is bursting right over our heads." + +Frida too had consulted her watch; she turned suddenly, rang the +bell, and gave orders to a trembling footman. "Tell Randall to put +Polly in the dogcart. He must drive to the station at once." + +The answer came back from the stables that Randall had shut himself +into the loose box and covered himself with straw, "to keep the +lightning off of him. He dursn't go near a steel bit, not if it was +to save his life, m'm, and as for driving to the station----" + +It was too true; Randall, horse-breaker, groom and coachman, +excellent, invaluable creature at all other times, was a brainless +coward in a thunderstorm. + +"If we don't go to-day, we can't go till to-morrow," said Georgie +Chatterton, and she nodded at Durant to remind him that in that case +his departure would be postponed till Thursday. + +Frida too turned toward him. "If I don't go to-day, I shall never +go." + +He understood. She was afraid, afraid of what might come between her +and her deliverance, afraid of her fate, afraid of the conscience +that was her will, afraid of her own fear, of the terror that would +come upon her when she realized the full meaning of her lust for +life. To-morrow any or all of those things might turn her from the +way; to-day she was strong; she held her life in her two hands. At +any rate, she was not afraid of the weather. She would go straight +to her end, through rain and lightning and thunderbolts and all the +blue and yellow demons of the sky. + +"Are you afraid, Georgie?" + +"Of thunder and lightning?" asked Georgie pointedly. "No." + +"All right, then. We've got forty-five minutes. I must put Polly +into the cart myself. Five for that; forty to get to the station." + +She strode off to the stables, followed by the footman and Durant. +Among them they forced Polly into the trap, and led her dancing to +the porch, where Miss Chatterton stood, prepared for all weathers. + +"I say," cried she, "this is all very well; but who's going to drive +Polly there and back again?" + +"I am," said Durant calmly. He had caught a furtive flash from +Frida's eyes that lighted upon, glanced off him and fell to the +ground. The woman in her had appealed to his chivalry. At the same +instant there was a swish, as if the skirts of heaven were trailing +across the earth, and the rain came down. He hastily thrust Miss +Tancred's arms into the sleeves of her mackintosh and wriggled into +his own. The final speeches were short and to the point. + +"Mr. Durant," said Miss Chatterton, "you are a hero." + +"Frida," said the Colonel, "you are a fool." And for once Durant +was inclined to agree with him. The more so as Miss Tancred took +advantage of his engagement with his mackintosh to enthrone herself +on the driver's high seat. She said good-by to the Colonel, and +gathered up the reins; Miss Chatterton climbed up beside her; Polly +gave a frantic plunge and a dash forward; and the hero was obliged +to enter the dogcart after the deft fashion of a footman, with a run +and a flying leap into the back seat. + +Miss Chatterton was unkind enough to laugh. "Well done!" said she. +"Sit tight, and try to look as chivalrous as I'm sure you feel." + +But it is hard to look or feel chivalrous sitting on a back seat in +a wet mackintosh with a thunderstorm pouring down your neck and into +your ears, and a woman, possessed by all the devils, driving +furiously to an express train that she can never catch. In that +lunatic escape from Coton Manor she had not looked back once; she +left Durant to contemplate a certain absurd little figure that stood +under an immense Doris portico, regarding the face of the sky. + +The main thoroughfare of Whithorn-in-Arden was scored like the bed +of a torrent, and fringed with an ochreish scum tossed up from the +churning loam. The church clock struck three as they dashed through. + +"You'll never do it," said Durant; "it's a good twenty minutes from +here." + +"In the brougham it is. Polly will do it in ten--with me driving +her." + +She did it in seven. Durant had pictured the two ladies scurrying +along the platform, and himself, a dismal figure, aiding their +unlovely efforts to board a departing train; as it was, the three +minutes saved allowed Frida to achieve her flight with dignity. + +For two out of those three minutes he stood outside their carriage +window, beyond the shelter of the station roof, with the rain from +the ornamental woodwork overflowing on to his innocent head. He was +trying to smile. + +"Heroic," murmured Miss Chatterton; and her eyebrows intimated that +she saw pathos in his appearance. As for Frida, her good-by was so +curt and cold that Durant, who had suffered many things in redeeming +the discourtesy of his former attitude to her, was startled and not +a little hurt. His plain, lean face, that seemed to have grown still +plainer and leaner under the lashing of the rain, set again in its +habitual expression of repugnance; hers paled suddenly to a lighter +sallow than before; the hand she had given to him withdrew itself in +terror from his touch. He drew himself up stiffly, raising a hat +that was no hat but a gutter, and the train crawled out of the +station. + +He stood yet another minute staring at the naked rails, two shining +parallel lines that seemed to touch and vanish, over the visible +verge, into the gray fringe of the infinite where the rain washed +out the world. + +And then he saw nothing but Frida Tancred, sitting on the edge of +the fir plantation and gazing into the distance; he heard his own +voice saying to her, "Let yourself go, Miss Tancred; let yourself +go!" + +And she was gone. + + +XIII + +All that Durant got out of Polly was the privilege of driving her +home, through mud and rain, at a melancholy trot. True, he was in no +hurry to get back; so he let her take her own pace, in pity for her +trembling limbs and straining heart. Polly had done all she knew +for her mistress in that frantic dash for freedom and the express; +and, when he thought of what Frida Tancred's life had been, he +guessed that the little animal was used to carrying her through +worse storms than this. + +The storm was over now; it had driven the clouds into the north, +where they hung huddled and piled in a vast amphitheater; other +clouds, charged with light now instead of darkness, were still +rolling up from the south, east and west, their wings closed till +the sky was shut in like Whithorn-in-Arden, ringed with its clouds +as Arden with its woods; above, beneath, there rose the same +immense, impenetrable boundary, green on the earth and gray in +heaven. + +And Frida Tancred had escaped from these confines, would never come +back to dwell in them again; she had said so, and he believed her. +To be sure, she had shown weakness at the last, she had been driven +to juggle with the conscience that would not let her go; had she not +persuaded it that she was leaving the Colonel for the Colonel's +good? But once gone, once there, away over the border and safe in +the promised land, she would see clearly, she would realize her +right to be happy in the glorious world. + +Not that these things could have happened without Georgie +Chatterton. He had nothing but admiration for that young woman; +there had been daring in her conquest of Frida Tancred, there were +ingenuity and determination in the final elopement. Was it possible +that he was piqued at the insignificance of the part she had +assigned to him? She had left him to settle up the sordid accounts +while she ran away with the lady. He had got to say to Colonel +Tancred, "Colonel Tancred, I am not your daughter's seducer and +abductor; I am only a miserable accessory after the fact." In other +words, Miss Chatterton had reminded him that he was too late. + +Too late indeed, it seemed. Whether or not Miss Chatterton's faith +in him had failed her at the last moment, but when he came down to +dinner that evening he found that she had been beforehand with him; +there was nothing left for him to do. + +The Colonel looked up smiling from a telegram. "News from St. +Pancras. Miss Chatterton is carrying my daughter off to the +Continent." + +"I'm delighted to hear it. It will do her all the good in the +world." + +"Yes, yes; I'm glad she should have the opportunity. I made a little +tour on the Continent myself when I was a young man, and I've felt a +brighter fellow for it ever since." + +"Really?" + +"Yes. One's apt to get into a groove staying at home so much. +There's nothing like rubbing brains with foreigners. It stretches +you out, clears you of all your narrow insular prejudices, brings +you in touch"--Durant quivered; he knew it was coming--"in touch +with fresh ideas. I don't know how you feel about it, but six months +of it was enough to convince me that there's no place like England, +and no people like English people, and no house like my own. As for +Frida, a very little goes a long way with Frida; she'll be sick of +it in six weeks, but she'll settle down all the better for the +change." + +"You think so?" + +"I do. She may be a little unsettled at first. Her poor mother was +just the same--restless, restless. But she settled down." + +The Colonel made no further allusion to his daughter's absence. He +was presently disturbed about another matter, bustling about the +room, wondering, questioning, and exclaiming, "I have lost my little +meteorological chronicle? Has anybody seen my little meteorological +chronicle? Now, where did I have it last? I wonder if I could have +left it with my other papers in Frida's room?" + +But Frida's room, the room where she did all her father's writing, +and her own reading and dreaming when she had time to read and +dream, Frida's room was locked, and nobody could find the key. The +Colonel, more than ever convinced that his meteorological chronicle +was concealed in Frida's room, ordered the door to be burst open. +Durant lent a shoulder to the work and entered somewhat +precipitately, followed by the Colonel. + +The meteorological chronicle, the labor of years, was found where +its author had left it, on his writing-table, together with his +other papers, business letters, household accounts, Primrose League +programs, all carefully sorted, dated, and docketed. Many of the +letters had been answered; they lay, addressed in Frida's +handwriting, ready for the post. She had left her work in such +perfect order that a new secretary could have been fitted into her +place without a hitch. The fact was eloquent of finality and the +winding up of affairs; but certain other details were more eloquent +still. + +Order on the writing-table; in the rest of the room confusion and +disarray, rifled bookcases and dismantled walls. Fresh squares of +wall-paper outlined in cobwebs marked the places where the great +maps had hung. The soul of the room was gone from it with the +portrait of the late Mrs. Tancred; the watercolor drawings, sad work +of her restless fingers, were no longer there. The furniture had +been pushed aside to make room for the deed of desecration; the +floor was littered with newspapers and straw; an empty packing-case +lay on its side, abandoned, in a corner. + +The Colonel opened round eyes of astonishment, but his mustache was +still. He rang the bell and summoned the servants. Under severe +cross-examination, Chaplin, the footman, gave evidence that three +packing-cases had left Coton Manor for the station early in the +morning before the bursting of the storm. Frida, too, had discerned +the face of the sky, and--admirable strategist!--had secured her +transports. The Colonel dismissed his witnesses, and appealed +helplessly to Durant; indeed, the comprehension in the young man's +face gave him an appearance of guilty complicity. + +"What does it mean, Durant? what does it mean?" + +Durant smiled, not without compassion. When a young woman arranges +her accounts, and makes off with three packing-cases, containing her +library and her mother's portrait, the meaning obviously is that she +is not coming back again in a hurry. He suggested that perhaps Miss +Tancred proposed to make a lengthier stay on the Continent than had +been surmised. + +"The whole thing," said the Colonel, "is incomprehensible to me." + +For the rest of the evening he remained visibly subdued by the +presence of the incomprehensible; after coffee he pulled himself +together and prepared to face it. + +"There will be no whist this evening," he announced. "You will +excuse me, Durant; I have an immensity of work on hand. Chaplin, put +some whiskey and water in the study, and light the little lamp on my +literary machine." + +Tuesday morning's post brought explanation. Two letters lay on the +breakfast table, both from a fresh hotel, the _Hotel Metropole_, +both addressed in Frida Tancred's handwriting, one to the Colonel +and the other to Durant. Durant's ran thus: + + "DEAR MR. DURANT:--You will explain everything to my father, + won't you? I have done my best, but he will never see it; it is + the sort of thing he never could see--my reasons for going away + and staying away. They are hard to understand, but, as far as I + have made them out myself, it seems that I went away for his + sake; but I believe, in fact I know, that I shall stay away for + my own. You will understand it; we thrashed it all out that + Saturday afternoon--you remember?--and you understood then. And + so I trust you. + + "Always sincerely yours, + + "FRIDA TANCRED. + + "P.S.--Write and tell me how he takes it. I can see it--so + clearly!--from his point of view. I hope he will not be unhappy. + + "P.P.S.--We sail to-morrow." + +He was still knitting his brows over the opening sentences when the +Colonel flicked his own letter across the table. + +"Read this, Durant, and tell me what you think of it." + +Durant read: + + "MY DEAR FATHER:--You will see from Georgie's telegram that we + shall be leaving England to-morrow. I did not tell you this + before because it would have meant so much explanation, and if + we once began explaining things I don't think I should ever + have gone at all. And I had to go. Believe me, I was convinced + that in going I was doing the best thing for you. I thought you + had been making sacrifices for my sake, and that you would be + happier without me, though you would not say so. Whether I could + have brought myself to leave you without the help of this + conviction, and whether I have the conviction strongly still, I + cannot say; it is hard to be perfectly honest, even with myself. + But now that I have gone I simply can't come back again. Not + yet. Perhaps never, till I have done the things I want to do. + + "Of course you will be angry--it is so unexpected. But only + think--you would not be angry, would you, if I married? You + would have considered that perfectly legitimate. Yet it would + have meant my leaving you for good. And what marriage and + settling down in it is to other women, seeing the world and + wandering about in it is to me--it's the thing I care for most. + We do not talk about these things, so this is the first you have + heard of it. Think--if I had been very much in love with anyone + I would have said nothing about it till I was all but engaged to + him. It's the same thing. And it will make less difference to + you than my marriage would have made." + +Here Frida's pen had come to a stop; with a sudden flight from the +abstract to the concrete, she had begun a fresh argument on a fresh +page. + + "I only mean to use a third of my income. The other two thousand + will still go to keeping up the property. I have left everything + so that my work could be taken up by anybody to-morrow." + +The Colonel's eyes had dogged Durant's down to the bottom of the +sheet, when he made a nervous attempt to recapture the letter. It +was too late; the swing of Frida's impassioned pleading had carried +Durant over the page, and one terse sentence had printed itself +instantaneously on his brain. He handed back the letter without a +word. + +The Colonel drew Durant's arm in his and led him out through the +window on to the gravel drive. Up and down, up and down, they walked +for the space of one hour, while the Colonel poured out his soul. He +went bareheaded, he lifted up his face to the heavens, touched to a +deeper anguish by the beauty of the young day. + +"Lord, what a perfect morning! Look at this place she's left; look +at it! I've nursed the little property for her; it was as much hers +as if I was in my grave, Durant. She's lived in it for nearly thirty +years, ever since she was no higher than that flower-pot, and she +thinks nothing of leaving it. She thinks nothing of leaving _me_. +And I've got more work to do than my brain's fit for; why I was in +the very thick of my Primrose League correspondence, up to the neck +in all manner of accounts; and she knew it, and chose this time. +I've got to give a lecture next week in Whithorn parish-room, a +lecture on 'Imperialism,' and I've my little chronicle on hand, too; +but it's nothing to her. The whole thing's a mystery to me. I can't +think what can have made her do it. She never was a girl that cared +for gadding about, and for society and that. As for trying to make +me believe that I should be no worse off if she married, the +question has never risen, Durant. She hasn't married. She never even +wanted to be married. She never would have been married." + +"That makes it all the more natural that she should want to see +something of the world instead." + +"No, it's not natural. I could have understood her wanting to get +married, that's natural enough; but what's a woman got to do with +seeing the world? It's not as if she was my son, Durant." + +Durant listened and wondered. As far as he could make out, the +Colonel's attitude to his daughter was twofold. On the one hand, he +seemed to regard her as part of the little property, and as existing +for the sake of the little property, from which point of view she +had acquired a certain value in his eyes. On the other hand, he +looked upon her as an inferior part of Himself, and as existing for +the sake of Himself; it was a view old as the hills and the earth +they were made of, being the paternal side of the simple primeval +attitude of the man to the woman. And, seeing that the little +property was a mere drop in the ocean of the Colonel's egoism, this +view might be said to include the other as the greater includes the +less. On either theory Frida Tancred was not supposed to have any +rights, or, indeed, any substantial existence of her own; she was an +attribute, an adjunct. + +"Seeing the world--fiddlesticks! Don't tell me there isn't something +else at the bottom of it--it's an insult to my intelligence." + +As everything the Colonel did not understand was an insult to his +intelligence, his intelligence must have had to put up with an +extraordinary number of affronts. + +He leaned heavily on the young man's arm. "It's shaken me. I shall +never be the fellow I was. I can't understand it. Nobody could have +done more for any girl than I've done for Frida; and she deserts me, +Durant, deserts me in my old age with my strength failing." + +Durant vainly tried to make himself worthy of Frida Tancred's trust, +but he could add nothing to her reasoning, and she had kept her +best argument to the last,--"It will make less difference to you +than my marriage would have made." + +"After all, sir, will it make so very much difference if--if your +daughter does go away for a year or two?" + +"I can't say. I can't tell you that till I've tried it, my boy. It's +all too new to me, and I tell you I can't understand it." + +He trailed off with a slow and stricken movement, like a lesser +Lear, and reentered the house by the window of Frida's room. The +sight of the well-ordered writing-table subtilized for a moment his +sense of her desertion. + +"Look at that. She was my right hand, Maurice, and I can't realize +that she's gone. It's the queerest sensation; I feel as if she was +here and yet wasn't here." + +Durant said he had heard that people felt like that after the +amputation of their right hands. As for the wound, he hoped that +time would heal it. + +"Any soldier can tell you that old wounds will still bleed, Durant. +I think that was the luncheon bell." + +Lunch, over which the Colonel lingered lovingly and long, somewhat +obscured the freshness of the tragedy, and made it a thing of the +remoter past. An hour later he was playing with his little +rain-gauge on the lawn. At afternoon teatime he appeared +immaculately attired in the height of the fashion; brown boots, the +palest of pale gray summer suitings, a white pique waistcoat, the +least little luminous hint of green in his silk necktie, and he +seemed the spirit of youth incarnate. + +At this figure Durant smiled with a pity that was only two-thirds +contempt. He longed to ask him whether the old wound was bleeding +badly. He was bound to believe that the Colonel had a heart under +his immaculate waistcoat, with pulses and arteries the same as other +people's, his own unconquerable conviction being that if you pricked +the gentlemannikin he would bleed sawdust. + +The Colonel had scarcely swallowed his tea when Durant saw him +trotting off in the direction of the cottage; there was that about +him which, considering his recent bereavement, suggested an almost +indecent haste. He returned and sat down to dinner, flushed but +uncommunicative. He seemed aware that it was Durant's last night, +and it was after some weak attempts to give the meal a commemorative +and farewell character, half-festal, half-funereal, that he sank +into silence, and remained brooding over the ice pudding in his +attitude of owl-like inscrutability. But during the privacy of +dessert his mystic mood took flight; he hopped, as it were, onto a +higher perch; he stretched the wing of victory and gazed at it +admiringly; there was an effect as of the preening of young plumage, +the fluttering of innumerable feathers. + +And, with champagne running in his veins like the sap of spring, he +proclaimed his engagement to that charming lady, Mrs. Fazakerly. + +Durant had no sooner congratulated him on the event than he +remembered that he had left the postscript of Miss Tancred's letter +unanswered. She had said, "Write and tell me how he takes it"; she +had hoped that he would not be unhappy. So he wrote: "He took it +uncommonly well" (that was not strictly true, but Durant was +determined to set Frida Tancred's conscience at rest, even if he had +to tamper a little with his own). "I should not say that he will be +very unhappy. On the contrary, he has just assured me that he is +the happiest man on earth. He is engaged to be married to Mrs. +Fazakerly." + +It was a masterly stroke on Mrs. Fazakerly's part, and it had +followed so closely on the elopement (as closely, indeed, as +consequence on cause) that Durant had to admit that he had grossly +underrated the powers of this remarkable woman. He had been lost in +admiration of Miss Chatterton's elaborate intrigue and bold +independent action; but now he came to think of it, though Miss +Chatterton's style was more showy, Mrs. Fazakerly had played by far +the better game of the two. Durant, who had regarded himself as a +trump card up Mrs. Fazakerly's sleeve, perceived with a pang that he +had counted for nothing in the final move. Mrs. Fazakerly had not, +as he idiotically supposed, been greatly concerned with Frida +Tancred's attitude toward him. She had divined nothing, imagined +nothing, she had been both simpler and subtler than he knew. She had +desired the removal of Frida Tancred from her path, and at the right +moment she had produced Georgie Chatterton. She had played her +deliberately, staking everything on the move. Georgie's independence +had been purely illusory. She had appeared at Mrs. Fazakerly's +bidding, she had behaved as Mrs. Fazakerly had foreseen, she had +removed Frida Tancred, and Durant had been nowhere. Mrs. Fazakerly's +little gray eyes could read the characters of men and women at a +glance, and as instantly inferred their fitness or unfitness for her +purpose. She might be a poor hand at the game of whist, but at the +game of matrimony she was magnificent and supreme. + +Frida had said, "We sail to-morrow"; therefore, Durant walked all +the way to Whithorn-in-Arden to post his letter, so that it might +reach her before she left London. And as he came back across the +dewy path in the dim light, and Coton Manor raised its forehead +from the embrace of the woods and opened the long line of its dull +windows, he realized all that it had done for Frida. He understood +the abnegation and the tragedy of her life. She had been sacrificed, +not only to her father, but to her father's fetish, the property; +Coton Manor had to be kept up at all costs, and the cost had been +Frida's, it had been her mother's. The place had crushed and +consumed her spirit, as it swallowed up two-thirds of her material +inheritance; it had made the living woman as the dead. He remembered +how the house had been called her mother's monument, and how it had +become her own grave. Her soul had never lived there. And now that +she was gone it was as empty as the tomb from which the soul has +lifted the body at resurrection time. + +And he, too, was set at liberty. + +He left by the slow early train on Wednesday without waiting for the +afternoon express, his object being not so much to reach town as to +get away from Coton Manor. The Colonel accompanied him to the +station; and, to his infinite surprise and embarrassment, he found +Mrs. Fazakerly on the platform waiting to see him off. + +He could think of nothing nice to say to her about her engagement, +not even when she took possession of him with a hand on his arm, led +him away to the far end of the platform, and gazed expectantly into +his face. + +"You don't congratulate me, Mr. Durant." + +"On what?" he asked moodily. + +"On having done a good deed." + +"A good deed?" + +"Didn't I tell you there was nothing I wouldn't do for Frida +Tancred?" + +Incomparable cunning! To set herself right in his eyes and her own, +she was trying to persuade him that she had accepted the Colonel for +his daughter's sake. A good deed! Well, whatever else she had done, +and whatever her motives may have been, the deed remained; she had +set Frida Tancred free. Nevertheless, he could not be pleasant. + +"Self-sacrifice, no doubt, is a virtue," said he; "yet one draws the +line----" + +"Does one?" + +He felt a delicate pressure on his arm, the right touch, the light +touch. "Mr. Durant, you are dense, and you are ungrateful." + +"I don't see it." + +"Don't you see what I have done for you?" There was a strange light +behind the _pince-nez_ as she smiled up into his face. "I have +cleared the way." + +"For Miss Tancred, you mean," said Durant; thereby proving that in +her calculations as to his mean density Mrs. Fazakerly was not +altogether wrong. + +But Durant was always an imaginative man. And as he sped on the same +journey over the same rails, his imagination followed Frida Tancred +in her flight toward freedom and the unknown. + + + + +THE COSMOPOLITAN + +PART II + +OUTWARD BOUND + + +XIV + +After seven weeks in England Maurice Durant began to look back with +longing on the seven years he had spent away from it, and so turned +his back on Dover and his face to the South of France. Those three +weeks in Coton Manor had disgusted him with the country, another +three weeks in London had more than satisfied his passion for town. +It was there that he realized more keenly than anywhere else that he +was a foreigner in England, and he went abroad in order to feel +himself an Englishman again. + +Restless as ever, he spent two years wandering the world, then shut +himself up for three more in a little villa in the Apennines, and +worked as he had never worked before, with the result that at the +end of the five years, he found himself irresistibly drawn back to +England again. Gradually--very gradually--England was waking to the +fact that Maurice Durant was a clever painter; still more gradually +it had dawned on Maurice that he was becoming famous. His name had +traveled to London, as a name frequently does, via Paris and New +York, and Fame had lured him to London by dint of taking it up and +incessantly sounding it, not with a coarse and startling blast from +her favorite instrument, the trumpet, but with a delicate crescendo, +lyrically, subtly, insinuatingly, like a young siren performing on a +well-modulated flute. The trumpet, no doubt, would have deafened or +irritated him; but before he got sick of it the softer music was by +no means disagreeable to his ear. + +It seemed that he had scored a double success, being equally happy +in his landscapes and his portraits. The critics were divided. One +evening it would appear that, within the limits of his art, Maurice +Durant was the subtlest, the finest exponent of modern womanhood; +the next morning he would be told that he had rendered the beauty of +the divine visible world more imaginatively, more individually, than +any living artist, but that as a portrait painter he had yet to find +himself. These were the variations on the one familiar theme; for as +to his modernity, which was obvious, they were all agreed. But at +last he came across an account of himself which he acknowledged to +be more or less consistent and correct. It was the final +appreciation, the summing up of a judge who was said to be the only +man in England who had a right to his opinion. And this was his +opinion of Maurice Durant: + +"He stands in a unique and interesting position. On his right hand, +the hand he paints with, are the heights unattainable by any but +the great artists; on his left, the dizzy verge of popularity. As a +matter of fact, he is neither popular nor great. His just horror of +vulgarity will save him from the abyss; his equal fear of +committing himself, of letting himself go, the fear, shall I say, +of failure, of the fantastic or ridiculous attitudes a man +necessarily assumes in falling from a height, will keep him forever +from the loftier way. It is not that his temperament is naturally +timorous and cold; if he is afraid of anything, he is afraid of his +own rashness, his own heat. There are about him delicacies and +repugnances, a certain carefully cultivated restraint, and a +half-critical, half-imaginative caution which, we submit, is +incompatible with greatness in his art. But he has imagination." + +A little more praise or a little more blame, and he would have +suspected himself of genius; as it was, he was content to stand +distinguished from the ruck of the popular and the respectable by +virtue of that imagination which his critic had allowed to him. He +was not a great painter, and he knew it; but he was a brilliantly +clever one, and he knew that also, and in the fact and his intimate +knowledge of it lay the secret of his success. He kept a cool head +on his shoulders, and thus his position and the personal dignity +depending on it were secure. He would never tumble from his height +through the giddiness of vanity; and when the same high authority +kept on assuring the world, on the word of a critic, that Maurice +Durant was branded with the curse of cleverness, that he was the +victim of his own versatility, and that he had just missed +greatness, Maurice merely remarked that he was glad to hear it, for +he was sure that greatness would have bored him. + +Whether it was the same ungovernable terror that restrained him from +marrying, or whether he was the friend of too many women to be the +lover of one, or whether he really was self-contained and +self-sufficient, all this time he had remained single. His +singleness had many advantages; it kept him free; it made it easy +for him to get about from place to place and obtain an uninterrupted +view of the world; it left an open way for his abrupt incalculable +movements, his panic flights. + +And as he had always fled from everything that disturbed and +irritated him, so now, in the very middle of an English summer and a +London season, he was flying from the sound of his own fame. Not far +this time; only from the center to the verge, from Piccadilly +pavement to the south coast. He had hired a small cutter for a +month, and lived on board in much physical discomfort and +intellectual peace. He hardly knew it by sight, that beautiful full +face of his own country; but he was learning to know it as he sailed +from the white cliffs to the red, from the red to the gray and +black, the iron slopes and precipices of the Land's End. + +He had just returned from a fortnight's cruise, and was wondering +what he would do with the weeks that remained to him--whether he +would explore the west coast of England or set sail for the Channel +Islands--when he found himself, very lazy and very happy, lying at +anchor in a certain white-walled harbor in the south of Cornwall. A +neighboring regatta had carried off, the fleet of yachts that had +their moorings there, and the harbor was dotted with fishing-boats, +pilot-boats, ocean steamers, steam tugs, wherries, and such craft. +The little _Torch_, rocking madly on miniature waves as she played +with her chain, was almost alone in her lightness and frivolity. +About an hour before midnight Durant woke in his berth, and felt +this vivacity of hers increasing; larger waves lapped her and broke +against her sides, but overhead, on deck, there was no sign of a +wind. He got up, climbed the companion ladder, and put his head out +over the hatch. A schooner yacht had come in, and lay straining at +her cable in the narrow channel between the _Torch_ and a Portsmouth +pilot. She had only just put into harbor, for her crew were still +busy taking down her sails. As if it were her own movement alone +that made her visible, she swayed there, dimly discerned, while she +slipped her white canvas like a beauty disrobing in the dark, sail +by sail, till she stood naked under a veil of dusk, and the light +went up above her bows. + +A restless thing that schooner yacht; her canvas was hardly lowered +before it was up again. She had not long lain dreaming, passive to +the will of the tide. At sunrise she awoke, and what with her own +swinging and vibration, and the voices and trampling of her joyous, +red-capped, blue-jerseyed crew, there was no sleep for anyone in her +neighborhood after three o'clock. So Durant rolled out of his berth, +dressed hastily, and went on deck, eager to see her in her beauty, +robed for the morning and the wind. There she was, so near now that +he could almost have tipped a rope-end down her skylight from the +skylight of the _Torch_, every line of her exquisite body new-washed +in gold and shivering under the touches of the dawn. She was awake, +alive; the life that had still beaten through her dreams in the +night, stirred by the drowsy fingering of the harbor tide, was +throbbing and thrilling with many pulses as she shook out her +streamers to the wind. And now her mainsail went slowly up, and she +leapt and shuddered through all her being, passionate as though the +will of the wind was her will. + +Durant stared at her with undisguised admiration. She was a fair +size for her kind, and from the sounds that came up through her +cabin skylight he judged that she had a party on board. Standing +on the deck of the _Torch_ in his light flannels, Durant looked +much too long for his own ridiculously tiny cutter. He was so +deeply absorbed in spelling out the letters on the yacht's +life-belts--_Windward_--that he was quite unaware that he himself +was an object of considerable interest to a lady who had just come +on deck. Literally flying as he was from the sound of his own +name, he was unprepared to hear it sung out in cheerful greeting. + +"Mr. Durant!" + +He started and blinked, unable to recognize the lady of the voice. +Assuming that he had once known, and since forgotten her, he had +raised his cap on the chance. + +She was trying to say something to him now, but the noise of the +struggling sail cut off her words. She turned, and seemed to be +calling to somebody else. Another lady, whom the sail had hidden +from his sight till now, came forward and leaned eagerly over the +rail, steadying herself by the shrouds. This lady did not shout his +name; but, as her eyes met his across the narrow channel, she +smiled--a smile he could not place or recognize or understand; he +could only raise his cap to it blindly as before. + +She was smiling still, while the first lady laughed, if possible in +a more bewildering manner than before. "Don't you know us?" She +seemed to be whispering across the gulf. + +He shook his head in desperation, whereupon the second lady gave +orders to the men to stop hoisting the mainsail. + +"If you _are_ Mr. Durant, come on board!" + +This time the voice was distinct in the silence that followed the +hoisting of the sail. He knew that lady now. + +And he knew the other also, though there was nothing but the turn of +her head and the black accent over her eyes to remind him of Frida +Tancred. + + +XV + +"Well, is it all that you expected? Does the reality come up to the +dream?" + +"It does. I never knew a dream that tallied so exactly with the +reality." + +Frida was leaning back in a deck-chair, looking at Durant, who sat +beside her on the schooner's rail. + +For three days the _Windward_ had sailed up and down the coast of +Cornwall; for three days the little _Torch_, with all sails set, +wheeled round her moorings or followed her flight. Durant had +accepted Miss Tancred's invitation to join them in a week's cruise +in English waters. He spent his mornings in his own yacht, his +afternoons and evenings on board the schooner. The proposal had been +a godsend to him in his state of indecision. After his aimless +wanderings he was exhilarated by this eager challenge and pursuit, +absurdly pitting the speed of his own small craft against the +swiftness and strength of the larger vessel. But he enjoyed still +more sitting on the rail of the _Windward_ and talking to Frida. +There was something infinitely soothing in the society of a woman +who knew nothing and cared nothing about his fame. He was not the +only guest. Besides Miss Chatterton there was Mr. Manby, a little +middle-aged gentleman, who called himself an artist; Miss Manby, a +little middle-aged woman, who seemed to be his sister; and two +little girls with their hair down their backs, his daughters, Eileen +and Ermyntrude Manby. Durant was a good deal alone with Frida, for a +stiff breeze had kept the artist and his sister much below, and +Georgie and the little girls hardly counted. + +They were alone now. + +Frida had smiled as she spoke, a smile of intelligence and +reminiscence; and he was irresistibly reminded of the first and last +occasion when he had discoursed to her about realities. + +"And what are you going to do with it?" he asked. + +"With what? With the reality or the dream?" + +"With both, with life--now you've got it?" + +"Why should I do anything with it? Unless you're talking of moral +obligations, which would be very tiresome of you." + +"I'm not thinking of moral obligations." + +"What were you thinking of, then?" + +"I was thinking--of you." + +Frida lay back a little further on her cushion as if she were +withdrawing herself somewhat from his scrutiny. She clasped her +hands behind her head; her face was uptilted to the sky. + +His eyes followed her gaze. Over their heads the wind had piled up a +great palace of white clouds; under the rifted floors the blue sky +ran shallow in a faint milky turquoise, while above, between, beyond +those aerial roofs and pinnacles and domes it deepened to _lapis +lazuli_, luminous, transparent, light behind color and color behind +light. The green earth looked greener under the low-lying shafts of +blue and silver; far off, on the sea, the shadows of the clouds lay +like the stain of spilt red wine. + +"Who was the great man?" she asked with apparent irrelevance, "who +said that women were incapable of a disinterested passion for +nature?" + +He knitted his brows. Frida had proved a little disconcerting at +times. He had had to begin all over again with her, aware that, +though ostensibly renewing their old acquaintance, he was actually +making a new one, to which faint recognitions and perishing +reminiscences gave a bewildering, elusive charm. But Frida +remembered many things that he had forgotten, and a certain +directness and familiarity born of this superior memory of hers +puzzled him and put him out. This time, however, he had a dreamy +recollection. + +"Fancy your remembering that!" + +"I remember everything. At any rate, I remember quite enough to see +that you're just the same; you haven't changed a little bit. Except +that you don't look as you did the first night I met you." + +"And how did I look then?" + +She paused, carefully selecting her phrase. "You looked--as if--I'd +given you a shock. You had expected something different. That dream +did _not_ tally with the reality." + +"How on earth----" + +"How on earth did I know? You may not be aware of it, but you have a +very expressive face." + +"I was not aware of it." + +Poor Durant. His face was expressive enough now in all conscience. +She held out her hand and laid it on his sleeve, and he remembered +how she used to shrink from his touch. + +"My dear Mr. Durant, don't look like that; it makes my heart bleed. +Of course I saw it. I saw everything. I saw your face looking over +the banisters as I was going downstairs, when I've no doubt you +thought you'd caught sight of a very pretty woman; and I saw it with +a very different expression on it when you shook hands and found +that the woman wasn't a bit pretty, after all. Of course it was a +shock to you, and of course I understood. I knew so exactly how you +felt, and I was so sincerely sorry for you." + +"Sorry! I have a distinct recollection of being abominably rude to +you that night, and unpleasant afterward. Can you, will you forgive +me?" + +"What? Five years after the offense? No. I forgave you at the time; +I'm not going to do it all over again. What does it matter? It's all +so long ago. The funny part of it was that I wasn't a bit annoyed +with you, but I was furious with--whom do you think?" + +"I haven't a notion if it wasn't with me." + +"It was a she--the other lady, the woman I wasn't, the woman you +thought I was, my ideal self. Needless to say, my feminine jealousy +was such that I could have throttled her. I suppose I did pretty +well do for her as it happened. There can be nothing deader than a +dead idea." + +"Don't be too sure. I have known them come to life again." + +His gaze, that had fallen, and was resting on the hem of her blue +serge gown, now traveled up the long, slender line of her limbs, +past the dim curves of her body to the wonder of her face. How +marvelously changed she was! She was not only both younger and older +than when he had left her five years ago, she was another woman. The +heaviness had gone from her eyes and forehead, the bitter, +determined, self-restraint from her mouth and chin; instead of +self-restraint she had acquired that rarer virtue, self-possession. +Her lips had softened, had blossomed into the sweet red flower that +was part of Nature's original design. Her face had grown plastic to +her feeling and her thought. She was ripened and freshened by sun +and wind, by salt water and salt air; a certain nameless, intangible +grace that he had caught once, twice, long ago, and seen no more, +was now her abiding charm. The haggard, sallow-faced provincial, +with her inscrutable manners and tumultuous heart, had developed +into the finished cosmopolitan; she had about her the glory and +bloom of the world. For once his artist's instinct had failed him; +he had not discovered the promise of her physical beauty--but that +he should have ignored the finer possibilities of her soul! If she +had really known all that he had thought and felt about her then, +had understood and had yet forgiven him, Frida was unlike any other +woman in the world. He was not sure that this was not the secret of +her charm--the marvelous dexterity of her sympathy, the swiftness +with which she precipitated herself into his point of view. It had +its drawbacks; it meant that she could see another man's and her own +with equal clearness. + +The sound of voices from a neighboring cabin, followed by the noise +of unskillful footsteps stumbling up a companion ladder, warned them +that they were not alone. Mr. Manby appeared on deck with great +noise and circumstance, skating, struggling, clutching at impossible +supports, being much hampered by a camp stool and a sketching block +which he carried, and his own legs, which seemed hardly equal to +carrying him. Durant had recognized in the little artist a familiar +type. A small, nervous man, attired in the usual threadbare gray +trousers, the usual seedy velveteen coat and slouch hat, with a +great deal of grizzled hair tumbling in the usual disorder about his +peaked and peevish face. Durant sprang forward and helped this +pitiful figure to find its legs; not with purely benevolent +intentions, he settled it and its belongings in a secure (and +remote) position amidships. + +"Glad to see you back again!" Frida sang out. + +Mr. Manby screwed up his eyes, put his head very much on one side, +and peered into the wild face of Nature with a pale, propitiatory +smile. + +"Yes, yes; I mustn't neglect my opportunities. Every minute of this +weather is invaluable." + +"It strikes me," said Frida, as Durant established himself beside +her again, "that it's you artists whose devotion to Nature +is--well--not altogether disinterested." + +"Manby's affection seems to be pretty sincere; it stands the test of +seasickness." + +"Oh, Mr. Manby doesn't really care very much for nature or for art +either." + +"What does he try to paint pictures for, then?" + +"He tries to paint them for a living, for himself and the little +girls." And Frida looked tenderly at Mr. Manby as she spoke. + +At that moment Durant hated Mr. Manby with a deadly hatred. He had +gone so far as to find a malignant satisfaction in the thought that +Mr. Manby's pictures were bad, when he remembered that Frida had a +weakness for bad pictures. Art did not appeal to Frida. She talked +about Paris and Florence and Rome without a word of the Louvre or +the Uffizi Gallery or the Vatican. She didn't care a rap about +Raphael or Rubens, but she hampered herself with Manbys. + +"Is there a Mrs. Manby?" he asked gloomily. + +"No. Mrs. Manby died last year." + +"H'mph! Poor devil! Lucky for her, though." + +Frida ignored the implication. "To go back to the point we were +discussing. If you were honest you'd own that you only care for +nature because you can make pictures out of it. Now I, on the +contrary, have no ulterior motives; I don't want to make anything +out of it." + +"I wasn't talking about nature. I want to know what you are going to +make of your life." + +"There you are again. Why should I make anything of it? You talk as +if life were so much raw material to be worked into something that +it isn't. To my mind it's beautiful enough as it is. I should spoil +it if I tried to make anything of it." + +He looked at her and he understood. He was a man of talent, some +said of genius, but in her there was something greater than that; it +was the genius of temperament, an infinite capacity for taking +pleasures. To her life was more than mere raw material, it came +finished to her hands, because it had lived a long life in her soul. +Her dream had tallied. + +Beside that rich creative impulse, that divine imagination of hers, +his own appeared as something imitative and secondhand, and his art +essentially degraded. He was nothing better than a copyist, the +plagiarist of nature. + +He looked up to where Mr. Manby sat smiling over his sketching +block, Mr. Manby, surrounded by his admiring family. Mr. Manby did +not see them; he was wrapped in his dream, absorbed in his talent +with all its innocent enormities. He at any rate had no misgivings. +The little girls, Eileen and Ermyntrude, played about him; they +played with blocks and life-buoys and cables, they jumped over coils +of rope, they spun round to leeward till the wind wound their faces +in their long hair, they ran for'ard, shrieking with happy laughter +as they were caught by the showers of spray flung from the yacht's +bows. Frida's eyes followed them, and Durant's eyes followed +Frida's. + +"They are seeing the world, too, it seems." + +"Yes; they have caught the fever. But they are young, as you see; +they have taken it in time. Some day they'll be tired of wandering, +and they'll settle down in a house of their own, over here in +England, and be dear little wives and mothers." + +"Eileen and Ermyntrude--by the way, I never know which is Eileen and +which is Ermyntrude. And you, will you never be tired of wandering?" + +She looked at him with the lucid, penetrating gaze he knew so well. +"Never. I took the fever when I was--not young, and it goes harder +with you then. There's no hope for me; I shall never be cured." + +She rose and joined the Manbys. The little girls ran to meet her, +they clung to her skirts and danced round her; she put her arm round +Ermyntrude, the younger, and Durant saw her winding her long fingers +in and out of the golden hair, and looking down into the child's +face, Madonna-like, with humid, tender, maternal eyes. + +He thought of her as the mother of Manby's children, and he hated +the little girls. + +There was a voice at his elbow. "Isn't she splendid?" Miss +Chatterton had seated herself in Frida's chair. + +Her presence brought him instantaneous relief. He had been glad to +meet Miss Chatterton again. Not that he would have known her, for +time had not dealt very kindly with the young girl. Her face, from +overmuch play of expression, showed a few little wrinkles already, +her complexion had suffered the fate of sanguine complexions, it had +not gone altogether, but it was going--fast, the color was beginning +to run. But time had not subdued her extravagant spirits or touched +her imperishable mirth. In spite of a lapse of five years she gave +him a pleasant sense of continuity; she took him up exactly where +she had put him down, on the platform of the little wayside station +of Whithorn-in-Arden. Unlike Frida, Miss Chatterton had not +developed. When she began to talk she had the air of merely +continuing their last important conversation. + +"Didn't I tell you how she'd come out if she got her chance?" + +"You did." + +"And wasn't I right?" + +"You were." + +"But you oughtn't to have needed telling, you ought to have seen it +for yourself." + +"Right again. I ought to have seen it for myself." + +"He who will not when he may will live to fight another day; isn't +that how it goes on?" + +"Yes; I congratulate you on your work." + +"It isn't my work, lord bless you! nor yours, either--_there_ I was +wrong." + +"What is it, then?" + +Miss Chatterton stared out over the sea and into the universal air. +"Why, it's--it's everything! Of course you did something, so did I. +But if it comes to that, the present Mrs. Tancred did more than +either of us. We couldn't have married the Colonel." + +"Then you think that was the reason why she----" + +"I do, indeed. She could have had no other. You see she was awfully +fond of Frida. And, what's more, she was fond of you." + +It was his turn to look out over the sea. + +"What do you think? He has never forgiven her for going away, though +it happened to be the very thing he wanted. How's that for +inconsistency?" + +"Has she seen the--the Colonel since?" + +"She has. A strange, unaccountable longing to see the Colonel comes +over her periodically, like a madness, and she rushes home from the +ends of the earth. That's happened three times. It's the most +erratic and incalculable thing about her. But going home doesn't +answer." + +"I should hardly have thought it would." + +"Except that she's got the control of more money now. Tell you how +it happened. The last time she went home she found the poor little +Colonel making his little will. He asked her point-blank what she +meant to do with the property when he was in his little grave. He +must have had an inkling. And Frida, who is honesty itself, said she +didn't know, but she rather thought she would sell it and make for +the unexplored. Then he was frightened, and made her make a solemn +vow never to do anything of the kind. Somehow the property seems to +have recovered itself, with all she put into it; anyhow, after that, +it managed to disgorge another thousand a year. So Frida's more +independent than ever." + +Durant made an impatient movement that nearly sent him overboard to +the bottom of the sea, where, indeed, he wished that Frida Tancred's +thousands were lying. Georgie noticed the movement, and blushed for +the first time in their acquaintance. + +"Just look at those children," said she, "they simply adore Frida. +It's odd, but she's got the most curious power of making people +adore her. I don't know what she does to them, but waiters, +policemen, porters, customhouse officers, they're all the same. The +people in the hotels we stayed in adored her. So did the Arabs up +the Nile and the Soudanese in the desert, so did the Kaffirs on the +veldt and the coolies that carried her up the Himalayas--and she's +no light weight, is Frida." + +Georgie paused while her fancy followed Frida in delightful +retrospect. Durant said nothing, he sat waiting for her to go on. +She went on. + +"Women, too--I've seen them hanging about drafty corridors for hours +on the off chance of seeing her. There was a dreadful girl we knew +in Paris, who used to grovel on her doormat and weep because she +said Frida wouldn't speak to her. Frida loathed her, but she was +awfully nice to her till one day when she tripped over her on the +mat. Then she wasn't nice to her at all; she hauled her up by the +belt, and told her to get up and go away and never make such a fool +of herself again." + +Georgie cast at Durant a look that said, "That's how our Frida deals +with obstructives!" + +"And where was all this remarkable fascination five years ago?" + +"It was there all right enough, lying dormant, you know. I felt it. +Mrs. Fazakerly felt it--that's why she married the Colonel. You felt +it." + +"I didn't." + +"Excuse me, you did. That's why you stayed three weeks at Coton +Manor when you needn't have stopped three days. As for Mr. Manby +there, he simply worships the ground she treads on, as they say." + +"The devil he does! What's he doing here?" + +"As you see, he's painting pictures as hard as ever he can go. He +paints them in order to live; but as he has to live in order to +paint, Frida--well, between you and me, Frida keeps him and Eileen +and Ermyntrude, the whole family, in short. But that's a detail. It +isn't offered as any explanation of the charm. I don't believe that +anybody ever realizes that Frida has money." + +He could believe that. He had never realized it himself. Her +enjoyment of life was so finished an art that it kept its machinery +well out of sight. + +"Frida," Georgie serenely continued, "has a weakness for landscape +painters. The memory of her mother--no doubt." + +"Don't they--don't they bore her?" + +"No. It takes a great deal to bore Frida--naturally, after the +Colonel. Besides, she doesn't give them the chance. Nobody ever gets +what you may call a hold on Frida. There's so much more of her than +they can grasp. And there are, at least, three sides of her by which +she's unapproachable. One of them's her liberty. If you or I or the +little Manby man were to take liberties with her liberty Frida +would----" + +"What would Frida do?" + +"She would drop us down, very gently, at the nearest port, and make +for the Unexplored! And yet, I don't know. That's the lovely and +fascinating thing about Frida--that you never _do_ know." + + +XVI + +The fortnight's cruise was at an end, the _Torch_ had gone back to +her owners, without Durant, who had contrived to stay on board the +_Windward_ till the latest possible moment. The yacht was lying-to, +outside the same white-walled harbor where she had first found +Durant. She wheeled aimlessly about with slackened sails, swaying, +balancing, hovering like a bird on the wing, impervious and +restless, waiting for the return of the boat that was to take Durant +on shore. It had only just put off with the first load of +guests--the Manbys--under Georgie Chatterton's escort. As Durant +watched it diminishing and vanishing, he thought of how Georgie had +described their hostess's method of dealing with exacting friends. +She was dropping them, very gently, at the nearest port. Poor Manby! +And it would be his own turn next. And yet Georgie had said, "You +never know." He must and would know; at any rate, he would take his +chance. Meanwhile, he had a whole hour before him to find out in, +for the crew had commissions in the town. That hour was Frida's and +his own. + +The two weeks had gone he knew not how; and yet he had taken +count of the procession of the days. Days of clouds, when, under a +drenching mist, the land was sodden into the likeness of the sea, +the sea stilled into a leaden image of the land; days of rain, when +the wet decks shone like amber, and the sea's face was smoothed out +and pitted by the showers; days of sun, when they went with every +sail spread, over a warm, quivering sea, whose ripples bore the +shivered reflections of the sky in so many blue flames that leaped +and danced with the _Windward_ in her course; days of wind, when +the Channel was a race of tumultuous waves, green-hearted, +silver-lipped, swelling and breaking and swelling, and flowering +into foam, days when the yacht careened over with steep decks, laid +between wind and water, flush with the foam, driven by the wind as +by her soul; days when Durant and Frida, who delighted in rough +weather, sat out together on deck alone. They knew every sound of +that marvelous world, sounds of the calm, of water lapping against +the yacht's side, the tender, half-audible caress of the sea; +sounds of the coming gale, more seen than heard, more felt than +seen, the deep, long-drawn shudder of the sea when the wind's path +is as the rain's path; and that sound, the song of her soul, the +keen, high, exultant song that the wind sings, playing on her +shrouds as on a many-stringed instrument. The boat, in her unrest, +rolling, tossing, wheeling and flying, was herself so alive, so one +with the moving wind and water, and withal so slight a shell for +the humanity within her, that she had brought them, the man and the +woman, nearer and nearer to the heart of being; they touched +through her the deep elemental forces of the world. The sea had +joined what the land had kept asunder. At this last hour of +Durant's last day they were drifting rather than sailing past a +sunken shore, a fringe of gray slate, battered by the tide and +broken into thin layers, with edges keen as knives; above it, low +woods of dwarf oaks stretched northward, gray and phantasmal as the +shore, stunted and tortured into writhing, unearthly shapes by the +violence of storms. For here and now the sea had its way; it had +taken on reality; and earth was the phantom, the vanishing, the +vague. + +They had been pacing the deck together for some minutes, but at last +they stood still, looking landward. + +Durant sighed heavily and then he spoke. + +"Frida, you know what I am going to say----" + +They turned and faced each other. In the man's eyes there was a +cloud, in the woman's a light, a light of wonder and of terror. + +She smiled bravely through her fear. "Yes, I know what you are going +to say. But I don't know----" + +"What _don't_ you know?" + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"You don't know what I mean?" + +"I know you are going to say you love me, and you had better not. +For I don't know what that means. The thing you call love was left +out of my composition. Some women are born like that." + +"I don't believe it. It's only your way of saying that you don't +care for _me_." + +"I like you. I always have liked you. I'll go farther--if I ever +loved any man it would be you." + +"The fact remains that it isn't?" + +"It isn't, and it never will be. But you may be very certain that it +will never be anyone else." + +"Tell me one thing--was there ever a time when it might have been?" + +"That isn't fair. I can't answer that question." + +"You can. Think--was there ever a time, no matter how short, the +fraction of a minute, when if I'd only had the sense, if I had only +known----" + +"Are you sure you didn't know? I was afraid you did." + +"Then you really mean it--that if I'd only asked you then----" + +"Thank Heaven, you did not!" + +"Why are you thanking Heaven?" + +"Because--because--I can't be sure, but I might--I might have taken +you at your word." + +"And why not?" + +"I would have made a great mistake. The same mistake that you are +making now." + +"Mistake?" + +"You mistook the idea for the reality once, if you remember--and now +aren't you mistaking the reality for the idea?" + +"Frida, you are too subtle; you are the most exasperating woman in +the world----" + +"There, you see. That's the sort of thing we should always be saying +to each other if I let you have your way. But supposing you did have +it; if we were married we could not understand each other better +than we do; so we should not be one bit better off. By this time we +should have got beyond the phase we started with----" + +"But we should have _had_ it----" + +"Yes; and found ourselves precisely where we are now." + +"Where we were yesterday, you mean." + +"Yes. We were good enough friends yesterday." + +"And what are we to-day? Enemies?" + +She smiled sadly. "It looks like it. At any rate, we seem to have +some difficulty in understanding each other." + +"Good God! how coolly you talk about it! Understanding! Do you never +feel? Has it never even occurred to you that I can feel? Have you +any notion what it is to be made of flesh and blood and nerves, and +to have to stay here, squeezed up in this confounded boat, where I +can't get away from you?" + +"You can get away in three-quarters of an hour, and meanwhile, if +you like, you can go below." + +"If I did go below I should still feel you walking over my head. I +should hear you breathe. And now to look at you and touch you, and +know all the time that something sticks between us----" + +He stopped and looked before him. It was true that the sea had +brought them together. Amid the daemonic triumph and jubilation of +the power that claimed them for its own they, the man and the woman, +had been thrown on each other, they had looked into each other's +eyes, spirit to spirit, the divine thing struggling blind and +uncertain in nature's tangled mesh. But now, so near, on the verge +of the intangible, the divine, it came over Durant that after all it +was this their common nature, their flesh and blood, that was the +barrier; it merged them with the world on every side, but it hedged +them in and hid them from each other. + +"As you know, we're the best friends in the world; there's only one +thing that sticks between us--the eternal difference in our points +of view." + +"I was perfectly right. Why couldn't I trust my first impressions? I +thought you frigid and lucid and inhuman----" + +"Inhuman?" + +"Well, not a bit like a woman." + +"My dear Maurice, you are very like a man." + +"There's something about you----" + +"Really? What is it, do you think?" + +"Oh, nothing; a slight defect, that's all. It must be as you say, +and as I always thought, that you are incapable of feeling or +understanding feeling. I repeat, there's something about you----" + +"Ah, Maurice, if you want the truth, there's something about _you_. +I always knew, I felt that it was in you, though I wouldn't own that +it was there. Now I am sure. You've been doing your best to make me +sure." + +"What have I made you sure of?" + +"Sure that you are incapable, not of loving perhaps, but of loving a +certain kind of woman the way she wants to be loved. You can't help +it. As I said before, it is the difference in the point of view. We +should get no nearer if we talked till doomsday." + +"My point of view, as you call it, has entirely changed." + +"No. It is I who have changed. Your point of view is, and always +will be, the same." + +He tried hard to understand. + +"Does it come to this--that if I had loved you then you would have +loved me now?" + +"You couldn't have loved me then. You were not that sort." + +He understood her meaning and it maddened him. "It wasn't my fault. +How the devil was I to see?" + +"Exactly, how were you? There are some things which you can't see. +You can see everything you can paint, and, as you are a very clever +artist, I dare say you can paint most things you can see." + +"What has that got to do with it?" + +"Everything. It's your way all through. You love me because what you +see of me is changed. And yet all that time I was the same woman I +am now. I am the same woman I was then." + +"But I am not the same man!" + +"The very same. You have not changed at all." + +She meant that he was deficient in that spiritual imagination which +was her special power; she meant that she had perceived the implicit +baseness of his earlier attitude as a man to her as a woman, a woman +who had had no power to touch his senses. It was, as she had said, +the difference in their points of view; hers had condemned him +forever to the sensual and the seen. + +He stood ashamed before her. + +Yet, as if she had divined his shame and measured the anguish of it +and repented her, she laid her hand on his arm. + +"Maurice, it isn't entirely so. I have been horribly unjust." + +"Not you! You are justice incarnate. If I had loved you then----" + +"You couldn't have loved me then." + +"So you have just told me." + +"You had good cause. I was not and could not be then--whatever it is +that you love now." + +"But I might have seen----" + +"Seen? Seen? That's it. There was nothing to see." + +Her eyes, in her pity for him, filled with tears, tears that in his +anger he could not understand. + +"Why are you always reminding me of what I was five years ago? I +_have_ changed. Can't a man change if you give him five years to do +it in?" + +"Perhaps. It's a long time." + +"Time? It's an eternity. If I was a brute to you, do you suppose the +consciousness of my brutality isn't a far worse punishment than +anything I could have made you feel?" + +She raised her eyebrows. "What? Have you been suffering all this +time--this eternity?" + +"Yes. That is, I'm suffering enough now." + +"Then perhaps you have some idea of what you made me feel." + +"Again?" + +"It's the first time I've reproached you with it, even in my +thoughts." + +He looked at her with unbelieving eyes. And yet he knew that it was +true. Her sweetness, her lucidity, had been proof against the +supreme provocation. She had forgiven, if she had not forgotten, the +insult that no woman remembers and forgives. + +As his eyes wandered the hand that had lain so lightly on his arm +gripped it to command his attention, and he trembled through all his +being. But she no longer shrank from him; she kept her hold, she +tightened it, insisting. + +"Oh, Maurice! haven't I told you that I understood?" + +He smiled. "Yes. Thank God I can always appeal to your +understanding, if I can't get at your heart. Supposing I didn't care +for you then? Supposing I was too stupid to see what you were? Is +five years, though it may be eternity, so long a time to learn to +know you in? You take a great deal of learning, Frida; you are very +difficult. There's so much more of you than any man can grasp. But +you are the only woman I ever cared to know. I believe you have a +thousand sides to you, and every one--every one I can see--appeals +to me. There's no end to the interest. Whatever I see or don't see, +I always find something more, and I never could be tired of +looking." + +She sighed and was silent. + +"And you blame me because I couldn't see all this at once? Because +it took me five years to love you? Remember, you were very cautious; +you wouldn't let me see more than a bit at a time. But I love every +bit of you--heart and soul, and body and brain; I love you as I +never could love any other woman in the world--the world, Frida," he +added, pointing the hackneyed phrase. "You _are_ the world." + +They had never stopped pacing the deck together, as they talked, +turn after turn, alike and yet unlike in their eagerness and unrest. +Now they stood still. Far off they could see the returning boat, a +speck at the mouth of the harbor, and they knew that their time was +short. + +"Maurice," she said, "before you go I have a confession to make. I +wasn't quite honest with you just now when I said I only liked you +five years ago. I know very well that I loved you. The world has +taught me so much." + +The world! He frowned angrily as she said it. But through all his +anger he admired the reckless nobility of soul that had urged her to +that last admission, by way of softening the pangs and penalties she +dealt to him. Would any other woman have confessed as much to the +man who had once despised her, and now found himself in her power? + +She went on. "I thought you might like to know it. I've gone far +enough, perhaps; but I'll go farther still. I believe I would give +the world to be able to love you now." + +"Frida, if you can go as far as that----" + +"I can go no farther. No, Maurice, not one step." + +"You can. I believe, even now, I could make you love me." + +"No. You see, women in my position, my unfortunate position, want to +be loved for themselves." + +"I do love you for yourself. Do you doubt that, too?" + +"I do not doubt it. I am quite sure of it. That's where it is. I +know you love me for myself, and so many men have loved me--not for +myself. Do you suppose that doesn't touch me? If anything could make +me love you that would. And since it doesn't----" + +The inference was obvious. + +"Is it because you can't give up your life?" + +"It is--partly. And yet I might do that. I did it once." + +"You did, indeed. I can't conceive how you, being you, lived the +life you did----" + +"I owed it. It was the price of my freedom." + +Her freedom! No wonder that she valued it, if she had paid that +price! + +She went on dreamily, as if speaking more to herself than him. "To +have power over your life--to do what you like with it--take it up +or throw it down, to fling it away if that seems the best thing to +do. You're not fit to take up your life if you haven't the strength +to put it down, too." + +"Frida, if you were my wife you wouldn't have to put it down. I'm +not asking you to give up the world for me; I'm not even asking you +to give up one day of your life. Your life would be exactly what it +is now--plus one thing. You'll say, 'What can I give you that you +haven't got?' I can give you what you've never had. You don't know +what a man's love is and can be; and you must own that without that +knowledge your experience, even as experience, is not quite as +complete as it might be." + +The boat--the boat that was to take him to the shore--was getting +nearer. It was his last chance. And while he staked everything on +that chance, he thought of Frida as he had first seen her, as she +sat tragically at the whist table at Coton Manor, dealing out the +cards with deft and supple fingers. + +Now she was dealing out his fate. + +He remembered how she had said, "Mr. Durant wins because he doesn't +care about the game." Because he cared--cared so supremely--was he +going to lose? + +There were so many things in Frida that he had not reckoned with. +She was an extraordinary mixture of impulse and reserve, and she had +astonished him more than once by her readiness to give herself away; +but beyond a certain point--the point of view in fact--her +self-possession was complete. Still, he left no argument untried, +for there was no knowing--no knowing what undiscovered spring he +might chance to touch in that rich and subtle nature. + +Her self-possession was absolute. She parried his probe with a +thrust. + +"It is your own fault if my experience isn't complete. You should +have told me these things five years ago. As you say, nobody else +has instructed me since." + +"I dare say they've done their best. Of course, other men have loved +you----" + +"They haven't----" + +"But I believe my love would be worth more to you than theirs, for +the simple reason that I understand you too well to insist on it. I +should always know how much and how little you wanted. For we are +rather alike in some ways. I would leave you free." + +"I know you would. I am sure. And I would--I would so gladly--but I +can't! You see, Maurice, I _have_ loved you." + +"All the more reason----" + +"All the less. I knew what you thought and felt about me, and it +made no difference; I loved you just the same, because I understood. +Then I had to fight it. It was hard work, but I did it very +thoroughly. It will never have to be done again. Do you see?" + +Yes; he saw very plainly. If Frida could not love him there was +nobody but himself to blame. He also saw the advantage she had given +him. She had owned that she had loved him, and he had hardly +realized the full force of the pluperfect. What had been might be +again. She was a woman in whom the primordial passion, once +awakened, is eternal. + +He pressed his advantage home. + +"And why had you to fight so hard?" + +"Because the thing was stronger than myself, and I wouldn't be +beaten. Because I hated myself for caring for you, as I hate myself +now for not caring." + +In her blind pity she laid her fingers on his trembling hand. She +who used to drop his hand as if it had been flame, she should have +known better than to touch him now. + +He looked at her with hot hungry eyes. His brain in its feverish +intensity took note of trifles--the tortuous pattern of the braid on +her gown, the gold sleeve-links at her wrists, the specks of brine +that glistened on her temples under the wind-woven strands of her +black hair; it recorded these things and remembered them afterward. +And all the time the boat came nearer, and the slow, steady stroke +of the oars measured his hour by minutes, till the sweat, sprung +from the labor and passion of his nerves, stood out in beads on his +forehead. + +He looked at her; and her beauty, the beauty born of her freedom and +abounding life, the beauty he worshiped, was implacable; the +divinity in it remained untouched by his desire. + +"You needn't care," he said desperately. "I'm not asking you to +care; I'm not asking you to give me your love, but only to take +mine." + +She smiled. "I'm not so dishonest as to borrow what I can't repay." + +His voice was monotonous in its iteration. "I'm not talking about +repayment; I'll risk that. I don't want you to borrow it. I want you +to take it, keep it, spend it any way you like, and--throw it away +when you can't do anything more with it." + +"And never return it? Ah, my friend! we can't do these things." + +She dropped into the deck-chair, exhausted with the discussion. Her +brow was heavy with thought; she was still racking her brains to +find some argument that would appease him. + +"I loved you--yes. And in my own way I love you now, if you could +only be content with my way." + +"Haven't you told me that your way is not my way?" + +"Yes; and I've done worse than that. I've been talking to you as if +you had made me suffer tortures, as if you had brought me all the +pain of existence instead of all the pleasure. If you only knew! +There's nothing I've been enjoying all these five years that I don't +owe to you--to you and nobody else. You were very good to me even at +the first; and afterward--well, I believe I love life as few women +can love it, and it came to me through you. Do you think I can ever +forget that? Forget what I owe you? You stood by me and showed me +the way out; you stood by and opened the door of the world." + +To stand by and open the door for her--it was all he was good for. +In other words, she had made use of him. Well, had he not proposed +to make use of her? After all, in what did his view of her differ +from the Colonel's, which he abominated? All along, from the very +first, it had been the old theory of the woman for the man. Frida +for the Colonel's use, for his (Durant's) amusement, and now for his +possession. Under all its disguises it was only an exalted form of +the tyranny of sex. And Frida was making him see that there was +another way of looking at it--that a woman, like nature, like life, +may be an end in herself, to be loved for herself, not for what he +could make out of her. + +"I am a woman of the world, a worldly woman, if you like. I love the +world better than anyone in it. And I'm a sort of pantheist, I +suppose; I worship the world. But you will always be a part of the +world I love and worship; I could not keep you out of it if I +would." + +The exultation in her tone provoked his laughter. "Heaven bless +you--that's only a nice way of saying that I'm done for. + + 'He is made one with Nature; there is heard + His voice in all her music, from the moan + Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird.' + +You _have_ made a clean sweep of me and my personal immortality." + +The splash of the oars sounded nearer. They could hear the voices of +the crew; the boat, lightened of her first load, was returning with +horrible rapidity, it came dancing toward them in its malignant +glee; and they sat facing each other for the last time, tongue-tied. + +They had paced the deck together again; one more turn for the last +time. + +Durant was silent. Her confession was still ringing in his ears; +but it rang confusedly, it left his reason as unconvinced as his +heart was unsatisfied. + +She _had_ loved him, and not in her way, as she called it, but in +his. And that was a mystery. He felt that if he could account for it +he would have grasped the clue, the key of the position. Whatever +she might say, these things were more than subtleties of the pure +reason, they were matters of the heart. He was still building a hope +beyond the ruins of hope. + +"Frida," he said at last, "you are a wonderful woman, so I can +believe that you loved me. But, seeing what I was and what you knew +about me, I wonder why?" + +Louder and nearer they heard the stroke of the oars measuring the +minutes. Frida's eyes were fixed on the boat as she answered. + +"Why? Ah, Maurice, how many times have I asked myself that question? +Why does any woman love any man? As far as I can see, in nine +hundred cases out of a thousand woman is unhappy because she loves. +In the thousandth case she loves because she is unhappy." + +The boat had arrived. The oars knocked against the yacht's side with +a light shock. Durant's hour was at an end. + +Frida held out her hand. He hardly touched it, hardly raised his +eyes to her as she said "Good-bye." But on the last step of the +gangway he turned and looked at her--the woman in a thousand. + +She was not unhappy. + + +XVII + +Frida had played high and yet she had won the game of life; that +dangerous game which most women playing single-handed are bound to +lose. She had won, but whether by apathy or care, by skill or +divine chance, he could not tell. As to himself he was very certain; +when he might have won her he did not care to win, now that he had +lost her he would always care. That was just his way. + +Alone in the little hotel that looked over the harbor, left to the +tyrannous company of his own thoughts, he made a desperate effort to +understand her, to accept her point of view, to be, as she was, +comprehensive and generous and just. + +He believed every word she had ever said to him, for she was truth +itself; he believed her when she said that she had loved him, that +she loved him still. Of course she loved him; but how? + +They say that passion in a pure woman is first lit at the light of +the ideal, and burns downward from spirit to earth. But Frida's had +shot up full-flamed from the dark, kindled at the hot heart of +nature, thence it had taken to itself wings and flown to the ideal; +and for its insatiable longing there was no ideal but the whole. +Other women before Frida had loved the world too well; but for them +the world meant nothing but their own part and place in it. For +Frida it meant nothing short of the divine cosmos. Impossible to fix +her part and place in it; the woman was so merged with the object of +her desire. He, Maurice Durant, was as she had said a part of that +world, but he was not the whole; he was not even the half, that half +which for most women is more than the whole. From the first he had +been to her the symbol of a reality greater than himself; she loved +not him, but the world in him. And thus her love, like his own art, +had missed the touch of greatness. It was neither the joy nor the +tragedy of her life, but its one illuminating episode; or, rather, +it was the lyrical prologue to the grand drama of existence. + +He did her justice. It was not that she was changeable or +capricious, or that her love was weak; on the contrary, its very +nature was to grow out of all bounds of sex and mood and +circumstance. Its progress had been from Maurice Durant outward; +from Maurice, as the innermost kernel and heart of the world, to the +dim verge, the uttermost margin of the world; and that by a million +radiating paths. It was not that she left Maurice behind her, for +all those million paths led back to him, the man was the center of +her universe; but then the center is infinitely small compared with +the circumference. He saw himself diminished to a mathematical point +in this cosmopolitan's cosmos. For Frida he had ceased to have any +objective existence, he was an intellectual quantity, what the +Colonel would have called an abstraction. There was nothing for him +to do but to accept the transcendent position. + +Thus, through all the tension of his soul, his intellect still +struggled for comprehension. + +Meanwhile, from his window looking over the white-walled harbor, he +could see the _Windward_ with all her sails spread, outward bound. + +He watched her till there was nothing to be seen but her flying +sails, till the sails were one white wing on a dim violet sea, till +the white wing was a gray dot, indistinct on the margin of the +world. + + +XVIII + +He cared immensely. But not to come behind her in generosity and +comprehension he owned that he had no right to complain because this +remarkable woman loved the world better than one man, even if that +man happened to be himself; in fact, while his heart revolted +against it, his pure intellect admired her attitude, for the world +is a greater thing that any man in it. + +Now and again letters reached him across seas and continents, letters +with strange, outlandish postmarks, wonderful, graphic, triumphant +letters, which showed him plainly, though unintentionally, that Frida +Tancred was still on the winning side, that she could do without him. +Across seas and continents he watched her career with a sad and +cynical sympathy, as a man naturally watches a woman who triumphs +where he has failed. + +Meanwhile he lived on her letters, long and expansive, or short and +to the point. They proved a stimulating diet; they had so much of +her full-blooded personality in them. His own grew shorter and +shorter and more and more to the point, till at last he wrote: +"Delightful. Only tell me when you've had enough of it." + +The answer to that came bounding, as it were, from the other side of +the Atlantic. "Not yet. I shall never have enough of it. I've only +been 'seeing the world,' only traveling from point to point along an +infinite surface, and there's no satisfaction in that. I'm not +tired--not tired, Maurice, remember. I don't want to stop. I want to +strike down--deeper. It doesn't matter what point you take, so long +as you strike down. Just at present I'm off for India." + +Her postscript said: "If you ever hear of me doing queer things, +remember they were all in the day's pleasure or the day's work." + +He remembered--that Frida was only thirty-five; which was young for +Frida. And he said to himself, "It is all very well now, but what +will she be in another three years? I will give her another three +years. By that time she will be tired of the world, or the world +will be tired of her, which comes to the same thing, and her heart +(for she has a heart) will find her out. With Frida you never know. +I will wait and see." + +He waited. The three years passed; he saw nothing and he had ceased +to hear. He concluded that Frida still loved the world. + +As if in a passionate resentment against the rival that had +fascinated and won her, he had left off wandering and had buried +himself in an obscure Cornish village, where he gave himself up +to his work. He was not quite so successful as he had been; on +the other hand, he cared less than ever about success. It was the +end of the century, a century that had been forced by the +contemplation of such realities as plague and famine, and war and +rumors of war, to forego and forget the melancholy art of its +decadence. And from other causes Durant had fallen into a state +of extreme dissatisfaction with himself. Five years ago he had +found himself, as they said; found himself out, _he_ said, when +at the age of thirty-three he condemned himself and his art as +more decadent than the decadents. Frida Tancred had shown insight +when she reproached him with his inability to see anything that +he could not paint, or to paint anything that he could not see. +She had shown him the vanity of the sensuous aspect, she had +forced him to love the intangible, the unseen, till he had almost +come to believe that it was all he loved. The woman lived for him +in her divine form, as his imagination had first seen her, as an +Idea, an eternal dream. It was as if he could see nothing and +paint nothing else. And when a clever versatile artist of +Durant's type flings himself away in a mad struggle to give form +and color to the invisible it is not to be wondered at if the +world is puzzled and fights shy of him. + +Meanwhile the critic who had a right to his opinion said of him: +"Now that he has thrown the reins on the back of his imagination it +will carry him far. Ten years hence the world will realize that +Maurice Durant is a great painter. But in those ten years he must +work hard." + +As if to show how little he cared he left off working hard and +bestirred himself for news of Frida Tancred. + +It came at last--from Poona of all places. Frida wrote in high +spirits and at length. "I like writing to you," she said, "because I +can say what I like, because you always know--you've been there. +Where? Oh, everywhere where I've been, except Whithorn-in-Arden. +And, now I come to think of it, you were there, too--for a +fortnight" ("three weeks--three long weeks--and for your sake, +Frida!"). "No, I'm not 'coming home.' Why _must_ I 'stop somewhere'? +I can't stop, didn't I tell you? I can only strike down where it's +deepest. + +"It seems to be pretty deep here. If I could only understand these +people--but what European can? They mean something we don't mean.... +You should see my Munshi, a terrifically high-caste fellow with a +diminutive figure and unfathomable eyes. I am trying to learn +Sanscrit. He is trying to teach me. We sit opposite each other at a +bamboo table with an immense Sanscrit dictionary between us. He +smiles in his sleeve at my attempt to bridge the gulf between Europe +and Asia with a Sanscrit dictionary. He is always smiling at me in +his sleeve. I know it, and he knows that I know it, which endears me +to him very much. + +"My Munshi is a bottomless well of Western wisdom. He takes +anything that Europe can give him--art, literature, science, +metaphysics. He absorbs it all, and Heaven only knows what he is +going to do with it, or it with him. He swallows it as a juggler +swallows fire, and with about as much serious intention of +assimilating it. That smile of his intimates that the things that +matter to us do not matter to him; that nothing matters--neither +will nor conscience, nor pain nor passion, nor man nor woman, nor +life nor death. There's an attitude for you! + +"That attitude is my Munshi, and my Munshi is Asia." + +He smiled. He had seen Frida in many attitudes, Frida in love with +nothing, Frida in love with a person, Frida in love with a thing. +Here was Frida in love with an idea. It was just like her. She was +seeing Asia from the Asiatic point of view. + +"Meanwhile," she went on, "there's a greater gulf fixed between my +Munshi and my 'rickshaw coolie than there is between me and my +'rickshaw coolie, or my Munshi and me." + +He wondered if she meant to remind him that there was a still +greater gulf between him and her. + +"To-morrow I and two coolies are going up to Gujerat where the +famine is. I inclose a snapshot of the party. My effacement by the +coolie is merely a photographic freak--his grin is the broadest part +of him, poor fellow. In the autumn I go down to Bombay. I am deep in +bacteriology, which reminds me of father and the first time I met +you, and your bad puns." + +The snapshot was an unflattering likeness of Frida in a 'rickshaw. +The foreground was filled by the figure of the grinning coolie. +Behind him Frida's face showed dim and small and far-off; she was +smiling with the sun in her eyes. + +Such as it was he treasured it as his dearest possession. He had +been painting pictures all his life, but he had none of Frida. + +Silence again. "In the autumn," she had said, "I go down to Bombay." +But the autumn passed and there was no news of her. Durant provided +himself with an Indian outfit. He was going out to look for her; he +was ready to go to the ends of the world to find her. "The day after +to-morrow," he said, "I shall start for Bombay." + +That night he dreamed of her; or, rather, not of her, but of a +coolie who stood before the door of a wayside bungalow, and held in +his hands shafts that were not the shafts of a 'rickshaw. And the +coolie's face was all one broad grin. + +Two days later--the day he was to have sailed for India--hurriedly +skimming a column of the _Times_ he came upon the news he was +looking for. + +"It is with much regret that we record the death from bubonic plague +of Miss Frida Tancred. It was quite recently that this lady gave up +a large part of her fortune to founding the Bacteriological +Laboratory in Bombay, more recently still that she distinguished +herself by her services to the famine-stricken population of +Gujerat. Miss Tancred has added to the immense debt our Indian +Empire owes her by this final example of heroic self-sacrifice. It +is said that she contracted plague while nursing one of her coolies, +who has since recovered." + +He bowed his head. + +It was not grief he felt, but a savage exultant joy. The world could +have no more of her. She was his, in some inviolable, irrevocable +way. He knew. He understood her now, clearly and completely. + +His joy deepened to a passionless spiritual content; as if in the +fulness of his knowledge he had embraced the immortal part of her. + +Why had he not understood her long ago? She had never changed. As he +had first seen her, playing cards with her father in the +drawing-room at Coton Manor, as he had last seen her, pacing the +deck of the _Windward_, intoxicated with her freedom, as he saw her +now, bending her head over the plague-poisoned body of the coolie, +she was the same tender, resolute, passionate Frida, who ruined her +life and glorified it, laid it down and took it up again at her +will. And as he saw--would always see her, in this new light of her +death, she was smiling, as if she defied him to see anything +pathetic in it. + +She had loved the world, the mystic maddening beauty of it, the +divine darkness and glory of it. She had taken to her heart the +rapture and the pain of it. She had stretched out her hands to the +unexplored, to the unchanged and changing, the many-faced, +incomprehensible, finite, infinite Whole. + +And she had flung it all up; for what? + +For a 'rickshaw coolie's life?--Or for something--yet--beyond? + + + + + The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the + Macmillan novels + + + + +S. R. CROCKETT'S NEW NOVEL + + +SANDY + +By S. R. CROCKETT + +Author of "Patsy," "The Stickit Minister," etc. + +_With frontispiece in colors by R. Pearson Lawrence; decorated +Cloth, 12mo, $1.35 net; postpaid $1.47._ + +Up from his country home Sandy goes to London. And there he has his +great adventure. What it is and the story of his success and of his +love is told by Mr. Crockett in a fashion which will convince many +people that this is quite the most satisfactory novel he has ever +written. Full of the vigor of life, with a wit and humor that win +the reader even as they won his associates, Sandy is a cheery kind +of hero and the tale of his experiences of that inspiring type which +fires men--and women, too--on to the accomplishment of big things. +No less appealing a figure is V. V., the girl with whom Sandy falls +in love and who long before the book's close becomes his life +partner. Altogether "Sandy" thrills and exhilarates as does little +of the present day fiction. + +"There's always a good story in a Crockett novel, and has been +ever since the days of 'The Stickit Minister.' Sandy is a typical +new Scot, most modern and most masterful of all heroes in current +fiction.... As winning a heroine as any one could desire is +skillfully wrought into the warp and woof of Mr. Crockett's +fabric of narrative. Popular favor is likely to score one for +'Sandy'."--_Phila. North American._ + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + +The Reconnaissance + +By GORDON GARDINER + +_With frontispiece in colors by George Harper. Cloth, 12mo, $1.35 +net._ + +Unusual both in thought and in character is this briskly moving +story of adventure in which a young man ultimately finds himself. +The action is vigorous and the tale of the youth's endeavors to +overcome certain deep-rooted traits in his nature appealing. The +novel is distinguished by the vivacity and crispness of the author's +style. For the most part Mr. Gardiner reveals his theme and portrays +his people through dialogue, thus imbuing his book with a liveliness +and an alertness which the reader will find most pleasant. Opening +on the veldt in Africa with a situation of striking power and +originality, the scene, in the course of the plot, shifts to other +lands, bringing in a variety of well-drawn and interesting men and +women. Like A. E. W. 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