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diff --git a/33798-h/33798-h.htm b/33798-h/33798-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32dbe28 --- /dev/null +++ b/33798-h/33798-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22940 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sinister Street, vol. 2, by Compton Mackenzie.</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.25em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.25em;text-indent:1em;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + + h1,h4 {text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h2 {margin-top:5%;margin-bottom:3%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h3 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + +.rt {text-align:right;margin-right:5%;} + +.top5 {margin-top:5%;} + + hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} + + hr.full {width:100%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:15%;margin-right:15%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.blockquot {margin-top:5%; margin-bottom:5%; margin-left:5%; margin-right:5%;} + + sup {font-size:75%;} + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sinister Street, vol. 2, by Compton Mackenzie + +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: Sinister Street, vol. 2 + +Author: Compton Mackenzie + +Release Date: September 22, 2010 [EBook #33798] +[Last updated: April 21, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SINISTER STREET, VOL. 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="700" alt="bookcover" /> +</div> + +<h1>SINISTER<br />STREET</h1> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +COMPTON MACKENZIE<br /> +AUTHOR OF “CARNIVAL,” “YOUTH’S ENCOUNTER,” ETC.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb">NEW YORK<br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +1919</p> + +<p class="c">COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY<br /> D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_ONE">B<small>OOK</small> O<small>NE</small></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">DREAMING SPIRES</td></tr> + +<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> F<small>IRST</small> D<small>AY</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_003">3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> F<small>IRST</small> W<small>EEK</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_032">32</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> F<small>IRST</small> T<small>ERM</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td>C<small>HEYNE</small> W<small>ALK</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_063">63</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td>Y<small>OUTH’S</small> D<small>OMINATION</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_084">84</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td>G<small>RAY AND</small> B<small>LUE</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td>V<small>ENNER’S</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> O<small>XFORD</small> L<small>OOKING</small>-G<small>LASS</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> L<small>ESSON OF</small> S<small>PAIN</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_183">183</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td>S<small>TELLA IN</small> O<small>XFORD</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_209">209</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td>S<small>YMPATHY</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_225">225</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td><small>202</small> H<small>IGH</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_245">245</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td>P<small>LASHERS</small> M<small>EAD</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_269">269</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td>99 S<small>T.</small> G<small>ILES</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_288">288</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> T<small>ERM</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_308">308</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> W<small>EEK</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_319">319</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> D<small>AY</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_333">333</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_TWO">B<small>OOK</small> T<small>WO</small></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">ROMANTIC EDUCATION</td></tr> + +<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I-a">I.</a></td><td><small>OSTIA DITIS</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_349">349</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II-a">II.</a></td><td><small>NEPTUNE CRESCENT</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_371">371</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III-a">III.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> C<small>AFÉ</small> D’<small>ORANGE</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_401">401</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV-a">IV.</a></td><td>L<small>EPPARD</small> S<small>TREET</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_427">427</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V-a">V.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> I<small>NNERMOST</small> C<small>IRCLE</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_481">481</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI-a">VI.</a></td><td>T<small>INDERBOX</small> L<small>ANE</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_496">496</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII-a">VII.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> G<small>ATE OF</small> I<small>VORY</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_552">552</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII-a">VIII.</a></td><td>S<small>EEDS OF</small> P<small>OMEGRANATE</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_583">583</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX-a">IX.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> G<small>ATE OF</small> H<small>ORN</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_602">602</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X-a">X.</a></td><td>T<small>HE</small> O<small>LD</small> W<small>ORLD</small></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_652">652</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"><a href="#Epilogical_Letter">E<small>PILOGICAL</small> L<small>ETTER TO</small><br /> + J<small>OHN</small> N<small>ICOLAS</small> M<small>AVROGORADATO</small></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_655">655</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="BOOK_ONE" id="BOOK_ONE"></a>BOOK ONE<br /> +DREAMING SPIRES</h2> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Bright memories of young poetic pleasure</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">In free companionship, the loving stress</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of all life-beauty, lull’d in studious leisure,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">When every Muse was jocund with excess</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of fine delight and tremulous happiness;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The breath of an indolent unbridled June,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">Robert Bridges.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> +<h4>THE FIRST DAY</h4> + +<p>Michael felt glad to think he would start the adventure of Oxford from +Paddington. The simplicity of that railway station might faintly +mitigate alarms which no amount of previous deliberation could entirely +disperse. He remembered how once he had lightly seen off a Cambridge +friend from Liverpool Street and, looking back at the suburban tumult of +the Great Eastern Railway, he was grateful for the simplicity of +Paddington.</p> + +<p>Michael had been careful that all his heavy luggage should be sent in +advance; and he had shown himself gravely exacting toward Alan in this +matter of luggage, writing several times to remind him of his promise +not to appear on the platform with more than a portmanteau of moderate +size and a normal kit-bag. Michael hoped this precaution would prevent +at any rate the porters from commenting upon the freshness of him and +his friend.</p> + +<p>“Oxford train?” inquired a porter, as the hansom pulled up. Michael +nodded, and made up his mind to show his esteem when he tipped this +promethean.</p> + +<p>“Third class?” the porter went on. Michael mentally doubled the tip, for +he had neglected to assure himself beforehand about the etiquette of +class, and nothing could have suited so well his self-consciousness as +this information casually yielded.<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<p>“Let me see, you didn’t have any golf-clubs, did you, sir?” asked the +porter.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head regretfully, for as he looked hurriedly up and +down the platform in search of Alan, he perceived golf-clubs everywhere, +and when at last he saw him, actually even he had a golf-bag slung over +his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I never knew you played golf,” said Michael indignantly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t. These are the governor’s. He’s given up playing,” Alan +explained.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to play?” Michael pursued. He was feeling rather envious +of the appearance of these veteran implements.</p> + +<p>“I may have a shot,” Alan admitted.</p> + +<p>“You might have told me you were going to bring them,” Michael grumbled.</p> + +<p>“My dear old ass, I never knew I was, until the governor wanged them +into my lap just as I was starting.”</p> + +<p>Michael turned aside and bought a number of papers, far too many for the +short journey. Indeed, all the way they lay on the rack unregarded, +while the train crossed and recrossed the silver Thames. At first he was +often conscious of the other undergraduates in the compartment, who +seemed to be eying him with a puzzled contempt; but very soon, when he +perceived that this manner of looking at one’s neighbor was general, he +became reconciled to the attitude and ascribed it to a habit of mind +rather than to the expression of any individual distaste. Then suddenly, +as Michael was gazing out of the window, the pearly sky broke into +spires and pinnacles and domes and towers. He caught his breath for one +bewitched moment, before he busied himself with the luggage on the rack.</p> + +<p>On the platform Michael and Alan decided to part<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> company, as neither of +them felt sure enough whether St. Mary’s or Christ Church were nearer to +the station to risk a joint hansom.</p> + +<p>“Shall I come and see you this afternoon?” Michael rashly offered.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather,” Alan agreed, and they turned away from one another to +secure their cabs.</p> + +<p>All the time that Michael was driving to St. Mary’s, he was regretting +he had not urged Alan to visit him first. A growing sensation of shy +dread was making him vow that once safe in his own rooms at St. Mary’s +nothing should drag him forth again that day. What on earth would he say +when he arrived at the college? Would he have to announce himself? How +would he find his rooms? On these points he had pestered several Old +Jacobeans now at Oxford, but none of them could remember the precise +ceremonies of arrival. Michael leaned back in the hansom and cursed +their inefficient memories.</p> + +<p>Then the cab pulled up by the St. Mary’s lodge, and events proceeded +with unexpected rapidity. A cheerful man with red hair and a round face +welcomed his luggage. The cabman was paid the double of his correct +fare, and to Michael’s relief drove off instantly. From a sort of glass +case that filled half the interior of the lodge somebody very much like +a family butler inquired richly who Michael was.</p> + +<p>“Mr. C. M. S. Fane?” rolled out the unctuous man.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“Is there another Fane?” he asked curiously.</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” said the head porter, and the negative came out with the +sound of a drawn cork. “No, sir, but I wished to hessateen if I had your +initials down correct in my list. Mr. C. M. S. Fane,” he went on, +looking at a piece of paper. “St. Cuthbert’s. Four. Two pair right. Your +servant<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> is Porcher. Your luggage has arrived, and perhaps you’ll settle +with me presently. Henry will show you to your rooms. Henry! St. +Cuthbert’s. Four. Two pair right.”</p> + +<p>The red-headed under-porter picked up Michael’s bag, and Michael was +preparing to follow him at once, when the unctuous man held up a warning +hand. Then he turned to look into a large square pigeon-hole labeled +Porcher.</p> + +<p>“These letters are for you, sir,” he explained pompously. Michael took +them, and in a dream followed Henry under a great gothic gateway, and +along a gravel path. In a doorway numbered IV, Henry stopped and shouted +“Porcher!” From an echoing vault came a cry in answer, and the scout +appeared.</p> + +<p>“One of your gentlemen arrived,” said Henry. “Mr. Fane.” Then he touched +his cap and retired.</p> + +<p>“Any more luggage in the lodge, sir?” Porcher asked.</p> + +<p>“Not much,” said Michael apologetically.</p> + +<p>“There’s a nice lot of stuff in your rooms,” Porcher informed him. “Come +in yesterday morning, it did.”</p> + +<p>They were mounting the stone stairway, and on each of the floors Michael +was made mechanically aware by a printed notice above a water-tap that +no slops must be emptied there. This prohibition stuck in his mind +somehow as the first ascetic demand of the university.</p> + +<p>“These are your rooms, sir, and when you want me, you’ll shout, of +course. I’m just unpacking Mr. Lonsdale’s wine.”</p> + +<p>Michael was conscious of pale October sunlight upon the heaped-up +packing-cases; he was conscious of the unnatural brilliancy of the fire +in the sunlight; he was conscious that life at Oxford was conducted with +much finer amenities than life at school. Simultaneously he was aware of +a loneliness; yet as he once more turned to survey his room, it was a +fleeting loneliness which quickly perished in the satisfaction<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> of a +privacy that hitherto he had never possessed. He turned into the +bedroom, and looked out across the quad, across the rectangle of vivid +green grass, across the Warden’s garden with its faint gaiety of +autumnal flowers and tufted gray walls, and beyond to where the elms of +the deer-park were massed against the thin sky and the deer moved in +leisurely files about the spare sunlight.</p> + +<p>It did not take Michael long to arrange his clothes; and then the +problem of undoing the packing-cases presented itself. A hammer would be +necessary, and a chisel. He must shout for Porcher. Shouting in the +tremulous peace of this October morning would inevitably attract more +attention to himself than would be pleasant, and he postponed the +summons in favor of an examination of his letters. One after another he +opened them, and every one was the advertisement of a tailor or +hairdresser or tobacconist. The tailors were the most insistent; they +even went so far as to announce that representatives would call upon him +at his pleasure. Michael made up his mind to order his cap and gown +after lunch. Lunch! How should he obtain lunch? Where should he obtain +lunch? When should he obtain lunch? Obviously there must be some precise +manner of obtaining lunch, some ritual consecrated by generations of St. +Mary’s men. The loneliness came back triumphant, and plunged him +dejectedly down into a surprisingly deep wicker-chair. The fire crackled +in the silence, and the problem of lunch remained insoluble. The need +for Porcher’s advice became more desperate. Other freshmen before him +must have depended upon their scout’s experience. He began to practice +calling Porcher in accents so low that they acquired a tender and +reproachful significance. Michael braced himself for the performance +after these choked and muffled rehearsals, and went boldly out on to the +stone landing. An almost entranced silence held the<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> staircase, a +silence that he could not bring himself to violate. On the door of the +rooms opposite he read his neighbor’s name—<i>Mackintosh</i>. He wished he +knew whether Mackintosh were a freshman. It would be delightful to make +him share the responsibility of summoning Porcher from his task of +arranging Lonsdale’s wine. And who was Lonsdale? <i>No slops must be +emptied here! Mackintosh! Fane!</i> Here were three announcements hinting +at humanity in a desolation of stillness. Michael reading his own name +gathered confidence and a volume of breath, leaned over the stone +parapet of the landing and, losing all his courage in a sigh, decided to +walk downstairs and take his chance of meeting Porcher on the way.</p> + +<p>On the floor beneath Michael read <i>Bannerman</i> over the left-hand door +and <i>Templeton-Collins</i> over the right-hand door. While he was pondering +the personality and status of Templeton-Collins, presumably the +gentleman himself appeared, stared at Michael very deliberately, came +forward and, leaning over the parapet, yelled in a voice that combined +rage, protest, disappointment and appeal with the maximum of sound: +“Porcher!” After which, Templeton-Collins again stared very deliberately +at Michael and retired into his room, while Michael hurried down to +intercept the scout, hoping his dismay at Templeton-Collins’ impatience +would not be too great to allow him to pay a moment’s attention to +himself.</p> + +<p>However, on the ground floor the silence was still unbroken, and +hopelessly Michael read over the right-hand door <i>Amherst</i>, over the +left-hand door <i>Lonsdale</i>. What critical moment had arrived in the +unpacking of Lonsdale’s wine to make the scout so heedless of +Templeton-Collins’ call? Again it resounded from above, and Michael +looking up involuntarily, caught the downward glance of +Templeton-Collins himself.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p>“I say, is Porcher down there?” the latter asked fretfully.</p> + +<p>“I think he’s unpacking Lonsdale’s wine.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s Lonsdale?” demanded Templeton-Collins. “You might sing out and +tell him I want him.”</p> + +<p>With this request Templeton-Collins vanished, leaving Michael in a +quandary. There was only one hope of relieving the intolerable +situation, he thought, which was to shout “Porcher” from where he was +standing. This he did at the very moment the scout emerged from +Lonsdale’s rooms.</p> + +<p>“Coming, sir,” said Porcher in an aggrieved voice.</p> + +<p>“I think Mr. Templeton-Collins is calling you,” Michael explained, +rather lamely he felt, since it must have been obvious to the scout that +Michael himself had been calling him.</p> + +<p>“And I say,” he added hurriedly, “you might bring me up a hammer or +something to open my boxes, when you’ve done.”</p> + +<p>Leaving Porcher to appease the outraged Templeton-Collins, Michael +retreated to the security of his own rooms, where in a few minutes the +scout appeared to raise the question of lunch.</p> + +<p>“Will you take commons, sir?”</p> + +<p>Michael looked perplexed.</p> + +<p>“Commons is bread and cheese. Most of my gentlemen takes commons. If you +want anything extra, you go to the kitchen and write your name down for +what you want.”</p> + +<p>This sounded too difficult, and Michael gratefully chose commons.</p> + +<p>“Ale, sir?”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. If the scout had suggested champagne, he would have +assented immediately.</p> + +<p>Porcher set to work and undid the cases; he also explained where the +china was kept and the wood and the coal. He<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> expounded the theory of +roll-calls and chapels, and was indeed so generous with information on +every point of college existence that Michael would have been glad to +retain his services for the afternoon.</p> + +<p>“And the other men on this staircase?” Michael asked, “are any of them +freshers?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Mackintosh, Mr. Amherst, and the Honorable Lonsdale is all +freshmen. Mr. Templeton-Collins and Mr. Bannerman is second year. Mr. +Templeton-Collins had the rooms on the ground floor last term. Very +noisy gentleman. Very fond of practicing with a coach-horn. And he don’t +improve,” said Porcher meditatively.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean on the coach-horn?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Don’t improve in the way of noise. Noise seems to regular delight him. +He’d shout the head off of a deaf man. Did you bring any wine, sir?”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Lonsdale brought too much. Too much. It’s easier to order it as you +want it from the Junior Common Room. Anything else, sir?”</p> + +<p>Michael tried to think of something to detain for a while the voluble +service of Porcher, but as he seemed anxious to be gone, he confessed +there was nothing.</p> + +<p>Left alone again, Michael began to unpack his pictures. Somehow those +black and red scenes of Montmartre and the landscapes of the Sussex +downs with a slight atmosphere of Japan seemed to him unsatisfactory in +this new room, and he hung them forthwith in his bedroom. For his +sitting-room he resolved to buy certain pictures that for a long time he +had coveted—Mona Lisa and Primavera and Rembrandt’s Knight in Armor and +Montegna’s St. George. Those other relics of faded and jejune +aspirations would label him too definitely. People would see them +hanging on his walls and consider him a decadent. Michael<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> did not wish +to be labeled in his first term. Oxford promised too much of +intellectual romance and adventure for him to set out upon his Odyssey +with the stepping-stones of dead tastes hung round his neck. Oxford +should be approached with a stainless curiosity. Already he felt that +she would only yield her secret in return for absolute surrender. This +the grave city demanded.</p> + +<p>After his pictures Michael unpacked his books. The deep shelves set in +the wall beside the fireplace looked alluring in their emptiness, but +when he had set out in line all the books he possessed, they seemed a +scanty and undistinguished crowd. The pirated American edition of +Swinburne alone carried itself with an air: the Shelley and the Keats +were really editions better suited to the glass and gloom of a seaside +lodging: the school-books looked like trippers usurping the gothic +grandeur of these shelves. Moreover, the space was eked out with +tattered paper editions that with too much room at their disposal +collapsed with an appearance of ill-favored intoxication. Michael +examined his possessions in critical discontent. They seemed to +symbolize the unpleasant crudity of youth. In the familiar surroundings +of childhood they had seemed on the contrary to testify to his maturity. +Now at Oxford he felt most abominably young again, yet he was able to +console himself with the thought that youth would be no handicap among +his peers. He took down the scenes of Montmartre even from the walls of +his bedroom and pushed them ignominiously out of sight under the bed.</p> + +<p>Michael abandoned the contemplation of his possessions, and looked out +of his sitting-room window at the High. There was something salutary in +the jangle of the trams, in the vision of ordinary people moving +unconsciously about the academic magnificence of Oxford. An +undergraduate with gown wrapped carelessly round his neck flashed past<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> +on a bicycle, and Michael was discouraged by the sense of his diabolic +ease. The luxury of his own rooms, the conviction of his new +independence, the excitement of an undiscovered life all departed from +him, and he was left with nothing but a loneliness more bitter even than +when at Randell House he had first encountered school.</p> + +<p>Porcher came in presently with lunch, and the commons of bread and +cheese with the ale foaming in a silver tankard added the final touch to +Michael’s depression. He thought that nothing in the world, could +express the spirit of loneliness so perfectly as a sparse lunch laid for +one on a large table. He wandered away from its melancholy invitation +into the bedroom and looked sadly down into the quad. In every doorway +stood knots of senior men talking: continually came new arrivals to hail +familiarly their friends after the vacation: scouts hurried to and fro +with trays of food: from window to window gossip, greetings, +appointments were merrily shouted. Michael watched this scene of +intimate movement played against the background of elms and gray walls. +The golden fume of the October weather transcended somehow all +impermanence, and he felt with a sudden springing of imagination that so +had this scene been played before, that so forever would it be played +for generations to come. Yet for him as yet outside the picture +remained, fortunately less eternal, that solitary lunch. He ate it +hurriedly and as soon as he had finished set out to find Alan at Christ +Church.</p> + +<p>Freedom came back with the elation of walking up the High; and in the +Christ Church lodge Michael was able to ask without a blush for Alan’s +rooms. The great space of Tom quad by absorbing his self-consciousness +allowed him to feel himself an unit of the small and decorative +population that enhanced the architecture there. The scattered, groups +of friends whose voices became part of the very air itself<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> like the +wings of the pigeons and the perpetual tapping of footsteps, the two +dons treading in slow confabulation that wide flagged terrace, even +himself were here forever. Michael captured again in that moment the +crystallized vision of Oxford which had first been vouchsafed to him +long ago by that old print of St. Mary’s tower. He turned reluctantly +away from Tom quad, and going on to seek Alan in Meadows, by mistake +found himself in Peckwater. A tall fair undergraduate was standing alone +in the center of the quad, cracking a whip. Suddenly Michael realized +that his father had been at Christ Church; and this tall fair +whip-cracker served for him as the symbol of his father. He must have +often stood here so, cracking a whip; and Michael never came into +Peckwater without recreating him so occupied on a fine autumn afternoon, +whip in hand, very tall and very fair in the glinting sunlight.</p> + +<p>Dreams faded out, when Michael ran up the staircase to Alan’s rooms; but +he was full-charged again with all that suppressed intellectual +excitement which he had counted upon finding in Oxford, but which he had +failed to find until the wide tranquillity of Tom quad had given him, as +it were, the benediction of the University.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Alan!” he cried. “How are you getting on? I say, why do they +stick ‘Mr.’ in front of your name over the door? At St. Mary’s we drop +the ‘Mr.’ or any other sort of title. Aren’t you unpacked <i>yet?</i> You are +a slacker. Look here, I want you to come out with me at once. I’ve got +to get some more picture-wire and a gown and a picture of Mona Lisa.”</p> + +<p>“Mona how much?” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“La Gioconda, you ass.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry, my mistake,” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“And I saw some rattling book-shops as I came up the High,” Michael went +on. “What did you have for lunch?<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> I had bread and cheese—commons we +call it at St. Mary’s. I say, I think I’m glad I don’t have to wear a +scholar’s gown.”</p> + +<p>“I’m an exhibitioner,” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s the same thing. I like a commoner’s gown best. Where did you +get that tea-caddy? I don’t believe I’ve got one. Pretty good view from +your window. Mine looks out on the High.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” asked Alan very solemnly, “where shall I hang this picture +my mater gave me?”</p> + +<p>He displayed in a green frame The Soul’s Awakening.</p> + +<p>“Do you like it?” Michael asked gloomily.</p> + +<p>“I prefer these grouse by Thorburn that the governor gave me, but I like +them both in a way,” Alan admitted.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it much matters where you hang it,” Michael said. Then, +thinking Alan looked rather hurt, he added hastily: “You see it’s such a +very square room that practically it might go anywhere.”</p> + +<p>“Will you have a meringue?” Alan asked, proffering a crowded plate.</p> + +<p>“A meringue?” Michael repeated.</p> + +<p>“We’re rather famous for our meringues here,” said Alan gravely. “We +make them in the kitchen. I ordered a double lot in case you came in.”</p> + +<p>“You seem to have found out a good deal about Christ Church already,” +Michael observed.</p> + +<p>“The House,” Alan corrected. “We call it—in fact everybody calls it the +House.”</p> + +<p>Michael was inclined to resent this arrogation by a college not his own +of a distinct and slightly affected piece of nomenclature, and he wished +he possessed enough knowledge of his own peculiar college customs to +counter Alan’s display.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<p>“Well, hurry up and come out of the House,” he urged. “You can’t stay +here unpacking all the afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you want to start buying things straight away?” Alan argued.</p> + +<p>“Because I know what I want,” Michael insisted.</p> + +<p>“Since when?” Alan demanded. “I’m not going to buy anything for a bit.”</p> + +<p>“Come on, come on,” Michael urged. He was in a hurry to enjoy the luxury +of traversing the quads of Christ Church in company, of strolling down +the High in company, of looking into shop windows in company, of finally +defeating that first dismal loneliness with Alan and his company.</p> + +<p>It certainly proved to be a lavish afternoon. Michael bought three +straight-grained pipes so substantially silvered that they made his own +old pipes take on an attenuated vulgarity. He bought an obese tobacco +jar blazoned with the arms of his college and, similarly blazoned, a +protuberant utensil for matches. He bought numerous ounces of those +prodigally displayed mixtures of tobacco, every one of which was vouched +for by the vendor as in its own way the perfect blend. He bought his cap +and his gown and was measured by the tailor for a coat of Harris tweed +such as everybody seemed to wear. He found the very autotype of Mona +Lisa he coveted, and farther he was persuaded by the picture-dealer to +buy for two guineas a signed proof of a small copperplate engraving of +the Primavera. This expenditure frightened him from buying any more +pictures that afternoon and seemed a violent and sudden extravagance. +However, he paid a visit to the Bank where, after signing his name +several times, he was presented with a check book. In order to be +perfectly sure he knew how to draw a check, he wrote one then and there, +and the five sovereigns the clerk shoveled out as irreverently as if +they were chocolate creams,<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> made him feel that his new check-book was +the purse of Fortunatus.</p> + +<p>Michael quickly recovered from the slight feeling of guilt that the +purchase of the Botticelli print had laid upon his conscience, and in +order to assert his independence in the face of Alan’s continuous +dissuasion, he bought a hookah, a miniature five-barred gate for a +pipe-rack, a mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder which he dropped on the +pavement outside the shop and broke in pieces, and finally seven ties of +knitted silk.</p> + +<p>By this time Michael and Alan had reached the Oriental Café in +Cornmarket Street; and since it was now five o’clock and neither of them +felt inclined to accept the responsibility of inviting the other back to +tea, they went into the café and ate a quantity of hot buttered toast +and parti-colored cakes. The only thing that marred their enjoyment and +faintly disturbed their equanimity was the entrance of three exquisitely +untidy undergraduates who stood for a moment in the doorway and surveyed +first the crowded café in general, and then more particularly Michael +and Alan with an expression of outraged contempt. After a prolonged +stare one of them exclaimed in throaty scorn:</p> + +<p>“Oh, god, the place is chock full of damned freshers!”</p> + +<p>Whereupon he and his companions strode out again.</p> + +<p>Michael and Alan looked at each other abashed. The flavor had departed +from the tea: the brilliant hues of the cakes had paled: the waitress +seemed to have become suddenly critical and haughty. Michael and Alan +paid their bill and went out.</p> + +<p>“Are you coming back to my rooms?” Michael asked. Yet secretly he half +hoped that Alan would refuse. Dusk was falling, and he was anxious to be +alone while the twilight wound itself about this gray city.<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a></p> + +<p>Alan said he wanted to finish unpacking, and Michael left him quickly, +promising to meet him again to-morrow.</p> + +<p>Michael did not wander far in that dusk of fading spires and towers, for +a bookshop glowing like a jewel in the gloom of an ancient street lured +him within. It was empty save for the owner, a low-voiced man with a +thin pointed beard who as he stood there among his books seemed to +Michael strangely in tune with his romantic surroundings, as much in +tune as some old painting by Vandyck would have seemed leaning against +the shelves of books.</p> + +<p>A little wearily, almost cynically, Mr. Lampard bade Michael good +evening.</p> + +<p>“May I look round?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>The bookseller nodded.</p> + +<p>“Just come up?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“To-day,” Michael confessed.</p> + +<p>“And what sort of books are you interested in?”</p> + +<p>“All books,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“This set of Pater for instance,” the bookseller suggested, handing +Michael a volume bound in thick sea-green cloth and richly stamped with +a golden monogram. “Nine volumes. Seven pounds ten, or six pounds +fifteen cash.” This information he added in a note of disdainful +tolerance.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head and looked amused by the offer.</p> + +<p>“Of course, nobody really cares for books nowadays,” Mr. Lampard went +on. “In the early ‘nineties it was different. Then everybody cared for +books.”</p> + +<p>Michael resented this slur upon the generation to which he belonged.</p> + +<p>“Seven pounds ten,” he repeated doubtfully. How well those solid +sea-green volumes would become the stately bookshelves of his room.</p> + +<p>“What college?” asked Mr. Lampard. “St. Mary’s? Ah, there used to be +some great buyers there. Let me see,<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> Lord William Vaughan, the Marquis +of Montgomery’s son, was at St. Mary’s, and Mr. Richard Meysey. I +published his first volume of poems—of course, you’ve read his books. +He was at St. Mary’s. Then there was Mr. Chalfont and Mr. Weymouth. +You’ve heard of The Patchbox? I still have some copies of the first +number, but they’re getting very scarce. All St. Mary’s men and all +great book buyers. But Oxford has changed in the last few years. I +really don’t know why I go on selling books, or rather why I go on not +selling them.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Lampard laughed and twisted his beard with fingers that were very +thin and white. Outside in the darkness a footfall echoed along some +entry. The sound gave to Michael a sense of communion with the past, and +the ghosts of bygone loiterers were at his elbow.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps after all I will take the Pater,” he said. “Only I may not be +able to pay you this term.”</p> + +<p>The bookseller smiled.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I shall worry you. Do you know this set—Boccaccio, +Rabelais, Straparola, Masuccio, etc. Eleven guineas bound in watered +silk. They’ll always keep their price, and of course all the +photogravures are included.”</p> + +<p>“All right. You might send them too.”</p> + +<p>Michael could not resist the swish of the watered silk as Volume One of +the Decameron was put back into its vacancy. And as he hurried down to +College the thought that he had spent nineteen pounds one shilling +scarcely weighed against the imagination of lamplight making luminous +those silken backs of faded blue and green and red and gold, against +those silk markers and the consciousness that now at last he was a buyer +of books, a buyer whose spirit would haunt that bookshop. He had +certainly never regretted the seventeen-and-sixpence he had spent on the +pirated works of Swinburne, and then he was a wretched<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> schoolboy +balanced on the top of a ladder covetous of unattainable splendors, a +pitiable cipher in the accounts of Elson’s bookshop. At Lampard’s he was +already a personality.</p> + +<p>All that so far happened to Michael not merely in one day at Oxford, but +really during his whole life was for its embarrassment nothing in +comparison with the first dinner in hall. As he walked through the +Cloisters and heard all about him the burble of jolly and familiar +conversation, he shuddered to think what in a minute he must face. The +list of freshmen, pinned up on the board in the Lodge, was a +discouraging document to those isolated members of public schools other, +than Eton, Winchester, Harrow or Charterhouse. These four seemed to have +produced all but six or seven of the freshmen. Eton alone was +responsible for half the list. What chance, thought Michael, could he +stand against such an impenetrable phalanx of conversation as was bound +to ensue from such a preponderance? However, he was by now at the top of +the steps that led up to hall, and a mild old butler was asking his +name.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be at the second freshmen’s table. On the right, sir. Mr. +Wedderburn is at the head of your table, sir.”</p> + +<p>Michael was glad to find his table at the near end of hall, and +hurriedly taking his seat, almost dived into the soup that was quickly +placed before him. He did not venture to open a conversation with either +of his neighbors, but stared instead at the freshman occupying the +armchair at the head of the table, greatly impressed by his judicial +gravity of demeanor, his neat bulk and the profundity of his voice.</p> + +<p>“How do you become head of a table?” Michael’s left-hand neighbor +suddenly asked.</p> + +<p>Michael said he really did not know.</p> + +<p>“Because what I’m wondering,” the left-hand neighbor<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> continued, “is why +they’ve made that ass Wedderburn head of our table.”</p> + +<p>“Why, is he an ass?” Michael inquired.</p> + +<p>“Frightful ass,” continued the left-hand neighbor, whom Michael +perceived to be a small round-faced youth, very fair and very pink. +“Perfectly harmless, of course. Are you an Harrovian?”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were a cousin of my mother,” said the left-hand neighbor.</p> + +<p>Michael looked astonished.</p> + +<p>“His name’s Mackintosh. What’s your name?”</p> + +<p>Michael told him.</p> + +<p>“My name’s Lonsdale. I think we’re on the same staircase—so’s +Mackintosh. It’s a pity he’s an Harrovian, but I promised my mother I’d +look him up.”</p> + +<p>Then, after surveying the table, Lonsdale went on in a confidential +undertone:</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind telling you that the Etonians up here are a pretty poor +lot. There are two chaps from my house who are not so bad—in fact +rather good eggs—but the rest! Well, look at that ass Wedderburn. He’s +typical.”</p> + +<p>“I think he looks rather a good sort,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, he was absolutely barred. M’ tutor used to like him, but +really—well—I don’t mind telling you, he’s really an æsthete.”</p> + +<p>With this shocked condemnation, Lonsdale turned to his other neighbor +and said in his jerky and somewhat mincing voice that was perfectly +audible to Michael:</p> + +<p>“I say, Tommy, this man on my right isn’t half bad. I don’t know where +he comes from, His name’s Fane.”</p> + +<p>“He’s from St. James’.”</p> + +<p>“Where on earth’s that?”</p> + +<p>“London.”<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<p>“Why, I thought it was a kind of charity school,” said Lonsdale. Then he +turned to Michael again:</p> + +<p>“I say, are you really from St. James’?”</p> + +<p>Michael replied coldly that he was.</p> + +<p>“I say, come and have coffee with me after hall. One or two O. E.’s are +coming in, but you won’t mind?”</p> + +<p>“Why, do you want to find out something about St. James’?” demanded +Michael, frowning.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I say, don’t be ratty. It’s that ass Tommy. He always talks at the +top of his voice.”</p> + +<p>Lonsdale, as he spoke, looked so charmingly apologetic and displayed +such accomplished sang-froid that Michael forgave him immediately and +promised to come to coffee.</p> + +<p>“Good egg!” Lonsdale exclaimed with the satisfaction of having smoothed +over an awkward place. “I say,” he offered, “if you’d like to meet +Wedderburn, I’ll ask him, too. He seems to have improved since he’s been +up at the Varsity. Don’t you think that fat man Wedderburn has improved, +Tommy?”</p> + +<p>Tommy nodded.</p> + +<p>“One day’s done him no end of good.”</p> + +<p>“I say,” Lonsdale offered, “you haven’t met Fane. Mr. Fane—Mr. +Grainger. I was just saying to Fane that the Etonians are a rotten lot +this term.”</p> + +<p>“One or two are all right,” Grainger admitted with evident reluctance.</p> + +<p>“Well, perhaps two,” Lonsdale agreed. “This dinner isn’t bad, what?”</p> + +<p>By this time the conversation at the table had become more general, and +Michael gradually realized that some of the alarm he had felt himself +had certainly been felt by his companions. Now at any rate there was a +perceptible relaxation of tension. Still the conversation was only +general in so much as that whenever anybody spoke, the rest of the<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> +table listened. The moment the flow of his information dried up, +somebody else began pumping forth instruction. These slightly nervous +little lectures were delivered without any claim to authority and they +came up prefaced by the third person of legendary narrative.</p> + +<p>“They say we shall all have to interview the Warden to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“They say on Sunday afternoon the Wagger makes the same speech to the +freshers that he’s made for twenty years.”</p> + +<p>“They say we ought to go head of the river this year.”</p> + +<p>“They say the freshers are expected to make a bonner on Sunday night.”</p> + +<p>“They say any one can have commons of bread and cheese by sending out +word to the buttery. It’s really included in the two-and-fourpence for +dinner.”</p> + +<p>“They say they charge a penny for the napkin every night.”</p> + +<p>So the information proceeded, and Michael had just thought to himself +that going up to Oxford was very much like going to school again, when +from the second-year tables crashed the sound of a concerted sneeze. The +dons from high table looked coldly down the hall, expressing a vague, +but seemingly impotent disapproval, for immediately afterward that +sternutation shook the air a second time.</p> + +<p>Michael thought the difference between school and Oxford might be +greater than he had supposed.</p> + +<p>The slowest eater at the second freshmen’s table had nervously left half +his savory; Wedderburn without apparent embarrassment had received the +Sub-Warden’s permission to rise from dinner; Lonsdale hurriedly +marshaled as many of his acquaintances as he could, and in a large and +noisy group they swarmed through the moonlight toward his rooms.</p> + +<p>Michael was interested by Lonsdale’s sitting-room, for he<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> divined at +once that it was typical, just a transplanted Eton study with the +addition of smoking paraphernalia. The overmantel was plumed with small +photographs of pleasant young creatures in the gay nautical costumes of +the Fourth of June and festooned hats of Alexandra or Monarch, of the +same pleasant young creatures at an earlier and chubbier age, of the +same pleasant young creatures with penciled mustaches and the white +waistcoat of Pop. In addition to their individual commemorations the +pleasant young creatures would appear again in house groups, in winning +house elevens, and most exquisitely of all in Eton Society. Michael +always admired the photographs of Pop, for they seemed to him to +epitomize all the traditions of all the public-schools of England, to +epitomize them moreover with something of that immortality of captured +action expressed by great Athenian sculpture. In comparison with Pop the +Harrow Philathletic Society was a barbarous group, with all the +self-consciousness of a deliberate archaism. Besides the personal +photographs in Lonsdale’s room there were studies of grouse by Thorburn; +and Michael, remembering Alan’s grouse, felt in accord with Lonsdale and +with all that Lonsdale stood for. Knowing Alan, he felt that he knew +Lonsdale, and at once he became more at ease with all his contemporaries +in Lonsdale’s room. Michael looked at the colored prints of Cecil +Aldin’s pictures and made up his mind he would buy a set for Alan: also +possibly he would buy for Alan the Sir Galahad of Watts which was rather +better than The Soul’s Awakening.</p> + +<p>After Lonsdale’s pictures Michael surveyed Lonsdale’s books, the +brilliantly red volumes of Jorrocks, the two or three odd volumes of the +Badminton library, and the school books tattered and ink-splashed. More +interesting than such a library were the glossy new briars, the virgin +meerschaum, the patent smoking-tables and another table evidently +designed<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> to make drinking easy, but by reason of the complexity of its +machinery actually more likely to discourage one forever from +refreshment. The rest of the space, apart from the furniture bequeathed +by the noisy Templeton-Collins when he moved to larger rooms above, was +crowded with the freshmen whom after hall Lonsdale had so hastily +gathered together unassorted.</p> + +<p>“I ordered coffee for sixteen,” announced the host. “I thought it would +be quicker than making it in a new machine that my sister gave me. It +just makes enough for three, and the only time I tried, it took about an +hour to do that ... who’ll drink port?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought the scout’s prophecies about the superfluity of +Lonsdale’s wine were rather premature, for it seemed that everybody +intended to drink port.</p> + +<p>“I believe this is supposed to be rather good port,” said Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“It is jolly good,” several connoisseurs echoed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know much about it myself. But my governor’s supposed to be +rather a judge. He said ‘this is wasted on you and your friends, but I +haven’t got any bad wine to give you.’”</p> + +<p>Here everybody held up their glasses against the light, took another sip +and murmured their approval.</p> + +<p>“Do you think this is a good wine, Fane?” demanded Lonsdale, thereby +drawing so much attention to Michael that he blushed to nearly as deep a +color as the port itself.</p> + +<p>“I like it very much,” Michael said.</p> + +<p>“Do you like it, Wedderburn?” asked Lonsdale, turning to the freshman +who had sat in the armchair at the head of the second table.</p> + +<p>“Damned good wine,” pronounced Wedderburn in a voice so rich with +appreciation and so deep with judgment that he immediately established a +reputation for worldly knowledge,<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> and from having been slightly derided +at Eton for his artistic ambitions was ever afterward respected and +consulted. Michael envied his air of authority, but trembled for +Wedderburn’s position when he heard him reproach Lonsdale for his lack +of any good pictures.</p> + +<p>“You might stick up one that can be looked at for more than two +seconds,” Wedderburn said severely.</p> + +<p>“What sort of picture?” asked Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Primavera, for instance,” Wedderburn suggested, and Michael’s heart +beat in sympathy.</p> + +<p>“Never heard of the horse,” Lonsdale answered. “Who owned her?”</p> + +<p>“My god,” Wedderburn rumbled, “I’ll take you to buy one to-morrow, +Lonny. You deserve it after that.”</p> + +<p>“Right-O!” Lonsdale cheerfully agreed. “Only I don’t want my room to +look like the Academy, you know.”</p> + +<p>Wedderburn shook his head in benevolent contempt, and the conversation +was deflected from Lonsdale’s artistic education by a long-legged +Wykehamist with crisp chestnut hair and a thin florid face of dimpling +smiles.</p> + +<p>“Has anybody been into Venner’s yet?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I have,” proclaimed a dumpy Etonian whose down-curving nose hung over a +perpetually open mouth. “Marjoribanks took me in just before hall. But +he advised me not to go in by myself yet awhile.”</p> + +<p>“The second-year men don’t like it,” agreed the long-legged Wykehamist +with a wise air. “They say one can begin to go in occasionally in one’s +third term.”</p> + +<p>“What is Venner’s?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know?” sniffed the dumpy Etonian who had already managed to +proclaim his friendship with Marjoribanks, the President of the Junior +Common Room, and therefore presumably had the right to open his mouth a +little wider than usual at Michael.<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a></p> + +<p>“I’m not quite sure myself,” said Lonsdale quickly. “I vote that Cuffe +explains.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to explain,” Cuffe protested, and for some minutes his +mouth was tightly closed.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it just a sort of special part of the J. C. R.?” suggested the +smiling Wykehamist, who seemed to wish to make it pleasant for +everybody, so long as he himself would not have to admit ignorance. “Old +Venables himself is a ripper. They say he’s been steward of the J. C. R. +for fifty years.”</p> + +<p>“Thirty-two years,” corrected Wedderburn in his voice of most +reverberant certitude. “Venner’s is practically a club. You aren’t +elected, but somehow you know just when you can go in without being +stared at. There’s nothing in Oxford like that little office of +Venner’s. It’s practically made St. Mary’s what it is.”</p> + +<p>All the freshmen, sipping their port and lolling back in their new +gowns, looked very reverent and very conscious of the honor and glory of +St. Mary’s which they themselves hoped soon to affirm more publicly than +they could at present. Upon their meditations sounded very loud the +blast of a coach-horn from above.</p> + +<p>“That’s Templeton-Collins,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Who’s he?” several demanded.</p> + +<p>“He’s the man who used to live in these rooms last year,” said Lonsdale +lightly, as if that were the most satisfactory description for these +freshmen, as indeed for all its youthful heartlessness it was.</p> + +<p>“Let’s all yell and tell him to shut up that infernal row,” suggested +Wedderburn sternly. Already from sitting in an armchair at the head of a +table of freshmen he was acquiring an austere seniority of his own.</p> + +<p>“To a second-year blood?” whispered somebody in dread surprise.<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p> + +<p>“Why not take away the coach-horn?” Lonsdale added.</p> + +<p>However, this the freshmen were not prepared to do, although with +unanimity they invited Templeton-Collins to refrain from blowing it.</p> + +<p>“Keep quiet, little boys,” shouted Templeton-Collins down the stairs.</p> + +<p>The sixteen freshmen retreated well pleased with their audacity, and the +long-legged Wykehamist proclaimed delightedly that this was going to be +a hot year. “I vote we have a bonner.”</p> + +<p>“Will you light it, Sinclair?” asked another Wykehamist in a cynical +drawl.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” Sinclair retorted.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. But you always used to be better at theory than +practice.”</p> + +<p>“How these Wykehamists love one another,” laughed an Etonian.</p> + +<p>This implied criticism welded the four Winchester men present in +defiance of all England, and Michael was impressed by their haughty and +bigoted confidence.</p> + +<p>“Sunday night is the proper time for a bonner,” said Wedderburn. “After +the first ‘after.’”</p> + +<p>“‘After’?” queried another.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?” several well-informed freshmen +began, but Wedderburn with his accustomed gravity assumed the burden of +instruction, and the others gave way.</p> + +<p>“Every Sunday after hall,” he explained, “people go up to the J. C. R. +and take wine and dessert. Healths are drunk, and of course the +second-year men try to make the freshers blind. Then everybody goes +round to one of the large rooms in Cloisters for the ‘after Common +Room.’ People sing and do various parlor tricks. The President of the J. +C. R. gives the first ‘after’ of the term. The others<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> are usually given +by three or four men together. Whisky and cigars and lemon-squash. They +usually last till nearly twelve. Great sport. They’re much better than +private wines, better for everybody. That’s why we have them on Sunday +night,” he concluded rather vaguely.</p> + +<p>The unwieldy bulk of sixteen freshmen was beginning to break up into +bridge fours. Friendships were already in visible elaboration. The first +evening had wonderfully brought them together. Something deeper than the +superficial amity of chance juxtaposition at the same table was now +begetting tentative confidences that would ultimately ripen to +intimacies. Etonians were discovering that all Harrovians were not the +dark-blue bedecked ruffians of Lords nor the aggressive boors of Etonian +tradition. Harrovians were beginning to suspect that some Etonians might +exist less flaccid, less deliberately lackadaisical, less odiously +serene than the majority of those they had so far only encountered in +summer holidays. Carthusians found that athletic prowess was going to +count pleasantly in their favor. Even the Wykehamists extended a +cordiality that was not positively chilling, and though they never lost +an opportunity to criticize implicity all other schools, and though +their manners were so perfect that they abashed all but the more +debonair Etonians, still it was evident they were sincerely trying to +acknowledge a little merit, a little good-fellowship among these strange +new contemporaries, however exuberantly uneducated they might appear to +Wykeham’s adamantine mold.</p> + +<p>Michael did not thrust himself upon any of these miniature societies in +the making, because the rather conscious efforts of diverse groups to +put themselves into accord with one another made him shy and restless. +Nobody yet among these freshmen seemed able to take his neighbor for +granted, and Michael fancied that himself as the product of a +day-school<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> appeared to these cloistered catechumens as surprising and +disconcerting and vaguely improper as a ballet-girl or a French count. +At the same time he sympathized with their bewilderment and gave them +credit for their attempt not to let him think he confused their social +outlook. But the obviously sustained attempt depressed him with a sense +of fatigue. After all, his trousers were turned up at the bottom and the +last button of his waistcoat was undone. Failure to comply with the +Draconic code of dress could not be attributed to him, as mercilessly it +had served to banish into despised darkness a few scholars whose +trousers frayed themselves upon their insteps and whose waistcoats were +ignobly buttoned to the very end.</p> + +<p>“An Old Giggleswickian,” commented some one in reference to one of these +disgraced scholars, with such fanatic modishness that Michael was +surprised to see he wore the crude tie of the Old Carthusians; such +inexorable scorn consorted better with the rich sobriety of the Old +Wykehamist colors.</p> + +<p>“Why, were you at school with him?” asked Michael quickly.</p> + +<p>“Me? At Giggleswick?” stammered the Carthusian.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” said Michael. “You seem to know all about him.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t your name Fane?” demanded the Carthusian abruptly, and when +Michael nodded, he said he remembered him at his private school.</p> + +<p>“That’ll help me along a bit, I expect,” Michael prophesied.</p> + +<p>“We were in the same form at Randell’s. My name’s Avery.”</p> + +<p>“I remember you,” said Michael coldly. And he thought to himself how +little Avery’s once stinging wit seemed to matter now. Really he thought +Avery was almost attractive<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> with his fresh complexion and deep blue +eyes and girlish sensitive mouth, and when he rose to go out of +Lonsdale’s room, he was not sorry that Avery rose too and walked out +with him into the quad.</p> + +<p>“I say,” Avery began impulsively. “Did I make an ass of myself just now? +I mean, do you think people were sick with me?”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“I mean did I sound snobbish?” Avery pursued.</p> + +<p>“Not more than anybody else,” Michael assured him, and as he watched +Avery’s expression of petulant self-reproach he wondered how it was +possible that once it mattered whether Avery knew he had a governess and +wore combinations instead of pants and vest.</p> + +<p>“I say, aren’t you rather keen on pictures? I heard you talking to +Wedderburn. Do come up to my room some time. I’m in Cloisters. Are you +going out? You’ll have to buck up. It’s after nine.”</p> + +<p>They had reached the lodge, and Michael, nodding good-night, was ushered +out by the porter. As he reached the corner of Longwall, Tom boomed his +final warning, and over the last echoing reverberation sounded here and +there the lisp of footsteps in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Michael wandered on in meditation. From lighted windows in the High came +a noise of laughter and voices that seemed to make more grave and more +perdurable the spires and towers of Oxford, deepening somehow the +solemnity of the black entries and the empty silver spaces before them. +Michael pondered the freshmen’s chatter and apprehended dimly how this +magical sublunary city would convert all that effusion of naïve +intolerance to her own renown. He stood still for a moment rapt in an +ecstasy of submission to this austere beneficence of stone that +sheltered even him, the worshiper of one day, with the power of an +immortal pride.<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> He wandered on and on through the liquid moonshine, +gratefully conscious of his shadow that showed him in his cap and gown +not so conspicuous an intruder as he had seemed to himself that morning.</p> + +<p>So for an hour he wandered in a tranced revelry of aspirations, until at +last breathlessly he turned into the tall glooms of New College Street +and Queen’s Lane, where as he walked he touched the cold stones, +forgetting the world.</p> + +<p>In the High he saw his own college washed with silver, and the tower +tremulous in the moonlight, fine-spun and frail as a lily.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to nod to one or two people standing in the lodge. It +was pleasant to turn confidently under the gateway of St. Cuthbert’s +quad. It was pleasant to be greeted by his own name at the entrance of +his staircase. It was the greatest contentment he had ever known to see +the glowing of his fire, and slowly to untie under the red-shaded light +the fat parcels of his newly-bought books.</p> + +<p>Outside in the High a tram rumbled slowly past. The clock struck ten +from St. Mary’s tower. The wicker chair creaked comfortably. The watered +silk of the rich bindings swished luxuriously. This was how Boccaccio +should be read. Michael’s mind was filled with the imagination of that +gay company, secluded from the fever, telling their gay stories in the +sunlight of their garden. This was how Rabelais should be read: the very +pages seemed to glitter like wine.</p> + +<p>Midnight chimed from St. Mary’s tower. One by one the new books went +gloriously to their gothic shelves. The red lamp was extinguished. +Michael’s bedroom was scented with the breath of the October night. It +was too cold to read more than a few sentences of Pater about some +splendid bygone Florentine. Out snapped the electric light: the room was +full of moonshine, so full that the water in the bath tub was gleaming.<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THE FIRST WEEK</h4> + +<p>The first two or three days were busy with interviews, initiations, +addresses, and all the academic panoply which Oxford brings into action +against her neophytes.</p> + +<p>First of all, the Senior Tutor, Mr. Ardle, had to be visited. He was a +deaf and hostile little man whose side-whiskers and twitching eyelid and +manner of exaggerated respect toward undergraduates combined to give the +impression that he regarded them as objectionable discords in an +otherwise justly modulated existence.</p> + +<p>Michael in his turn went up the stairs to Mr. Ardle’s room, knocked at +the door and passed in at the don’s bidding to where he sat sighing amid +heaps of papers and statistical sheets. The glacial air of the room was +somehow increased by the photographs of Swiss mountains that crowded the +walls.</p> + +<p>“Mr.?” queried the Senior Tutor. “Oh, yes, Mr. Fane. St. James’. Your +tutor will be the Dean—please sit down—the Dean, Mr. Ambrose. What +school are you proposing to read?”</p> + +<p>“History, I imagine,” said Michael. “History!” he repeated, as Mr. Ardle +blinked at him.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the Senior Tutor in accents of patient boredom. “But we have +to consider the immediate future. I suggest Honor Moderations and Literæ +Humaniores.”</p> + +<p>“I explained to you that I wanted to read History,” said<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> Michael, +echoing himself involuntarily the don’s tone of patient boredom.</p> + +<p>“I have you down as coming from St. James’,” snapped the Senior Tutor. +“A school reputed to send out good classical scholars, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not a scholar,” Michael interrupted. “And I don’t intend to take +Honor Mods.”</p> + +<p>“That will be for the college to decide.”</p> + +<p>“Supposing the college decided I was to read Chinese?” Michael inquired.</p> + +<p>“There is no need for impertinence. Well, well, for the present I have +put you down for the lectures on Pass Moderations. You will attend my +lectures on Cicero, Mr. Churton on the Apologia, Mr. Carder on Logic, +and Mr. Vereker for Latin Prose. The weekly essay set by the Warden for +freshmen you will read to your tutor Mr. Ambrose.”</p> + +<p>Then he went on to give instructions about chapels and roll-calls and +dining in hall and the various regulations of the college, while the +Swiss mountains stared bleakly down at the chilly interview.</p> + +<p>“Now you’d better go and see Mr. Ambrose,” said the Senior Tutor, and +Michael left him. On the staircase he passed Lonsdale going up.</p> + +<p>“What’s he like?” asked Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Pretty dull,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Does he keep you long?”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Good work,” said Lonsdale cheerfully. “Because I’ve just bought a dog.” +And he whistled his way upstairs.</p> + +<p>Michael wondered what the purchase of a dog had got to do with the +Senior Tutor, but relinquished the problem on perceiving Mr. Ambrose’s +name on the floor below.</p> + +<p>The Dean’s room was very much like the Senior Tutor’s,<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> and the +interview, save that it was made slightly more tolerable by the help of +a cigarette, was of much the same chilliness owing to Michael’s +reiterated refusal to read Honor Moderations.</p> + +<p>“I expected a little keenness,” said Mr. Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“I shall be keen enough when I’ve finished with Pass Mods,” said +Michael. “Though what good it will be for me to read the Pro Milone and +the Apology all over again, when I read them at fifteen, I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Then take Honor Moderations?” the Dean advised.</p> + +<p>“I’ve given up classics,” Michael argued, and as the cigarette was +beginning to burn his fingers and the problem of disposing of it in the +Dean’s room seemed insoluble, he hurried out.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale was whistling his way downstairs from his interview with Mr. +Ardle.</p> + +<p>“Hallo, Fane, what did he say to you?”</p> + +<p>“I think all these dons are very much like schoolmasters,” growled +Michael resentfully.</p> + +<p>“They can’t help it,” said Lonsdale. “I asked old Ardle if I could keep +a dog in college, and he turned as blue as an owl. Any one would think +I’d asked him if I could breed crocodiles.”</p> + +<p>In addition to these personal interviews the freshmen had certain +communal experiences to undergo. Among these was their formal reception +into the University, when they trooped after the Senior Tutor through +gothic mazes and in some beautiful and remote room received from the +Vice-Chancellor a bound volume of Statuta et Decreta Universitatis. This +book they carried back with them to college, where in many rooms it +shared with Ruff’s Guide and Soapy Sponge’s Sporting Tour an +intellectual oligarchy. Saturday morning was spent in meeting the Warden +at the Warden’s Lodgings, where they shook hands with him in nervous<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +quartets. Michael when he discussed this experience with his fellows +fancied that the Warden’s butler had left a deeper impression than the +Warden himself. On Sunday afternoon, however, when they gathered in the +hall to hear the annual address of welcome and exhortation, the great +moon-faced Warden shone undimmed.</p> + +<p>“You have come to Oxford,” he concluded, “some of you to hunt foxes, +some of you to wear very large and very unusual overcoats, some of you +to row for your college and a few of you to work. But all of you have +come to Oxford to remain English gentlemen. In after life when you are +ambassadors and proconsuls and members of Parliament you will never +remember this little address which I have the honor now of delivering to +you. That will not matter, so long as you always remember that you are +St. Mary’s men and the heirs of an honorable and ancient foundation.”</p> + +<p>The great moon-faced Warden beamed at them for one moment, and after +thanking them for their polite attention floated out of the hall. The +pictures of cardinals and princes and poets in their high golden frames +seemed in the dusk faintly to nod approval. The bell was ringing for +evening chapel, and the freshmen went murmurously along the cloisters to +take their places, feeling rather proud that the famous quire was their +quire and looking with inquisitive condescension at the visitors who sat +out of sight of those candle-starred singers.</p> + +<p>In hall that night the chief topic of conversation was the etiquette and +ritual of the first J. C. R. wine.</p> + +<p>Michael to his chagrin found himself seated next to Mackintosh, for +Mackintosh, cousin though he was of the sparkish Lonsdale, was a gloomy +fellow scornful of the general merriment. As somebody had quickly said, +sharpening his young wit, he was more of a wet-blanket than a +Mackintosh.<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re coming to the J. C. R.?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Why should I? Why should I waste my time trying to keep sober for the +amusement of all these fools?”</p> + +<p>“I expect it will be rather a rag,” said Michael hopefully, but he found +it tantalizing to hear farther down the table snatches of conversation +that heard more completely would have enlightened him on several points +he had not yet mastered in the ceremony of wine in the J. C. R. However, +it was useless to speculate on such subjects in the company of the +lugubrious Mackintosh. So they talked instead of Sandow exercises and +mountain-climbing in Cumberland, neither of which topics interested +Michael very greatly.</p> + +<p>Hall was rowdy that evening, and the dons looked petulantly down from +high table, annoyed to think that their distinguished visitors of Sunday +evening should see so many pieces of bread flung by the second-year men. +The moon-faced Warden was deflected from his intellectual revolutions +round a Swedish man of science, and sent the butler down to whisper a +remonstrance to the head of one of the second-year tables. But no sooner +had the butler again taken his place behind the Warden’s chair than a +number of third-year men whose table had been littered by the ammunition +of their juniors retaliated without apparent loss of dignity, and +presently both years combined to bombard under the Scholars. Meanwhile +the freshmen applauded with laughter, and thought their seniors were +wonderful exemplars for the future.</p> + +<p>After hall everybody went crowding up the narrow stairs to the J. C. R., +and now most emphatically the J. C. R. presented a cheerful sight, with +the red-shaded lamps casting such a glow that the decanters of wine +stationed before the President’s place looked like a treasure of rubies. +The two long tables were set at right angles to one another, and the<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> +President sat near their apex. All along their shining length at regular +intervals stood great dishes of grapes richly bloomed, of apples and +walnuts and salted almonds and deviled biscuits. The freshmen by +instinct rushed to sit altogether at the end of the table more remote +from the door. As Michael looked at his contemporaries, he perceived +that of the forty odd freshmen scarcely five-and-twenty had come to +this, the first J. C. R. Vaguely he realized that already two sets were +manifest in the college, and he felt depressed by the dullness of those +who had not come and some satisfaction with himself for coming.</p> + +<p>The freshmen stared with awe at Marjoribanks, the President of the J. C. +R., and told one another with reverence that the two men on either side +of him were those famous rowing blues from New College, Permain and +Strutt; while some of them who had known these heroes at school sat +anxiously unaware of their presence and spoke of them familiarly as Jack +Permain and Bingey. There were several other cynosures from New College +and University near the President’s chair, a vivid bunch of Leander +ties. There were also one or two old St. Mary’s men who had descended to +haunt for a swift week-end the place of their renown, and these were +pointed out by knowing freshmen as unconcernedly as possible.</p> + +<p>One by one the President released the decanters, and round and round +they came. Sometimes they would be held up by an interesting +conversation; and when the sherry and the port and the burgundy were all +standing idle, a shout of “pass along the wine” would go up, after which +for a time the decanters would swing vigorously from hand to hand. Then +suddenly Marjoribanks was seen to be bowing to Permain, and Permain was +bowing solemnly back to his host. This was a plain token to everybody +that the moment for drinking healths had arrived. A great babel of +shouted<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> names broke out at the end of the Common Room remote from the +freshmen, so tremendous a din that the freshmen felt the drinking of +their own healths at their end would pass unnoticed. So they drank to +one another, bowing gravely after the manner of their seniors.</p> + +<p>Michael had determined to take nothing but burgundy, and when he had +exchanged sentiments with the most of his year, he congratulated himself +upon the comparative steadiness of his head. Already in the case of one +or two reckless mixers he noticed a difficulty in deciding how many +times it was necessary to clip a cigar, an inclination to strike the +wrong end of a match and a confusion between right and left when the +decanters in their circulation paused before them.</p> + +<p>After the first tumult of good wishes had died down, Marjoribanks lifted +his glass, looked along to where the freshmen were sitting and shouted +“Cuffe!” Cuffe hastily lifted his glass and answering “Marjorie!” +drained his salute of acknowledgment. Then he sat back in his chair with +an expression, Michael thought, very like that of an actress who has +been handed a bouquet by the conductor. But Cuffe was not to be the only +recipient of honor, for immediately afterward Marjoribanks sang out +“Lonsdale!” Lonsdale was at the moment trying to explain to Tommy +Grainger some trick with the skin of a banana which ought to have been +an orange and a wooden match which ought to have been a wax vesta. +Michael, who was sitting next to him, prodded anxiously his ribs.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” demanded Lonsdale indignantly. “Can’t you see I’m +doing a trick?”</p> + +<p>“Marjoribanks is drinking your health,” whispered Michael in an agony +that Lonsdale would be passed over.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah!” shouted Lonsdale, rising to his feet and scandalizing his +fellows by his intoxicated audacity. “Where is the old ripper!” Then +“Mark over!” he shouted and<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> collapsed into Tommy Grainger’s lap. +Everybody laughed, and everybody, even the cynosures from New College +and University, began to drink Lonsdale’s health without heel-taps.</p> + +<p>“No heelers, young Lonsdale,” they called mirthfully.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale pulled himself together, stood up, and, balancing himself with +one hand on Michael’s shoulder, replied:</p> + +<p>“No heelers, you devils? No legs, you mean!” Then he collapsed again.</p> + +<p>Soon all the freshmen found that their healths were now being drunk, all +the freshmen, that is, from Eton or Winchester or Harrow. Michael and +one or two others without old schoolfellows among the seniors remained +more sober. But then suddenly a gravely indolent man with a quizzical +face, who the day before in the lodge had had occasion to ask Michael +some trifling piece of information, cried “Fane!” raising his glass. +Michael blushed, blessed his unknown acquaintance inwardly and drank +what was possibly the sincerest sentiment of the evening. Other senior +men hearing his name, followed suit, even the great Marjoribanks +himself; and soon Michael was very nearly as full as Lonsdale. An +immense elation caressed his soul, a boundless sense of communal life, a +conception of sublime freedom that seemed to be illimitable forever. The +wine was over. Down the narrow stone stairs everybody poured. At the +foot on the right was a little office—the office of Venables, the +steward of the J. C. R., the eleusinian and impenetrable sanctum of +seniority called Venner’s. Wine-chartered though they were, the freshmen +did not venture even to peep round the corner of the door, but hurried +out into the cloisters, where they walked arm-in-arm shouting.</p> + +<p>Michael could have fancied himself at a gathering of mediæval witches. +The moon temporarily clouded over by<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> the autumnal fog made the corbels +and gargoyles and sculptured figures above the cloisters take on a +grotesque vivacity, as the vapors curled around them. The wine humming +in his head: the echoing shouts of his companions: the decorative effect +of the gowns: the chiming high above of the bells in the tower: all +combined to create for Michael a nightmare of exultation. He was aware +of a tremendous zest in doing nothing, and there flowed over him a +consciousness that this existence of shout and dance along these +cloisters was really existence lived in a perpetual expression of the +finest energy. The world seemed to be going round so much faster than +usual that in order to keep up with this new pace, it was necessary for +the individual like himself to walk faster, to talk faster, to think +faster, and finally to raise to incoherent speed every coherent faculty. +Another curious effect of the wine, for after all Michael admitted to +himself that his mental exhilaration must be due to burgundy, was the +way in which he found himself at every moment walking beside a different +person. He would scarcely have finished an excited acceptance of +Wedderburn’s offer to go to-morrow and look at some Dürer woodcuts, when +he would suddenly find himself discussing sympathetically with Lonsdale +the iniquity of the dons in refusing to let him keep his new dog in one +of the scouts’ pigeon-holes in the lodge.</p> + +<p>“After all,” Lonsdale pointed out earnestly, “they’re never really full, +and the dog isn’t large—of course I don’t expect to keep him in a +pigeon-hole when he’s full grown, but he’s a puppy.”</p> + +<p>“It’s absurd,” Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>“That’s the word I’ve been looking for,” Lonsdale exclaimed. “What was +it again? Absurd! You see what I say is, when one scout’s box is full, +move the poor little beast into another. It isn’t likely they’d all be +full at the<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> same time. What was that word you found just now? Absurd! +That’s it. It is absurd. It’s absurd!”</p> + +<p>“And anyway,” Michael pointed out, “if they were all full they could +chain him to the leg of the porter’s desk.”</p> + +<p>“Of course they could. I say, Fane, you’re a damned good sort,” said +Lonsdale. “I wish you’d come and have lunch with me to-morrow. I don’t +think I’ve asked very many chaps: I want to show you that dog. He’s in a +stable off Holywell at present. Beastly shame! I’m not complaining, of +course, but what I want to ask our dons is how would they like to be +bought by me and shut up in Holywell?”</p> + +<p>And just when Michael had a very good answer ready, he found himself +arm-in-arm with Wedderburn again, who was saying in his gravest voice +that over a genuine woodcut by Dürer it was well worth taking trouble. +But before Michael could disengage Wedderburn’s Dürer from Lonsdale’s +dog, he found himself running very fast beside Tommy Grainger who was +shouting:</p> + +<p>“Five’s late again! Six, you’re bucketing! Bow, you’re late! Two, <i>will</i> +you get your belly down!”</p> + +<p>Then Grainger stopped suddenly and asked Michael in a very solemn tone +whether he knew what was the matter with the crew. Michael shook his +head and watched the others steer their devious course toward him and +Grainger.</p> + +<p>“They’re too drunk to row,” said Grainger.</p> + +<p>“Much too drunk,” Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>When he had pondered for a moment or two his last remark, he discovered +it was extraordinarily funny. So he was seized with a paroxysm of +laughter, and the more he laughed, the more he wanted to laugh. When +somebody asked him what he was laughing at, he replied it was because he +had left the electric light burning in his room. Several people seemed +to think this just as funny as Michael thought it,<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> and they joined him +in his mirth, laughing unquenchably until Wedderburn observed severely +in his deepest voice:</p> + +<p>“Buck up, you’re all drunk, and they’re coming out of Venner’s.”</p> + +<p>Then like some patient profound countryman he shepherded them all up to +the large room on a corner staircase of Cloisters, where the “after” was +going to be held. The freshmen squeezed themselves together in a corner +and were immensely entertained by the various performers, applauding +with equal rapture a light comedian from Pembroke, a tenor from Corpus, +a comic singer from Oriel and a mimic from professional London. They +drank lemon squashes to steady themselves: they joined in choruses: they +cheered and smoked cigars and grew more and more conscious as the +evening progressed that they belonged to a great college called St. +Mary’s. Their enthusiasm reached its zenith, when the captain of the +Varsity Eleven (a St. Mary’s man even as they were St. Mary’s men) sang +the St. Mary’s song in a voice whose gentleness of utterance and sighing +modesty in no way abashed the noisy appreciation of the audience. It was +a wonderful song, all about the triumphs of the college on river and +cricket-field, in the Schools, in Parliament and indeed everywhere else. +It had a fine rollicking chorus which was repeated twice after each +verse. And as there were about seventeen verses, by the time the song +was half over the freshmen had learned the words and were able to sing +the final chorus with a vigor which positively detonated against the +windows and contrasted divertingly with the almost inaudible soloist.</p> + +<p>Last of all came Auld Lang Syne, when everybody stood up on chairs and +joined hands, seniors, second-year men and freshmen. Auld Lang Syne +ended with perhaps the noisiest moment of all because although Lonsdale +had taken several lemon squashes to steady himself, he had not taken +enough to<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> keep his balance through the ultimate energetic repetition, +when he collapsed headlong into a tray of syphons and glasses, dragging +with him two other freshmen. But nobody seemed to have hurt himself, and +downstairs they all rushed, shouting and hulloaing, into the cool +moonlight.</p> + +<p>The guests from New College and University and the “out-of-college” men +hurried home, for it was close upon midnight. In the lodge the freshmen +foregathered for a few minutes with the second-year men, and as they +talked they knew that the moment was come when they must proclaim +themselves free from the restrictions of school, and by the kindling of +a bonfire prove that they were now truly grown up. Bundles of faggots +were seized from the scouts’ holes: in the angle of St. Cuthbert’s quad +where the complexion of the gravel was tanned by the numberless bonfires +of past generations the pile of wood grew taller and taller: two or +three douches of paraffin made the mass readily inflammable: a match was +set, and with a roar the bonfire began. From their windows second-year +men, their faces lighted by the ascending blaze, looked down with +pleasant patronage upon the traditional pastime of their juniors. The +freshmen danced gleefully round the pyre of their boyhood, feeding it +with faggots and sometimes daringly and ostentatiously with chairs: the +heat became intense: the smoke surged upward, obscuring the bland +aspectful moon. Slowly upon the group of law-breakers fell a silence, as +they stood bewitched by the beauty of their own handiwork. The riotous +preparations and annunciatory yells had died away to an intimate murmur +of conversation. From the lodge came Shadbolt the unctuous head-porter +to survey for a moment this mighty bonfire: conscious of their +undergraduate dignity the freshmen chaffed him, until he retired with +muttered protests to summon the Dean.</p> + +<p>“What will the Dean do?” asked one or two less audacious<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> ones as they +faded into various doorways, ready to obliterate their presence as soon +as authority should arrive upon the scene.</p> + +<p>“What does the Dean matter?” cried others, flinging more faggots on to +the fire until it crackled and spat and bellowed more fiercely than +ever, lighting up with its wavy radiance the great elms beyond the +Warden’s garden and the Palladian fragment of New quad whence the dons +like Georgian squires pondered their prosperity.</p> + +<p>Presently against the silvery space framed by the gateway of St. +Cuthbert’s tower appeared the silhouette of the Dean, lank and tall with +college cap tip-tilted down on to his nose and round his neck a gown +wrapped like a shawl. Nearer he came, and involuntarily the freshmen so +lately schoolboys took on in their attitude a certain anxiety. Somehow +the group round the bonfire had become much smaller. Somehow more +windows looking upon the quad were populated with flickering watchful +faces.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott! What can Ambrose do?” demanded Lonsdale despairingly, but +when at last the Dean reached the zone of the fire, there only remained +about eight freshmen to ascertain his views and test his power. The Dean +stood for a minute or two, silently warming his hands. In a ring the +presumed leaders eyed him, talking to each other the while with slightly +exaggerated carelessness.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Fane?” asked the Dean.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” Michael replied.</p> + +<p>“Damned good,” whispered Lonsdale ecstatically in Michael’s ear. “You +couldn’t have said anything better. That’s damned good.”</p> + +<p>Michael under the enthusiastic congratulations of Lonsdale began to feel +he had indeed said something very good, but he hoped he would soon have +an opportunity to say something even better.<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p> + +<p>“Enjoying yourself, Mr. Lonsdale?” inquired the Dean.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. Are you?” answered Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Splendid,” murmured Michael.</p> + +<p>A silence followed this exchange of courtesies. The bonfire was +beginning to die down, but nobody ventured under the Dean’s eye to put +on more faggots. Under-porters were seen drawing near with pails of +water, and though a cushion aimed from a window upset one pail, very +soon the bonfire was a miserable mess of smoking ashes and the moon +resumed her glory. From an upper window some second-year men chanted in +a ridiculous monotone:</p> + +<p>“The Dean—he was the Dean—he was the Dean—he was the Dean! The +Dean—he was the Dean he was—the Dean he was—the Dean!!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Ambrose did not bother to look up in the direction of the glee, but +took another glance at Michael, Lonsdale, Grainger and the other +stalwarts. Then he turned away.</p> + +<p>“Good night,” Lonsdale called after the retreating figure of the tall +hunched don, and not being successful in luring him back, he poured his +scorn upon the defaulters safe in their rooms above.</p> + +<p>“You are a lot of rotters. Come down and make another.”</p> + +<p>But the freshmen were not yet sufficiently hardy to do this. One by one +they melted away, and Lonsdale marked his contempt for their +pusillanimity by throwing two syphons and his gown into the Warden’s +garden. After which he invited Michael and his fellow die-hards to drink +a glass of port in his rooms. Here for an hour they sat, discussing +their contemporaries.</p> + +<p>In the morning Shadbolt was asked if anybody had been hauled for last +night’s bonner.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Fane, Mr. Grainger and the Honorable Lonsdale,”<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> he informed the +inquirer. Together those three interviewed the Dean.</p> + +<p>“Two guineas each,” he announced after a brief homily on the foolishness +and inconvenience of keeping everybody up on the first Sunday of term. +“And if you feel aggrieved, you can get up a subscription among your +co-lunatics to defray your expenses.”</p> + +<p>Michael, Grainger and Lonsdale sighed very movingly, and tried to look +like martyrs, but they greatly enjoyed telling what had happened to the +other freshmen and several second-year men. It was told, too, in a +manner of elaborate nonchalance with many vows to do the same +to-morrow.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>THE FIRST TERM</h4> + +<p>His first term at Oxford was for Michael less obviously a period of +discovery than from his pre-figurative dreams he had expected. He had +certainly pictured himself in the midst of a society more intellectually +varied than that in which he found himself; and all that first term +became in retrospect merely a barren noisy time from which somehow after +numberless tentative adjustments and developments emerged a clear view +of his own relation to the college, and more particularly to his own +“year.” These trials of personality were conducted with all the help +that sensitiveness could render him. But this sensitiveness when it had +registered finely and accurately a few hazardous impressions was often +sharp as a nettle in its action, so sharp indeed sometimes that he felt +inclined to withdraw from social encounters into a solitude of books. +Probably Michael would have become a recluse, if he had not decided on +the impulse of the moment to put down his name for Rugby football. He +was fairly successful in the first match, and afterward Carben, the +secretary of the college club, invited him to tea. This insignificant +courtesy gave Michael a considerable amount of pleasure, inasmuch as it +was the first occasion on which he had been invited to his rooms by a +second-year man. With Carben he found about half a dozen other seniors +and a couple of freshmen whom he did not remember to have noticed +before; and the<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> warm room, whose murmurous tinkle was suddenly hushed +as he entered, affected him with a glowing hospitality.</p> + +<p>Michael had found it so immediately easy to talk that when Carben made a +general observation on the row of Sunday night’s celebration, Michael +proclaimed enthusiastically the excellence of the bonfire.</p> + +<p>“Were you in that gang?” Carben asked in a tone of contemptuous +surprise.</p> + +<p>“I was fined,” Michael announced, trying to quench the note of +exultation in deference to the hostility he instinctively felt he was +creating.</p> + +<p>“I say,” Carben sneered, “so at last one of the ‘bloods’ is going to +condescend to play Rugger. Jonah,” he called to the captain of the +Fifteen who was lolling in muscular grandeur at the other end of the +room, “we’ve got a college blood playing three-quarter for us.”</p> + +<p>“Good work,” said Jones, with a toast-encumbered laugh. “Where is he?”</p> + +<p>Carben pointed to Michael who blushed rather angrily.</p> + +<p>“No end of a blood,” Carben went on. “Lights bonfires and gets fined all +in his first week.”</p> + +<p>The two freshmen sniggered, and Michael made up his mind to consult +Lonsdale about their doom. He was pensively damned if these two asses +should laugh at him. There had already been talk of ragging one or two +freshmen whose raw and mediocre bearing had offended the modish +perceptions of the majority. When the proscription was on foot, Michael +promised his injured pride that he would denounce them with their red +wrists and their smug insignificance.</p> + +<p>“You were at St. James’, weren’t you?” asked Jones. “Did you know +Mansfield?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know him—exactly,” said Michael, “but—in fact—we thought +him rather a tick.”<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p> + +<p>“Thanks very much and all that,” said Jones. “He was a friend of mine, +but don’t apologize.”</p> + +<p>There was a general laugh at Michael’s expense from which Carben’s +guffaw survived. “Jonah was never one for moving in the best society,” +he said with an implication in his tone that the best society was +something positively contemptible.</p> + +<p>Michael retired from the conversation and sat silent, counting with cold +dislike the constellated pimples on Carben’s face. Meanwhile the others +exercised their scornful wit upon the “bloods” of the college.</p> + +<p>“Did you hear about Fitzroy and Gingold?” Carben indignantly demanded. +“Gingold was tubbing yesterday and Fitzroy was coaching. ‘Can’t you keep +your fat little paunch down? I don’t want to look at it,’ said Fitzroy. +That’s pretty thick from a second-year man to a third-year man in front +of a lot of freshers. Gingold’s going to jack rowing, and he’s quite +right.”</p> + +<p>“Quite right,” a chorus echoed.</p> + +<p>Michael remembered Fitzroy very blithely intoxicated at the J. C. R.; he +remembered, too, that Fitzroy had drunk his health. This explosion of +wrath at the insult offered to Gingold’s dignity irritated Michael. He +felt sure that Gingold had a fat little paunch and that he thoroughly +deserved to be told to keep it out of sight. Gingold was probably as +offensive as Jones and Carben.</p> + +<p>“These rowing bloods think they’ve bought the college,” somebody was +wisely propounding.</p> + +<p>“We ought to go head of the river this year, oughtn’t we?” Michael +inquired with as much innocence as he could muster to veil the armed +rebuke.</p> + +<p>“Well, I think it would be a d’d good thing, if we dropped six places,” +Carben affirmed.</p> + +<p>How many pimples there were, thought Michael, looking<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> at the secretary, +and he felt he must make some excuse to escape from this room whose +atmosphere of envy and whose castrated damns were shrouding Oxford with +a dismal genteelness.</p> + +<p>“Oh, by the way, before you go,” said Carben, “you’d better let me put +your name down for the Ugger.”</p> + +<p>“The what?” Michael asked, with a faint insolence.</p> + +<p>“The Union.”</p> + +<p>Michael, occupied with the problem of adjustment, had no intention of +committing himself so early to the Union and certainly not under the +sponsorship of Carben.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I’ll join this term.”</p> + +<p>He ran down the stairs from Carben’s rooms and stood for a moment +apprehensively upon the lawn. Then sublime in the dusk he saw St. Mary’s +tower and, refreshed by that image of an aspiration, he shook off the +memory of Carben’s tea-party as if he had alighted from a crowded Sunday +train and plunged immediately into deep country.</p> + +<p>In hall that night Lonsdale asked Michael what he had been doing, and +was greatly amused by his information, so much amused that he called +along the table to Grainger:</p> + +<p>“I say, Tommy, do you know we’ve got a Rugger rough with us?”</p> + +<p>Several people murmured in surprise.</p> + +<p>“I say, have you really been playing Rugger?”</p> + +<p>“Well, great Scott!” exclaimed Michael, “there’s nothing very odd in +that.”</p> + +<p>“But the Rugger roughs are all very bad men,” Lonsdale protested.</p> + +<p>“Some are,” Michael admitted. “Still, it’s a better game than Socker.”</p> + +<p>“But everybody at St. Mary’s plays Socker,” Lonsdale went on.</p> + +<p>Michael felt for a while enraged against the pettiness of<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> outlook that +even the admired Lonsdale displayed. How ridiculous it was to despise +Rugby football because the college was so largely composed of Etonians +and Harrovians and Wykehamists and Carthusians. It was like schoolboys. +And Michael abruptly realized that all of them sitting at this +freshmen’s table were really schoolboys. It was natural after all that +with the patriotism of youth they should disdain games foreign to their +traditions. This, however, was no reason for allowing Rugby to be +snuffed out ignominiously.</p> + +<p>“Anyway I shall go on playing Rugger,” Michael asserted.</p> + +<p>“Shall I have a shot?” suggested Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“It’s a most devilish good game,” Michael earnestly avowed.</p> + +<p>“Tommy,” Lonsdale shouted, “I’m going to be a Rugger rough myself.”</p> + +<p>“I shall sconce you, young Lonsdale, if you make such a row,” said +Wedderburn severely.</p> + +<p>“My god, Wedders, you are a prize ass,” chuckled the offender.</p> + +<p>Wedderburn whispered to the scout near him.</p> + +<p>“Have you sconced me?” Lonsdale demanded.</p> + +<p>The head of the table nodded.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale was put to much trouble and expense to avenge his half-crown. +Finally with great care he took down all the pictures in Wedderburn’s +room and hung in their places gaudy texts. Also for the plaster Venus of +Milo he caused to be made a miniature chest-protector. It was all very +foolish, but it afforded exquisite entertainment to Lonsdale and his +auxiliaries, especially when in the lodge they beheld Wedderburn’s +return from a dinner out of college, and when presently they visited him +in his room to enjoy his displeasure.</p> + +<p>Michael’s consciousness of the sharp division in the college<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> between +two broad sections prevented him from retiring into seclusion. He +continued to play Rugby football almost entirely in order to hear with a +delighted irony the comments of the “bad men” on the “bloods.” Yet many +of these “bad men” he rather liked, and he would often defend them to +his critical young contemporaries, although on the “bad men” of his own +year he was as hard as the rest of the social leaders. He was content in +this first term to follow loyally, with other heedless ones, the trend +of the moment. He made few attempts to enlarge the field of his outlook +by cultivating acquaintanceship outside his own college. Even Alan he +seldom visited, since in these early days of Oxford it seemed to him +essential to move cautiously and always under the protection of numbers. +These freshmen in their first term found a curious satisfaction in +numbers. When they lunched together, they lunched in eights and twelves; +when they dined out of college, as they sometimes did, at the Clarendon +or the Mitre or the Queen’s, they gathered in the lodge almost in the +dimensions of a school-treat.</p> + +<p>“Why do we always go about in such quantity?” Michael once asked +Wedderburn.</p> + +<p>“What else can we do?” answered Wedderburn. “We must subject each other +to—I mean—we haven’t got any clubs yet. We’re bound to stick +together.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m getting rather fed up with it,” said Michael. “I feel more +like a tourist than a Varsity man. Every day we lunch and dine and take +coffee and tea in great masses of people. I’m bored to tears by half the +men I go about with, and I’m sure they’re bored to tears with me. We +don’t talk about anything but each other’s schools and whether A is a +better chap than B, or whether C is a gentleman and if it’s true that D +isn’t really. I bought for my own pleasure some rather decent books; and +every other evening about twelve people come and read them over each +other’s shoulders, while<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> I spend my whole time blowing cigarette ash +off the pictures. And when they’ve all read the story of the nightingale +in the Decameron, they sit up till one o’clock discussing who of our +year is most likely to be elected president of the J. C. R. four years +from now.”</p> + +<p>But for all Michael’s grumbling through that first term he was beginning +to perceive the blurred outlines of an intimate society at Oxford which +in the years to come he would remember. There was Wedderburn himself +whose square-headed solidity of demeanor and episcopal voice masked a +butterfly of a temperament that flitted from flower to flower of +artistic experiment or danced attendance upon freshmen, the honey of +whose future fame he seemed always able to probe.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you really are the old snob you try to make yourself,” said +Michael. “And yet I don’t think it is snobbishness. I believe it’s a +form of collecting. It’s a throw back to primitive life in a private +school. One day in your fourth year you’ll give a dinner party for about +twelve bloods and I shall come too and remind you just when and how and +where you picked them all up before their value was perfectly obvious. +Partly of course it’s due to being at Eton where you had nothing to do +but observe social distinction in the making and talk about Burne-Jones +to your tutor.”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow,” said Wedderburn deeply, “I have these people up to my +rooms because I like them.”</p> + +<p>“But it is convenient always to like the right people,” Michael argued. +“There are lots of others just as pleasant whom you don’t like. For +instance, Avery——”</p> + +<p>“Avery!” Wedderburn snorted.</p> + +<p>“He’s not likely ever to be captain of the ‘Varsity Eleven,” said +Michael. “But he’s amusing, and he can talk about books.”<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p> + +<p>“Patronizing ass,” Wedderburn growled.</p> + +<p>“That’s exactly what he isn’t,” Michael contradicted.</p> + +<p>“Damnable poseur,” Wedderburn rumbled.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, so are you,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>He thought how willfully Wedderburn would persist in misjudging Avery. +Yet himself had spent most delightful hours with him. To be sure, his +sensitiveness made him sharp-tongued, and he dressed rather too well. +But all the Carthusians at St. Mary’s dressed rather too well and +carried about with them the atmosphere of a week-end in a sporting +country-house owned by very rich people. This burbling prosperity would +gradually trickle away, Michael thought, and he began to follow the +course of Avery four years hence directed by Oxford to—to what? To some +distinguished goal of art, but whether as writer or painter or sculptor +he did not know, Avery was so very versatile. Michael mentally put him +on one side to decorate a conspicuous portion of the ideal edifice he +dreamed of creating from his Oxford society. There was Lonsdale. +Lonsdale really possessed the serene perfection of a great work of art. +Michael thought to himself that almost he could bear to attend for ever +Ardle’s dusty lectures on Cicero in order that for ever he might hear +Lonsdale admit with earnest politeness that he had not found time to +glance at the text the day before, that he was indeed sorry to cause Mr. +Ardle such a mortification, but that unfortunately he had left his Plato +in a sadler’s shop, where he had found it necessary to complain of a +saddle newly made for him.</p> + +<p>“But I am lecturing on Cicero, Mr. Lonsdale. The Pro Milone was not +delivered by Plato, Mr. Lonsdale.”</p> + +<p>“What’s he talking about?” Lonsdale whispered to Michael.</p> + +<p>“Nor was it delivered by Mr. Fane,” added the Senior Tutor dryly.<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> + +<p>Lonsdale looked at first very much alarmed by this suggestion, then +seeing by the lecturer’s face that something was still wrong, he assumed +a puzzled expression, and finally in an attempt to relieve the situation +he laughed very heartily and said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, after all, it’s very much the same.” Then, as everybody else +laughed very loudly, Lonsdale sat down and leaned back, pulling up his +trousers in gentle self-congratulation.</p> + +<p>“Rum old buffer,” he whispered presently to Michael. “His eye gets very +glassy when he looks at me. Do you think I ought to ask him to lunch?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought that Avery, Wedderburn and Lonsdale might be considered +to form the nucleus of the intimate ideal society which his imagination +was leading him on to shape. And if that trio seemed not completely to +represent the forty freshmen of St. Mary’s, there might be added to the +list certain others for qualities of athletic renown that combined with +charm of personality gave them the right to be set up in Michael’s +collection as types. There was Grainger, last year’s Captain of the +Boats at Eton, who would certainly row for the ‘Varsity in the spring. +Michael liked to sit in his rooms and watch his sprawling bulk and +listen for an hour at a time to his naïve theories of life. Grainger +seemed to shed rays of positive goodness, and Michael found that he +exercised over this splendid piece of youth a fascination which to +himself was surprising.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott, you are an odd chap,” Grainger once ejaculated.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Why, you’re a clever devil, aren’t you, and you don’t seem to do +anything. Have I talked a lot of rot?”</p> + +<p>“A good deal,” Michael admitted. “At least, it would<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> be rot if I talked +it, but it would be ridiculous if you talked in any other way.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>are</i> a curious chap. I can’t make you out.”</p> + +<p>“Why should you?” asked Michael. “You were never sent into this world to +puzzle out things. You were sent here to sprawl across it just as you’re +sprawling across that sofa. When you go down, you’ll go into the +Egyptian Civil Service and you’ll sprawl across the Sahara in exactly +the same way. I rather wish I were like you. It must be quite +comfortable to sit down heavily and unconcernedly on a lot of people. I +can’t imagine a more delightful mattress; only I should feel them +wriggling under me.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re a Radical. They say you are,” Grainger lazily +announced through puffed-out fumes of tobacco.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I might be,” said Michael, “if I wanted to proclaim myself +anything at all, but I’d much rather watch you sprawling effectively and +proclaiming yourself a supporter of Conservatism. I’ve really very +little inclination to criticize people like you. It’s only in books I +think you’re a little boring.”</p> + +<p>Term wore on, and a pleasurable anticipation was lent to the coming +vacation by a letter which Michael received from his mother.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">C<small>ARLINGTON</small> R<small>OAD</small>,</span><br /> +<i>November 20th.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><i>Dearest Michael,</i></p> + +<p><i>I’m so glad you’re still enjoying Oxford. I quite agree with you it +would be better for me to wait a little while before I visit you, +though I expect I should behave myself perfectly well. You’ll be +glad to hear that I’ve got rid of this tiresome house. I’ve sold it +to a retired Colonel—such an objectionable old man, and I’m really +so pleased he’s bought it. It has been a most worrying autumn +because the<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> people next door were continually complaining of +Stella’s piano, and really Carlington Road has become impossible. +Such an air of living next door, and whenever I look out of the +window the maid is shaking a mat and looking up to see if I’m +interested. We must try to settle on a new house when you’re back +in town. We’ll stay in a hotel for a while. Stella has had to take +a studio, which I do not approve of her doing, and I cannot bear to +see the piano going continually in and out of the house. There are +so many things I want to talk to you about—money, and whether you +would like to go to Paris during the holidays. I daresay we could +find a house at some other time.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Your loving</i></span><br /> +<i>Mother.</i></p></div> + +<p>From Stella about the same time, Michael also received a letter.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><i>My dear old Michael</i>,</p> + +<p><i>I seem to have made really a personal success at my concert, and +I’ve taken a studio here because the man next door—a most</i> +frightful <i>bounder—said the noise I made went through and through +his wife. As she’s nearly as big round as the world, I wasn’t +flattered. Mother is getting very fussy, and all sorts of strange +women come to the house and talk about some society for dealing +with Life with a capital letter. I think we’re going to be rather +well off, and Mother wants to live in a house she’s seen in Park +Street, but I want to take a house in Cheyne Walk. I hope you like +Cheyne Walk, because this house has got a splendid studio in the +garden and I thought with some mauve brocades it would look +perfectly lovely. There’s a very good</i> paneled <i>room that you could +have, and of course the studio would be half yours.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> I am working +at a Franck concerto. I’m being painted by rather a nice youth, at +least he would be nice, if he weren’t so much like a corpse. I +suppose you’ll condescend to ask me down to Oxford next term.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Yours ever,</i></span><br /> +<i>Stella.</i></p> + +<p><i>P.S.—I’ve come to the conclusion that mere brilliancy of execution +isn’t enough. Academic perfection is all very well, but I don’t +think I shall appear in public again until I’ve lived a little. I +really think life is rather exciting—unless it’s spelt with a +capital letter.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael was glad that there seemed a prospect of employing his vacation +in abolishing the thin red house in Carlington Road. He felt he would +have found it queerly shriveled after the spaciousness of Oxford. He was +sufficiently far along in his first term to be able to feel the +privilege of possessing the High, and he could think of no other word to +describe the sensation of walking down that street in company with +Lonsdale and Grainger and others of his friends.</p> + +<p>Term drew to a close, and Michael determined to mark the occasion by +giving a dinner in which he thought he would try the effect of his +friends all together. Hitherto the celebrations of the freshmen had been +casual entertainments arranged haphazard out of the idle chattering +groups in the lodge. This dinner was to be carefully thought out and +balanced to the extreme of nice adjustment. This terminal dinner might, +Michael thought, almost become with him a regular function, so that +people would learn to speak with interest and respect of Fane’s terminal +dinners. In a way, it would be tantamount to forming a club, a club +strictly subjective, indeed so personal in character as really to +preclude<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> the employment of the sociable world. At any rate, putting +aside all dreams of the future, Michael made up his mind to try the +effect of the first. It should be held in the Mitre, he decided, since +that would give the company an opportunity of sailing homeward +arm-in-arm along the whole length of the High. The guests should be +Avery, Lonsdale, Wedderburn, Grainger, and Alan. Yet when Michael came +to think about it, six all told seemed a beggarly number for his first +terminal dinner. Already Michael began to think of his dinner as an +established ceremony of undergraduate society. He would like to choose a +number that should never vary every term. He knew that the guests would +change, that the place of its celebration would alter, but he felt that +some permanency must be kept, and Michael fixed upon eleven as the +number, ten guests and himself. For this first dinner five more must be +invited, and Michael without much further consideration selected five +freshmen whose athletic prowess and social amiableness drew them into +prominence. But when he had given all the invitations Michael was a +little depressed by the conventional appearance of his list. With the +exception of Alan as a friend from another college, and Avery, his list +was exactly the same as any that might have been drawn up by Grainger. +As Michael pondered it, he scented an effluence of correctness that +overpowered his individuality. However, when he sat at the head of the +table in the private room at the Mitre, and surveyed round the table his +terminal dinner party, he was after all glad that on this occasion he +had deferred to the prejudices of what in a severe moment of +self-examination he characterized as “snobbishness.” In this room at the +Mitre with its faded red paper and pictures of rod and gun and +steeplechase, with its two waiters whiskered and in their garrulous +subservience eloquent of Thackerayan scenes, with its stuffed ptarmigan +and snipe and glass-enshrined<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> giant perch, Michael felt that a more +eclectic society would have been out of place.</p> + +<p>Only Avery’s loose-fronted shirt marred the rigid convention of the +group.</p> + +<p>“<i>Who’s</i> that man wearing a pie-frill?” whispered Alan sternly from +Michael’s right.</p> + +<p>Michael looked up at him with an expression of amused apprehension.</p> + +<p>“Avery allows himself a little license,” said Michael. “But, Alan, he’s +really all right. He always wears his trousers turned up, and if you saw +him on Sunday you’d think he was perfectly dressed. All Old Carthusians +are.”</p> + +<p>But Alan still looked disapprovingly at Avery, until Lonsdale, who had +met Alan several times at the House, began to talk of friends they had +in common.</p> + +<p>Michael was not altogether pleased with himself. He wished he had put +Avery on his left instead of Wedderburn. He disliked owning to himself +that he had put Avery at the other end of the table to avoid the +responsibility of listening to the loudly voiced opinions which he felt +grated upon the others. He looked anxiously along toward Avery, who +waved a cheery hand. Michael perceived with pleasure and faint relief +that he seemed to be amusing his neighbor, a Wykehamist called +Castleton.</p> + +<p>Michael was glad of this, for Castleton in some respects was the +strongest influence in Michael’s year, and his friendship would be good +for Avery. Wedderburn had implied to Michael that he considered +Castleton rather over-rated, but there was a superficial similarity +between the two in the sort of influence they both possessed, and +jealousy, if jealousy could lurk in the deep-toned and immaculate +Wedderburn, might be responsible for that opinion. Michael sometimes +wondered what made Castleton so redoubtable, since he was no more +apparently than an athlete of ordinary ability,<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> but Wykehamist opinion +in the college was emphatic in proclaiming his solid merit, and as he +seemed utterly unaware of possessing any quality at all, and as he +seemed to add to every room in which he sat a serenity and security, he +became each day more and more a personality impossible to neglect.</p> + +<p>Opposite to Avery was Cuffe, and as Michael looked at Cuffe he was more +than ever displeased with himself. The invitation to Cuffe was a +detestable tribute to public opinion. Cuffe was a prominent freshman, +and Michael had asked him for no other reason than because Cuffe would +certainly have been asked to any other so representative a gathering of +St. Mary’s freshmen as this one might be considered. But a +representative gathering of this kind was not exactly what Michael had +intended to achieve with his terminal dinner. He looked at Cuffe with +distaste. Then, too, in the middle of the table were Cranborne, Sterne, +and Sinclair, not one of whom was there from Michael’s desire to have +him, but from some ridiculous tradition of his suitableness. However, it +was useless to resent their presence now and, as the champagne went +round, gradually Michael forgot his predilections and was content to see +his first terminal dinner a success of wine and good-fellowship.</p> + +<p>Soon Lonsdale was on his feet making a speech, and Michael sat back and +smiled benignly on the company he had collected, while Lonsdale +discussed their individual excellencies.</p> + +<p>“First of all,” said Lonsdale, “I want to propose the health of our +distinguished friend, Mr. Merivale of Christ Church. For he’s a jolly +good fellow and all that. My friend Mr. Wedderburn’s a jolly good +fellow, too, and my friend Mr. Sterne on my center is a jolly good +fellow and a jolly good bowler and so say all of us. As for my friend +Tommy Grainger—whom I will not call Mister, having<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> known him since we +were boys together—I will here say that I confidently anticipate he +will get his blue next term and show the Tabs that he’s a jolly good +fellow. I will not mention the rest of us by name—all jolly good +fellows—except our host. He’s given us a good dinner and good wine and +good company, which nobody can deny. So here’s his health.”</p> + +<p>Then, in a phantasmagoria in which brilliant liqueurs and a meandering +procession of linked arms and the bells of Oxford and a wet night were +all indistinguishably confused in one strong impression, Michael passed +through his first terminal dinner.<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>CHEYNE WALK</h4> + +<p>The Christmas vacation was spent in searching London for a new house. +Mrs. Fane, when Carlington Road was with a sigh of relief at last +abandoned, would obviously have preferred to go abroad at once and +postpone the consideration of a future residence; but Michael with +Stella’s support prevailed upon her to take more seriously the problem +of their new home.</p> + +<p>Ultimately they fixed upon Chelsea, indeed upon that very house Stella +had chosen for its large studio separated by the length of a queer +little walled garden from the rest of the house. Certainly 173 Cheyne +Walk was better than 64 Carlington Road, thought Michael as, leaning +back against the parapet of the Embankment, he surveyed the mellow +exterior in the unreal sunlight of the January noon. Empty as it was, it +diffused an atmosphere of beauty and comfort, of ripe dignity and +peaceful solidity. The bow windows with their half-opaque glass seemed +to repulse the noise and movement of the world from the tranquil +interior they so sleekly guarded. The front door with its shimmering +indigo surface and fanlight and dolphin-headed knocker and on either +side of the steps the flambeaux-stands of wrought iron, the +three-plaster medallions and the five tall windows of the first story +all gave him much contemplative pleasure. He and his mother and Stella +had in three weeks visited every feasible quarter of London and<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> as +Michael thought of Hampstead’s leaf-haunted by-streets, of the still +squares of Kensington, even of Camden Hill’s sky-crowned freedom, he was +sure he regretted none of them in the presence of this sedate house +looking over the sun-flamed river and the crenated line of the long +Battersea shore.</p> + +<p>Michael was waiting for Mrs. Fane, who as usual was late. Mr. Prescott +was to be there to give his approval and advice, and Michael was anxious +to meet this man who had evidently been a very intimate friend of his +father. He saw Prescott in his mind as he had seen him years ago, an +intruder upon the time-shrouded woes of childhood, and as he was trying +to reconstruct the image of a florid jovial man, whose only definite +impression had been made by the gold piece he had pressed into Michael’s +palm, a hansom pulled up at the house and someone, fair and angular with +a military awkwardness, alighting from it, knocked at the door. Michael +crossed the road quickly and asked if he were Mr. Prescott. Himself +explained who he was and, opening the front door, led the way into the +empty house. He was conscious, as he showed room after room to Prescott, +that the visitor was somehow occupied less with the observation of the +house than with a desire to achieve in regard to Michael himself a +tentative advance toward intimacy. The January sun that sloped thin +golden ladders across the echoing spaces of the bare rooms expressed for +Michael something of the sensation which Prescott’s attitude conveyed to +him, the sensation of a benign and delicate warmth that could most +easily melt away, stretching out toward certain unused depths of his +heart.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you knew my father very well,” said Michael at last, blushing +as he spoke at the uninspired obviousness of the remark.</p> + +<p>“About as well as anybody,” said Prescott nervously.<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> “Like to talk to +you about him some time. Better come to dinner. Live in Albany. Have a +soldier-servant and all that, you know. Must talk sometimes. Important +you should know just how your affairs stand. Suppose I’m almost what you +might call your guardian. Of course your mother’s a dear woman. Known +her for years. Always splendid to me. But she mustn’t get too +charitable.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to people’s failings?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>Michael did not ask this so much because he believed that was what +Prescott really meant as because he wished to encourage him to speak out +clearly at once so that, when later they met again, the hard shyness of +preliminary encounters would have been softened. Moreover, this empty +house glinting with golden motes seemed to encourage a frankness and +directness of intercourse that made absurd these roundabout +postponements of actual problems.</p> + +<p>“Charitable to societies,” Prescott explained. “I don’t want her to +think she’s got to endow half a dozen committees with money and +occupation.”</p> + +<p>“Stella’s a little worried about mother’s charities,” Michael admitted.</p> + +<p>“Awful good sort, Stella,” Prescott jerked out. “Frightens me +devilishly. Never could stand very clever people. Oh, I like them very +much, but I always feel like a piece of furniture they want to move out +of their way. Used to be in the Welsh Guards with your father,” he added +vaguely.</p> + +<p>“Did you know my father when he first met my mother?” Michael asked +directly, and by his directness tripped up Prescott into a headlong +account.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, rather. I sent in my papers when he did. Chartered a yacht and +sailed all over the Mediterranean. Good gracious, twenty years ago! How +old we’re all getting.<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> Poor old Saxby was always anxious that no kind +of”—Prescott gibbed at the word for a moment or two—“no kind of slur +should be attached.... I mean, for instance, Mrs. Fane might have had to +meet the sort of women, you know, well, what I mean is ... there was +nothing of the sort. Saxby was a Puritan, and yet he was always a +rattling good sort. Only of course your mother was always cut off from +women’s society. Couldn’t be helped, but I don’t want her now to overdo +it. Glad she’s taken this house, though. What are you going to be?”</p> + +<p>Michael was saved from any declaration of his intentions by a ring at +the front door, which shrilled like an alarm through the empty house. +Soon all embarrassments were lost in his mother’s graceful and elusive +presence that seemed to furnish every room in turn with rich +associations of leisure and tranquillity, and with its fine assurance to +muffle all the echoes and the emptiness. Stella, who had arrived with +Mrs. Fane, was rushing from window to window, trying patterns of chintz +and damask and Roman satin; and all her notions of decoration that she +flung up like released birds seemed to flutter for a while in a +confusion of winged argument between her and Michael, while Mr. Prescott +listened with an expression on his wrinkling forehead of admiring +perplexity. But every idea would quickly be gathered in by Mrs. Fane, +and when she had smoothed its ruffled doubts and fears, it would fly +with greater certainty, until room by room and window by window and +corner by corner the house was beautifully and sedately and +appropriately arranged.</p> + +<p>“I give full marks to Prescott,” said Stella later in the afternoon to +Michael. “He’s like a nice horse.”</p> + +<p>“I think we ought to have had green curtains in the spare room,” said +Michael.</p> + +<p>“Why?” demanded Stella.<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a></p> + +<p>And when Michael tried to discover a reason, it was difficult to find +one.</p> + +<p>“Well, why not?” he at last very lamely replied.</p> + +<p>There followed upon that curiously staccato conversation between Michael +and Prescott in the empty house a crowded time of furnishing, while Mrs. +Fane with Michael and Stella stayed at the Sloane Street Hotel, chosen +by them as a convenient center from which to direct the multitudinous +activities set up by the adventure of moving. Michael, however, after +the first thrills of selection had died down, must be thinking about +going up again and be content to look forward on the strength of +Stella’s energetic promises to coming down for the Easter vacation and +entering 173 Cheyne Walk as his home.</p> + +<p>Michael excused himself to himself for not having visited any old +friends during this vacation by the business of house-hunting. Alan had +been away in Switzerland with his father, but Michael felt rather guilty +because he had never been near his old school nor even walked over to +Notting Hill to give Viner an account of his first term. It seemed to +him more important that he had corresponded with Lonsdale and Wedderburn +and Avery than that he should have sought out old friends. All that +Christmas vacation he was acutely conscious of the flowing past of old +associations and of a sense of transition into a new life that though as +yet barren of experience contained the promise of larger and worthier +experiences than it now seemed possible to him could have happened in +Carlington Road.</p> + +<p>On the night before he went up Michael dined with Prescott at his rooms +in the Albany. He enjoyed the evening very much. He enjoyed the darkness +of the room whose life seemed to radiate from the gleaming table in its +center. He enjoyed the ghostly motions of the soldier-servant and the +half-obscured vision of stern old prints on the walls of the<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> great +square room, and he enjoyed the intense silence that brooded outside the +heavily curtained windows. Here in the Albany Michael was immeasurably +aware of the life of London that was surging such a little distance +away; but in this modish cloister he felt that the life he was aware of +could never be dated, as if indeed were he to emerge into Piccadilly and +behold suddenly crinolines or even powdered wigs they would not greatly +surprise him. The Albany seemed to have wrung the spirit from the noisy +years that swept on their course outside, to have snatched from each its +heart and in the museum of this decorous glass arcade to have preserved +it immortally, exhibiting the frozen palpitations to a sensitive +observer.</p> + +<p>“You’re not talking much,” said Prescott.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking of old plays,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>Really he was thinking of one old play to which his mother had been +called away by Prescott on a jolly evening forgotten, whose value to +himself had been calculated at half-a-sovereign pressed into his hand. +Michael wished that the play could be going to be acted to-night and +that for half-a-sovereign he could restore to his mother that jolly +evening and that old play and his father. It seemed to him +incommunicably sad, so heavily did the Albany with its dead joys rest +upon his imagination, that people could not like years be frozen into a +perpetual present.</p> + +<p>“Don’t often go to the theater nowadays,” said Prescott. “When Saxby was +alive”—Michael fancied that “alive” was substituted for something that +might have hurt his feelings—“we used to go a lot, but it’s dull going +alone.”</p> + +<p>“Must you go alone?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, of course I needn’t. But I seem to be feeling oldish. Oldish,” +repeated the host.</p> + +<p>Michael felt the usurpation of his own youth, but he could not resist +asking whether Prescott thought he was at<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> all like his father, however +sharply this might accentuate the usurpation.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I think you are very like,” said Prescott. “Good Lord, what a +pity, what a pity! Saxby was always a great stickler for law and order, +you know. He hated anything that seemed irregular or interfered with +things. He hated Radicals, for instance, and motor cars. He had much +more brain than many people thought, but of course,” Prescott hurriedly +added, as if he wished to banish the slightest hint of professional +equipment, “of course he always preferred to be perfectly ordinary.”</p> + +<p>“I like to be ordinary,” Michael said; “but I’m not.”</p> + +<p>“Never knew anybody at your age who was. I remember I tried to write +some poetry about a man who got killed saving a child from being run +over by a train,” said Prescott in a tone of wise reminiscence. “You +know, I think you’re a very lucky chap,” he added. “Here you are all +provided for. In your first term at Oxford. No responsibilities except +the ordinary responsibilities of an ordinary gentleman. Got a charming +sister. Why, you might do anything.”</p> + +<p>“What, for example?” queried Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. There’s the Diplomatic Service. But don’t be in a +hurry. Wait a bit. Have a good time. Your allowance is to be four +hundred a year at St. Mary’s. And when you’re twenty-one you come into +roughly seven hundred a year of your own, and ultimately you’ll have at +least two thousand a year. But don’t be a young ass. You’ve been brought +up quietly. You haven’t <i>got</i> to cut a dash. Don’t get in a mess with +women, and, if you do, come and tell me before you try to get out of +it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care much about women,” said Michael. “They’re disappointing.”</p> + +<p>“What, already?” exclaimed Prescott, putting up his eyeglass.<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a></p> + +<p>Michael murmured a dark assent. The glass of champagne that owing to the +attention of the soldier-servant was always brimming, the dark discreet +room, and the Albany’s atmosphere of passion squeezed into the mold of +contemporary decorum or bound up to stand in a row of Thackeray’s books, +all combined to affect Michael with the idea that his life had been +lived. He felt himself to belong to the period of his host, and as the +rubied table glowed upon his vision more intensely, he beheld the old +impressionable Michael, the nervous, the self-conscious, the sensitive +slim ghost of himself receding out of sight into the gloom. Left behind +was the new Michael going up to the Varsity to-morrow morning for his +second term, going up with the assurance of finding delightful friends +who would confirm his distaste for the circumscribed past. Only a +recurrent apprehension that under the table he seemed called upon to +manage a number of extra legs, or perhaps it was only a slight +uncertainty as to which leg was crossed over the other at the moment, +made him wonder very gently whether after all some of this easy +remoteness were not due to the champagne. The figure of his host was +receding farther and farther every moment, and his conversation reached +Michael across a shimmering inestimable space of light, while finally he +was aware of his own voice talking very rapidly and with a half-defiant +independence of precisely what he wished to say. The evening swam past +comfortably, and gradually from the fumes of the cigar smoke the figure +of Prescott leaning back in his shadowy armchair took on once again a +definite corporeal existence. A clock on the mantelpiece chimed the +twelve strokes of midnight in a sort of silvery apology for obtruding +the hour. Michael came back into himself with a start of confusion.</p> + +<p>“I say, I must go.”<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<p>Prescott and he walked along the arcade toward Albany Courtyard.</p> + +<p>“I say,” said Michael, with his foot on the step of the hansom, “I think +I must have talked an awful lot of rot to-night.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, no, my dear boy; I’ve been very much interested,” insisted +Prescott.</p> + +<p>And all the jingling way home Michael tried to rescue from the labyrinth +of his memory some definite conversational thread that would lead him to +discover what he could have said that might conceivably have mildly +entertained his host.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” he finally decided.</p> + +<p>Next morning Michael met Alan at Paddington, and they went up to Oxford +with all the rich confidence of a term’s maturity. Even in the drizzle +of a late January afternoon the city assumed in place of her eternal and +waylaying beauty a familiarity that for Michael made her henceforth more +beautiful.</p> + +<p>After hall Avery came up to Michael’s room, and while the rain dripped +endlessly outside, they talked lazily of life with a more clearly +assured intimacy than either of them could have contemplated the term +before.</p> + +<p>Michael spoke of the new house, of his sister Stella, of his dinner with +Prescott at the Albany, almost indeed of the circumstances of his birth, +so easy did it seem to talk to Avery deep in the deep chair before the +blazing fire. He stopped short, however, at his account of the dinner.</p> + +<p>“You know, I think I should like to turn ultimately into a Prescott,” he +affirmed. “I think I should be happy living in rooms at the Albany +without ever having done a very great deal. I should like to feel I was +perfectly in keeping with my rooms and my friends and my servant.”<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>“But you wouldn’t be,” Avery objected, “if you thought about it.”</p> + +<p>“No, but I shouldn’t think about it,” Michael pointed out. “I should +have steeled myself all my life not to think about it, and when your +eldest son comes to see me, Maurice, and drinks a little too much +champagne and talks as fast as his father used to talk, I shall know +just exactly how to make him feel that after all he isn’t quite the +silly ass he will be inclined to think himself about the middle of his +third cigar.”</p> + +<p>Michael sank farther back into the haze of his pipe and, contemplating +dreamily the Mona Lisa, made up his mind that she would not become his +outlook thirty years hence. Some stern old admiral with his hand on the +terrestrial globe and a naval engagement in the background would better +suit his mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“I wonder what I shall be like at fifty,” he sighed.</p> + +<p>“It depends what you do in between nineteen and fifty,” said Avery. “You +can’t possibly settle down at the Albany as soon as you leave the +Varsity. You’ll have to do something.”</p> + +<p>“What, for example?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, write perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Write!” Michael scoffed. “Why, when I can read all these”—he pointed +to his bookshelves—“and all the dozens and dozens more I intend to buy, +what a fool I should be to waste my time in writing.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I intend to write,” said Avery. “In fact, I don’t mind telling +you I intend to start a paper as soon as I can.”</p> + +<p>Michael laughed.</p> + +<p>“And you’ll contribute,” Avery went on eagerly.</p> + +<p>“How much?”</p> + +<p>“I’m talking about articles. I shall call my paper—well,<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> I haven’t +thought about the title—but I shall get a good one. It won’t be like +the papers of the nineties. It will be more serious. It will deal with +art, of course, and literature, and politics, but it won’t be decadent. +It will try to reflect contemporary undergraduate thought. I think it +might be called The Oxford Looking-Glass.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I expect it will be a looking-glass production,” said Michael. “I +should call it The World Turned Upside Down.”</p> + +<p>“I’m perfectly serious about this paper,” said Avery reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“And I’m taking you very seriously,” said Michael. “That’s why I won’t +write a line. Are you going to have illustrations?”</p> + +<p>“We might have one drawing. I’m not quite sure how much it costs to +reproduce a drawing. But it would be fun to publish some rather advanced +stuff.”</p> + +<p>“Well, as long as you don’t publish drawings that look as if the +compositor had suddenly got angry with the page and thrown asterisks at +it, and as long as——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shut up,” interrupted the dreaming editor, “and don’t fall into +that tiresome undergraduate cynicism. It’s so young.”</p> + +<p>“But I am young,” Michael pointed out with careful gravity. “So are you. +And, Maurice, really you know for me my own ambitions are best. I’ve got +a great sense of responsibility, and if I were to start going through +life trying to do things, I should worry myself all the time. The only +chance for me is to find a sort of negative attitude to life like +Prescott. You’ll do lots of things. I think you’re capable of them. But +I’d rather watch. At least in my present mood I would. I’d give anything +to feel I was a leader of men or whatever it is you are. But I’m not. +I’ve got a sister whom you ought to meet. She’s got all<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> the positive +energy in our family. I can’t explain, Maurice, just exactly what I’m +feeling about existence at this moment, unless I tell you more about +myself than I possibly can—anyway yet a while. I don’t want to do any +harm, and I don’t think I could ever feel I was in a position to do any +good. Look here, don’t let’s talk any more. I meant to dream myself into +an attitude to-night, and you’ve made me talk like an earnest young +convert.”</p> + +<p>“I think I’ll go round and consult Wedderburn about this paper,” said +Avery excitedly.</p> + +<p>“He thinks you’re patronizing,” Michael warned him.</p> + +<p>Avery pulled up, suddenly hurt:</p> + +<p>“Does he? I wonder why.”</p> + +<p>“But he won’t, if you ask his advice about reproducing advanced +drawings.”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t he like me?” persisted Avery. “I’d better not go round to his +rooms.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be foolish, Maurice. Your sensitiveness is really all spoiled +vanity.”</p> + +<p>When Avery had hesitatingly embarked upon his expedition to Wedderburn, +Michael thought rather regretfully of his presence and wished he had +been more sympathetic in his reception of the great scheme. Yet perhaps +that was the best way to have begun his own scheme for not being +disturbed by life. Michael thought how easily he might have had to +reproach himself over Lily Haden. He had escaped once. There should be +no more active exposure to frets and fevers. Looking back on his life, +Michael came to the conclusion that henceforth books should give him his +adventures. Actually he almost made up his mind to retire even from the +observation of reality, so much had he felt, all this Christmas +vacation, the dominance of Stella and so deeply had he been impressed by +Prescott’s attitude of inscrutable commentary.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a></p> + +<p>Michael was greatly amused when two or three evenings later he strolled +round to Wedderburn’s rooms to find him and Maurice Avery sitting in +contemplation of about twenty specimen covers of The Oxford +Looking-Glass that were pinned against the wall on a piece of old +lemon-colored silk. He was greatly amused to find that the reconciling +touch of the Muses had united Avery and Wedderburn in a firm +friendship—so much amused indeed that he allowed himself to be +nominated to serve on the obstetrical committee that was to effect the +birth of this undergraduate bantling.</p> + +<p>“Though what exactly you want me to do,” protested Michael, “I don’t +quite know.”</p> + +<p>“We want money, anyway,” Avery frankly admitted. “Oh, and by the way, +Michael, I’ve asked Goldney, the Treasurer of the O.U.D.S. to put you +up.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth for?” gasped Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’ll want supers. They’re doing The Merchant of Venice. Great +sport. Wedders is going to join. I want him to play the Prince of +Morocco.”</p> + +<p>“But are you running the Ouds as well as The Oxford Looking-Glass?” +Michael inquired gently.</p> + +<p>In the end, however, he was persuaded by Avery to become a member, and +not only to join himself but to persuade other St. Mary’s freshmen, +including Lonsdale, to join. The preliminary readings and the rehearsals +certainly passed away the Lent term very well, for though Michael was +not cast for a speaking part, he had the satisfaction of seeing +Wedderburn and Avery play respectively the Princes of Morocco and +Arragon, and of helping Lonsdale to entertain the professional actresses +who came up from London to take part in the production.</p> + +<p>“I think I ought to have played Lorenzo,” said Lonsdale seriously to +Michael, just before the first night. “I think Miss Delacourt would have +preferred to play Jessica to my<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> Lorenzo. As it is I’m only a gondolier, +an attendant, and a soldier.”</p> + +<p>Michael was quite relieved when this final lament burst forth. It seemed +to set Lonsdale once more securely in the ranks of the amateurs. There +had been a dangerous fluency of professional terminology in “my +Lorenzo.”</p> + +<p>“I’m only a gondolier, an attendant, and a mute judge,” Michael +observed.</p> + +<p>“And I don’t think that ass from Oriel knows how to play Lorenzo,” +Lonsdale went on. “He doesn’t appreciate acting with Miss Delacourt. I +wonder if my governor would be very sick if I chucked the Foreign Office +and went on the stage. Do you think I could act, if I had a chance? I’m +perfectly sure I could act with Miss Delacourt. Don’t forget you’re +lunching with me to-morrow. I don’t mind telling you she threw over a +lunch with that ass from Oriel who’s playing Lorenzo. I never heard such +an idiotic voice in my life.”</p> + +<p>Such conversations coupled with requests from Wedderburn and Maurice +Avery to hear them their two long speeches seemed to Michael to occupy +all his leisure that term. At the same time he enjoyed the rehearsals in +the lecture rooms at Christ Church, and he enjoyed escaping sometimes to +Alan’s rooms and ultimately persuading Alan to become a gondolier, an +attendant and a soldier. Moreover, he met various men from other +colleges, and he began to realize faintly thereby the individuality of +each college, but most of all perhaps the individuality of his own +college, as when Lonsdale came up to him one day with an expression of +alarm to say that he had been invited to lunch by the man who played +Launcelot Gobbo.</p> + +<p>“Well, what of it?” said Michael. “He probably wants to borrow your +dog.”</p> + +<p>“He says he’s at Lincoln,” Lonsdale stammered.<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a></p> + +<p>“So he is.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know where Lincoln is. Have you got a map or something of +Oxford?”</p> + +<p>The performance of The Merchant of Venice took place and was a great +success. The annual supper of the club took place, when various old +members of theatrical appearance came down and made speeches and told +long stories about their triumphs in earlier days. Next morning the +auxiliary ladies returned to London, and in the afternoon the +disconsolate actors went down to the barges and encouraged their various +Toggers to victory.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale forgot all about Miss Delacourt when he saw Tommy Grainger +almost swinging the St. Mary’s boat into the apprehensive stern of the +only boat which stood between them and the headship, and that evening +his only lament was that the enemy had on this occasion escaped. The +Merchant of Venice with its tights and tinsel and ruffs faded out in +that Lenten week of drizzling rain, when every afternoon Michael and +Lonsdale and many others ran wildly along the drenched towing-path +beside their Togger. And when in the end St. Mary’s failed to catch the +boat in front, Michael and Lonsdale and many others felt each in his own +way that after all it had been greatly worth while to try.</p> + +<p>Michael came down for the Easter vacation with the pleasant excitement +of seeing 173 Cheyne Walk furnished and habitable. In deference to his +mother’s particular wish he had not invited anybody to stay with him, +but he regretted he had not been more insistent when he saw each room in +turn nearly twice as delightful as he had pictured it.</p> + +<p>There was his mother’s own sitting-room whose rose du Barri cushions and +curtains conformed exactly to his own preconceptions, and there was +Stella’s bedroom very white and severe, and his own bedroom pleasantly +mediæval, and<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> the dining-room very cool and green, and the drawing-room +with wallpaper of brilliant Chinese birds and in a brass cage a blue and +crimson macaw blinking at the somber Thames. Finally there was the +studio to which he was eagerly escorted by Stella.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t done anything but just have it whitewashed,” she said. “I +wanted you to choose the scheme, as I’m going to make all the noise.”</p> + +<p>The windy March sunlight seemed to fill the great room when Michael and +his sister entered it.</p> + +<p>“But it’s absolutely empty,” he exclaimed, and indeed there was nothing +in all that space except Stella’s piano, looking now almost as small and +graceful as in Carlington Road it had seemed ponderous.</p> + +<p>“You shall decorate the room,” she said. “What will you choose?”</p> + +<p>Michael visualized rapidly for a moment, first a baronial hall with +gothic chairs and skins and wrought-iron everywhere, with tapestries and +blazonries and heavy gold embroideries. Then he thought of crude and +amazing contrasts of barbarous reds and vivid greens and purples, with +Persian rugs and a smell of joss-sticks and long low divans. Yet, even +as Michael’s fancy decked itself with kaleidoscopic intentions, his mind +swiftly returned to the keyboard’s alternations of white and black, so +that in a moment exotic splendors were merged in esoteric significance.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think we want anything,” he finally proclaimed. “Just two or +three tall chairs and a mask of somebody—Beethoven perhaps—and black +silk curtains. You see the piano wouldn’t go with elaborate +decorations.”</p> + +<p>So every opportunity of prodigal display was neglected, and the studio +remained empty. To Michael, all that windy Eastertide, it was an +infallible thrill to leave behind him the sedate Georgian house and, +crossing the little walled<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> rectangle of pallid grass, to pause and +listen to the muffled sound of Stella’s notes. Never had any entrance +seemed to him so perfect a revelation of joy within as now when he was +able to fling wide open the door of the studio and feel, while the power +and glory of the sonata assailed him, that this great white room was +larger even than the earth itself. Sitting upon a high-backed chair, +Michael would watch the white walls melting like clouds in the sun, +would see their surface turn to liquid light, and fancy in these clear +melodies of Stella that he and she and the piano and the high-backed +chair were in this room not more trammeled than by space itself. Alan +sometimes came shyly to listen, and while Stella played and played, +Michael would wonder if ever these two would make for him the union that +already he was aware of coveting. Alan was rosy with the joy of life on +the slopes of the world, and Stella must surely have always someone +fresh and clean and straight like Alan to marvel at her.</p> + +<p>“By Jove, she must have frightfully strong wrists and fingers,” said +Alan.</p> + +<p>Just so, thought Michael, might a shepherd marvel at a lark’s powerful +wings.</p> + +<p>April went her course that year with less of sweet uncertainty than +usual, and Michael walked very often along the Embankment dreaming in +the sunshine as day by day, almost hour by hour, the trees were +greening. Chelsea appealed to his sense of past greatness. It pleased +him to feel that Carlyle and Rossetti might have walked as he was +walking now during some dead April of time. Moreover, such heroes were +not too far away. Their landscape was conceivable. People who had known +them well were still alive. Swinburne and Meredith, too, had walked +here, and themselves were still alive. In Carlington Road there had been +none of this communion with the past. Nobody outside<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> the contemporary +residents could ever have walked along its moderately cheerful +uniformity.</p> + +<p>Michael, as he pondered the satisfaction which had come from the change +of residence, began to feel a sentimental curiosity about Carlington +Road and its surrounding streets. It was not yet a year since he had +existed there familiarly, almost indigenously; but the combination of +Oxford and Cheyne Walk made him feel a lifetime had passed since he had +been so willingly transplanted. One morning late in April and just +before he was going up for the summer term, he determined to pay a visit +to the scenes of his childhood. It was an experience more depressing +than he had imagined it would be. He was shocked by the sensation of +constraint and of slightly contemptible limitation that was imposed upon +his fancy by the pilgrimage. He thought to himself, as he wandered +between the rows of thin red houses, that after the freedom of the river +Carlington Road was purely intolerable. It did not possess the +narrowness that lent a mysterious intimacy. The two rows of houses did +not lean over and meet one another as houses lean over, almost seeming +to gossip with one another, in ancient towns. They gave rather the +impression of two mutually unattractive entities propelled into +contiguity by the inexorable economy of the life around. The two rows +came together solely for the purpose of crowding together a number of +insignificant little families whose almost humiliating submission to the +tyranny of city life was expressed pathetically by the humble flaunting +of their window-boxes and in their front gardens symbolically by the +dingy parterres of London Pride. Michael wondered whether a spirit +haunting the earth feels in the perception of its former territory so +much shame as he felt now in approaching 64 Carlington Road. When he +reached the house itself, he was able to expel his sentiment for the +past by the trivial fact that the curtains of the new<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> owner had +dispossessed the house of its personality. Only above the door, the +number in all its squat assurance was able to convince him that this was +indeed the house where he had wrestled so long and so hardly with the +problems of childhood. There, too, was the plane-tree that, once an +object of reproach, now certainly gave some distinction to the threshold +of this house when every area down the road owned a lime-tree identical +in age and growth.</p> + +<p>Yet with all his distaste for 64 Carlington Road Michael could scarcely +check the impulse he had to mount the steps and, knocking at the door, +inform whomsoever should open it that he had once lived in this very +house. He passed on, however, remembering at every corner of every new +street some bygone unimportant event which had once occupied his whole +horizon. Involuntarily he walked on and on in a confusion of +recollections, until he came to the corner of the road where Lily Haden +lived.</p> + +<p>It was with a start of self-rebuke that he confessed to himself that +here was the ultimate object of his revisitation. He had scarcely +thought of Lily since the betrayal of his illusions on that brazen July +day when last he had seen her in the garden behind her house. If he had +thought of her at all, she had passed through his mind like the memory, +or less even than the definite memory, like the consciousness that never +is absent of beautiful days spent splendidly in the past. Sometimes +during long railway journeys Michael had played with himself the game of +vowing to remember an exact moment, some field or effect of clouds which +the train was rapidly passing. Yet though he knew that he had done this +a hundred times, it was always as impossible to conjure again the vision +he had vowed to remember as it had been impossible ever to remember the +exact moment of falling asleep.</p> + +<p>After all, however, Lily could not have taken her place<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> with these +moments so impossible to recapture, or he would not have come to himself +with so acute a consciousness of her former actuality here at the corner +of Trelawney Road. It was almost as uncanny as the poem of Ulalume, and +Michael found himself murmuring, “Of my most immemorial year,” half +expectant of Lily’s slim form swaying toward him, half blushful already +in breathless anticipation of the meeting.</p> + +<p>Down the road a door opened. Michael’s heart jumped annoyingly out of +control. It was indeed her door, and whoever was coming out hesitated in +the hall. Michael went forward impulsively, but the door slammed, and a +man with a pencil behind his ear ran hurriedly down the steps. Michael +saw that the windows of the house were covered with the names of +house-agents, that several “to let” boards leaned confidentially over +the railings to accost passers-by. Michael caught up the man, who was +whistling off in the opposite direction, and asked him if he knew where +Mrs. Haden had gone.</p> + +<p>“I wish I did,” said the man, sucking his teeth importantly. “No, sir, +I’m afraid I don’t. Nor anybody else.”</p> + +<p>“You mean they went away in a hurry,” said Michael shamefaced.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“And left no address?”</p> + +<p>“Left nothing but a heap of tradesmen’s bills in the hall.”</p> + +<p>Michael turned aside, sorry for the ignominious end of the Hadens, but +glad somehow that the momentary temptation to renew his friendship with +the family, perhaps even his love for Lily, was so irremediably +defeated.</p> + +<p>In the sunset that night, as he and Stella sat in the drawing-room +staring over the incarnadined river, Michael told his sister of his +discovery.<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p> + +<p>“I’m glad you’re not going to start that business again,” she said. +“And, Michael, do try not to fall in love for a bit, because I shall +soon have such a terrible heap of difficulties that you must solve for +me disinterestedly and without prejudice.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of difficulties?” Michael demanded, with eyes fixed upon her +cheeks warm with the evening light.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” she half whispered. “But let’s go away together in +the summer and not even take a piano.”<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>YOUTH’S DOMINATION</h4> + +<p>On May Morning, when the choir boys of St. Mary’s hymned the rising sun, +Michael was able for the first time to behold the visible expression of +his own mental image of Oxford’s completeness, to pierce in one dazzling +moment of realization the cloudy and elusive concepts which had +restlessly gathered and resolved themselves in beautiful obscurity about +his mind. He was granted on that occasion to hold the city, as it were, +imprisoned in a crystal globe, and by the intensity of his evocation to +recognize perfectly that uncapturable quintessence of human desire and +human vision so supremely displayed through the merely outward glory of +its repository.</p> + +<p>All night Michael and a large party of freshmen, now scarcely to be +called freshmen so much did they feel they possessed of the right to +live, had sustained themselves with dressed crab and sleepy +bridge-fours. During the gray hour of hinted dawn they wandered round +the college, rousing from sleep such lazy contemporaries as had vowed +that not all the joys and triumph of May Morning on the tower should +make them keep awake, during the vigil. Even so with what it contained +of ability to vex other people that last hour hung a little heavily upon +the enthusiasts. Slowly, however, the sky lightened: slowly the cold +hues and blushes of the sun’s youth, that stood as symbol for so much +here in<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> St. Mary’s, made of the east one great shell of lucent color. +The gray stones of the college lost the mysterious outlines of dawn and +sharpened slowly to a rose-warmed vitality. The choir boys gathered like +twittering birds at the base of the tower: energetic visitors came half +shyly through the portal that was to give such a sense of time’s +rejuvenation as never before had they deemed possible: dons came +hurrying like great black birds in the gathering light: and at last the +tired revelers, Michael and Wedderburn, Maurice Avery and Lonsdale and +Grainger and Cuffe and Castleton and a score besides equipped in cap and +gown went scrambling and laughing up the winding stairs to the top.</p> + +<p>For Michael the moment of waiting for the first shaft of the sun was +scarcely to be endured: the vision of the city below was almost too +poignant during the hush of expectancy that preceded the declaration of +worship. Then flashed a silver beam in the east: the massed choir boys +with one accord opened their mouths and sang just exactly, Michael said +to himself, like the morning stars. The rising sun sent ray upon ray +lancing over the roofs of the outspread city until with all its spires +and towers, with all its domes and houses and still, unpopulous streets +it sparkled like the sea. The hymn was sung: the choir boys twittered +again like sparrows, and, bowing their greetings to one another, the +dons cawed gravely like rooks. The bells incredibly loud here on the +tower’s top crashed out so ardently that every stone seemed to nod in +time as the tower trembled and swayed backward and forward while the sun +mounted into the day.</p> + +<p>Michael leaned over the parapet and saw the little people busy as emmets +at the base of the tower on whose summit he had the right to stand. +Intoxicated with repressed adoration, the undergraduates sent hurtling +outward into the air their caps, and down below the boys of the town<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> +scrambled and fought for these trophies of May Morning.</p> + +<p>Michael through all the length of that May day dreamed himself into the +heart of England. He had refused Maurice’s invitation to a somewhat +mannered breakfast-party at Sandford Lasher, though when he saw the +almost defiantly jolly party ride off on bicycles from the lodge, he was +inclined to regret his refusal. He wished he had persuaded Alan, now +sleeping in the stillness of the House unmoved by May Morning +celebrations, to rise early and come with him on some daylong jaunt far +afield. It was a little dull to sit down to breakfast in the college +shorn of revelers, and for another two hours unlikely to show any sign +of life on the part of those who had declined for sleep the excitement +of eating dressed crab and playing bridge through the vigil. After +breakfast it would still be only about seven o’clock with a hot-eyed +languor to anticipate during the rest of the morning. Michael almost +decided to go to bed. He turned disconsolately out of the lodge and +walked round Cloisters, out through one of the dark entries on to the +lawns of New Quad gold-washed in the morning stillness. It seemed +incredible that no sign should remain here of that festal life which had +so lately thronged the scene. Michael went up to the J.C.R. and ate a +much larger breakfast than usual, after which, feeling refreshed, he +extracted his bicycle from the shed and at the bidding of a momentary +impulse rode out of Oxford toward Lechlade.</p> + +<p>It had been an early spring that year, and the country was far more +typical than usual of old May Morning. Michael nowadays disliked the +sensation of riding a bicycle, and though gradually the double +irritation of no sleep and a long ride unaccompanied wore off, he was +glad to see Lechlade spire and most glad of all to find himself deep in +the grass by the edge of the river. Lying on his back and staring up at +the slow clouds, he was glad he had refused to<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> attend Maurice’s +mannered breakfast. Soon he fell asleep, and when he woke the morning +had gone and it was time for lunch. Michael felt magnificently at ease +with the country after his rest, and when he had eaten at the inn, he +went back to the river’s bank and slept away two hours more. Then for a +while in the afternoon, so richly endowed with warmth and shadows that +it seemed to have stolen a summer disguise, he walked about level +water-meadows very lush and vivid, painted with gay and simple flowers +and holding in their green embroidered lap all England. Riding back to +Oxford, Michael thought he would have tea at an inn that stood beside a +dreaming ferry. He was not sure of the inn’s name, and deliberately he +did not ask what sweet confluence of streams here happened, whether it +were Windrush or Evenlode or some other nameless tributary that was +flowing into the ancestral Thames.</p> + +<p>Michael thought he would like to stay on to dinner and ride back to +Oxford by moonlight. So with dusk falling he sat in the inn garden that +was faintly melodious with the plash of the river and perfumed with +white stocks. A distant clock chimed the hour, and Michael, turning for +one moment to salute the sunset, went into the somber inn parlor.</p> + +<p>At the table another undergraduate was sitting, and Michael hoped a +conversation might ensue since he was attracted to this solitary inmate. +His companion, however, scarcely looked up as he took his seat, but +continued to stare very hard at a small piece of writing-paper on the +table before him. He scarcely seemed to notice what was put on the table +by the serving-maid, and he ate absently with his eyes still fixed upon +his paper. Michael wondered if he were trying to solve a cipher and +regretted his preoccupation, since the longer he spent in his silent +company the more keenly he felt the attraction of this strange youth<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> +with the tumbled hair and drooping lids and delicately carved +countenance. At last he put away the pencil he had been chewing instead +of his food, and slipped the paper into the pocket of his waistcoat. +Then with an expression of curiosity so intense as to pucker up his pale +forehead into numberless wrinkles the pensive undergraduate examined the +food on the plate before him.</p> + +<p>“I think it’s rather cold by now,” said Michael, unable to keep silence +any longer in the presence of this interesting stranger.</p> + +<p>“I was trying to alter the last line of a sonnet. If I knew you better, +I’d read you the six alternative versions. But if I read them to you +now, you’d think I was an affected ass,” he drawled.</p> + +<p>Michael protested he would like to hear them very much.</p> + +<p>“They’re all equally bad,” the poet proclaimed gloomily. “What made you +come to this inn? I didn’t know that anybody else except me had ever +been here. You’re at the Varsity, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>Michael with a nod announced his college.</p> + +<p>“I’m at Balliol. At Balliol you find the youngest dons and the oldest +undergraduates in Oxford.”</p> + +<p>“I think just the reverse is true of St. Mary’s,” Michael suggested.</p> + +<p>“Well, certainly the youngest thing I ever met is a St. Mary’s man. I +refer to the ebullient Avery whom I expect you know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather. In fact, he’s rather a friend of mine. He’s keen on +starting a paper just at present.”</p> + +<p>“I know. I know,” said the poet. “He’s asked me to be one of the +forty-nine sub-editors. Are you another?”</p> + +<p>“I was invited to be,” Michael admitted. “But instead I’m going to +subscribe some of the capital required. My name’s Fane.”<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<p>“Mine’s Hazlewood. It’s rather jolly to meet a person in this inn. +Usually I only meet fishermen more flagrantly mendacious than anywhere +else. But they’ve got bored with me because I always unhesitatingly go +two pounds better than the biggest juggler of avoirdupois present. Have +you ever thought of the romance in Troy measure? I can imagine Paris +weighing the charms of Helen—no—on second thoughts I’m being forced. +Don’t encourage me to talk for effect. How did you come to this inn?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Michael, wrestling as he spoke with the largest +roast chicken he had ever seen. “I think I missed a turning. I’ve been +at Lechlade all day.”</p> + +<p>“We may as well ride back together,” Hazlewood proposed.</p> + +<p>After dinner they talked and smoked for a while in the inn parlor, and +then with half-a-moon high in the heavens they scudded back to Oxford. +Hazlewood invited Michael to come up to his rooms for a drink.</p> + +<p>“Do you know many Balliol people?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Michael named a few acquaintances who had been the fruit of his acting +in The Merchant of Venice.</p> + +<p>“I daresay some of that push will be in my rooms. Other people use my +rooms almost more than I do myself. I think they have a vague idea +they’re keeping a chapel, or else it’s a relief from the unparagoned +brutality of the college architecture.”</p> + +<p>Hazlewood was right in his surmise, for when he and Michael reached his +rooms, they seemed full of men. It was impossible to say at once how +many were present because the only light was given by two gigantic wax +candles that stood on either side of the fireplace in massive +candlesticks of wrought iron.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Fane of St. Mary’s,” said Hazlewood casually, and Michael was dimly +aware of multitudinous nods of greeting<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> and an unanimous murmur of +expostulation with Hazlewood for his lateness.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you know that this is a meeting of the Chandos, Guy?” the +chorus sighed, in a climax of exasperated patience.</p> + +<p>“Forgot all about it,” said Hazlewood. “But I suppose I can bring a +visitor.”</p> + +<p>Michael made a move to depart, feeling embarrassed by the implied +criticism of the expostulation.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said Hazlewood peremptorily. “If I can’t bring a visitor I +resign from the Society, and the five hundred and fiftieth meeting will +have to be held somewhere else. I call upon Lord Comeragh to read us his +carefully prepared paper on The Catapult in Mediæval Warfare.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be an affected ass, Guy,” said Comeragh. “You know you yourself +are reading a paper on The Sonnet.”</p> + +<p>“Rise from the noble lord,” said Hazlewood. “The first I’ve had in a +day’s fishing. I say, Fane, don’t listen to this rot.”</p> + +<p>The company settled back in anticipation of the paper, while the host +and reader searched desperately in the dim light for his manuscript.</p> + +<p>Michael found the evening a delightful end to his day. He was +sufficiently tired by his nocturnal vigil to be able to accept the +experience without any prickings of self-consciousness and doubt as to +whether this Balliol club resented his intrusion. Hazlewood’s room was +the most personal that so far he had seen in Oxford. It shadowed forth +for Michael possibilities that in the sporting atmosphere of St. Mary’s +he had begun to forget. He would not have liked Tommy Grainger or +Lonsdale to have rooms like this one of Hazlewood’s, nor would he have +exchanged the society of Grainger and Lonsdale for any other society in +Oxford; but he was glad to think that Hazlewood and his rooms<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> existed. +He lay back in a deep armchair watching the candlelight flicker over the +tapestries, and the shadows of the listeners in giant size upon their +martial and courtly populations. He heard in half-a-dream the level +voice of Hazlewood enunciating his theories in graceful singing +sentences, and the occasional fizz of a replenished glass. The tobacco +smoke grew thicker and thicker, curling in spirals about the emaciated +loveliness of an ivory saint. The paper was over: and before the +discussion was started somebody rose and drew back the dull green +curtains sown with golden fleur-de-lys. Moonbeams came slanting in and +with them the freshness of the May night: more richly blue gathered the +tobacco smoke: more magical became the room, and more perfectly the +decorative expression of all Oxford stood for. One by one the members of +the Chandos Society rose up to comment on the paper, mocking and +earnest, affected and sincere, always clever, sometimes humorous, +sometimes truly wise with an apologetic wisdom that was the more +delightful.</p> + +<p>Michael came to the conclusion that he liked Balliol, that most unjustly +had he heard its atmosphere stigmatized as priggish. He made up his mind +to examine more closely at leisure this atmosphere, so that from it he +might extract the quintessential spirit. Walking with Hazlewood to the +lodge, he asked him if the men he had met in his room would stand as +representatives of the college.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I should think so,” said Hazlewood. “Why, are you making +exhaustive researches into the social aspects of Oxford life? It takes +an American to do that really well, you know.”</p> + +<p>“But what is the essential Balliol?” Michael demanded.</p> + +<p>“Who could say so easily? Perhaps it’s the same sort of spirit, slightly +filtered down through modern conditions, as you found in Elizabethan +England.”<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p> + +<p>Michael asked for a little more elaboration.</p> + +<p>“Well, take a man connected with the legislative class, directly by +birth and indirectly by opportunities, give him at least enough taste +not to be ashamed of poetry, give him also enough energy not to be +ashamed of football or cricket, and add a profound satisfaction with +Oxford in general and Balliol in particular, and there you are.”</p> + +<p>“Will that description serve for yourself?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“For me? Oh, great scott, no! I’m utterly deficient in proconsular +ambitions.”</p> + +<p>They had reached the lodge by now, and Michael left his new friend after +promising very soon to come to lunch and pursue further his acquaintance +with Balliol.</p> + +<p>When Michael got back to college, Avery was hard at work with Wedderburn +drawing up the preliminary circular of The Oxford Looking-Glass. Both +the promoters insisted that Michael should listen to their announcement +before he told them anything about himself or his day.</p> + +<p>“<i>The Oxford Looking-Glass,</i>” Avery began, “<i>is intended to reflect +contemporary undergraduate thought.</i>”</p> + +<p>“I prefer ‘will reflect,’” Wedderburn interrupted, in bass accents of +positive opinion.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it very much matters,” said Michael, “as long as you +don’t think that ‘contemporary undergraduate thought’ is too +pretentious. The question is whether you can see a ghost in a mirror, +for a spectral appearance is just about as near as undergraduate thought +ever reaches toward reality.”</p> + +<p>Neither Avery nor Wedderburn condescended to reply to his criticism, and +the chief promoter went on:</p> + +<p><i>“Some of the subjects which The Oxford Looking-Glass will reflect will +be Literature, Politics, Painting, Music, and the Drama.”</i><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<p>“I think that’s a rotten sentence,” Michael interrupted.</p> + +<p>“Well, of course, it will be polished,” Avery irritably explained. “What +Wedders and I have been trying to do all the evening is to say as simply +and directly as possible what we are aiming at.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” Michael agreed, smiling. “Now I’m beginning to understand.”</p> + +<p>“<i>It may be assumed</i>,” Avery went on, “<i>that the opinion of those who +are ‘knocking at the door</i>’ (in inverted commas)——”</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t think anybody would ever open to people standing outside a +door in inverted commas,” Michael observed.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Michael,” Avery and Wedderburn protested simultaneously, +“will you shut up, or you won’t be allowed to contribute.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you ever heard of the younger generation knocking at the door +in Ibsen?” fretfully demanded Maurice. “<i>That the opinion of those who +are knocking at the door,</i>” he continued defiantly, “<i>is not unworthy of +an audience.</i>”</p> + +<p>“But if they’re knocking at a door,” Michael objected, “they can’t be +reflected in a mirror; unless it’s a glass door, and if it’s a glass +door, they oughtn’t to be knocking on it very hard. And if they don’t +knock hard, there isn’t much point——”</p> + +<p>“<i>The Editor in chief</i>,” pursued Maurice, undaunted by Michael’s attempt +to reduce to absurdity the claims of The Oxford Looking-Glass, “<i>will be +M. Avery (St. Mary’s), with whom will be associated C. St. C. Wedderburn +(St. Mary’s), C. M. S. Fane (St. Mary’s), V. L. A. Townsend (B.N.C.)</i>. I +haven’t asked him yet, as a matter of fact, but he’s sure to join +because he’s very keen on Ibsen. <i>W. Mowbray (Univ.).</i> Bill Mowbray’s +very bucked at the scheme. He’s just resigned from the Russell and +joined<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> the Canning. They say at the Union that a lot of the principal +speakers are going to follow Chamberlain’s lead for Protection. <i>N. R. +Stewart (Trinity).</i> Nigel Stewart is most tremendously keen, and rather +a good man to have, as he’s had two poems taken by The Saturday Review +already. <i>G. Hazlewood (Balliol)</i>——”</p> + +<p>“That’s the man I’ve come to talk about,” said Michael. “I met him +to-day.”</p> + +<p>Avery asked if Michael liked old Guy and was obviously pleased to hear +he had been considered interesting. “For in his own way,” said Avery +solemnly, “he’s about the most brilliant man in the Varsity. I’d sooner +have him under me than all the rest put together, except of course you +and Wedders,” he added quickly. “I’m going to take this prospectus round +to show him to-morrow. He may have some suggestions to make.”</p> + +<p>Michael joined with the Editor in supposing that Hazlewood might have a +large number of suggestions. “And he’s got a sense of humor,” he added +consolingly.</p> + +<p>For a week or two Michael found himself deeply involved in the +preliminaries of The Oxford Looking-Glass, and the necessary discussions +gave many pleasant excuses for dinner parties at the O.U.D.S. or the +Grid to which Townsend and Stewart (both second-year men) belonged. +Vernon Townsend wished to make The Oxford Looking-Glass the organ of +advanced drama; but Avery, though he was willing for Townsend to be as +advanced as he chose within the limits of the space allotted to his +progressive pen, was unwilling to surrender the whole of the magazine to +drama, especially since under the expanding ambitions of editorship he +had come to the conclusion he was a critic himself, and so was the more +firmly disinclined to let slip the trenchant opportunity of pulverizing +the four or five musical comedies that would pass through the Oxford +theater every term.<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> However, Townsend’s demand for the drama and +nothing but the drama was mitigated by his determination as a Liberal +that The Oxford Looking-Glass should not be made the mouthpiece of the +New Toryism represented by Mowbray; and Maurice was able to recover the +control of the dramatic criticism by representing to Townsend the +necessity for such unflinching exposition of Free Trade and Palmerston +Club principles as would balance Mowbray’s torrential leadership of the +Tory Democrats. “So called,” Townsend bitterly observed, “because as he +supposed they were neither Tories nor Democrats.”</p> + +<p>Mowbray at the end of his second year was certainly one of the +personalities of undergraduate Oxford. For a year and a term he had +astonished the Russell Club by the vigor of his Radicalism; and then +just when they began to talk of electing him President and were looking +forward to this Presidency of the Russell as an omen of his future +Presidency of the Union itself, he resigned from the Russell, and +figuratively marched across the road to the Canning, taking with him +half a dozen earnest young converts and galvanizing with new hopes and +new ambitions the Oxford Tories now wilting under the strain of the Boer +war. Mowbray managed to impart to any enterprise the air of a +conspiracy, and Michael never saw him arrive at a meeting of The Oxford +Looking-Glass without feeling they should all assume cloaks and masks +and mutter with heads close together. Mowbray did indeed exist in an +atmosphere of cabals, and his consent to sit upon the committee of The +Oxford Looking-Glass was only a small item in his plot to overthrow +Young Liberalism in Oxford. His rooms at University were always thronged +with satellites, who at a word from him changed to meteors and whizzed +about Oxford feverishly to outshine the equally portentous but less +dazzling exhalations of Liberal opinion.<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<p>Stewart of Trinity represented an undergraduate type that perhaps had +endured and would endure longer than any of the others. He would have +been most in his element if he had come up in the early nineties, but +yet with all his intellectual survivals he did not seem an anachronism. +Perhaps it was as well that he had not come up in the nineties, since +much of his obvious and youthful charm might have been buried beneath +absurdities which in those reckless decadent days were carried sometimes +to moral extremes that destroyed a little of the absurdity. As it was, +Stewart was perhaps the most beloved member of Trinity, whether he were +feeding Rugger blues on plovers’ eggs or keeping an early chapel with +the expression of an earthbound seraph or playing tennis in the Varsity +doubles or whether, surrounded by Baudelaire and Rollinat and Rops and +Huysmans, he were composing an ode to Satan, with two candles burning +before his shrine of King Charles the Martyr and a ramshorn of snuff and +glasses of mead waiting for casual callers.</p> + +<p>With Townsend, Mowbray, and Stewart, thought Michael, added to +Wedderburn’s Pre-Raphaelitism and staid Victorian romance, to +Hazlewood’s genuine inspiration, and with Maurice Avery to whip the +result into a soufflée of exquisite superficiality, it certainly seemed +as if The Oxford Looking-Glass might run for at least a year. But what +exactly was himself doing on the committee? He could contribute, outside +money, nothing of force to help in driving the new magazine along to +success. Still, somehow he had allowed his name to appear in the +preliminary circular, and next October when the first number was +published somehow he would share however indirectly in the credit or +reproach accruing. Meanwhile, there were the mere externals of this +first summer term to be enjoyed, this summer term whose beginning he had +hailed from St. Mary’s tower,<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> this dream of youth’s domination set +against the gray background of time’s endurance that was itself spun of +the fabric of dreams.</p> + +<p>Divinity and Pass Moderations would occur some time at the term’s end, +inexplicable as such a dreary interruption seemed in these gliding +river-days which only rain had power for a brief noontide or evening to +destroy. Yet, as an admission that time flies, the candidates for Pass +Mods and Divvers attended a few sun-drowsed lectures and never omitted +to lay most tenderly underneath the cushions of punt or canoe the +text-books of their impertinent examinations. Seldom, however, did +Cicero or the logical Jevons emerge in that pool muffled from sight by +trellised boughs of white and crimson hawthorn. Seldom did Socrates have +better than a most listless audience or St. Paul the most inaccurate +geographers, when on the upper river the punt was held against the bank +by paddles fast in the mud; for there, as one lay at ease, the world +became a world of tall-growing grasses, and the noise of life no more +than the monotony of a river’s lapping, or along the level water meadows +a faint sibilance of wind. This was the season when supper was eaten by +figures in silhouette against the sunset, figures that afterward drifted +slowly down to college under the tree-entangled stars and flitting +assiduous bats, with no sound all the way but the rustle of a bird’s +wing in the bushes and the fizz of a lighted match dropped idly over the +side of the canoe. This was the season when for a long while people sat +talking at open windows, and from the Warden’s garden came sweetly up +the scent of May flowers.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Michael went to the Parks to watch Alan play in one or two of +the early trial matches, and sometimes they sat in the window of Alan’s +room looking out into Christ Church meadows. Nothing that was important +was ever spoken during these dreaming nights, and if Michael tried<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> to +bring the conversation round to Stella, Alan would always talk of +leg-drives and the problems that perpetually presented themselves to +cover-point. Yet the evenings were always to Michael in retrospect +valuable, betokening a period of perfect happiness from the lighting of +the first pipe to the eating of the last meringue.</p> + +<p>Eights Week drew near, and Michael decided after much deliberation that +he would not ask either his mother or Stella to take part in the +festival. One of his reasons, only very grudgingly admitted, for not +inviting Stella was his fear lest Alan might be put into the shade by +certain more brilliant friends whom he would feel bound to introduce to +her. Having made up his own mind that Alan represented the perfection of +normal youth, he was unwilling to admit dangerous competitors. Besides, +though by now he had managed to rid himself of most of his +self-consciousness, he was not sure he felt equal to charging the +battery of eyes that mounted guard in the lodge. The almost savage +criticism of friends and relatives indulged in by the freshmen’s table +was more than he could equably contemplate for his own mother and +sister.</p> + +<p>So Eights Week arrived with Michael unencumbered and delightfully free +to stand in the lodge and watch the embarrassed youth, usually so +debonair and self-possessed, herding a long trail of gay sisters and +cousins toward his room where even now waited the inevitable salmon +mayonnaise. Lonsdale in a moment of filial enthusiasm had invited his +father and mother and only sister to come up, and afterward had spent +two days of lavish regret for the rashness of the undertaking.</p> + +<p>“After all, they can only spend the day,” he sighed hopefully to +Michael, “You’ll come and help me through lunch, won’t you, and we’ll +rush them off by the first train possible after the first division is +rowed. I was an ass to ask<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> them. You won’t mind being bored a bit by my +governor? I believe he’s considered quite a clever man.”</p> + +<p>Michael, remembering that Lord Cleveden had been a distinguished +diplomatist, was prepared to accept his son’s estimate.</p> + +<p>“They’re arriving devilish early,” said Lonsdale, coming up to Michael’s +room with an anxious face on the night before.</p> + +<p>Ever since his fatal display of affection, he had taken to posting, as +it were, bulletins of the sad event on Michael’s door.</p> + +<p>“Would you be frightfully bored if I asked you to come down to the +station and meet them? It will be impossible for me to talk to the three +of them at once. I think you’d better talk about wine to the governor. +It’ll buck him rather to think his port has been appreciated. Tell him +how screwed we made the bobby that night when we were climbing in late +from that binge on the Cher, and let down glass after glass of the +governor’s port from Tommy’s rooms in Parsons’ Quad.”</p> + +<p>Michael promised to do his best to entertain the father, and without +fail to support the son at the ceremony of meeting his people next +morning.</p> + +<p>“I say, you’ve come frightfully early,” Lonsdale exclaimed, as Lord and +Lady Cleveden with his sister Sylvia alighted from the train.</p> + +<p>“Well, we can walk round my old college,” suggested Lord Cleveden +cheerfully. “I scarcely ever have an opportunity to get up to Oxford +nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“I say, I’m awfully sorry to let you in for this,” Lonsdale whispered to +Michael. “Don’t encourage the governor to do too much buzzing around at +the House. Tell him the mayonnaise is getting cold or something.”</p> + +<p>Soon they arrived at Christ Church, and Michael rather<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> enjoyed walking +round with Lord Cleveden and listening to his stately anecdotes of +bygone adventure in these majestic quadrangles.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if Lord Saxby was up in your time?” asked Michael as they +stood in Peckwater.</p> + +<p>“Yes, knew him well. In fact, he was a connection of mine. Poor chap, he +died in South Africa. Where did you meet him? He never went about much.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I met him with a chap called Prescott,” said Michael hurriedly.</p> + +<p>“Dick Prescott? Good gracious!” Lord Cleveden exclaimed, “I haven’t seen +him for years. What an extraordinary mess poor Saxby made of his life, +to be sure.”</p> + +<p>“Did he?” asked Michael, well aware of the question’s folly, but +incapable of not asking it.</p> + +<p>“Terrible! Terrible! But it was never a public scandal.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” gulped Michael humbly, wishful he had never asked Lord Cleveden +about his father.</p> + +<p>“I can’t remember whether my old rooms were on that staircase or this +one. Saxby’s I think were on this, but mine surely were on that one. +Let’s go up and ask the present owner to let us look in,” Lord Cleveden +proposed, peering the while in amiable doubt at the two staircases.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I say, father, really, no, no,” protested his son. “No, no; he +may have people with him. Really.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, to be sure,” Lord Cleveden agreed. “What a pity!”</p> + +<p>“And I think we ought to buzz round St. Mary’s before lunch,” Lonsdale +announced.</p> + +<p>“Do they make meringues here nowadays?” inquired Lord Cleveden +meditatively.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” Lonsdale assured him. “They’ve given up since the famous cook +died. Look here, we absolutely must<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> buzz round St. Mary’s. And our +crême caramel is a much showier sweet than anything they’ve got at the +House.”</p> + +<p>The tour of St. Mary’s was conducted with almost incredible rapidity, +because Lonsdale knew so little about his own college that he omitted +everything except the J.C.R., the hall, the chapel, the buttery and the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you ask Duncan Mackintosh to lunch, Arthur dear?” Lady +Cleveden inquired.</p> + +<p>“My dear mother,” said Arthur, “he’s quite impossible.”</p> + +<p>“But Sir Hugh Mackintosh is such a charming man,” said Lady Cleveden, +“and always asks us to stay with him when we’re in Scotland.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but we never are,” Lonsdale pointed out. “And I’m sorry to hurt +your feelings, mother, about a relation of yours, but Mackintosh is +really absolutely impossible. He’s the very worst type of Harrovian.”</p> + +<p>Michael felt bound to support his friend by pointing out that Mackintosh +was so eccentric as to dislike entertainment of any kind, and urged a +theory that even if he had been asked, he would certainly have declined +rather offensively.</p> + +<p>“He’s not a very bonhomous lad,” said Lonsdale, and with that sentence +banished Mackintosh for ever from human society.</p> + +<p>After lunch the host supposed in a whisper to Michael that they ought to +take his people out in a punt. Michael nodded agreement, and weighed +down by cushions the party walked through the college to where the +pleasure craft of St. Mary’s bobbed at their moorings.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale on the river possessed essentially the grand manner, and his +sister who had been ready to laugh at him gently was awed into +respectful admiration. Even Lord Cleveden seemed inclined to excuse +himself, if ever in one of the comprehensive and majestic indications of +his opinion<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> he disturbed however slightly the equilibrium of the punt. +Lonsdale stood up in the stern and handled the ungainly pole with the +air of a Surbiton expert. His tendency toward an early rotundity was no +longer noticeable. His pink and cheerful face assumed a grave +superciliousness of expression that struck with apologetic dismay the +navigators who impeded his progress. Round his waist the rich hues of +the Eton Ramblers glowed superbly.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir. Do you mind letting me through, sir? Some of these +toshers ought not to be trusted with a punt of their own.” This comment +was for Michael and uttered in a voice of most laryngeal scorn so +audible that the party of New College men involved reddened with dull +fury. “Try and get along, please, sir. You’re holding up the whole +river, sir. I say, Michael, this is an absolute novices’ competition.”</p> + +<p>After an hour of this slow progress Lonsdale decided they must go back +to college for tea, an operation which required every resource of +sangfroid to execute successfully. When he had landed his father and +mother and sister, he announced that they must all be quick over tea and +then buzz off at once to see the first division row.</p> + +<p>“I think we shall go head to-night,” Lonsdale predicted very +confidentially. “I told Tommy Grainger he rowed like a caterpillar +yesterday.”</p> + +<p>But after all it was not to be the joyful privilege of Lonsdale’s people +to see St. Mary’s bump New College in front of their own barge, and +afterward to behold the victorious boat row past in triumph with the +westering sun making glow more richly scarlet the cox’s blazer and shine +more strangely beautiful the three white lilies in his buttonhole.</p> + +<p>“Now you’ve just got time to catch your train,” said Lonsdale, when the +sound of the last pistol-shots and plaudits<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> had died away. And “Phew!” +he sighed, as he and Michael walked slowly down the station-hall, “how +frightfully tiring one’s people are when imported in bulk!”</p> + +<p>Eights Week came to an end with the scarlet and lilies still second; and +without the heartening effect of a bump-supper the candidates for Pass +Mods applied themselves violently to the matter in hand. At the end of +the examination, which was characterized by Lonsdale as one of the most +low-down exhibitions of in-fighting he had ever witnessed, the +candidates had still a week of idleness to recover from the dastardly +blows they had received below their intellectual belts.</p> + +<p>It was the time of the midsummer moon; and the freshmen in this the last +week of their state celebrated the beauty of the season with a good deal +of midsummer madness. Bonfires were lit for the slightest justification, +and rowdy suppers were eaten in college after they had stayed on the +river until midnight, rowdy suppers that demanded a great expense of +energy before going to bed, in order perhaps to stave off indigestion.</p> + +<p>On one of these merry nights toward one o’clock somebody suggested that +the hour was a suitable one for the ragging of a certain Smithers who +had made himself obnoxious to the modish majority not from any overt act +of contumely, but for his general bearing and plebeian origin. This +derided Smithers lived on the ground floor of the Palladian fragment +known as New Quad. The back of New Quad looked out on the deer-park, and +it was unanimously resolved to invade his rooms from the window, so that +surprise and alarm would strike at the heart of Smithers.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen freshmen—Avery, Lonsdale, Grainger, Cuffe, Sinclair, and +Michael—all rendered insensitive to the emotions of other people by the +amount of champagne they had drunk, set out to harry Smithers. Michael +alone<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> possibly had a personal slight to repay, since Smithers had been +one of the freshmen who had sniggered at his momentary mortification in +the rooms of Carben, the Rugby secretary, during his first week. The +others were more vaguely injured by Smithers’ hitherto undisturbed +existence. Avery disliked his face: Lonsdale took exception to his +accent: Grainger wanted to see what he looked like: Cuffe was determined +to be offensive to somebody: and Sinclair was anxious to follow the +fashion.</p> + +<p>Not even the magic of the moonlit park deterred these social avengers +from their vendetta. They moved silently indeed over the filmy grass and +paused to hearken when in the distance the deer stampeded in alarm +before their progress, but the fixed idea of Smithers’ reformation kept +them to their project, and perhaps only Michael felt a slight sense of +guilt in profaning this fairy calm with what he admitted to himself +might very easily be regarded as a piece of stupid cruelty. Outside +Smithers’ open window they all stopped; then after hoisting the first +man onto the dewy sill, one by one they climbed noiselessly into the +sitting-room of the offensive Smithers. Somebody turned on the electric +light, and they all stood half-abashed, surveying one another in the +crude glare that in contrast with the velvet depths and silver shadows +of the woodland they had traversed seemed to illuminate for one moment +an unworthy impulse in every heart.</p> + +<p>The invaders looked round in surprise at the photographs of what were +evidently Smithers’ people, photographs like the groups in the parlors +of country inns or the tender decorations of a housemaid’s mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“I say, look at that fringe,” gurgled Avery, and forthwith he and +Lonsdale collapsed on the sofa in a paroxysm of strangled mirth.</p> + +<p>Michael, as he gradually took in the features of Smithers’<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> room, began +to feel very much ashamed of himself. He recognized the poverty that +stood in the background of this splendid “college career” of Percy or +Clarence or whatever other name of feudal magnificence had been awarded +to counterbalance “Smithers.” No doubt the champagne in gradual reaction +was over-charging him with sentiment, but observing in turn each tribute +from home that adorned with a pathetic utility this bleak room dedicated +for generations to poor scholars, Michael felt very much inclined to +detach himself from the personal ragging of Smithers and go to bed. What +seemed to him in this changed mood so particularly sad was that on the +evidence of his books Smithers was not sustained by the ascetic glories +of learning for the sake of learning. He was evidently no classical +scholar with a future of such dignity as would compensate for the +scraping and paring of the past. To judge by his books, he was at St. +Mary’s to ward off the criticism of outraged Radicals by competing on +behalf of the college and the university in scientific knowledge with +newer foundations like Manchester or Birmingham. Smithers was merely an +advertisement of Oxford’s democratic philanthropy, and would only gain +from his university a rather inferior training in chemistry at a +considerably greater personal cost but with nothing else that Oxford +could and did give so prodigally to others more fortunately born.</p> + +<p>At this point in Michael’s meditations Smithers woke up, and from the +bedroom came a demand in startled cockney to know who was there. The +reformers were just thinking about their reply, when Smithers, in a long +nightgown and heavy-eyed with sleep, appeared in the doorway between his +two rooms.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m jiggered!” he gasped. “What are you fellers doing in my +sitting-room?”</p> + +<p>It happened that Cuffe at this moment chose to take<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> down from the wall +what was probably an enlarged portrait of Smithers’ mother in order to +examine it more closely. The son, supposing he meant to play some trick +with it, sprang across the room, snatched it from Cuffe’s grasp, and +shouting an objurgation of his native Hackney or Bermondsey, fled +through the open window into the deer-park.</p> + +<p>Cuffe’s expression of dismay was so absurd that everybody laughed very +heartily; and the outburst of laughter turned away their thoughts from +damaging Smithers’ humble property and even from annoying any more +Smithers himself with proposals for his reformation.</p> + +<p>“I say, we can’t let that poor devil run about all night in the park +with that picture,” said Grainger. “Let’s catch him and explain we got +into his rooms by mistake.”</p> + +<p>“I hope he won’t throw himself into the river or anything,” murmured +Sinclair anxious not to be involved in any affair that might spoil his +reputation for enjoying every rag without the least reproach ever +lighting upon him personally.</p> + +<p>“I say, for goodness’ sake, let’s catch him,” begged Michael, who had +visions of being sent to explain to a weeping mother in a mean street +that her son had died in defending her enlargement.</p> + +<p>Out into the moon-washed park the pursuers tumbled, and through its +verdurous deeps of giant elms they hurried in search of the outlaw.</p> + +<p>“It’s like a scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Michael said to +Avery, and as he spoke he caught a glimpse of the white-robed Smithers, +running like a young druid across a glade where the moonlight was +undimmed by boughs.</p> + +<p>He called to Smithers to go back to his rooms, but whether he went at +once or huddled in some hollow tree half the night Michael never knew, +for by this time the<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> unwonted stampeding of the deer and the sound of +voices in the Fellows’ sacred pleasure-ground had roused the Dean, who +supported by the nocturnal force of the college servants was advancing +against the six disturbers of the summer night. The next hour was an +entrancing time of hot pursuit and swift evasion, of crackling dead +branches and sudden falls in lush grass, of stealthy procedure round +tree-trunks, and finally of scaling a high wall, dropping heavily down +into the rose-beds of the Warden’s garden and by one supreme effort of +endurance going to ground in St. Cuthbert’s quad.</p> + +<p>“By Jove, that was a topping rag,” puffed Lonsdale, as he filled six +glasses with welcome drink. “I think old Shadbolt recognized me. He +said: ‘It’s no use you putting your coat over your ’ead, sir, because I +knows you by your gait.’”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what happened to Smithers,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Damned good thing if he fell into the Cher,” Avery asserted. “I don’t +know why on earth they want to have a bounder like that at St. Mary’s.”</p> + +<p>“A bounder like what?” asked Castleton, who had sloped into the room +during Avery’s expression of opinion.</p> + +<p>Castleton was greeted with much fervor, and a disjointed account of the +evening’s rag was provided for his entertainment.</p> + +<p>“But why don’t you let that poor devil alone?” demanded the listener.</p> + +<p>At this time of night nobody was able to adduce any very conclusive +reason against letting Smithers alone, although Maurice Avery insisted +that men like him were very bad for the college.</p> + +<p>Dawn was breaking when Michael strolled round Cloisters with Castleton, +determined to probe through the medium of Castleton’s common sense and +Wykehamist notions the<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> ethical and æsthetic rights of people like +Smithers to obtain the education Oxford was held to bestow impartially.</p> + +<p>“After all, Oxford wasn’t founded to provide an expensive three years of +idleness for the purpose of giving a social cachet to people like +Cuffe,” Castleton pointed out.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” Michael agreed, “but no institution has ever yet remained true +to the principles of its founder. The Franciscans, for instance, or +Christianity itself. The point surely is not whether it has evolved into +something inherently worthless, but whether, however much it may have +departed from original intentions, it still serves a useful purpose in +the scheme of social order.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not grumbling at what Oxford is,” Castleton went on. “I simply +suggest that the Smitherses have the right, being in a small minority, +to demand courtesy from the majority, and, after all, Oxford is serving +no purpose at all, if she cannot foster good manners in people who are +supposed to be born with a natural tendency toward good manners. I +should be the first to regret an Oxford with the Smitherses in the +majority, but I think that those Smitherses who have fought their way in +with considerable difficulty should not go down with the sense of hatred +which that poor solitary creature must surely feel against all of us.”</p> + +<p>Michael asked Castleton if he had ever talked to him.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I’m afraid I’m too lazy to do much more than +deplore theoretically these outbursts of rowdy superiority. Now, as I’m +beginning to talk almost as priggishly as a new sub-editor of The +Spectator might talk, to bed.”</p> + +<p>The birds were singing, as Michael walked back from escorting Castleton +to his rooms. St. Mary’s tower against the sky opening like a flower +seemed to express for him a sudden aspiration of all life toward +immortal beauty. In this delicate hour of daybreak all social +distinctions, all<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> prejudices and vulgarities became the base and +clogging memories of the night before. He felt a sudden guilt in +beholding this tranquil college under this tranquil dawn. It seemed, +spread out for his solitary vision, too incommunicable a delight. And +suddenly it struck him that perhaps Smithers might be standing outside +the gate of this dream city, that he, too, might wish to salute the +sunrise. He blushed with shame at the thought that he had been of those +who rushed to drive him away from his contemplation.</p> + +<p>Straightway when Michael reached his own door, he sat down and wrote to +invite Smithers to his third terminal dinner, never pausing to reflect +that so overwhelming an hospitality after such discourtesy might +embarrass Smithers more than ever. Yet, after he had worried himself +with this reflection when the invitation had been accepted, he fancied +that Smithers sitting on his right hand next to Guy Hazlewood more +charming than Michael had ever known him, seemed to enjoy the +experience, and triumphantly he told himself that contrary to the +doctrine of cynics quixotry was a very effective device.<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>GRAY AND BLUE</h4> + +<p>When Michael, equipped with the prospect of reading at least fifty +historical works in preparation for the more serious scholastic +enterprise of his second year, came down for the Long Vacation, he found +that somehow his mother had changed. In old days she had never lost for +an instant that air of romantic mystery with which Michael as a very +little boy for his own satisfaction had endowed her, and with which, as +he grew older, he fancied she armed herself against the world of +ordinary life. Now after a month or two of Chelsea’s easy stability Mrs. +Fane had put behind her the least hint of the unusual and seemed +exceptionally well suited by her surroundings. Michael at first thought +that perhaps in Carlington Road, to which she always came from the great +world, however much apart from the great world her existence had been +when she was in it, his mother had only evoked a thought of romance +because the average inhabitant was lower down the ladder of the more +subtly differentiated social grades than herself, and that now in Cheyne +Walk against an appropriate background her personality was less +conspicuous. Yet when he had been at home for a week or two he realized +that indeed his mother had changed profoundly.</p> + +<p>Michael put together the few bits of outside opinion he could muster and +concluded that an almost lifelong withdrawal from the society of other +women had now been replaced<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> by an exaggerated pleasure in their +company. What puzzled him most was how to account for the speed with +which she had gathered round her so many acquaintances. It was almost as +if his father in addition to bequeathing her money enough to be +independent of the world had bequeathed also enough women friends to +make her forget that she had ever stood in any other relation to +society.</p> + +<p>“Where does mother get hold of all these women?” Michael asked Stella +irritably, when he had been trapped into a rustling drawing-room for the +whole of a hot summer afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’re all interested in something or other,” Stella explained. +“And mother’s interested in them. I expect, you know, she had rather a +rotten time really when she was traveling round.”</p> + +<p>“But she used always to be so vague and amusing,” said Michael, “and now +she’s as fussy and practical as a vicar’s wife.”</p> + +<p>“I think I know why that is,” Stella theorized meditatively. “I think if +I ever gave up everything for one man I should get to rely on him so +utterly that when he wasn’t with me any sort of contact with other +people would make me vague.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but then she would be more vague than ever now,” Michael argued.</p> + +<p>“No; the reaction against dependence on one person would be bound to +make her change tremendously, if, as I think, a good deal of the +vagueness came after she ran away with father.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked rather offended by Stella’s blunt reference.</p> + +<p>“I rather wish you wouldn’t talk quite so easily about all of that,” he +said. “I think the best thing for you to do is to forget it.”<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<p>“Like mother, in fact,” Stella pointed out. “Do you know, Michael, I +believe by this time she is entirely oblivious of the fact that in her +past there has been anything which was not perfectly ordinary, almost +dull. Really by the way she worries me about the simplest little things, +you’d think—however, as I know you have rather a dread of perfect +frankness in your only sister, I’ll shut up and say no more.”</p> + +<p>“What things?” asked Michael sharply. Stella’s theories about the +freedom of the artist had already worried him a good deal, and though he +had laughed them aside as the extravagant affectations of a gifted +child, now that, however grudgingly he must admit the fact, she was +really grown up, it would never do for her without a protest from him to +turn theories into practice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Michael!” Stella laughed reprovingly. “Don’t put on that +professorial or priestly air or whatever you call it, because if you +ever want confidences from me you’ll have just to be humbly +sympathetic.”</p> + +<p>Michael sternly demanded if she had been keeping up her music, which +made Stella dance about the studio in tempestuous mirth.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see anything to giggle at in such a question,” Michael +grumbled, and simultaneously reproached himself for a method of obloquy +so cheap. “Anyway, you never talk about your music now, and whatever you +may say, you don’t practice as much as you used. Why?”</p> + +<p>For answer Stella sat down at the piano, and played over and over again +the latest popular song until Michael walked out of the studio in a +rage.</p> + +<p>A few days later at breakfast he broached the subject of going away into +the country.</p> + +<p>“My dear boy, I’m much too busy with the Bazaar,” said Mrs. Fane.</p> + +<p>Michael sighed.<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> + +<p>“I don’t think I can possibly get away until August, and then I’ve half +promised to go to Dinard with Mrs. Carruthers. She has just taken up +Mental Science—so interesting and quite different from Christian +Science.”</p> + +<p>“I hate these mock-turtle religions,” said Michael savagely.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fane replied that Michael must learn a little toleration in very +much the same tone as she might have suggested a little Italian.</p> + +<p>“But why don’t you and Stella go away somewhere together? Stella has +been quite long enough in London for the present.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to practice hard for my next concert,” said Stella, looking +coldly at her brother. “You and Michael are so funny, mother. You +grumble at me when I don’t practice all day, and yet when it’s really +necessary for me to work, you always suggest going away.”</p> + +<p>“I never suggested your coming away,” Michael contradicted. “As a matter +of fact, I’ve been asked to join a reading-party in Cornwall, and I +think I’ll go.”</p> + +<p>The reading-party in question consisted besides Michael of Maurice +Avery, Guy Hazlewood, Castleton, and Stewart. Bill Mowbray also joined +them for the first two days, but after receiving four wires in reference +to the political candidature of a friend in the north of England, he +decided that his presence was necessary to the triumph of Tory Democracy +and left abruptly in the middle of the night with a request to forward +his luggage when it arrived. When it did arrive, the reading-party sent +it to await at Univ Mowbray’s arrival in October, arguing that such an +arrangement would save Bill and his friends much money, as he would +indubitably spend during the rest of the vacation not more than +forty-eight hours on the same spot.</p> + +<p>The reading-party had rooms in a large farmhouse near<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> the Lizard; and +they spent a very delightful month bathing, golfing, cliff-climbing, +cream-eating, fishing, sailing, and talking. Avery and Stewart also did +a certain amount of work on the first number of The Oxford +Looking-Glass, work which Hazlewood amused himself by pulling to pieces.</p> + +<p>“I’m doing an article for the O.L.G. on Cornwall,” Avery announced one +evening.</p> + +<p>“What, a sort of potted guide?” Hazlewood asked.</p> + +<p>Maurice made haste to repudiate the suggestion.</p> + +<p>“No, no; it’s an article on the uncanny place influence of Cornwall.”</p> + +<p>“I think half of that uncanniness is due to the odd names hereabouts,” +Castleton observed. “The sign-posts are like incantations.”</p> + +<p>“Much more than that,” Avery earnestly assured him. “It really affects +me profoundly sometimes.”</p> + +<p>Hazlewood laughed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Maurice, not profoundly. You’ll never be affected profoundly by +anything,” he prophesied.</p> + +<p>Maurice clicked his thumbs impatiently.</p> + +<p>“You always know all about everybody and me in particular, Guy, but +though, as you’re aware, I’m a profound materialist——”</p> + +<p>“Maurice is plumbing the lead to-night,” Hazlewood interrupted, with a +laugh. “He’ll soon transcend all human thought.”</p> + +<p>“Here in Cornwall,” Maurice pursued, undaunted, “I really am affected +sometimes with a sort of horror of the unknown. You’ll all rag me, and +you can, but though I’ve enjoyed myself frightfully, I don’t think I +shall ever come to Cornwall again.”</p> + +<p>With this announcement he puffed defiance from his pipe.</p> + +<p>“Shut up, Maurice!” Hazlewood chaffed. “You’ve been reading Cornish +novelists—the sort of people who write<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> about over-emotionalized young +men and women acting to the moon in hut-circles or dancing with their +own melodramatic Psyches on the top of a cromlech.”</p> + +<p>“Do you believe in presentiments, Guy?” Michael broke in suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Of course I do,” said Hazlewood. “And I’d believe in the inherent +weirdness of Cornwall, if people in books didn’t always go there to +solve their problems and if Maurice weren’t always so facile with the +right emotion at the right moment.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got a presentiment to-night,” said Michael, and not wishing to say +more just then, though he had been compelled against his will to admit +as much, he left the rest of the party, and went up to his room.</p> + +<p>Outside the tamarisks lisped at intervals in a faint wind that rose in +small puffs and died away in long sighs. Was it a presentiment he felt, +or was it merely thunder in the air?</p> + +<p>Next morning came a telegram from Stella in Paris:</p> + +<p class="c"><i>join me here rather quickly.</i></p> + +<p>Michael left Cornwall that afternoon, and all the length of the +harassing journey to London he thought of his friends bathing all day +and talking half through the intimate night, until gradually, as the +train grew hotter, they stood out in his memory like cool people +eternally splashed by grateful fountains. Yet at the back of all his +regrets for Cornwall, Michael was thinking of Stella and wondering +whether the telegram was merely due to her impetuous way or whether +indeed she wanted him more than rather quickly.</p> + +<p>It was dark when he reached London, and in the close August night the +street-lamps seemed to have lost all their sparkle, seemed to glow +luridly like the sinister lamps of a dream.<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> + +<p>“I’m really awfully worried,” he said aloud to himself, as through the +stale city air the hansom jogged heavily along from Paddington to +Charing Cross.</p> + +<p>Michael arrived at Paris in the pale burning blue of an August morning, +and arriving as he did in company with numerous cockney holiday-makers, +something of the spirit of Paris was absent. The city did not express +herself immediately as Paris unmistakable, but more impersonally as the +great railway-station of Europe, a center of convenience rather than the +pulsing heart of pleasure. However, as soon as Michael had taken his +seat in the bony fiacre and had ricocheted from corner to corner of half +a dozen streets, Paris was herself again, with her green jalousies and +gilded letterings, her prodigality of almost unvarying feminine types, +those who so neatly and so gayly hurried along the pavements and those +who in soiled dressing-jackets hung listlessly from upper windows.</p> + +<p>Stella’s address was near the Quai d’Orsay; and when Michael arrived he +found she was living in rooms over a bookseller’s shop with a view of +the Seine and beyond of multitudinous roofs that in the foreground +glistened to the sun like a pattern of enamel, until with distance they +gradually lost all definition and became scarcely more than a woven +damascene upon the irresolute horizon of city and sky.</p> + +<p>Michael never surrendered to disillusion the first impression of his +entrance that August morning. In one moment of that large untidy room +looking over the city that most consciously of all cities has taken +account of artists he seemed to capture the symbol of the artist’s +justification. Stella’s chestnut hair streamed down her straight back +like a warm drift of autumn leaves. She had not finished dressing yet, +and the bareness of her arms seemed appropriate to that Hungarian dance +she played. All the room was permeated with the smell of paint, and +before an easel stood a girl in<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> long unsmocked gown of green linen. +This girl Michael had never seen, but he realized her personality as +somehow inseparably associated with that hot-blooded Bacchante on whose +dewy crimson mouth at the moment her brush rested. Geranium flowers, +pierced by the slanting rays of the sun, stood on the window-sill of an +inner room whose door was open. Stella did not stop to finish the dance +she was playing, but jumped up to greet Michael, and in the fugitive +silence that followed his introduction to her friend Clarissa Vine, he +heard the murmur of ordinary life without which drowned by the lightest +laugh nevertheless persisted unobtrusive and imperturbable.</p> + +<p>Yet, for all Michael’s relief at finding Stella at least superficially +all right, he could not help disapproving a little of that swift change +of plan which, without a word of warning to himself before the arrival +of the telegram in Cornwall, had brought her from London to Paris. Nor +could he repress a slight feeling of hostility toward Miss Clarissa Vine +whose exuberant air did not consort well with his idea of a friend for +Stella. He was certainly glad, whether he were needed or not, that he +had come rather quickly. Clarie was going to paint all that morning, and +Michael, who was restless after his journey, persuaded Stella to abandon +music for that day and through the dancing streets of Paris come +walking.</p> + +<p>The brother and sister went silently for a while along the river’s bank.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Michael at last, “why did you wire for me?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted you.”</p> + +<p>Stella spoke so simply and so naturally that he was inclined to ask no +more questions and to accept the situation as one created merely by +Stella’s impetuousness. But he could not resist a little pressure, and +begged to know whether<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> there were no other reason for wanting him but a +fancy for his company.</p> + +<p>Stella agreed there might be, and then suddenly she plunged into her +reasons. First, she took Michael back to last autumn and a postscript +she had written to a letter.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember how I said that academic perfection was not enough for +an artist, that there was also life to be lived?”</p> + +<p>Michael said he remembered the letter very well indeed, and asked just +how she proposed to put her theory to the test.</p> + +<p>“I told you that a youth was painting me.”</p> + +<p>“But you also said he looked like a corpse,” Michael quickly +interjected. “You surely haven’t fallen in love with somebody who looks +like a corpse?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not in love with his outside, but I am fascinated by his inside,” +Stella admitted.</p> + +<p>Michael looked darkly for a moment, overshadowed by the thought of the +fellow’s presumption.</p> + +<p>“I never yet met a painter who had very much inside,” he commented.</p> + +<p>“But then, my dearest Michael, I suppose you’ll confess that your +acquaintanceship with the arts as practiced not talked about is rather +small.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked round him and eyed all Paris with comprehensive +hostility.</p> + +<p>“And I suppose this chap is in Paris now,” he said. “Well, I can’t do +anything. I suppose for a long time now you’ve been making a fool of +yourself over him. What have you fetched me to Paris for?”</p> + +<p>He felt resentful to think that his hope of Stella and Alan falling in +love with one another was to be broken up by this upstart painter whom +he had never seen.</p> + +<p>“I’ve certainly not been making a fool of myself,” Stella<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> flamed. “But +I thought I would rather you were close at hand.”</p> + +<p>“And who’s this Clarissa Vine?” Michael indignantly demanded.</p> + +<p>“She’s the girl I traveled with to Paris.”</p> + +<p>“But I never heard of her before. All this comes of your taking that +studio before we moved to Cheyne Walk.”</p> + +<p>By the token that Stella did not contradict him, Michael knew that all +this had indeed come from that studio, and to show his disapproval of +the studio, he began to rail at Clarissa.</p> + +<p>“I can’t bear that overblown type of girl. I suppose every night she’ll +sit and talk hot air till three o’clock in the morning. I shall go mad,” +Michael exclaimed, aghast at the prospective futility of the immediate +future.</p> + +<p>Stella insisted that Clarissa was a good sort, that she had had an +unhappy love-affair, that she thought nothing of men but only of her +art, that she made one want to work and was therefore a valuable +companion, and, finally, to appease if possible Michael’s mistrust of +Clarie by advertising her last advantage, Stella said that she could not +stand George Ayliffe.</p> + +<p>Michael announced that, as Miss Vine had scarcely condescended to +address a single word to him in the quarter of an hour he was waiting +for Stella to dress, it was impossible for him to say whether he could +stand her or not, but that he was still inclined to think she was +thoroughly objectionable.</p> + +<p>“Well, to-night at our party, you shall sit next to her,” Stella +promised.</p> + +<p>“Party?” interrogated Michael, in dismay.</p> + +<p>“We’re having a party in our rooms to-night.”</p> + +<p>“And this fellow Ayliffe is coming, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>She nodded.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a></p> + +<p>“And I shall have to meet him?”</p> + +<p>She nodded again very cheerfully.</p> + +<p>They went back to fetch Clarie out to lunch, but rather decently, +Michael was bound to admit, she made some excuse for not coming, so that +he and Stella were able to spend the afternoon together. It was a jolly +afternoon, for though Stella had closed her lips tightly to any more +confidences, she and Michael enjoyed themselves wandering in a +light-hearted dream, grasping continually at those airy bubbles of +vitality that floated upward sparkling from the debonair streets.</p> + +<p>The party at the girls’ rooms that evening seemed to Michael, almost +more than he cared to admit to the side of him conscious of being +Stella’s brother, a recreation of ideal Bohemia. He knew the influence +of the rich August moon was responsible for most of the enchantment and +that the same people encountered earlier in the day in the full glare of +the sunlight would have seemed to him too keenly aware of the effect at +which they were aiming. But to resist their appeal, coming as they did +from the heart of Paris to this long riverside room with its lamps and +shadows, was impossible. Each couple that entered seemed to relinquish +slowly on the threshold a mysterious intimacy which set Michael’s heart +beating in the imagination of what altitudes it might not have reached +along the path of romantic passions. Every young woman or young man who +entered solitary and paused in the doorway, blinking in search of +familiar faces, moved him with the respect owed by lay worldlings to +great artists. Masterpieces brooded over the apartment, and Michael +tolerated in his present mood of unqualified admiration personalities so +pretentious, so vain, so egotistical, as would in his ordinary temper +have plunged him into speechless gloom.</p> + +<p>Oxford after this assembly of frank opinions and incarnate<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> enthusiasms +seemed a colorless shelter for unfledged reactionaries, a nursery of +callow men in the street. Through the open windows the ponderous and +wise moon commented upon the scintillations of the outspread city whose +life reached this room in sound as emotionally melodious, as +romantically real as the sea-sound conjured by a shell. Here were +gathered people who worked always in that circumfluent inspiration, that +murmur of liberty, that whisper of humanity. What could Oxford give but +the bells of out-worn beliefs, and the patter of aimless footsteps? How +right Stella had been to say that academic perfection was vain without +the breath of life. How right she was to find in George Ayliffe someone +whose artistic sympathy would urge her on to achievements impossible to +attain under Alan’s admiration for mere fingers and wrists.</p> + +<p>Michael watched this favorite of his sister all through the evening. He +tried to think that Ayliffe’s cigarette-stained fingers were not so very +unpleasant, that Ayliffe’s cadaverous exterior was just a noble +melancholy, that Ayliffe’s high pointed head did not betray an almost +insufferable self-esteem, and, what was the hardest task of all, he +tried to persuade himself that Ayliffe’s last portrait of Stella had not +transformed his splendidly unconcerned sister into a self-conscious +degenerate.</p> + +<p>“How do you like George’s picture of Stella?”</p> + +<p>The direct inquiry close to his ear startled Michael. He had been +leaning back in his chair, listening vaguely to the hum of the guests’ +conversation and getting from it nothing more definite than a sense of +the extraordinary ease of social intercourse under these conditions. +Looking round, he saw that Clarissa Vine had come to sit next to him and +he felt half nervous of this concentrated gaze that so evidently +betokened a determination to probe life and art and incidentally himself +to the very roots.<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p>“I think it’s a little thin, don’t you?” said Clarie.</p> + +<p>Michael hated to have his opinion of a painting invited, and he resented +the painter’s jargon that always seemed to apply equally to the subject +and the medium. It was impossible to tell from Miss Vine’s question +whether she referred to Stella’s figure or to Ayliffe’s expenditure upon +paint.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it’s very like Stella,” Michael replied, and consoled +himself for the absence of subtlety or cleverness in such an answer by +the fact that at least it was a direct statement of what he thought.</p> + +<p>“I know what you mean,” said Clarissa, nodding seriously.</p> + +<p>Michael hoped that she did. He could not conceive an affirmation of +personal opinion delivered more plainly.</p> + +<p>“You mean he’s missed the other Stella,” said Clarissa.</p> + +<p>Michael bowed remotely. He told himself that contradiction or even +qualified agreement would be too dangerous a proceeding with a person of +Clarissa’s unhumorous earnestness.</p> + +<p>“I said so when I first saw it,” cried Clarissa triumphantly. “I said, +‘my god, George, you’ve only given us half of her!’”</p> + +<p>Michael took a furtive glance at the portrait to see whether his initial +impression of a full-length study had been correct, and, finding that it +was, concluded Clarissa referred to some metaphysical conception of her +own.</p> + +<p>From the amplification of this he edged away by drawing attention to the +splendor of the moon.</p> + +<p>“I know what you mean,” said Clarissa. “But I like sunshine effects +best.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t really thinking about painting at that moment,” Michael +observed, without remembering that all his mind was supposed to be +occupied with it.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p> + +<p>“You know <i>you’re</i> very paintable,” Clarissa went on. “I suppose you’ve +sat to heaps of people. All the same, I wish you’d let <i>me</i> paint you. I +should like to bring out an aspect I daresay lots of people have never +noticed.”</p> + +<p>Michael was not proof against this attack, and, despising the while his +weak vanity, asked Clarissa what was the aspect.</p> + +<p>“You’re very passionate, aren’t you?” she said, shaking Michael’s +temperament in the thermometer of her thought.</p> + +<p>“No; rather the reverse,” said Michael, as he irritably visualized +himself in a tiger-skin careering across one of Clarissa’s florid +canvases.</p> + +<p>“All the same, I wish you <i>would</i> sit for me,” persisted Clarissa.</p> + +<p>Michael made up his mind he must speak seriously to Stella about this +friend of hers. It was really very unfair to involve him in this way +with a provocative young paintress who, however clever she might be, was +most obviously unsympathetic to him. What a pity Maurice Avery was not +here! He would so enjoy skating on the thin ice of her thought. Yet ice +was scarcely an appropriate metaphor to use in connection with her. +There should be some parallel with strawberries to illustrate his notion +of Clarissa, who was after all with her precious aspirations and +constructive fingers a creature of the sun. Yet it was strange and +rather depressing to think that English girls could never get any nearer +to the Mænad than the evocation of the image of a farouche dairymaid.</p> + +<p>All the time that Michael had been postulating these conclusions to +himself, he had been mechanically shaking his head to Clarissa’s +request. “What can you be thinking about?” she asked, and at the moment +mere inquisitiveness unbalanced the solemnity of her search for truth. +Stella had gone to the piano, and someone with clumsy hair was<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> testing +the pitch of his violin. So Michael assumed the portentous reverence of +a listening amateur and tried to suggest by his attitude that he was +beyond the range of Clarissa’s conversation. He did not know who had +made the duet that was being played, nor did he greatly care, since, +aside from his own participation in what it gave of unified emotion to +the room, on its melodies he, as it were, voyaged from heart to heart of +everyone present. There had been several moments during his talk with +Clarissa when he had feared to see vanish that aureole with which he had +encircled this gathering, that halo woven by the mist of his imagination +and illuminated by the essential joy of the company. But now, when all +were fused by the power of the music in a brilliance that actually +pierced his apprehension with the sense of its positive being, Michael’s +aureole gleamed with the same comparative reality. Traveling from heart +to heart, he drew from each the deepdown sweetness which justified all +that was extravagant in demeanor and dress, all that was flaunting in +voice and gesture, all that was weak in achievement and ambition. Even +Clarissa’s prematurity seemed transferred from the cause to the effect +of her art, so that here and there some strain of music was strong +enough to sustain her personality up to the very point of abandon at +which her pictures aimed. As for George Ayliffe, Michael watching him +was bound to acknowledge that, seen thus in repose with all the +wandering weaknesses of his countenance temporarily held in check by the +music, Stella’s affection for him was just intelligible. He might be +said to possess now at least some of the graceful melancholy of a +pierrot, and suddenly Michael divined that Ayliffe was much more in love +with Stella than she was or ever could be in love with him. He realized +that Ayliffe, with fixed eyes sitting back and absorbing her music, was +aware of the hopelessness of his desire, aware it must be for<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> ever +impossible for Stella to love him, as impossible as it was for him to +paint a great portrait of her. Michael was sorry for Ayliffe because he +knew that those anxious and hungry eyes of his were losing her +continually even now in complexities that could never by him be +unraveled, in depths that could never be plumbed.</p> + +<p>More suggestive, however, than the individual listeners were the players +themselves, so essentially typical were they of their respective +instruments; and they were even something more than typical, for they +did ultimately resemble them. The violinist must himself have answered +in these harmonious wails to the lightest question addressed to him. His +whole figure had surely that very look of obstinate surprise which +belongs to a violin. The bones in that lean body of his might have been +of catgut, so much did he play with his whole frame, so little +observably with his hands merely. As for Stella, apart from the +simplicity of her coloring, it was less easy to find physically a +resemblance to the piano, and yet how well her personality consorted +with one. Were she ignorant of the instrument, it would still be +possible to compare her to a piano with her character so self-contained +and cool and ordered that yet, played upon by people or circumstances, +could reveal with such decorous poignancy the emotion beneath, emotion, +however, that was always kept under control, as in a piano the pressure +or release of a pedal can swell or quell the most expressive chord.</p> + +<p>There was something consolatory to Michael in the way Stella’s piano +part corrected the extreme yearning of the violin. On ascending notes of +the most plangent desire the souls of the listeners were drawn far +beyond the capacity of their own artistic revelation. It became almost +tragical to watch their undisciplined soaring regardless of the height +from which they must so swiftly fall. Yet when the violin had +thoughtlessly lured them to such a zenith that had the<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> music stopped +altogether on that pole a reaction into disappointed sobs might not have +been surprising, Stella with her piano brought them back to the normal +course of their hopes, seemed to bear tenderly each thwarted spirit down +to earth and to set it back in the lamps and shadows of this long +riverside room, while with the wistfulness of that cool accompaniment +she mitigated all the harshness of disillusion. Michael looked sharply +across at Ayliffe during this rescue and wondered how often by Stella +herself had he been just as gently treated.</p> + +<p>The duet came to an end, and was followed by absurd games and absurdly +inadequate refreshments, until almost all together the guests departed. +From the street below fainter and fainter sounded their murmurous talk, +until it died away, swallowed up in the nightly whisper of the city.</p> + +<p>Ayliffe stayed behind for a time, but he could not survive Michael’s too +polite “Mr. Ayliffe,” although he did not perhaps realize all the +deadliness of this undergraduate insult. Clarissa went off to bed after +expressing once more her wish that Michael would sit for her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what for? Of course he will, Clarie,” cried Stella.</p> + +<p>“Of course I won’t,” said Michael, ruffling.</p> + +<p>“What do you want him to sit for?” Stella persisted, paying not the +least regard to Michael’s objection.</p> + +<p>“Oh, something ascetic,” said Clarie, staring earnestly into space as if +the pictorial idea was being dangled from the ceiling.</p> + +<p>“Just now it was to be something passionate,” Michael pointed out +scornfully. He suspected Clarissa’s courage in the presence of Stella’s +disdainful frankness.</p> + +<p>“Ah, perhaps it will be both!” Clarie promised, and “Good night, most +darling Stella,” she murmured intensely. Then with one backward look of +reproach for Michael she<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> walked with rather self-conscious sinuousness +out of the room and up to bed.</p> + +<p>“My hat, Stella, where did you pick up that girl? She’s like a +performing leopard!” Michael burst out. “She’s utterly stupid and +utterly second-rate and she closes her eyes for effect and breathes into +your face and doesn’t wear stays.”</p> + +<p>“I get something out of all these queer people,” Stella explained.</p> + +<p>“New-art flower-vases, I should think,” scoffed Michael. “Why on earth +you wanted to fetch me from Cornwall to look after you in this crowd of +idiots I can’t imagine. I may not be a great pianist in the making, and +I’m jolly glad I’m not, if it’s to make one depend on the flattery of +these fools.”</p> + +<p>“You know perfectly well that most of the evening you enjoyed yourself +very much. And you oughtn’t to be horrid about my friends. I think +they’re all so dreadfully touching.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and touched,” Michael grumbled. “You’re simply playing at being in +Bohemia. You’d be the first to laugh at me, if I dressed up Alan and +Maurice Avery and half a dozen of my friends in velvet jackets and +walked about Paris with them, smelling of onions.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Michael,” Stella argued, “do get out of your head the notion +that I dressed these people up. I found them like that. They’re not +imported dolls.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’re not bound to know them. I tell you they all hang on to you +because you have money. That compensates for any jealousy they might +feel because you are better at your business than any of them are at +theirs.”</p> + +<p>“Rot!” Stella ejaculated.</p> + +<p>However, the argument that might have gone on endlessly was quenched +suddenly by the vision of the night seen by<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> Stella and Michael +simultaneously. They hung over the sill entranced, and Michael was so +closely held by the sorcery of the still air that he was ready to +surrender instantly his provocative standpoint of intolerance. The +contest between prejudice and sentiment was unequal in such conditions. +No one could fail to forgive the most outrageous pretender on such a +night; no one could wish for Stella better associates than the +moonstruck company which had entered so intangibly, had existed in +reality for a while so blatantly, but was now again dissolved into +elusive specters of a legendary paradise.</p> + +<p>“I suppose what’s really been the matter with me all the evening,” +confessed Michael, on the verge of going to bed, “is that I’ve felt out +of it all, not so much out of sympathy with them as acutely aware that +for them I simply didn’t exist. That’s rather galling. Now at Oxford, +supposing your friend Ayliffe were suddenly shot down among a lot of men +in my year, he would be out of sympathy with us, and we should be out of +sympathy with him, even up to the point of debagging him, but we should +all be uncomfortably aware of his existence. Seriously, Stella, why did +you send for me? Not surely just to show me off to these unappreciative +enthusiasts?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I wanted a standard measure,” Stella whispered, with a gesture +of disarming confidingness. “Something heavy and reliable.”</p> + +<p>“My dear girl, I’m much too much of a weathercock, or if you insist on +me being heavy, let’s say a pendulum. And there’s nothing quite so +confoundedly unreliable as either. Enough of gas. Good night.”</p> + +<p>There followed a jolly time in Paris, but for Michael it would have been +a jollier time if he could have let himself go with half the ridiculous +pleasure he had derived from lighting bonfires in St. Cuthbert’s quad or +erecting a cocoanut<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> shy in the Warden’s garden. He was constantly aware +of a loss of dignity which worried him considerably and for which he +took himself to task very sternly. Finally he attributed it to one of +two reasons, either that he felt a sense of constraint in Stella’s +presence on her account, or that his continued holding back was due to +his difficulty in feeling any justification for extravagant behavior, +when he had not the slightest intention of presenting the world with the +usufruct of his emotions in terms of letters or color or sound.</p> + +<p>“I really think I’m rather jealous of all these people,” he told Stella. +“They always seem to be able to go on being excited, and everything that +happens to them they seem able to turn to account. Now, I can do nothing +with my experience. I seize it, I enjoy it for a very short time. I +begin to observe it with a warm interest, then to criticize, then to be +bored by it, and finally I forget it altogether and remain just as I was +before it occurred except that I never can seize the same sort of +experience again. Perhaps it’s being with you. Perhaps you absorb all +the vitality.”</p> + +<p>Stella looked depressed by this suggestion.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go away and leave all these people,” she proposed. “Let’s go to +Compiègne together, and we’ll see if you’re depressed by me then. But if +you are, oh, Michael, I shan’t know what to do! Only you won’t be, if +we’re in Compiègne. It was such a success last time. In a way, you know, +we really met each other there for the first time.”</p> + +<p>It was a relief to say farewell to Clarissa and her determination to +produce moderately good pictures, to Ayliffe and his morbid hopes, to +all that motley crowd, so pathetic and yet so completely self-satisfied. +It was pleasant to arrive in Compiègne and find that Madame Regnier’s +house had not changed in three years, that the three old widows had not +suffered from time’s now slow and kindly progress, that M. Regnier still +ate his food with the same noisy recklessness,<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> that the front garden +blazed with just the same vermilion of the geranium flowers.</p> + +<p>For a week they spent industrious days of music and reading, and long +mellow afternoons of provincial drowsiness that culminated in the simple +pleasures of cassis and billiards at night. Michael wrote a sheaf of +long letters to all his friends, among others to Lonsdale, who on +hearing that he was at Compiègne wrote immediately to Prince Raoul de +Castéra-Verduzan, an Eton contemporary, and asked him to call upon +Michael. The young prince arrived one morning in a 70 h.p. car and by +his visit made M. Regnier the proudest bourgeois in France. Prince +Raoul, who was dressed, so Stella said, as brightly as it was possible +even for a prince to dress nowadays, insisted that Michael and his +sister must become temporary members of the Société du Sport de +Compiègne. This proposal at first they were inclined to refuse, but M. +Regnier and Madame Regnier and the three old widows were all so highly +elated at the prospect of knowing anybody belonging to this club, and +were so obviously cast down when their guests seemed to hesitate, that +Michael and Stella, more to please the Pension Regnier than themselves, +accepted Prince Raoul’s offer.</p> + +<p>It was amusing, too, this so excessively aristocratic club where every +afternoon Princesses and Duchesses and the wives of Greek financiers sat +at tea or watched the tennis and polo of their husbands and brothers and +sons. Stella and Michael played sets of tennis with Castéra-Verduzan and +the vicomte de Miramont, luxurious sets in which there were always four +little boys to pick up the balls and at least three dozen balls to be +picked up. Stella was a great success as a tennis-player, and their +sponsor introduced the brother and sister to all the languidly beautiful +women sitting at tea, and also to the over-tailored sportsmen who were +cultivating a supposedly Britannic seriousness of attitude<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> toward their +games. Soon Michael and Stella found themselves going out to dinner and +playing bridge and listening to much admiration of England in a +Franco-cockney accent that was the result of a foreign language mostly +acquired from grooms. With all its veneer of English freedom, it was +still a very ceremonious society, and though money had tempered the +rigidity of its forms and opinions, there was always visible in the +background of the noisiest party Black Papalism, a dominant Army and the +hope of the Orleanist succession. Verduzan also took them for long +drives in the forest, and altogether time went by very gayly and very +swiftly, until Stella woke up to the fact that her piano had been silent +for nearly a fortnight. Verduzan was waiting with his impatient car in +the prim road outside the Pension Regnier when she made this discovery, +and he looked very much mortified when she told him that to-day she +really ought to practice.</p> + +<p>“But you must come because I have to go away to-morrow,” he declared.</p> + +<p>“Ah, but I’ve been making such wonderful resolutions ever since the sun +rose,” Stella said, shaking her head. “I must work, mustn’t I, Michael?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, rot, she must come for this last time, mustn’t she, Fane?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought that once more might not spoil her execution +irreparably.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah, you can’t get out of it, Miss Fane!”</p> + +<p>The car’s horn tooted in grotesque exultation. Stella put on her +dust-cloak of silver-gray, and in a few minutes they were racing through +the forest so fast that the trees on either side winked in a continuous +blur or where the forest was thinner seemed like knitting-needles to +gather up folds of landscape.</p> + +<p>After they had traversed all the wider roads at this speed,<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> somewhere +in the very heart of the forest Raoul turned sharply off along a +wagoner’s track over whose green ruts the car jolted abominably, but +just when it would have been impossible to go on, he stopped and they +all got out.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know why I’ve brought you here,” he laughed.</p> + +<p>Michael and Stella looked their perplexity to the great delight of the +young man. “Wait a minute and you’ll see,” he chuckled. He was leading +the way along a narrow grass-grown lane whose hedges on either side were +gleaming with big blackberries.</p> + +<p>“We shall soon be right out of the world,” said Stella. “Won’t that +worry you, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, it would for a very long time,” replied the Prince, in a +tone of such wistfulness as for the moment made him seem middle-aged. +“But, look,” he cried, and triumphant youth returned to him once more.</p> + +<p>The lane had ended in a forest clearing whose vivid turf was looped with +a chain of small ponds blue as steel. On the farther side stood a +cottage with diamonded lattices and a gabled roof and a garden full of +deep crimson phlox glowing against a background of gnarled and somber +hawthorns. Cottage and clearing were set in a sweeping amphitheater of +beechwoods.</p> + +<p>“It reminds me of Gawaine and the Green Knight,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I’ll take you inside,” Raoul offered.</p> + +<p>They walked across the small common silently, so deeply did they feel +they were trespassing on some enchantment. From the cottage chimney +curled a film of smoke that gave a voiceless voice to the silence, and +when as they paused in the lych-gate, Castéra-Verduzan clanged the bell, +it seemed indeed the summons to waken from a spell sleepers long ago +bewitched.<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a></p> + +<p>“Surely nobody is going to answer that bell,” said Stella.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, of course, Ursule will open it. Ursule! Ursule!” he cried. +“C’est moi, Monsieur Raoul.”</p> + +<p>The cottage door opened and, evidently much delighted, Ursule came +stumping down the path. She was an old woman whose rosy face was +pectinated with fine wrinkles as delicate as the pluming of a moth’s +wing, while everything about her dress gave the same impression of +extreme fineness, though the stuff was only a black bombazine and the +tippet round her shoulders was of coarse lace. When she and Raoul had +talked together in rapidest French, Ursule like an old queen waved them +graciously within.</p> + +<p>They sat in the white parlor on tall chairs of black oak among the +sounds of ticking clocks and distant bees and a smell of sweet herbs and +dryness.</p> + +<p>“And there’s a piano!” cried Stella, running to it. She played the Cat’s +Fugue of Domenico Scarlatti.</p> + +<p>“You could practice on that piano?” Raoul anxiously inquired. “It +belonged to my sister who often came here. More than any of us do. She’s +married now.”</p> + +<p>The sadness in Raoul’s voice had made Michael suppose he was going to +say his sister was dead.</p> + +<p>“Then this divine place belongs to you?” Stella asked.</p> + +<p>“To my sister and me. Ursule was once my nurse. Would you be my guests +here, although I shall be away? For as long as you like. Ursule will +look after you. Do say ‘yes.’”</p> + +<p>“Why, what else could we say?” Michael and Stella demanded +simultaneously.</p> + +<p>It was a disappointment to the Regniers when Michael and Stella came +back to announce their retreat into the fast woodland, but perhaps M. +Regnier found compensation in going down to his favorite café that +afternoon and speaking of his guests, Monsieur and Mademoiselle Fêne, +now<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> staying with M. le prince de Castéra-Verduzan at his hunting-lodge +in the forest.</p> + +<p>Later that afternoon with their luggage and music Raoul brought Michael +and Stella back to the cottage in his car, after which he said good-bye. +Ursule was happy to have somebody to look after, and the cottage that +had seemed so very small against the high beeches of the steep country +behind was much larger when it was explored. It stretched out a +rectangular wing of cool and shadowed rooms toward the forest. In this +portion Ursule lived, and there was the pantry, and the kitchen embossed +with copper pans, and the still-room which had garnered each flowery +year in its course. Coterminous with Ursule’s wing was a flagged court +where a stone well-head stained with gray and orange lichen mirrored a +circumscribed world. Beyond into an ancient orchard whose last red +apples ripened under the first outstretched boughs of the forest tossed +an acre of garden with runner-beans still in bloom.</p> + +<p>In the part of the cottage where Stella and Michael lived, besides the +white parlor with the piano, there was the hall with a great hooded +fireplace and long polished dining-table lined and botched by the homely +meals of numberless dead banqueters; and at either end of the cottage +there were two small bedrooms with frequent changing patterns in dimity +and chintz, with many tinted china ornaments and holy pictures that all +combined to present the likeness of two glass cases enshrining an +immoderately gay confusion of flowers and fruit and birds.</p> + +<p>Here in these ultimate September days of summer’s reluctant farewell +life had all the rich placidity of an apricot upon a sun-steeped wall. +Michael, while Stella practiced really hard, read Gregorovius’ History +of the Papacy; and when she stopped suddenly he would wake half-startled +from the bloody horrors of the tenth century narrated laboriously<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> with +such cold pedantry, and hear above the first elusive silence swallows +gathering on the green common, robins in their autumnal song, and down a +corridor the footfalls and tinkling keys of Ursule.</p> + +<p>It was natural that such surroundings should beget many intimate +conversations between Michael and Stella, and if anything were wanting +to give them a sense of perfect ease the thought that here at Compiègne +three years ago they had realized one another for the first time always +smoothed away the trace of shyness.</p> + +<p>“Whether I had come out to Paris or not,” asked Michael earnestly, +“there never would have been anything approaching a love-affair between +you and that fellow Ayliffe?” He had to recur to this uneasy theme.</p> + +<p>“There might have been, Michael. I think that people who like me grow to +rely tremendously on themselves require rather potty little people to +play about with. It’s the same sort of pleasure one gets from eating +cheap sweets between meals. With somebody like George, one feels no need +to bother to sustain one’s personality at highest pitch. George used to +be grateful for so little. He really wasn’t bad.”</p> + +<p>“But didn’t you feel it was undignified to let him even think you might +fall in love with him? I don’t want to be too objectionably fraternal, +but if Ayliffe was as cheap as you admit, you ran the risk of cheapening +yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Only to other people,” Stella argued, “not to myself. My dear Michael, +you’ve no idea what a relief it is sometimes to play on the piano a +composition that is really easy—ridiculously, fatuously easy.”</p> + +<p>“But you wouldn’t choose that piece for public performance,” Michael +pointed out. He was beginning to feel the grave necessity of checking +Stella’s extravagance.</p> + +<p>“Surely the public you saw gathered round me in Paris<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> wasn’t very +important?” She laughed in almost contemptuous remembrance.</p> + +<p>“Then why did you wire for me if the whole affair was so trivial as you +make out now?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted a corrective,” Stella explained.</p> + +<p>“But how am I a corrective outside the fact that I’m your brother? And, +you know, I don’t believe you would consider that relationship had much +to do with my importance one way or the other.”</p> + +<p>“In fact,” said Stella, laughing, “what you’re really trying to do is to +work the conversation round to yourself. One reason why you’re a +corrective to George is that you’re a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>“There you are!” cried Michael excitedly, and as if with that word she +had released a spring that was holding back all the pent-up conclusions +of some time past, he launched forth upon the display of his latest +excavation of life. “We all half apologize for using the word +‘gentleman,’ but we can’t get on without it. People say it means nothing +nowadays. Although if it ever meant anything, it should mean more +nowadays than it did in the past, since every generation should add +something to its value. I haven’t been able to talk this out before, +because you’re the only person who knows what I was born and at the same +time is able to understand that for me to think about my circumstances +rather a lot doesn’t imply any very morbid self-consciousness. <i>You’re</i> +all right. You have this astonishing gift which would have guaranteed +you self-expression whatever you had been born. When one sees an artist +up to your level, one doesn’t give a damn for his ancestors or his +family or his personal features apart from the security of the art’s +consummation. Perhaps I have a vague inclination toward art myself, but +inclinations are no good without something to lean up against at the +end. These people who<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> came to your party that night in Paris are in a +way much happier, or rather much more secure than me. However far they +incline without support, they’re most of them inclining away from a +top-heavy suburban life. So if they become failures, they’ll always have +the consolation of knowing they had either got to incline outward or be +suffocated.”</p> + +<p>Michael stopped for a while and stared out through the cottage lattices +at the stretch of common, at the steel-blue chain of ponds and the +narrow portal that led to this secluded forest-world, and away down the +lane to where on either side of the spraying brambles a plantation of +delicate birch-trees was tinted with the diaphanous brown and gold and +pale fawn of their last attiring.</p> + +<p>“If I could only find in life itself,” said Michael, sighing, “a path +leading to something like this cottage.”</p> + +<p>“But, meanwhile, go on,” Stella urged. “Do go on with your +self-revelation. It’s so fascinating to me. It’s like a chord that never +resolves itself, or a melody flitting in and out of a symphony.”</p> + +<p>“Something rather pathetic in fact,” Michael suggested.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, much too elusive and independent to be pathetic,” she assured +him.</p> + +<p>“My difficulty is that by natural inheritance I’m the possessor of so +much I can never make use of,” Michael began again. “I’m not merely +discontented from a sense of envy. That trivial sort of envy doesn’t +enter my head. Indeed, I don’t think I’m ever discontented or even +resentful for one moment, but if I <i>were</i> the head of a great family I +should have my duties set out in a long line before me, and all my +theories of what a gentleman owes to the state would be weighted down +with importance, or at any rate with potential significance, whereas +now——” he shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see much difference really,” Stella said. “You’re<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> not +prevented from being a gentleman and proving it on a smaller scale +perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” Michael plunged on excitedly. “But crowds of people are +doing that, and every day more and more loudly the opinion goes up that +these gentlemen are accidental ornaments, rather useless, rather +irritating ornaments of contemporary society. Every day brings another +sneer at public schools and universities. Every new writer who commands +any attention drags out the old idol of the Noble Savage and invites us +to worship him. Only now the Noble Savage has been put into corduroy +trousers. My theory is that a gentleman leavens the great popular mass +of humanity, and however superficially useless he may seem, his +existence is a pledge of the immanence of the idea. Popular education +has fired thousands to prove themselves not gentlemen in the present +meaning of the term, but something much finer than any gentleman we know +anything about. And they are <i>not</i>, they simply and solidly are <i>not</i>. +The first instinct of the gentleman is respect for the past with all it +connotes of art and religion and thought. The first instinct of the +educated unfit is to hate and destroy the past. Now I maintain that the +average gentleman, whatever situation he is called upon to face, will +deal with it more effectively than these noble savages who have been +armed with weapons they don’t know how to use and are therefore so much +the more dangerous, since every weapon to the primitive mind is a weapon +of offense. Had I been Lord Saxby instead of Michael Fane, I could have +proved my theory on the grand scale, and obviously the grand scale even +for a gentleman is the only scale that is any good nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you could,” murmured Stella. “Anyway, I don’t see why you +shouldn’t ultimately attain to the grand scale, if you begin with the +small scale.”</p> + +<p>“But the small scale means just a passive existence that<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> hurts nobody +and fades out of memory at the moment of death,” Michael grumbled.</p> + +<p>“Well, if your theory of necessary ornaments is valid,” Stella pointed +out, “you’ll find your niche.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be a sort of Prescott. That’s the most I can hope for,” Michael +gloomily announced. “Yet after all that’s pretty good.”</p> + +<p>Stella looked at him in surprise, and said that though she had known +Michael liked Prescott, she had no idea he had created such an +atmosphere of admiration. She was eager to find out what Michael most +esteemed in him, and she plied him indeed with so many questions that he +finally asked her if she did not approve of Prescott.</p> + +<p>“Of course I approve of him. No one could accept a refusal so +wonderfully without being approved. But naturally I wanted to find out +your opinion of him. What could be more interesting to a girl than to +know the judgment of others on a person she might have married?”</p> + +<p>Michael gazed at her in astonishment and demanded her reason for keeping +such an extraordinary event so secret.</p> + +<p>“Because I didn’t want to introduce an atmosphere of curiosity into your +relationship with him. You know, Michael, that if I had told you, you +would always have been examining him when you thought he wasn’t looking. +And of course I never told mother, who would have examined him through +her lorgnettes whether he were looking or not.”</p> + +<p>It seemed strange to Michael, as he and Stella sat here with the +woodland enclosing them, that she could so fearlessly accept or refuse +what life offered. And yet he supposed the ability to do so made of her +the artist she was. Thinking of her that night, as he sat up reading in +the clock-charmed room where lately she had played him through the dawn +of the English Constitution, he told himself that<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> even this cottage +which so essentially became them both, was the result of Stella’s appeal +to Raoul de Castéra-Verduzan, an appeal in which his own personality had +scarcely entered. Castéra-Verduzan! Prescott! Ayliffe! What folly it had +been for him to make his own plans for her and Alan. Yet it had seemed +so obvious and so easy that these two should fall in love with each +other. Michael wondered whether he were specially privileged in being +able to see through to a sister’s heart, whether other brothers went +blindly on without an inkling that their sisters were loved. It was +astonishing to think that the grave Prescott had stepped so far and so +rashly from his polite seclusion as to accept the risk of ridicule for +proposing to a girl whose mother’s love for a friend of his own he had +spent his life in guarding. Michael put out the lamp and, lighting a +candle, went along the corridor to bed. From the far end he heard +Stella’s voice calling to him and turned back to ask her what she +wanted. She was sitting up in bed very wide-eyed, and, in that dainty +room of diminutive buds and nosegays all winking in the soft +candlelight, she seemed with her brown hair tied up with a scarlet bow +someone disproportionately large and wild, yet someone whom for all her +largeness and wildness it would still be a joy devotedly to cherish and +protect.</p> + +<p>“Michael, I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she began, “and you +mustn’t get cranky. I wish you wouldn’t bother so much about what you’re +going to be. It will end in your simply being unhappy.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t really bother a great deal,” Michael assured her. “But I do +feel a sort of responsibility for being a nobody, so very definitely a +nobody.”</p> + +<p>“The people who ought to have felt that responsibility were mother and +father,” said Stella.</p> + +<p>“Yes, logically,” Michael agreed. “But I think father<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> did feel the +responsibility rather heavily, and it’s a sort of loyalty I have for him +which makes me so determined to justify myself.”</p> + +<p>That night the equinoctial gales began. Stella and Michael had only two +or three walks more down the wide glades where the fallen leaves +trundled and swirled, and then it would be time to leave this forest +house. Raoul did not manage to come back to Compiègne in time to say +good-bye, and so at the moment of departure they took leave of old +Ursule and the cottage very sadly, for it seemed, so desolate and gusty +was the October morning, that never again would they possess for their +own that magical corner of the world.</p> + +<p>The equinoctial gales died away in a flood of rain, and the fine weather +came back. London welcomed their return with a gracious calm. The Thames +was a sheet of trembling silver, and the distant roofs and spires and +trees of the Surrey shore no more than breath upon a glass. In this +luminous and immaterial city the house in Cheyne Walk stood out with the +pleasant aspect of its demure reality, and Mrs. Fane like one of those +clouded rose pastels on the walls of her room was to both of them after +their absence from London herself for a while as they had known her in +childhood.</p> + +<p>“Dear children, how charming to see you looking so well. I’m not quite +sure I like that very Scotch-looking skirt, darling Stella. I’m so glad +you’ve enjoyed yourselves together. Is it a heather mixture? And I was +in France, too. But the trains are so oddly inconvenient. Mrs. +Carruthers’ most interesting! I wish, darling Stella, you would take up +Mental Science. Ah, but I forgot, you have your practicing.”</p> + +<p>It was time to go up to Oxford after the few days that Stella and +Michael spent in making arrangements for a<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> series of Brahms recitals in +one of the smaller concert halls. Alan met Michael on the platform at +Paddington. This custom they had loyally kept up each term, although +otherwise their paths seemed to be diverging.</p> + +<p>“Good vac?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather! I’ve been working at rather a tricky slow leg-break. +Fifty-five wickets for 8.4 during the vac. Not bad for a dry summer. I +was playing for the Tics most of the time. What did you do?”</p> + +<p>Michael during the journey up talked mostly about Stella.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>VENNER’S</h4> + +<p>The most of Michael’s friends had availed themselves of the right of +seniority to move into more dignified rooms for their second year. These +“extensions of premises,” as Castleton called them, reached the limit of +expansion in the case of Lonsdale who, after a year’s residence in two +small ground-floor rooms of St. Cuthbert’s populous quad, had acquired +the largest suite of three in Cloisters. Exalted by palatial ambitions, +he spent the first week of term in buttonholing people in the lodge, so +that after whatever irrelevant piece of chatter he had seized upon as +excuse he might wind up the conversation by observing nonchalantly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I say, have you chaps toddled round to my new rooms yet? Rather +decent. I’m quite keen on them. I’ve got a dining-room now. Devilish +convenient. Thought of asking old Wedders to lay in a stock of pictures. +It would buck him up rather.”</p> + +<p>“But why do you want these barracks?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, binges,” said Lonsdale. “We ought to be able to run some pretty +useful binges here. Besides, I’m thinking of learning the bagpipes.”</p> + +<p>Wedderburn had moved into the Tudor richness of the large gateway room +in St. Cuthbert’s tower. Avery had succeeded the canorous +Templeton-Collins on Michael’s staircase, and had brought back with him +from Flanders an<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> alleged Rubens to which the rest of the furniture and +the honest opinions of his friends were ruthlessly sacrified. Michael +alone had preferred to remain in the rooms originally awarded to him. He +had a sentimental objection to denying them the full period of their +participation in his own advance along the lines he had marked out for +himself. As he entered them now to resume the tenure interrupted by the +Long Vacation he compared their present state with the negative effect +they had produced a year ago. Being anxious to arrange some decorative +purchases he had made in France, Michael had ordered commons for himself +alone. How intimate and personal that sparse lunch laid for one on a +large table now seemed! How trimly crowded was now that inset bookcase +and what imprisoned hours it could release to serve his pleasure! There +was not now indeed a single book that did not recall the charmed +idleness of the afternoon it commemorated. Nor was there one volume that +could not conjure for him at midnight with enchantments eagerly expected +all the day long.</p> + +<p>It was a varied library this that in three terms he had managed to +gather together. When he began, ornate sets like great gaudy heralds had +proclaimed those later arrivals which were after all so much the more +worshipful. The editions of luxury had been succeeded by the +miscellanies of mere information, works that fired the loiterer to +acquire them for the sake of the knowledge of human by-ways they +generally so jejunely proffered. And yet perhaps it was less for their +material contents that they were purchased than for the fact that in +some dead publishing season more extravagant buyers had spent four or +five times as much to partake of their accumulated facts and fortuitous +illustrations. With Michael the passion for remainders was short-lived, +and he soon pushed them ignobly out of the way for the sake of those +stately rarities that combined a decorous exterior with<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> the finest +flavor of words and a permanent value that was yet subject to mercantile +elation and depression.</p> + +<p>If among these ambassadors of learning and literature was to be +distinguished any predominant tone, perhaps the kindliest favor had been +extended toward the more unfamiliar and fantastic quartos of the +seventeenth century, those speculative compendiums of lore that though +enriched by the classic Renaissance were nevertheless more truly the +eclectic consummation of the Middle Ages. The base of their thought may +have been unsubstantial, a mirage of philosophy, offering but a +Neo-Platonic or Gnostic kaleidoscope through which to survey the +universe; but so rich were their tinctures and apparels, so diverse was +the pattern of their ceremonious commentary, and so sonorous was their +euphony that Michael made of their reading a sanctuary where every night +for a while he dreamed upon their cadences resounding through a world of +polychromatic images and recondite jewels, of spiritual maladies and +minatory comets, of potions for revenge and love, of talismans, to +fortune, touchstones of treasure and eternal life, and strange +influential herbs. Mere words came to possess Michael so perilously that +under the spell of these Jacobeans he grew half contemptuous of thought +less prodigally ornate. The vital ideas of the present danced by in +thin-winged progress unperceived, or rather perceived as bloodless and +irresolute ephemerides. When people reproached him for his willful +prejudice, he pointed out how easy it would always be to overtake the +ideas of the present and how much waste of intellectual breath would be +avoided by letting his three or four Oxford years account for the most +immediately evanescent. Oxford seemed to him to provide an opportunity, +and more than an opportunity—an inexpugnable command to wave with most +reluctant hands farewell to the backward of time, around whose brink +rose up more truthful dreams<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> than those that floated indeterminate, +beckoning through the mist across the wan mountains of the future.</p> + +<p>On the walls Michael’s pictures had been collected to achieve through +another medium the effect of his books. Mona Lisa was there not for her +lips or eyes, but rather for that labyrinth of rocks and streams behind; +and since pictures seldom could be found to provide what he sought in a +picture, there were very few of them in his sitting-room. One hour of +the Anatomy of Melancholy or of Urn Burial could always transform the +pattern of the terra-cotta wall paper to some diagrammatic significance. +Apart from the accumulation of books and pictures, he had changed the +room scarcely at all. Curtains and covers, chairs and tables, all +preserved the character of the room itself as something that existed +outside the idiosyncrasies of the transient inhabitants who read and +laughed and ate and talked for so comparatively fleeting a space of time +between its four walls. With all that he had imposed of what in the +opinion of his contemporaries were eccentricities of adornment, the +rooms remained, as he would observe to any critic, essentially the same +as his own. Instead of college groups which marked merely by the height +of the individual’s waistcoat-opening the almost intolerable fugacity of +their record, there were Leonardo and Blake and Frederick Walker to +preserve the illusion of permanence, or at least of continuity. Instead +of the bleached and desiccated ribs of momentarily current magazines +cast away in sepulchral indignity, there were a hundred quartos whose +calf bindings had the durableness and sober depth of walnut furniture, +furniture, moreover, that was still in use.</p> + +<p>Yet it was in Venner’s office where Michael found the perfect fruit of +time’s infinitely fastidious preservation, the survival not so much of +the fittest as of the most expressive. Here, indeed, whatever in his own +rooms might affect him<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> with the imagination of the eternal present of +finite conceptions, was the embodiment of the possible truth of those +moments in which at intervals he had apprehended, whether through +situations or persons or places, the assurance of immortality. Great +pictures, great music and most of all great literature would always +remain as the most obvious pledge of man’s spiritual potentiality, but +these subtler intimations of momentary vision had such power to impress +themselves that Michael could believe in the child Blake when he spoke +of seeing God’s forehead pressed against the window panes, could believe +that the soul liberated from the prison of the flesh had struggled in +the very instant of her recapture to state the ineffable. To him Blake +seemed the only poet who had in all his work disdained to attempt the +recreation of anything but these moments of positive faith. Every other +writer seemed clogged by human conceptions of grandeur. Most people, +seeking the imaginative reward of their sensibility, would obtain the +finest thrill that Oxford could offer from the sudden sight of St. +Mary’s tower against a green April afterglow, or of the moon-parched +High Street in frost. Michael, however, found in Venner’s office, just +as he had found in that old print of St. Mary’s tower rather than in the +tower itself, the innermost shrine of Oxford, the profoundest revelation +of the shining truth round which the mysterious material of Oxford had +grown through the Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>Michael with others of his year had during the summer term ventured +several times into Venner’s, but the entrance of even a comparatively +obscure senior had always driven them out. They had not yet enjoyed the +atmosphere of security without which a club unlike an orchard never +tastes sweet. Now, with the presence of a new year’s freshmen and with +the lordship of the college in their own hands, since to the +out-of-college men age with merciless finger seemed<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> already to be +beckoning, Michael and his contemporaries in their pride of prime +marched into Venner’s after hall and drank their coffee.</p> + +<p>Venner’s office was one of the small ground-floor rooms in Cloisters, +but it had long ago been converted to the present use. An inner +storeroom, to which Venner always retired to make a cup of squash or to +open a bottle of whisky, had once been the bedroom. The office itself +was not luxuriously furnished, and the accommodation was small. A +window-seat with a view of the college kitchens, a square table, and a +couple of Windsor chairs were considered enough for the men who +frequented Venner’s every night after hall, and who on Sunday nights +after wine in J.C.R. clustered there like a swarm of bees. Venner’s own +high chair stood far back in the corner behind his high sloping desk on +which, always spread open, lay the great ledger of J.C.R. accounts. On +the shelves above were the account books of bygone years in which were +indelibly recorded the extravagances of more than thirty years of St. +Mary’s men. Over the fireplace was a gilt mirror of Victorian design +stuck round with the fixture cards of the university and the college, +with notices of grinds and musical clubs and debating societies; in +fact, with all the printed petty news of Oxford. A few photographs of +winning crews, a book-case with stores of college stationery, a +Chippendale sideboard with a glass case of priced cigars on top, and an +interesting drawerful of Venner’s relics above the varnished wainscot +completed the furniture. The wall-paper was of that indefinite brownish +yellow which one finds in the rooms of old-fashioned solicitors, and of +that curious oily texture which seems to produce an impression of great +age and at the same time of perfect modernity.</p> + +<p>Yet the office itself, haunted though it was by the accumulated +personalities of every generation at St. Mary’s,<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> would scarcely have +possessed the magical effect of fusion which it did possess, had not all +these personalities endured in a perpetual present through the +conservative force of Venner himself. John Venables had been Steward of +the Junior Common Room for thirty-three years, but he seemed to all +these young men that came within the fragrancy of his charm to be as +much an intrinsic part of the college as the tower itself. The +moon-faced Warden, the dry-voiced dons, the deer park, the elms, the +ancient doors and traceries, the lawns and narrow entries, the groinings +and the lattices, were all subordinate in the estimation of the +undergraduates to Venner. He knew the inner history of every rag; he +realized why each man was popular or unpopular or merely ignored; he was +a treasure-house of wise counsel and kindly advice; he held the keys of +every heart. He was an old man with florid, clean-shaven face, a pair of +benignant eyes intensely blue, a rounded nose, a gentle voice and most +inimitable laugh. Something there was in him of the old family butler, a +little more of the yeoman-farmer, a trace of the head game-keeper, a +suspicion of the trainer of horses, but all these elements were blended +to produce the effect of someone wise and saintly and simple who could +trouble himself to heal the lightest wounds and could rouse with a look +or a gesture undying affection.</p> + +<p>With such a tutelary spirit, it was not surprising the freedom of +Venner’s should have been esteemed a privilege that could only be +conferred by the user’s consciousness of his own right. There was no +formal election to Venner’s: there simply happened a moment when the St. +Mary’s man entered unembarrassed that mellow office and basked in that +sunny effluence. In this ripe old room, generous and dry as sherry wine, +how pleasant it was to sit and listen to Venner’s ripe old stories: how +amazingly important seemed the trivial gossip of the college in this +historic atmosphere: how much<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> time was apparently wasted here between +eight and ten at night, and what a thrill it always was to come into +college about half-past nine of a murky evening and stroll round +Cloisters to see if there was anybody in Venner’s. It could after all +scarcely be accounted a waste of time to sit and slowly mature in +Venner’s, and sometimes about half-past nine the old man would be alone, +the fire would be dying down and during the half-hour that remained of +his duty, it would be possible to peel a large apple very slowly and +extract from him more of the essence of social history than could be +gained from a term’s reading of great historians even with all the extra +lucidity imparted by a course of Mr. So-and-So’s lectures.</p> + +<p>Michael found that Venner summed up clearly for him all his own +tentative essays to grasp the meaning of life. He perceived in him the +finest reaction to the prejudice and nobility, the efficiency and folly +of aristocratic thought. He found in him the ideal realization of his +own most cherished opinions. England, and all that was most inexplicable +in the spirit of England, was expressed by Venner. He was a landscape, a +piece of architecture, a simple poem of England. One of Venner’s +applauded tricks was to attach a piece of string to the tongs for a +listener to hold to his ears, while Venner struck the tongs with the +poker and evoked the sound of St. Mary’s chimes. But the poker and tongs +were unnecessary, for in Venner’s own voice was the sound of all the +bells in England. Communion with this gracious, this tranquil, this +mellow presence affected Michael with a sense of the calm certainty of +his own life. It lulled all the discontent and all the unrest. It +indicated for the remainder of his Oxford time a path which, if it did +not lead to any outburst of existence, was at least a straight path, +green bordered and gay with birdsong, with here and there a sight of +ancient towers and faiths, and here and there an<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> arbor in which he and +his friends could sit and talk of their hopes.</p> + +<p>“Venner,” said Lonsdale one evening, “do you remember the Bishop of +Cirencester when he was up? Stebbing his name was. My mother roped him +in for a teetotal riot she was inciting this vac.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I think he was rather a wild fellow,” Venner began, full of +reminiscence. “But we’ll look him up.”</p> + +<p>Down came some account-book of the later seventies, and all the festive +evenings of the Bishop, spent in the period when undergraduates were +photographed with mutton-chop whiskers and bowler hats, lay revealed for +the criticism of his irreverent successors.</p> + +<p>“There you are,” chuckled Venner triumphantly. “What did I say? One +dozen champagne. Three bottles of brandy. All drunk in one night, for +there’s another half dozen put down for the next day. Ah, but the men +are much quieter nowadays. Not nearly so much drinking done in college +as there used to be. Oh, I remember the Bishop—Stebbing he was then. He +put a cod-fish in the Dean’s bed. Oh, there was a dreadful row about it! +The old Warden kicked up such a fuss.”</p> + +<p>And, as easily as one Arabian night glides into another, Venner glided +from anecdote to anecdote of episcopal youth.</p> + +<p>“I thought the old boy liked the governor’s port,” laughed Lonsdale. +“‘What a pity everybody can’t drink in moderation,’ said Gaiters. Next +time he cocks his wicked old eye at me, I shall ask him about that +cod-fish.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this they tell me about your bringing out a magazine?” Venner +inquired, turning to Maurice Avery.</p> + +<p>“Out next week, Venner,” Maurice announced importantly.</p> + +<p>“Why, whatever do you find to write about?” asked Venner. “But I suppose +it’s amusing. I’ve often been asked to<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> write my own life. What an idea! +As if I had any time. I’m glad enough to go to bed when I get home, +though I always smoke a pipe first. We had two men here once who brought +out a paper. Chalfont and Weymouth. I used to have some copies of it +somewhere. They put in a lot of skits of the college dons. The Warden +was quite annoyed. ‘Most scurrilous, Venables,’ he said to me, I +remember. ‘Most scurrilous.’” Venner chuckled at the remembrance of the +Warden’s indignation.</p> + +<p>“This is going to be a very serious affair, Venner,” explained somebody. +“It’s going to put the world quite straight again.”</p> + +<p>“Ho-ho, I suppose you’re one of these Radicals,” said Venner to the +editor. “Dear me, how anyone can be a Radical I can’t understand. I’ve +always been a Conservative. We had a Socialist come up here to lecture +once in a man’s rooms—a great Radical this man was—Sir Hugh Gaston—a +baronet—there’s a funny thing, fancy a Radical baronet. Well, the men +got to hear of this Socialist coming up and what do you think they did?” +Venner chuckled in anticipatory relish. “Why, they cropped his hair down +to nothing. Sir Hugh Gaston was quite upset about it, and when he made a +fuss, they cut his hair too, though it was quite short already. There +was a terrible rowdy set up then. The men are very much quieter +nowadays.”</p> + +<p>The door opened as Venables finished his story, and Smithers came in to +order rather nervously a tin of biscuits. The familiar frequenters of +Venner’s eyed in cold silence his entrance, his blushful wait and his +hurried exit.</p> + +<p>“That’s a scholar called Smithers,” Venner explained. “He’s a very quiet +man. I don’t suppose any of you know him even by sight.”</p> + +<p>“We ragged him last term,” said Michael, smiling at his friends.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<p>“He’s a bounder,” declared Avery obstinately.</p> + +<p>“He hasn’t much money,” said Venner. “But he’s a very nice fellow. You +oughtn’t to rag him. He’s very harmless. Never speaks to anybody. He’ll +get a first, I expect, but there, you don’t think anything of that, I +know. But the dons do. The Warden often has him to dinner. I shouldn’t +rag him any more. He’s a very sensitive fellow. His father’s a +carpenter. What a wonderful thing he should have a son come up to St. +Mary’s.”</p> + +<p>The rebuke was so gently administered that only the momentary silence +betrayed its efficacy.</p> + +<p>One day Michael brought Alan to be introduced to Venables, and it was a +pleasure to see how immediately the old man appreciated Alan.</p> + +<p>“Why ever didn’t you come to St. Mary’s?” asked Venner. “Just the place +for you. Don’t you find Christ Church a bit large? But they’ve got some +very good land. I’ve often done a bit of shooting over the Christ Church +farms. The Bursar knows me well. ‘Pleased to see you, Mr. Venables, and +I hope you’ll have good sport.’ That’s what he said to me last time I +saw him. Oh, he’s a very nice man! Do they still make meringues at your +place? I don’t suppose you ever heard the story of the St. Mary’s men +who broke into Christ Church. It caused quite a stir at the time. Well, +some of our men were very tipsy one night at the Bullingdon wine, and +one of them left his handkerchief in the rooms of a Christ Church man, +and what do you think they did? Why, when they got back to college, this +man said he wasn’t going to bed without his handkerchief. Did you ever +hear of such a thing? So they all climbed out of St. Mary’s at about two +in the morning and actually climbed into Christ Church. At least they +thought it was Christ Church, but it was really Pembroke. Do you know +Pembroke? I don’t suppose you’ve even been there. Our<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> men always cheer +Pembroke in the Eights—Pemmy, as they call it—because their barge is +next to us. But fancy breaking in there at night to look for a +handkerchief. They woke up every man in the college, and there was a +regular set-to in the quad, and the night porter at Pembroke got a most +terrible black eye. The President of the J.C.R. had to send an apology, +and it was all put right, but this man who lost his handkerchief, +Wilberforce his name was, became a regular nuisance, because for ever +afterward, whenever he got drunk, he used to go looking for this old +handkerchief. There you see, that’s what comes of going to the +Bullingdon wine. Are you a member of the Bullingdon?”</p> + +<p>“He’s a cricketer, Venner,” Michael explained.</p> + +<p>“So was this fellow Wilberforce who lost his handkerchief, and what do +you think? One day when we were playing Winchester—you’re not a +Wykehamist, are you?—he came out to bat so drunk that the first ball he +hit, he went and ran after it himself. It caused quite a scandal. But +you don’t look one of that sort. Will you have a squash and a biscuit? +The men like these biscuits very much. There’s been quite a run on +them.”</p> + +<p>Michael was anxious to know how deep an impression Venner had made on +Alan.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got nobody like him at the House?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Alan was bound to admit there was indeed nobody.</p> + +<p>“He’s an extraordinary chap,” said Michael. “He’s always different, and +yet he’s always absolutely the same. For me he represents Oxford. When +one’s in his company, one feels one’s with him for ever, and yet one +knows that people who have gone down can feel just the same, and that +people who haven’t yet come up will feel just the same. You know, I do +really think that what it sets out to do St. Mary’s does better than any +other college. And the reason<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> of that is Venner’s. It’s the only +successful democracy in the world.”</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t have called it a democracy,” said Alan. “Everybody doesn’t +go there.”</p> + +<p>“But everybody can go there. It depends entirely on themselves.”</p> + +<p>“What about that fellow Smithers you were talking about?” Alan asked. +“He seems barred.”</p> + +<p>“But he won’t be,” Michael urged hopefully.</p> + +<p>“He’d be happier at the House all the same,” Alan said. “He’d find his +own set there.”</p> + +<p>“But so he can at St. Mary’s.”</p> + +<p>“Then it isn’t a democracy,” Alan stoutly maintained.</p> + +<p>“I say, Alan,” exclaimed Michael, in surprise. “You’re getting quite a +logician.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you always persist in treating me like an idiot,” said Alan. “But +I <i>am</i> reading Honor Mods. It’s a swat, but I’ve got to get some sort of +a class.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll probably get a first,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>Yet how curious it was to think of Alan, whom he still regarded as +chiefly a good-looking and capable athlete, taking a first class in a +school he himself had indolently passed over. Of course he would never +take a first. He was too much occupied with the perfection of new +leg-breaks. And what would he do after his degree, his third in greats? +A third was the utmost Michael mentally allowed him in the Final +Schools.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ll ultimately try for the Indian Civil?” Michael asked. +“Do you remember when we used to lie awake talking in bed at Carlington +Road? It was always going to be me who did everything intellectual; you +were always the sportsman.”</p> + +<p>“I am still. Michael, I think I’ve got a chance of my blue this year. If +I can keep that leg-break,” he added<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> fervidly. “There’s no slow +right-hander of much class in the Varsity. I worked like a navvy at that +leg-break last vac.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you were grinding for Mods,” Michael reminded him, with a +smile.</p> + +<p>“I worked like a navvy at Mods,” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be a proconsul, I really believe.” Michael looked admiringly at +his friend. “And do you know, Alan, in appearance you’re turning into a +regular viking.”</p> + +<p>“I meant to have my hair cut yesterday,” said Alan, in grave and +reflective self-reproof.</p> + +<p>“It’s not your hair,” cried Michael. “It’s your whole personality. I +never appreciated you until this moment.”</p> + +<p>“I think you talk more rot nowadays than you used to talk even,” said +Alan. “So long, I must go back and work.”</p> + +<p>The tall figure with the dull gold hair curling out from the green cap +of Harris tweed faded away in the November fog that was traveling in +swift and smoky undulations through the Oxford streets. What a strangely +attractive walk Alan had always had, and now it had gained something of +determination, whether from leg-breaks or logic Michael did not know. +But the result was a truer grace in the poise of his neck; a longer and +more supple swing from his tapering flanks.</p> + +<p>Michael went on up the High and stood for a moment, watching the +confusion caused by the fog at Carfax, listening to the fretful tinkles +of the numerous bicycles and the jangling of the trams and the shouts of +the paper-boys. Then he walked down Cornmarket Street past the shops +splashing through the humid coils of vapor their lights upon the +townspeople, loiterers and purchasers who thronged the pavements. +Undergraduates strolled along, linked arm in arm and perpetually +staring. How faithfully each group resembled its forerunners and +successors. All had the same<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> fresh complexions, the same ample green +coats of Harris tweed, the same gray flannel trousers. Only in the +casual acknowledgments of his greeting when he recognized acquaintances +was there the least variation, since some would nod or toss their heads, +others would shudder with their chins, and a few would raise their arms +in a fanlike gesture of social benediction. Michael turned round into +the Broad where the fog made mysterious even the tea-tray gothic of +Balliol, and Trinity with its municipal ampelopsis. A spectral cabman +saluted him interrogatively from the murk. A fox-terrier went yapping +down the street at the heels of a don’s wife hurrying back to Banbury +Road. A belated paper-boy yelled, “Varsity and Blackheath Result,” +hastening toward a more profitable traffic. The fog grew denser every +minute, and Michael turned round into Turl Street past many-windowed +Exeter and the monastic silence of Lincoln. There was time to turn aside +and visit Lampard’s bookshop. There was time to buy that Glossary of +Ducange which he must have, and perhaps that red and golden Dictionary +of Welby Pugin which he ought to have, and ultimately, as it turned out, +there was time to buy half a dozen more great volumes whose connection +with mediæval history was not too remote to give an excuse to Michael, +if excuse were needed, for their purchase. Seven o’clock chimed +suddenly, and Michael hurried to college, snatched a black coat and a +gown out of Venner’s and just avoided the sconce for being more than a +quarter of an hour late for hall.</p> + +<p>Michael was glad he had not missed hall that night. In Lampard’s +alluring case of treasures he had been tempted to linger on until too +late, and then to take with him two or three new books and in their +entertainment to eat a solitary and meditative dinner at Buol’s. But it +would have been a pity to have missed hall when the electric light +failed<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> abruptly and when everybody had just helped themselves to baked +potatoes. It would have been sad not to have seen the Scholars’ table so +splendidly wrecked or heard the volleys of laughter resounding through +the darkness.</p> + +<p>“By gad,” said Lonsdale, when the light was restored and the second year +leaned over their table in triumphant exhaustion. “Did you see that bad +man Carben combing the potatoes out of his hair with a fork? I say, +Porcher,” he said to his old scout who was waiting at the table, “do +bring us some baked potatoes.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t there none left?” inquired Porcher. “Mr. Lonsdale, sir, you’d +better keep a bit quiet. The Sub-Warden’s looking very savage—very +savage indeed.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Maurice Avery came hurrying in to dinner.</p> + +<p>“Oh, sconce him!” shouted everybody. “It’s nearly five-and-twenty past.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t help it,” said Maurice very importantly. “Just been seeing the +first number of the O.L.G. through the press.”</p> + +<p>“By gad,” said Lonsdale. “It’s a way we have in the Buffs and the Forty +Two’th. Look here, have we all got to buy this rotten paper of yours? +What’s it going to cost?”</p> + +<p>“A shilling,” said Maurice modestly.</p> + +<p>“A bob!” cried Lonsdale. “But, my dear old ink-slinger, I can buy the +five-o’clock Star for a half-penny.”</p> + +<p>Maurice had to put up with a good deal of chaff from everybody that +night.</p> + +<p>“Let’s have the program,” Sinclair suggested.</p> + +<p>The editor was so much elated at the prospect of to-morrow’s great event +that he rashly produced from his pocket the contents bill, which +Lonsdale seized and immediately began to read out:<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<p class="c">“THE OXFORD LOOKING-GLASS.<br />No. I.<br /><i>“Some Reflections. +By Maurice Avery.</i></p> + +<p>“What are you reflecting on, Mossy?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, politics,” said Maurice lightly, “and other things.”</p> + +<p>“My god, he’ll be Prime Minister next week,” said Cuffe.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>“Socrates at Balliol. By Guy Hazlewood.</i></p> + +<p>“And just about where he ought to have been,” commented Lonsdale. “Oh, +listen to this! Whoo-oop!</p> + +<p class="c"><i>“The Failure of the Modern Illustrator.</i></p> + +<p>“But wait a minute, who do you think it’s by? C. St. C. Wedderburn! +Jolly old Wedders! The Failure of the Modern Illustrator. Wedders! My +god, I shall cat with laughing. Wedders! A bee-luddy author.”</p> + +<p>“Sconce Mr. Lonsdale, please,” said Wedderburn, turning gravely to the +recorder by his chair.</p> + +<p>“What, half a crown for not really saying bloody?” Lonsdale protested.</p> + +<p>That night after hall there was much to tell Venner of the successful +bombardment with potatoes, and there was some chaff for Avery and +Wedderburn in regard to their forthcoming magazine. Parties of +out-of-college men came in after their dinner, and at half-past eight +o’clock the little office was fuller than usual, with the college gossip +being carried on in a helter-skelter of unceasing babble. Just when +Fitzroy the Varsity bow was enunciating the glories of Wet Bobbery and +the comparative obscurities of Dry Bobbery and just when all the Dry +Bobs present were bowling the contrary arguments at him from every +corner<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> at once, the door opened and a freshman, as fair and floridly +handsome as a young Bacchus, walked with curious tiptoe steps into the +very heart of the assembly.</p> + +<p>Fitzroy stopped short in his discourse and thrummed impatiently with +clenched fists upon his inflated chest, as gorillas do. The rest of the +company eyed the entrance of the newcomer in puzzled, faintly hostile +silence.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Venner,” said the intruder, in loftiest self-confidence and +unabashed clarity of accent. “I haven’t had those cigars yet.”</p> + +<p>He hadn’t had his cigars yet! Confound his impudence, and what right had +he to buy cigars, and what infernal assurance had led him to suppose he +might stroll into Venner’s in the third raw week of his uncuffed +fresherdom? Who was he? What was he? Unvoiced, these questions quivered +in the wrathful silence.</p> + +<p>“The boy was told to take them up, sir,” said Venner. Something in +Venner’s manner toward this newcomer indicated to the familiars that he +might have deprecated this deliberate entrance armored in +self-satisfaction. Something there was in Venner’s assumption of +impersonal civility which told the familiars that Venner himself +recognized and sympathized with their as yet unspoken horror of +tradition’s breach.</p> + +<p>“I rather want them to-night,” said the newcomer, and then he surveyed +slowly his seniors and even nodded to one or two of them whom presumably +he had known at school. “So if the boy hasn’t taken them up,” he +continued, “you might send up another box. Thanks very much.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to debate for a moment with himself whether he should stay, +but finally decided to go. As he reached the door, he said that, by +Jove, his cigarette had gone out, and “You’ve got a light,” he added to +Lonsdale, who was standing nearest to him. “Thanks very much.” The door<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> +of Venner’s slammed behind his imperturbableness, and a sigh of pent-up +stupefaction was let loose.</p> + +<p>“Who’s your young friend, Lonny?” cried one.</p> + +<p>“He thought Lonny was the Common Room boy,” cried another.</p> + +<p>“Venner, give the cigars to Mr. Lonsdale to take up,” shouted a third.</p> + +<p>“He’s very daring for a freshman,” said Venner. “Very daring. I thought +he was a fourth year Scholar whom I’d never seen, when he first came in +the other day. Most of the freshmen are very timid at first. They think +the senior men don’t like their coming in too soon. And perhaps it’s +better for them to order what they want when I’m by myself. I can talk +to them more easily that way. With all the men wanting their coffee and +whiskies, I really can’t attend to orders so well just after hall.”</p> + +<p>“Who is he, Venner?” demanded half a dozen indignant voices.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Appleby. The Honorable George Appleby. But you ought to know him. +He’s an Etonian.”</p> + +<p>Several Etonians admitted they knew him, and the Wykehamists present +seized the occasion to point out the impossibility of such manners +belonging to any other school.</p> + +<p>“He’s a friend of yours, then?” said Venner to Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Good lord, no, Venner!” declared Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“He seemed on very familiar terms with you,” Venner chuckled wickedly.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale thought very hard for two long exasperated moments and then +announced with conviction that Appleby must be ragged, severely ragged +this very night.</p> + +<p>“Now don’t go making a great noise,” Venner advised. “The dons don’t +like it, and the Dean won’t be in a very good temper after that +potato-throwing in hall.”</p> + +<p>“He must be ragged, Venner,” persisted Lonsdale inexorably.<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> “There need +be no noise, but I’m hanged if I’m going to have my cigarette taken out +of my hand and used by a damned fresher. Who’s coming with me to rag +this man Appleby?”</p> + +<p>The third-year men seemed to think the correction beneath their dignity, +and the duty devolved naturally upon the second-year men.</p> + +<p>“I can’t come,” said Avery. “The O.L.G.’s coming out to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Mossy, if you say another word about your rotten paper, I +won’t buy a copy,” Lonsdale vowed.</p> + +<p>Michael offered to go with Lonsdale and at any rate assist as a +spectator. He was anxious to compare the behavior of Smithers with the +behavior of Appleby in like circumstances. Grainger offered to come if +Lonny would promise to fight sixteen rounds without gloves, and in the +end he, with Lonsdale, Michael, Cuffe, Sinclair, and three or four +others, marched up to Appleby’s rooms.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale knocked upon the door, and as he opened it assumed what he +probably supposed to be an expression of ferocity, though he was told +afterward he had merely looked rather more funny than usual.</p> + +<p>“Oh, hullo, Lonsdale,” said Appleby, as the party entered. “Come in and +have a smoke. How’s your governor?”</p> + +<p>Lonsdale seemed to choke for breath a moment, and then sat down in a +chair so deep that for the person once plunged into its recesses an +offensive movement must have been extremely difficult.</p> + +<p>“Come in, you chaps,” Appleby pursued in hospitable serenity. “I don’t +know any of your names, but take pews, take pews. Venner hasn’t sent up +the cigars I ordered.”</p> + +<p>“We know,” interrupted Lonsdale severely.</p> + +<p>“But I’ve some pretty decent weeds here,” continued<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> Appleby, without a +tremor of embarrassment. “Who’s for whisky?”</p> + +<p>“Look here, young Apple-pip, or whatever your name is, what you’ve got +to understand is that....”</p> + +<p>Appleby again interrupted Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Can we make up a bridge four? Or are you chaps not keen on cards?”</p> + +<p>“What you require, young Appleby,” began Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got it right this time,” said Appleby encouragingly.</p> + +<p>“What you require is to have your room bally well turned upside down.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, really?” said Appleby, with a suave assumption of interest.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Lonsdale gloomily, and somehow the little affirmative +that was meant to convey so much of fearful intent was so palpably +unimpressive that Lonsdale turned to his companions and appealed for +their more eloquent support.</p> + +<p>“Tell him he mustn’t come into Venner’s and put on all that side. It’s +not done. He’s a fresher,” gasped Lonsdale, obviously helpless in that +absorbing chair.</p> + +<p>“All right,” agreed Appleby cheerfully. “I’ll send the order up to you +next time.”</p> + +<p>Immediately afterward, though exactly how it happened Lonsdale could +never probably explain, he found himself drinking Appleby’s whisky and +smoking one of Appleby’s cigars. This seemed to kindle the spark of his +resentment to flame, and he sprang up.</p> + +<p>“We ought to debag him!” he cried.</p> + +<p>Appleby was thereupon debagged; but as he made no resistance to the +divestiture and as he continued to walk about trouserless and dispense +hospitality without any apparent loss of dignity, the debagging had to +be written down a failure.<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> Finally he folded up his trousers and put on +a dressing-gown of purple velvet, and when they left him, he was +watching them descend his staircase and actually was calling after them +to remind Venner about the cigars, if the office were still open.</p> + +<p>“Hopeless,” sighed Lonsdale. “The man’s a hopeless ass.”</p> + +<p>“I think he had the laugh, though,” said Michael.<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>THE OXFORD LOOKING-GLASS</h4> + +<p>Roll-calls were not kept at St. Mary’s with that scrupulousness of +outward exterior which, in conjunction with early rising, such a +discipline may have been designed primarily to secure. On the morning +after the attempted adjustment of Appleby’s behavior, a raw and vaporous +November morning, Michael at one minute to eight o’clock ran collarless, +unbrushed, unshaven, toward the steps leading up to hall at whose head +stood the Dean beside the clerkly recorder of these sorry matutinal +appearances. Michael waited long enough to see his name fairly entered +in the book, yawned resentfully at the Dean, and started back on the +taciturn journey that must culminate in the completion of his toilet. +Crossing the gravel space between Cloisters and Cuther’s worldly quad, +he met Maurice Avery dressed finally for the day at one minute past +eight o’clock. Such a phenomenon provoked him into speech.</p> + +<p>“What on earth.... Are you going to London?” he gasped.</p> + +<p>“Rather not. I’m going out to buy a copy of the O.L.G.”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head, sighed compassionately, and passed on. Twenty +minutes later in Common Room he was contemplating distastefully the +kedgeree which with a more hopeful appetite he had ordered on the +evening before,<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> when Maurice planked down beside his place the first +number of The Oxford Looking-Glass.</p> + +<p>“There’s a misprint on page thirty-seven, line six. It ought to be ‘yet’ +not ‘but.’ Otherwise I think it’s a success. Do you mind reading my +slashing attack on the policy of the Oxford theater? Or perhaps you’d +better begin at the beginning and go right through the whole paper and +give me your absolutely frank opinion of it as a whole. Just tell me +candidly if you think my Reflections are too individual. I want the +effect to be more——”</p> + +<p>“Maurice,” Michael interrupted, “do you like kedgeree?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, very much,” Maurice answered absently. Then he plunged on again. +“Also don’t forget to tell me if you think that Guy’s skit is too +clever. And if you find any misprints I haven’t noticed, mark them down. +We can’t alter them now, of course, but I’ll speak to the compositor +myself. You like the color? I wonder whether it wouldn’t have been +better to have had dark blue after all. Still——”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you like kedgeree,” Michael interrupted again, “do you like it +as much in the morning as you thought you were going to like it the +night before?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, how the dickens do I know?” exclaimed Maurice fretfully.</p> + +<p>“Well, will you just eat my breakfast and let me know if you think I +ought to have ordered eggs and bacon last night?”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you keen on the success of this paper?” Maurice demanded.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you later on,” Michael offered. “We’ll lunch together quietly +in my rooms, and the little mulled claret we shall drink to keep out +this filthy fog will also enormously conduce to the amiableness of my +judgment.”</p> + +<p>“And you won’t come out with me and Nigel Stewart to<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> watch people +buying copies on their way to leckers?” Maurice suggested in a tone of +disappointment. Lonsdale arrived for breakfast at this moment, just in +time to prevent Michael’s heart from being softened. The newcomer was at +once invited to remove the editor.</p> + +<p>“Have you bought your copy of the O.L.G. yet, Lonny?” Maurice demanded, +unabashed.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Moss Avery,” said Lonsdale seriously, “if you promise to +spend the bob you screw out of me on buying yourself some soothing +syrup, I’ll ...”</p> + +<p>But the editor rejected the frivolous attentions of his audience, and +left the J.C.R. Michael, not thinking it very prudent to remind Lonsdale +of last night’s encounter with Appleby, examined the copy of The Oxford +Looking-Glass that lay beside his plate.</p> + +<p>It was a curious compound of priggishness and brilliance and +perspicacity and wit, this olive-green bantling so meticulously hatched, +and as Michael turned the pages and roved idly here and there among the +articles that by persevering exhortation had been driven into the fold +by the editor, he was bound to admit the verisimilitude of the image of +Oxford presented. Maurice might certainly be congratulated on the +variety of the opinions set on record, but whether he or that Academic +Muse whose biographies and sculptured portraits nowhere exist should be +praised for the impression of corporate unanimity that without question +was ultimately conveyed to the reader, Michael was not sure. It was a +promising fancy, this of the Academic Muse; and Michael played with the +idea of elaborating his conception in an article for this very +Looking-Glass which she invisibly supported. The Oxford Looking-Glass +might serve her like the ægis of Pallas Athene, an ægis that would +freeze to academic stone the self-confident chimeras of the twentieth +century. Michael began to feel that his classical analogies were +enmeshing<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> the original idea, involving it already in complexities too +manifold for him to unravel. His ideas always fled like waking dreams at +the touch of synthesis. Perhaps Pallas Athene was herself the Academic +Muse. Well enough might the owl and the olive serve as symbols of +Oxford. The owl could stand for all the grotesque pedantry, all the +dismal hootings of age, all the slow deliberate sweep of the don’s mind, +the seclusions, the blinkings in the daylight and the unerring +destruction of intellectual vermin; while the olive would speak of age +and the grace and grayness of age, of age each year made young again by +its harvest of youth, of sobriety sun-kindled to a radiancy of silver +joy, of wisdom, peace, and shelter, and Attic glories.</p> + +<p>Michael became so nearly stifled by the net of his fancies that he +almost rose from the table then and there, ambitious to take pen in hand +and test the power of its sharpness to cut him free. He clearly saw the +gray-eyed goddess as the personification of the spirit of the +university: but suddenly all the impulse faded out in self-depreciation. +Guy Hazlewood would solve the problem with his pranked-out allusiveness, +would trace more featly the attributes of the Academic Muse and +establish more convincingly her descent from Apollo or her identity with +Athene. At least, however, he could offer the idea and if Guy made +anything of it, the second number of The Oxford Looking-Glass would hold +more of Michael Fane than the ten pounds he had laid on the table of its +exchequer. Inspired by the zest of his own fancy, he read on +deliberately.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Some Reflections. By Maurice Avery.</i></p> + +<p>The editor had really succeeded in reflecting accurately the passing +glance of Oxford, although perhaps the tortuous gilt of the frame with +which he had tried to impart style to<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> his mirror was more personal to +Maurice Avery than general to the university. Moreover, his glass would +certainly never have stood a steady and protracted gaze. Still with all +their faults these paragraphic reflections did show forth admirably the +wit and unmatured cynicism of the various Junior Common Rooms, did +signally flash with all the illusion of an important message, did +suggest a potentiality for durable criticism.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Socrates at Balliol.</i> <i>By Guy Hazlewood.</i></p> + +<p>There was enough of Guy in his article to endear it to Michael, and +there was so much of Oxford in Guy that whatever he wrote spontaneously +would always enrich the magazine with that adventurous gaiety and +childlike intolerance of Athene’s favorites.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>The Failure of the Modern Illustrator.</i><br /><i>By C. St. C. Wedderburn.</i></p> + +<p>Here was Wedders writing with more distinction than Michael would have +expected, but not with all the sartorial distinction of his attire.</p> + +<p>“Let us turn now to the illustrators of the sixties and seventies, and +we shall see....” Wedderburn in the plural scarcely managed to convey +himself into print. The neat bulk began to sprawl: the solidity became +pompous: the profundity of his spoken voice was lacking to sustain so +much sententiousness.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Quo Vadis?</i> <i>By Nigel Stewart.</i></p> + +<p>Nigel’s plea for the inspiration of modernity to make more vital the +decorative Anglicanism whose cause he had pledged<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> his youth to advance, +was with all its predetermined logic and emphasis of rhetorical +expression an appealing document. Michael did not think it would greatly +serve the purpose for which it had been written, but its presence in The +Oxford Looking-Glass was a guarantee that the youngest magazine was not +going to ignore the force that perhaps more than any other had endowed +Oxford with something that Cambridge for all her poets lacked. Michael +himself had since he came up let the practice of religion slide, but his +first fervors had not burned themselves out so utterly as to make him +despise the warmth they once had kindled. His inclination in any +argument was always toward the Catholic point of view, and though he +himself allowed to himself the license of agnostic speech and agnostic +thought, he was always a little impatient of a skeptical non-age and +very contemptuous indeed of an unbelief which had never been tried by +the fire of faith. He did not think Stewart’s challenge with its +plaintive under-current of well-bred pessimism would be effective save +for the personality of the writer, who revealed his formal grace +notwithstanding the trumpeting of his young epigrams and the tassels of +his too conspicuous style. With all the irritation of its verbal +cleverness, he rejoiced to read <i>Quo Vadis</i>? and he felt in reading it +that Oxford would still have silver plate to melt for a lost cause.</p> + +<p>Under the stimulus of Nigel Stewart’s article, Michael managed to finish +his breakfast with an appetite. As he rose to leave the Common Room, +Lonsdale emerged from the zareba of illustrated papers with which he had +fortified his place at table.</p> + +<p>“Have you been reading that thing of Mossy’s?” he asked incredulously.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it most awful rot?”<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a></p> + +<p>“Some of it,” Michael assured him.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it would be only sporting to buy a copy,” sighed Lonsdale. “I +suppose I ought to buzz round and buck the college up into supporting +it. By Jove, I’ll write and tell the governor to buy a copy. I want him +to raise my allowance this year, and he’ll think I’m beginning to take +an interest in what he calls ‘affairs.’”</p> + +<p>Michael turned into Venner’s before going back to his own rooms.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, is that the paper?” asked Venner. “Dear me, this looks very +learned. You should tell him to put some more about sport into it—our +fellows are all so dreadfully wild about sport. They’d be sure to buy it +then. Going to work this morning? That’s right. I’m always advising the +men to work in the morning. But bless you, they don’t pay any attention +to me. They only laugh and say, ‘what’s old Venner know about it?’”</p> + +<p>Michael, sitting snugly in the morning quiet of his room, leaned over to +poke the fire into a blaze, eyed with satisfaction November’s sodden +mists against his window, and settled himself back in the deep chair to +The Oxford Looking-Glass.</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Oxford Liberalism. By Vernon Townsend.</i><br /><i>A Restatement +of Tory Ideals. By William Mowbray.</i></p> + +<p>These two articles Michael decided to take on trust. From their perusal +he would only work himself up into a condition of irritated neutrality. +Indeed, he felt inclined to take all the rest of the magazine on trust. +The tranquillity of his own room was too seductive. Dreaming became a +duty here. It was so delightful to count from where he sat the books on +the shelves and to arrive each time at a different estimate of their +number. It was so restful to stare up<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> at Mona Lisa and traverse without +fatigue that labyrinth of rocks and streams. His desk not yet deranged +by work or correspondence possessed a monumental stability of neatness +that was most soothing to contemplate. It had the restfulness of a +well-composed landscape where every contour took the eye easily onward +and where every tree grew just where it was needed for a moment’s halt. +The olive-green magazine dropped unregarded onto the floor, and there +was no other book within reach. The dancing fire danced on. Far away +sounded the cries of daily life. The chimes in St. Mary’s tower struck +without proclaiming any suggestion of time. How long these roll-call +mornings were and how rapidly dream on dream piled its drowsy outline. +Was there not somewhere at the other end of Oxford a lecture at eleven +o’clock? This raw morning was not suitable for lectures out of college. +Was not Maurice coming to lunch? How deliciously far off was the time +for ordering lunch. He really must get out of the habit of sitting in +this deep wicker-chair, until evening licensed such repose.</p> + +<p>Some people had foolishly attended a ten-o’clock lecture at St. John’s. +What a ludicrous idea! They had ridden miserably through the cold on +their bicycles and with numb fingers were now trying to record scraps of +generalization in a notebook that would inevitably be lost long before +the Schools. At the same time it was rather lazy to lie back like this +so early in the morning. Why was it so difficult to abandon the Sirenian +creakings of this chair? He wanted another match for his second pipe, +but even the need for that was not violent enough to break the luxurious +catalepsy of his present condition.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Maurice Avery and Nigel Stewart burst into the room, and +Michael by a supreme effort plunged upward onto his legs to receive +them.</p> + +<p>“My hat, what a frowst!” exclaimed Maurice, rushing to<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> the window and +letting in the mist and the noise of the High.</p> + +<p>“We’re very hearty this morning,” murmured Stewart. “I heard Mass at +Barney’s for the success of the O.L.G.”</p> + +<p>“Nigel and I have walked down the High, rounded the Corn, and back along +the Broad and the Turl,” announced Maurice. “And how many copies do you +think we saw bought by people we didn’t know?”</p> + +<p>“None,” guessed Michael maliciously.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be an ass. Fifteen. Well, I’ve calculated that at least four +times as many were being sold, while we were making our round. That’s +sixty, and it’s not half-past ten yet. We ought to do another three +hundred easily before lunch. In fact, roughly I calculate we shall do +five hundred and twenty before to-night. Not bad. After two thousand we +shall be making money.”</p> + +<p>“Maurice bought twenty-two copies himself,” said Stewart, laughing, and +lest he should seem to be laughing at Maurice thrust an affectionate arm +through his to reassure him.</p> + +<p>“Well, I wanted to encourage the boys who were selling them,” Maurice +explained.</p> + +<p>“They’ll probably emigrate with the money they’ve made out of you,” +predicted Michael. “And what on earth are you going to do with +twenty-two copies? I find this one copy of mine extraordinarily in the +way.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I shall send them to well-known literary people in town. In fact, +I’m going to write round and get the best-known old Oxford men to give +us contributions from time to time, without payment, of course. I expect +they’ll be rather pleased at being asked.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think it may turn their heads?” Michael anxiously suggested. +“It would be dreadful to read of the sudden death of Quiller-Couch from +apoplectic pride or to<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> hear that Hilaire Belloc or Max Beerbohm had +burst with exultation in his bath.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a pity you can’t be funny in print,” said Maurice severely. “You’d +really be some use on the paper then.”</p> + +<p>“But what we’ve really come round to say,” interposed Stewart, “is that +there’s an O.L.G. dinner to-night at the Grid; and then afterward we’re +all going across to my digs opposite.”</p> + +<p>“And what about lunch with me?”</p> + +<p>Both Maurice and Nigel excused themselves. Maurice intended to spend all +day at the Union. Nigel had booked himself to play fug-socker with three +hearty Trindogs of Trinity.</p> + +<p>“But when did you join the Union?” Michael asked the editor.</p> + +<p>“I thought it was policy,” he explained. “After all, though we laugh at +it here, most of the Varsity does belong. Besides, Townsend and Bill +Mowbray were both keen. You see they think the O.L.G. is going to have +an influence in Varsity politics. And, after all, I am editor.”</p> + +<p>“You certainly are,” Michael agreed. “Nothing quite so editorial was +ever conceived by the overwrought brain of a disappointed female +contributor.”</p> + +<p>Michael always enjoyed dining at the Grid. Of all the Oxford clubs it +seemed to him to display the most completely normal undergraduate +existence. Vincent’s, notwithstanding its acknowledged chieftaincy, +depended ultimately too much on a mechanically apostolic succession. It +was an institution to be admired without affection. It had every +justification for calling itself The Club without any qualifying prefix, +but it produced a type too highly specialized, and was too definitely +Dark Blue and Leander Pink. In a way, too, it belonged as much to +Cambridge, and although violently patriotic had merged its individuality +in brawn. By<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> its substitution of co-option for election, its Olympic +might was now scarcely much more than the self-deification of Roman +Emperors. Vincent’s was the last stronghold of muscular supremacy. Yet +it was dreadfully improbable, as Michael admitted to himself, that he +would have declined the offer of membership.</p> + +<p>The O.U.D.S. was at the opposite pole from Vincent’s, and if it did not +offend by its reactionary encouragement of a supreme but discredited +spirit, it offended even more by fostering a premature worldliness. For +an Oxford club to take in The Stage and The Era was merely an exotic +heresy. On the walls of its very ugly room the pictures of actors that +in Garrick Street would have possessed a romantic dignity produced an +effect of strain, a proclamation of mounte-bank-worship that differed +only in degree from the photographs of actresses on the mantelpiece of a +second-rate room in a second-rate college. The frequenters of the +O.U.D.S. were always very definitely Oxford undergraduates, but they +lacked the serenity of Oxford, and seemed already to have planted a foot +in London. The big modern room over the big cheap shop was a restless +place, and its pretentiousness and modernity were tinged with +Thespianism. Scarcely ever did the Academic Muse enter the O.U.D.S., +Michael thought. She must greatly dislike Thespianism with all that it +connoted of mildewed statuary in an English garden. Yet it would be +possible to transmute the O.U.D.S., he dreamed. It had the advantage of +a limited membership. It might easily become a grove where Apollo and +Athene could converse without quarreling. Therefore, he could continue +to frequent its halls.</p> + +<p>The Bullingdon was always delightful; the gray bowlers and the white +trousers striped with vivid blue displayed its members, in their +costume, at least, as unchanging types, but the archaism made it a club +too conservative to register much<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> more than an effect of peculiarity. +The Bullingdon had too much money, and not enough unhampered humanity to +achieve the universal. The Union, on the other hand, was too +indiscriminate. Personality was here submerged in organization. +Manchester or Birmingham could have produced a result very similar.</p> + +<p>The Grid, perhaps for the very fact that it was primarily a dining-club, +was the abode of discreet good-fellowship. Its membership was very +strictly limited, and might seem to have been confined to the seven or +eight colleges that considered themselves the best colleges, but any man +who deserved to be a member could in the end be sure of his election. +The atmosphere was neither political nor sporting nor literary, nor +financial, but it was very peculiarly and very intimately the elusive +atmosphere of Oxford herself. The old rooms looking out on the +converging High had recently been redecorated in a very crude shade of +blue. Members were grumbling at the taste of the executive, but Michael +thought the unabashed ugliness was in keeping with its character. It was +as if unwillingly the club released its hold upon the externals of +Victorianism. Such premises could afford to be anachronistic, since the +frequenters were always so finely sensitive to fashion’s lightest +breath. Eccentricity was not tolerated at the Grid except in the case of +the half-dozen chartered personalities who were necessary to set off the +correctness of the majority. The elective committee probably never made +a mistake, and when somebody like Nigel Stewart was admitted, it was +scrupulously ascertained beforehand that his presence would evoke +affectionate amusement rather than the chill surprise with which the +Grid would have greeted the entrance of someone who, however superior to +the dead level of undergraduate life, lacked yet the indefinable +justification for his humors.</p> + +<p>Michael on the evening of the Looking-Glass dinner went<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> up the narrow +stairs of the club in an aroma of pleasant anticipation, which was not +even momentarily dispersed by the sudden occurrence of the fact that he +had forgotten to take his name off hall, and must therefore pay two +shillings and fourpence to the college for a dinner he would not eat. In +the Strangers’ Room were waiting the typical guests of the typical +members. Here and there nods were exchanged, but the general atmosphere +was one of serious expectancy. In the distance the rattle of crockery +told of dinners already in progress. Vernon Townsend came in soon after +Michael, and as Townsend was a member, Michael lost that trifling +malaise of waiting in a club’s guest-room which the undergraduate might +conceal more admirably than any other class of man, but nevertheless +felt acutely.</p> + +<p>“Not here yet, I suppose,” said Townsend.</p> + +<p>It was unnecessary to mention a name. Nigel Stewart’s habits were +proverbial.</p> + +<p>“Read my article?” asked Townsend.</p> + +<p>“Splendid,” Michael murmured.</p> + +<p>“It’s going to get me the Librarianship of the Union,” Townsend +earnestly assured Michael.</p> + +<p>Michael was about to congratulate the sanguine author without disclosing +his ignorance of the article’s inside, when Bill Mowbray rushed +breathlessly into the room. Everybody observed his dramatic entrance, +whereupon he turned round and rushed out again, pausing only for one +moment to exclaim in the doorway:</p> + +<p>“Good god, that fool will never remember!”</p> + +<p>“See that?” asked Townsend darkly, as the Tory Democrat vanished.</p> + +<p>Michael admitted that he undoubtedly had.</p> + +<p>“Bill Mowbray has become a poseur,” Townsend declared. “Or else he knows +his ridiculous article on Toryism was too badly stashed by mine,” he +added.<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p>“We shan’t see him again to-night,” Michael prophesied.</p> + +<p>Townsend shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“We shall, if he can make another effective entrance,” he said a little +bitterly.</p> + +<p>Maurice Avery and Wedderburn arrived together. The combination of having +just been elected to the Grid and the birth of the new paper had given +Maurice such an effervescence of good spirits as even he seldom boasted. +Wedderburn in contrast seemed graver, supplying in company with Maurice +a solidity to the pair of them that was undeniably beneficial to their +joint impression. They were followed almost immediately by Guy +Hazlewood, who with his long legs came sloping in as self-possessed as +he always was. Perhaps his left eyelid drooped a little lower than it +was accustomed, and perhaps the sidelong smile that gave him a +superficial resemblance to Michael was drawn down to a sharper point of +mockery, but whatever stored-up flashes of mood and fancy Guy had to +deliver, he always drawled them out in the same half-tired voice +emphasized by the same careless indolence of gesture. And so this +evening he was the same Guy Hazlewood, sure of being with his clear-cut +pallor and effortless distinction of bearing, the personality that +everyone would first observe in whatever company he found himself.</p> + +<p>“Nigel not here, of course,” he drawled. “Let’s have a sweep on what +he’s been doing. Five bob all round. I say he’s just discovered Milton +to be a great poet and is now, reading Lycidas to a spellbound group of +the very heartiest Trindogs in Trinity.”</p> + +<p>“I think he saw The Perfect Flapper,” said Maurice “and has been trying +ever since to find out whether she were a don’s daughter or a theatrical +bird of passage.”</p> + +<p>“I think he’s forgotten all about it,” pronounced Wedderburn very deeply +indeed.<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a></p> + +<p>“I hope he saw that ass Bill Mowbray tearing off in the opposite +direction and went to fetch him back,” said Townsend.</p> + +<p>“I think he’s saying Vespers for the week before last,” Michael proposed +as his solution.</p> + +<p>Stewart himself came in at that moment, and in answer to an united +demand to know the reason of his lateness embraced in that gentle and +confiding air of his all the company, included them all as it were in an +intimate aside, and with the voice and demeanor of a strayed archangel +explained that the fearful velocity of a pill was responsible for his +unpunctuality.</p> + +<p>“But you’re quite all right now, Nigel?” inquired Guy. “You could almost +send a testimonial?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather,” murmured Nigel, with tender assurance lighting up his +great, innocent eyes. “I expect, you know, dinner’s ready.” Then he +plunged his arm through Guy’s, and led the way toward the private +dining-room he had actually not forgotten to command.</p> + +<p>Dinner, owing to Avery’s determined steering of the conversation, was +eaten to the accompaniment of undiluted shop. Never for a moment was any +topic allowed to oust The Oxford Looking-Glass from discussion. Even Guy +was powerless against the editor intoxicated by ambition’s fulfillment. +Maurice sat in triumphant headship with only Mowbray’s vacant place to +qualify very slightly the completeness of his satisfaction. He hoped +they all liked his scheme of inviting well-known, even celebrated, old +Oxford men to contribute from time to time. He flattered himself they +would esteem the honor vouchsafed to them. He disclaimed the wish to +monopolize the paper’s criticism and nobly invited Townsend to put in +their places a series of contemporary dramatists. He congratulated Guy +upon his satiric article and assured him of his great gifts. He +reproached<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> Michael for having written nothing, and vowed that many of +the books for which he had already sent a printed demand to their +publishers must in the December issue be reviewed by Michael. He +arranged with Nigel Stewart and Wedderburn at least a dozen prospective +campaigns to harry advertisers into unwilling publicity.</p> + +<p>At nine-o’clock, the staff of The Oxford Looking-Glass, reflecting now a +very roseate world, marched across the High to wind up the evening in +Stewart’s digs. On the threshold the host paused in sudden dismay.</p> + +<p>“Good lord, I quite forgot. There’s a meeting of the De Rebus +Ecclesiasticis in my digs to-night. They’ll all be there; what shall I +do?”</p> + +<p>“You can’t possibly go,” declared everybody.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Arbour,” Nigel called out, hurriedly dipping into the landlady’s +quarters. “Mrs. Arbour.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arbour assured him comfortably of her existence as she emerged to +confer with him in the passage.</p> + +<p>“There may be one or two men waiting in my rooms. Will you put out +syphons and whisky and explain that I shan’t be coming.”</p> + +<p>“Any reason to give, sir?” asked Mrs. Arbour.</p> + +<p>The recalcitrant shook his seraphic head.</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” said Mrs. Arbour cheerfully, “quite so. Just say you’re not +coming? Yes, sir. Oh, they’ll make themselves at home without you, I’ll +be bound. It’s not likely to be a very noisy party, is it, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. It’s the De Rebus Ecclesiasticis, Mrs. Arbour.”</p> + +<p>“I see, sir. Foreigners. I’ll look after them.”</p> + +<p>Nigel having disposed of the pious debaters, joined his friends again, +and it was decided to adjourn to Guy’s digs in Holywell. Arm in arm the +six journalists marched down the misted High. Arm in arm they turned +into Catherine Street, and arm in arm they walked into the Proctor +outside<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> the Ratcliffe Camera. To him they admitted their membership of +the university. To him they proffered very politely their names and the +names of their colleges, and with the same politeness agreed to visit +him next morning. The Proctor raised his cap and with his escort faded +into the fog. Arm in arm the six journalists continued their progress +into Holywell. Guy had digs in an old house whose gabled front leaned +outward, whose oriel windows were supported by oaken beams worm-eaten +and grotesquely carved. Within, a wide balustraded staircase went +billowing upward unevenly. Guy’s room that he shared with two +intellectual athletes from his own college was very large. It was +paneled all round up to the ceiling, and it contained at least a dozen +very comfortable armchairs. He had imposed upon his partners his own +tastes and with that privilege had cut off electric light and gas, so +that lit only by two Pompeian lamps, the room was very shadowy when they +all came in.</p> + +<p>“Comeragh and Anstruther are working downstairs, I expect,” Guy +explained, as one by one, while his guests waited in the dim light, he +made a great illumination with wax candles. Then he poked up the fire +and set glasses ready for anyone’s need. Great armchairs were pulled +round in a semicircle: pipes were lit: the stillness and mystery of the +Oxford night crept along the ancient street, a stillness which at +regular intervals was broken by multitudinous chimes, or faintly now and +then by passing footfalls. Unexcited by argument the talk rippled in +murmurous contentment.</p> + +<p>Michael was in no mood himself for talking, and he sat back listening +now and then, but mostly dreaming. He thought of the conversation in +that long riverside room in Paris with its extravagance and +pretentiousness. Here in this time-haunted Holywell Street was neither. +To be sure,<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> Christianity and the soul’s immortality and the future of +England and contemporary art were running the gauntlet of youth’s +examination, but the Academic Muse had shown the company her ægis, had +turned everything to unpassionate stone, and softened all presumption +with her guarded glances. It was extraordinary how under her guidance +every subject was stripped of obtrusive reality, how even women, +discussed never so grossly, remained untarnished; since they ceased to +be real women, but mere abstractions wanton or chaste in accordance with +the demands of wit. The ribaldry was Aristophanic or Rabelaisian with as +little power to offend, so much was it consecrated and refined by +immemorial usages. Michael wished that all the world could be touched by +the magical freedom and equally magical restraint of the Academic Muse, +and as he sat here in this ancient room, hoped almost violently that +never again would he be compelled to smirch the present clarity and +steadiness of his vision.<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>THE LESSON OF SPAIN</h4> + +<p>Perhaps Michael enjoyed more than anything else during his accumulation +of books the collection of as many various editions of Don Quixote as +possible. He had brought up from London the fat volume illustrated by +Doré over which he had fallen asleep long ago and of which owing to +Nurse’s disapproval he had in consequence been deprived. Half the pages +still showed where they had been bent under the weight of his small +body: this honorable scar and the familiar musty smell and the book’s +unquestionable if slightly vulgar dignity prevented Michael from +banishing it from the shelf that now held so many better editions. +However much the zest in Doré’s illustrations had died away in the +flavor of Skelton’s English, Michael could not abandon the big volume +with what it held of childhood’s first intellectual adventure. The shelf +of Don Quixotes became in all his room one of the most cherished objects +of contemplation. There was something in the “Q” and the “X” repeated on +the back of volume after volume that positively gave Michael an +impression in literal design of the Knight’s fantastic personality. The +very soul of Spain seemed to be symbolized by those sere quartos of the +seventeenth century, nor was it imperceptible even in Smollett’s cockney +rendering bound in marbled boards. Staring at the row of Don Quixotes on +a dull December afternoon, Michael felt overwhelmingly a desire to go to +Spain himself, to<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> drink at the source of Cervantes’ mighty stream of +imagination which with every year’s new reading seemed to him to hold +more and more certainly all that was most vital to life’s appreciation. +He no longer failed to see the humor of Don Quixote, but even now tears +came more easily than laughter, and he regretted as poignantly as the +Knight himself those times of chivalry which with all the extravagance +of their decay were yet in essence superior to the mode that ousted them +into ignominy. Something akin to Don Quixote’s impulsive dismay Michael +experienced in his own view of the twentieth century. He felt he needed +a constructive ideal of conduct to sustain him through the long +pilgrimage that must ensue after these hushed Oxford dreams.</p> + +<p>Term was nearly over. Michael had heard from Stella that she was going +to spend two or three months in Germany. Her Brahms recitals, she wrote, +had not been so successful as she ought to have made them. In London she +was wasting time. Mother was continually wanting her to come to the +theater. It seemed almost as if mother were trying to throw her in the +way of marrying Prescott. He had certainly been very good, but she must +retreat into Germany, and there again work hard. Would not Michael come +too? Why was he so absurdly prejudiced against Germany? It was the only +country in which to spend Christmas.</p> + +<p>The more Stella praised Germany, the more Michael felt the need of going +to a country as utterly different from it as possible. He did not want +to spend the vacation in London. He did not want his mother to talk +vaguely to him of the advantage for Stella in marrying Prescott. The +idea was preposterous. He would be angry with his mother, and he would +blurt out to Prescott his dislike of such a notion. He would thereby +wound a man whom he admired and display himself in the light of the +objectionably fraternal youth. In<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> the dreary and wet murk of December +the sun-dried volumes of Cervantes spoke to him of Spain.</p> + +<p>Maurice Avery came up to his room, fatigued with fame and disappointed +that Castleton with whom he had arranged to go to Rome had felt at the +last moment he must take his mother to Bath. To him Michael proposed +Spain.</p> + +<p>“But why not Rome?” Maurice argued. “As I originally settled.”</p> + +<p>“Not with me,” Michael pointed out. “I don’t want to go to Rome now. I +always feel luxuriously that there will occur the moment in my life when +I shall say, ‘I am ready to go to Rome. I must go to Rome.’ It’s a fancy +of mine and nothing will induce me to spoil it by going to Rome at the +wrong moment.”</p> + +<p>Maurice grumbled at him, told him he was affected, unreasonable, and +even hinted Michael ought to come to Rome simply for the fact that he +himself had been balked of his intention by the absurdly filial +Castleton.</p> + +<p>“I do think mothers ought not to interfere,” Maurice protested. “My +mother never interferes. Even my sisters are allowed to have their own +way. Why can’t Mrs. Castleton go to Bath by herself? I’m sure Castleton +overdoes this ‘duty’ pose. And now you won’t come to Rome. Well, will +you come to Florence?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and be worried by you to move on to Rome the very minute we arrive +there,” said Michael. “No, thanks. If you don’t want to come to Spain, +I’ll try to get someone else. Anyway, I don’t mind going by myself.”</p> + +<p>“But what shall we do in Spain?” asked Maurice fretfully.</p> + +<p>Michael began to laugh.</p> + +<p>“We can dance the fandango,” he pointed out. “Or if the fandango is too +hard, there always remains the bolero.”<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> + +<p>“If we went to Rome,” Maurice was persisting, but Michael cut him short.</p> + +<p>“It’s absolutely useless, Mossy. I am not going to Rome.”</p> + +<p>“Then I suppose I shall have to go to Spain,” said Maurice, in a much +injured tone.</p> + +<p>So in the end it was settled chiefly, Michael always maintained, because +Maurice found out it was advisable to travel with a passport. As not by +the greatest exaggeration of insecurity could a passport be deemed +necessary for Rome, Maurice decided it was an overrated city and became +at once fervidly Spanish, even to the extent of saying “gracias” +whenever the cruet was passed to him in hall. Wedderburn at the last +moment thought he would like to join the expedition: so Maurice with the +passport in his breast pocket preferred to call it.</p> + +<p>There were two or three days of packing in London, while Maurice stayed +at 173 Cheyne Walk and was a great success with Mrs. Fane. The Rugby +match against Cambridge was visited in a steady downpour. Wedderburn +fetched his luggage, and the last dinner was eaten together at Cheyne +Walk. Mrs. Fane was tenderly, if rather vaguely, solicitous for their +safety.</p> + +<p>“Dearest Michael,” she said, “do be careful not to be gored by a bull. +I’ve never been to Spain. One seems to know nothing about it. Mr. Avery, +do have some more turkey. I hope you don’t dreadfully dislike garlic. +Such a pungent vegetable. Michael darling, why are you laughing? Isn’t +it a vegetable? Mr. Wedderburn, do have some more turkey. A friend of +mine, Mrs. Carruthers, who is a great believer in Mental Science ... +Michael always laughs at me when I try to explain.... Hark, there is the +cab, really. I hope it won’t be raining in Spain. ‘Rain, rain, go to +Spain.’ So ominous, isn’t it? Good-bye, dearest boy,<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> and write to me at +Mrs. Carruthers, High Towers, Godalming.”</p> + +<p>“I say, I know Mrs. Carruthers. She lives near us,” Maurice exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Come on,” his friends insisted. “You haven’t time now to explain the +complications of Surrey society.”</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Fane. “Because you’ll be able to see that +Michael remembers the address.”</p> + +<p>“I never forget addresses, mother,” protested Michael.</p> + +<p>“No, I know. I always think everyone is like me. Merry Christmas, and do +send a post card to Stella. She was so hurt you wouldn’t go to Germany.”</p> + +<p>In the drench and soak of December weather they drove off in the +four-wheeler. On such a night it seemed more than ever romantic to be +setting out to Spain, and all the way to Victoria Maurice tried to +decide by the occasional gleam of a blurred lamp-light how many pesetas +one received for an English sovereign.</p> + +<p>The crossing to Dieppe was rough, but all memories of the discomfort +were wiped out when next day they saw the Sud Express looking very long +and swift and torpedo-like between the high platforms of that white +drawing-room, the Gare d’Orleans. Down they went all day through France +with rain speckling the windows of their compartment, past the naked +poplar trees and rolling fallows until dusk fell sadly on the flooded +agriculture. Dawn broke as they were leaving behind them the illimitable +Landes. Westward the Atlantic clouds swept in from the Bay of Biscay, +parting momentarily to reveal rifts of milky turquoise sky. Wider and +wider grew the rifts, and when the train passed close to the green +cliffs of St. Jean de Luz, the air was soft and fragrant: the sea was +blue. At Irun they were in Spain, and Michael, as he walked up and down +the platform waiting for déjeuner, watched, with a thrill of conviction +that<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> this was indeed a frontier, the red and blue toy soldiers and the +black and green toy soldiers dotted about the toy landscape.</p> + +<p>Maurice was rather annoyed that nobody demanded their passports and that +every official should seem so much more anxious to examine their railway +tickets, but when they reached Madrid and found that no bull-fights +would be held before the spring, he began to mutter of Rome and was +inclined to obliterate the Spaniards from the category of civilization, +so earnestly had he applied himself by the jiggling light of the train +to the mastery of all the grades from matador to banderillo.</p> + +<p>In Seville, however, Maurice admitted he could not imagine a city more +perfectly adapted to express all that he desired from life. Seville with +her guitars and lemon-trees, her castanets and oranges and fans, her +fountains and carnations and flashing Andalusians, was for him the city +to which one day he would return and dream. Here one day he could come +when seriously he began to write or paint or take up whatever destiny in +art was in store for him. Here he would forget whatever blow life might +hold in the future. He would send everybody he knew to Seville, +notwithstanding Michael’s objection that such generosity would recoil +upon himself in his desire to possess somewhere on earth the opportunity +of oblivion. Maurice and Wedderburn both bought Spanish cloaks and hats +and went with easels to sit beside the Guadalquiver that sun-stained to +the hue of its tawny banks was so contemptuous of their gentlemanly +water-colors, as contemptuous as those cigarette-girls that came +chattering from the tobacco-factory every noon. Michael preferred to +wander over the roofs of the cathedral, until drowsed by the scent of +warm stone he would sit for an hour merely conscious that the city lay +below and that the sky was blue above.<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<p>After Seville they traveled to Granada, to Cadiz and Cordova and other +famous cities; and in the train they went slowly through La Mancha where +any windmill might indeed be mistaken for Pentapolin of the Naked Arm, +and where at the stations the water-carriers even in January cried +“agua, agua,” so that already the railway-carriages seemed parched by +the fierce summer sun. They traveled to Salamanca and Toledo, and last +of all they went to Burgos where Maurice and Wedderburn strove in vain +to draw corner after corner of the cathedral, in the dust and shadows of +whose more remote chantries Michael heard many Masses. A realization of +the power of faith was stirred in him by these Masses that every day of +every year were said without the recognition of humanity. These +mumblings of ancient priests, these sanctus-bells that rattled like +shaken ribs, these interminable and ceremonious shufflings were the +outward expression of the force that sustained this fabric of Burgos and +had raised in Seville a cathedral that seemed to crush like a stupendous +monster the houses scattered about in its path, insignificant as a heap +of white shells. Half of these old priests, thought Michael, were +probably puppets who did not understand even their own cracked Latinity, +yet their ministrations were almost frightening in their efficacy: they +were indeed the very stones of Burgos made vocal.</p> + +<p>Listening to these Masses, Michael began to regret he had allowed all +his interest in religion to peter out in the irritation of compulsory +chapel-keeping at Oxford. Here in Burgos, he felt less the elevating +power of faith than the unrelenting and disdainful inevitableness of its +endurance. At Bournemouth, when he experienced the first thrill of +conversion, he had been exultingly aware of a personal friendliness +between himself and God. Here in Burgos he was absorbed into the divine +purpose neither against his<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> will nor his desire, since he was +positively aware of the impotency of his individuality to determine +anything in the presence of omnipotence. He told himself this sense of +inclusion was a sign of the outpouring once more of the grace of God, +but he wished with a half whimsical amusement that the sensation were +rather less like that of being contemptuously swept by a broom into the +main dust-heap. Yet as on the last morning of his stay in Burgos Michael +came away from Mass, he came away curiously fortified by his observation +of the moldy confessionals worn down by the knees of so many penitents. +That much power of impression at least had the individual on this +cathedral.</p> + +<p>When Michael lay awake in the train going northward he remembered very +vividly the sense of subordination which in retrospect suddenly seemed +to him to reveal the essential majesty of Spain. The train stopped at +some French station. Their carriage was already full enough, but a +bilious and fussy Frenchman insisted there was still room, and on top of +him broke in a loud-voiced and assertive Englishman with a meek wife. It +was intolerable. Michael, Wedderburn, and Maurice displayed their most +polite obstructiveness, but in the end each of them found himself +upright, stiff-backed and exasperated. Michael thought regretfully of +Spain, and remembered those peasants who shared their crusts, those +peasants with rank skins of wine and flopping turkeys, those peasants +who wrought so inimitably their cigarettes and would sit on the floor of +the carriage rather than disarrange the comfort of the three English +travelers. Michael went off into an uneasy sleep trying to arrange +synthetically his deductions, trying to put Don Quixote and Burgos +Cathedral and the grace of God and subordination and feudalism and +himself into a working theory of life. And just when the theory really +seemed to be shaping itself, he was awakened by the Englishman prodding +his wife.<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<p>“What is it, dear?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Did you pack those collars that were in the other chest of drawers?”</p> + +<p>“I think so, dear.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d know something for a change,” the husband grumbled.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman ground his teeth in swollen sleep, exhaling himself upon +the stale air of the compartment. Maurice was turning over the pages of +a comic paper. Wedderburn snored. It was difficult to achieve +subordination of one’s personality in the presence of other +personalities so insistently irritating.</p> + +<p>Stella had not come back from Germany when Michael reached home, which +was a disappointment as he had looked forward to planning with her a +journey back to Spain as soon as possible. His mother during this +vacation had lapsed from Mental Science into an association to prevent +premature burial.</p> + +<p>“My dearest boy, you have no idea of the numbers of people buried alive +every year,” she said. “I have been talking to Dick Prescott about it. I +cannot understand his indifference. I intend to devote all my time to +it. We are going to organize a large bazaar next season. Banging their +foreheads against the coffins! It’s dreadful to think of. Do be careful, +Michael. I have written a long letter to Stella explaining all the +precautions she ought to take. Who knows what may happen in Germany? +Such an impulsive nation. At least the Kaiser is. Don’t laugh, my dear +boy, it’s so much more serious than you think. Would you like to come +with me to Mrs. Carruthers’ and hear some of the statistics? Gruesome, +but most instructive. At three o’clock. You needn’t wait for tea, if +you’re busy. The lecturer is an Eurasian. Where <i>is</i> Eurasia, by the +by?”</p> + +<p>Michael kissed his mother with affectionate amusement.<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a></p> + +<p>“Will you wear the mantilla I brought you from Spain? Look, it’s as +light as burnt tissue paper.”</p> + +<p>“Dearest Michael,” she murmured reproachfully, “you ought not to laugh +about sacred subjects.... I don’t really see why we shouldn’t have a +car. We must have a consultation with Dick Prescott.”</p> + +<p>After dinner that night Michael wrapped up some stained and faded +vestments he had brought for Viner and went off to see him at Netting +Hill. He told himself guiltily in the hansom that it was more than a +year since he had been to see old Viner, but the priest was so heartily +glad to welcome him and accepted so enthusiastically his propitiatory +gifts, that he felt as much at ease as ever in the smoke-hung room.</p> + +<p>“Well, how’s Oxford? I was coming up last term, but I couldn’t get away. +Have you been to see Sandifer yet? Or Pallant at Cowley, or Canon +Harrowell?”</p> + +<p>Michael said he had not yet taken advantage of Viner’s letters of +introduction to these dignitaries. He had indeed heard Pallant preach at +the church of the Cowley Fathers, but he had thought him too much +inclined to sacrifice on the altar of empirical science.</p> + +<p>“I hate compromise,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think Pallant compromises, but I think he does get hold of men +by offering them Catholic doctrine in terms of the present.”</p> + +<p>Michael shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“This visit to Spain seems to have made you very bigoted,” Viner +observed, smiling.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t made up my mind one way or the other about Christianity,” +Michael said. “But when I do I won’t try to include everybody, to say to +every talkative young Pragmatist with Schiller’s last book in his +pocket, ‘come inside, you’re really one of us.’ I shan’t invite every +callow biologist<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> to hear Mass just because a Cowley Dad sees nothing in +the last article on spontaneous generation that need dismay the +faithful. I’m getting rather fed up with toleration, really; the only +people with any fanaticism now are the rationalists. It’s quite +exhilarating sometimes to see the fire of disbelief glowing in the eyes +of a passionate agnostic.”</p> + +<p>“Our Lord Himself was very tolerant,” said Viner.</p> + +<p>“Yes, tolerant to the weaknesses of the flesh, tolerant to the woman +taken in adultery, tolerant to the people without wine at Cana, but he +hadn’t much use for people who didn’t believe just as He believed.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it rather risky to slam the door in the face of the modern man?”</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Viner,” Michael protested, “you can’t betray the myriads of +the past because the individual of to-day finds his faith too weak to +sustain him in their company, because the modern man wants to reëdit +spiritual truths just as he has been able to reëdit a few physical facts +that apparently stand the test of practical experiment. While men have +been rolling along intoxicated by the theory of physical evolution, they +may have retrograded spiritually.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, of course,” the priest agreed. “By the way, your faith seems +to be resisting the batterings of external progress very stoutly. I’m +glad, old chap.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not sure that I have much faith, but I certainly haven’t given up +hope,” Michael said gravely. “I think, you know, that hope, which is +after all a theological virtue, has never had justice at the hands of +the theologians. Oh, lord, I wish earnest young believers weren’t so +smug and timid. Or else I wish that I didn’t feel the necessity of +coordinating my opinions and accepting Christianity as laid down by the +Church. I should love to be a sort of Swedenborgian with all sorts of +fanciful private beliefs. But I want<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> to force everything within the +convention. I hate Free Thought, Free Love, and Free Verse, and yet I +hate almost equally the stuffy people who have never contemplated the +possibility of their merit. Do you ever read a paper called The +Spectator? Now I believe in what The Spectator stands for, and I admire +its creed enormously, but the expression of its opinions makes me spue. +If only earnest young believers wouldn’t treat Almighty God with the +same sort of proprietary air that schoolgirls use toward a favorite +mistress.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, Michael!” cried Viner, “where are you taking me with your +coördinating impulses and your Spectators and your earnest young +believers? What undergraduate paradox are you trying to wield against +me? Remember, I’ve been down nearly twenty years. I can no longer turn +mental somersaults. I thought you implied <i>you</i> were a believer.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I’m watching and hoping. And just now I’m afraid the anchor is +dragging. Hope does have an anchor, doesn’t she? I’m not asking, you +know, for the miracle of a direct revelation from God. The psychologists +have made miracles of that sort hardly worth while. But I’m hoping with +all my might to see bit by bit everything fall away except faith. +Perhaps when I behold God in one of his really cynical moods ... I’m +groping in the dark after a hazy idea of subordination. That’s +something, you know. But I haven’t found my own place in the scheme.”</p> + +<p>“You see you’re very modern, after all,” said Viner, “with your +coördinations and subordinations.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t want to assert myself,” Michael explained. “I want to +surrender myself, and I’m not going to surrender anything until I am +sure by faith that I’m not merely surrendering the wastage of myself.”</p> + +<p>Michael left Viner with a sense of the pathetic sameness<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> of the +mission-priest’s existence. He had known so well before he went that, +because it was Monday, he would find him sitting in that armchair, +smoking that pipe, reading that novel. Every other evening he would be +either attending to parochial clubs in rooms of wood and corrugated +iron, or his own room would be infested with boys who from year to year, +from month to month, never changed in general character, but always gave +the same impression of shrill cockney, of boisterous familiarity, of +self-satisfied election. To-morrow morning he would say Mass to the same +sparse congregation of sacristan and sisters-of-mercy and devout old +maids. The same red-wristed server would stump about his liturgical +business in Viner’s wake, and the same coffee pot put in the same place +on the same table by the same landlady would await his return. There was +a dreariness about the ministrations of this Notting Hill Mission which +had been absent from the atmosphere of Burgos Cathedral. No doubt +superficially even at Burgos there was a sameness, but it was a glorious +sameness, a sameness that approximated to eternity. Long ago had the +priests learned subordination. They had been absorbed into the +omnipotence of the church against which the gates of hell could not +prevail. Viner remained, however much as he might have surrendered of +himself to his mission work, essentially an isolated, a pathetic +individual.</p> + +<p>As usual, Michael met Alan at Paddington, and he was concerned to see +that Alan looked rather pale and worried.</p> + +<p>“What problems have you been solving this vac?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve been swatting like a pig for Mods,” said Alan hopelessly. “You +are a lucky lazy devil.”</p> + +<p>Even during the short journey to Oxford Alan furtively fingered his +text-books, while he talked to Michael about a depressing January in +London.<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a></p> + +<p>“Never mind. Perhaps you’ll get your Blue next term,” said Michael. “And +if you aren’t determined to play cricket all the Long, we’ll go away and +have a really sporting vac somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“If I’m plowed,” said Alan gloomily, “I’ve settled to become a chartered +accountant.”</p> + +<p>Michael enjoyed his second Lent term. With an easy conscience he +relegated Rugby football into the limbo of the past. He decided such +violent exercise was no longer necessary, and he was getting to know so +many people at other colleges that the cultivation of new personalities +occupied all his leisure. After Maurice and Wedderburn came back from +Spain, they devoted much of their time to painting, and The Oxford +Looking-Glass became a very expensive business on account of the +reproduction of their drawings. Moreover, the circulation decreased in +ratio with the increase of these drawings, and the five promoters who +did not wish to practice art in the pages of their magazine convoked +several meetings of protest. Finally Maurice was allowed to remain +editor only on condition that he abstained from publishing any more +drawings.</p> + +<p>Nigel Stewart’s meeting of the De Rebus Ecclesiasticis together with the +visit to Spain induced Michael to turn his attention to that side of +undergraduate life interested in religion. He went to see Canon +Harrowell, and even accepted from him an invitation to a breakfast at +which he met about half a dozen Klebe men who talked about bishops. +Afterward Canon Harrowell seemed anxious to have a quiet talk with him +in the library, but Michael made an excuse, not feeling inclined for +self-revelation so quickly on top of six Klebe men and the eggs and +bacon. He went to see Father Pallant at Cowley, but Father Pallant +appeared so disappointed that he had brought him no scientific problems +to reconcile with Catholic dogma, and was moreover so<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> contemptuous of +Dom Cuthbert Manners, O.S.B. and Clere Abbey that Michael never went to +see him again. He preferred old Sandifer, who with all the worldly +benefits of good wine, good food, and pleasant company, offered in +addition his own courtly Caroline presence that added to wit and +learning and trenchant theology made Michael regret he had not called +upon him sooner.</p> + +<p>Nigel Stewart took Michael to a meeting of De Rebus Ecclesiasticis, at +which he met not only the six Keble men who had talked about bishops at +Canon Harrowell’s breakfast, but about twenty more members of the same +college, all equally fervid and in his opinion equally objectionable. +Michael also went with Nigel Stewart to Mass at St. Barnabas’, where he +saw the same Keble men all singing conspicuously and all conveying the +impression that every Sunday they occupied the same place. By the end of +the term Michael’s aroused interest in religion at Oxford died out. He +disliked the sensation of belonging to a particular school of thought +within a university. The ecclesiastical people were like the ampelopsis +at Trinity: they were highly colored, but so inappropriate to Oxford, +that they seemed almost vulgar. It was ridiculous they should have to +worship in Oxford at a very ugly modern church in the middle of very +ugly modern slums, as ridiculous as it was to call in the aid of +American creepers to cover up the sins of modern architects.</p> + +<p>Yet Michael was at a loss to explain to himself why the ecclesiastical +people were so obviously out of place in Oxford. After all, they were +the heirs of a force which had persisted there for many years almost in +its present aspect: they were the heirs after a fashion of the force +that kept the Royal Standard flying against the Parliament. But they had +not inherited the spirit of mediæval Oxford. They were too +self-conscious, too congregational. As individuals, perhaps they were in +tone with Oxford, but, eating bacon and<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> eggs and talking about bishops, +they belonged evidently to Keble, and Michael could not help feeling +that Keble like Mansfield and Ruskin Hall was in Oxford, but not in the +least of Oxford. The spirit of mediæval Oxford was more typically +preserved in the ordinary life of the ordinary graduate; and yet it was +a mistake to think of the spirit of Oxford at any date. That spirit was +dateless and indefinable, and each new manifestation which Michael was +inclined to seize upon, even a manifestation so satisfying as Venner’s, +became with the very moment that he was aware of it as impossible to +determine as a dream which leaves nothing behind but the almost violent +knowledge that it was and exasperatingly still is.</p> + +<p>The revived interest lasted a very short time in its communal aspect, +and Michael retreated into his mediæval history, still solicitous of +Catholicism in so far as to support the papacy against the Empire in the +balance of his judgment, but no longer mingling with the Anglican +adherents of the theory, nor even indeed committing himself openly to +Christianity as a general creed. Indeed, his whole attitude to religion +was the result of a reactionary bias rather than of any impulse toward +constructive progression. He would have liked to urge himself forward +confidently to proclaim his belief in Christianity, but he could acquire +nothing more positive than a gentle skepticism of the value of every +other form of thought, a gentleness that only became scornfully +intolerant when provoked by ignorance or pretentious statement.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, The Oxford Looking-Glass, though inclining officially to +neither political party, was reflecting a widespread interest in social +reform. Michael woke up to this phenomenon as he read through the sixth +number on a withering March day toward the end of term. Knowing Maurice +to be a chameleon who unconsciously acquired the<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> hue of his +surroundings, Michael was sure that The Oxford Looking-Glass by this +earnest tone indicated the probable tendency of undergraduate energy in +the hear future. Yet himself, as he surveyed his acquaintances, could +not perceive in their attitude any hint of change. In St. Mary’s the +debating clubs were still debating the existence of ghosts: the essay +clubs were still listening to papers that took them along the by-ways of +archæology or sport. Throughout the university the old habit of mind +persisted apparently. The New College manner that London journalists +miscalled the Oxford manner still prevailed in the discussion of +intellectual subjects. In Balliol when any remark trembled on the edge +of a generalization, somebody in a corner would protest, “Oh, shut up, +fish-face!” and the conversation at once veered sharply back to golf or +scandal, while the intellectual kitten who had been playing with his +mental tail would be suddenly conscious of himself or his dignity and +sit still. In Exeter the members of the Literary Society were still +called the Bloody Lits. Nothing anywhere seemed as yet to hint that the +traditional flippancy of Oxford which was merely an extension of the +public-school spirit was in danger of dying out. Oxford was still the +apotheosis of the amateur. It was still surprising when the Head of a +House or a don or an undergraduate achieved anything in a manner that +did not savor of happy chance. It was still natural to regard Cambridge +as a provincial university, and to take pleasure in shocking the earnest +young Cambridge man with the metropolitan humors and airy self-assurance +of Oxford.</p> + +<p>Yet The Oxford Looking-Glass reflected another spirit which Michael +could not account for and the presence of which he vaguely resented.</p> + +<p>“The O.L.G. is getting very priggish and serious and rather dull,” he +complained to Maurice.</p> + +<p>“Not half so dull as it would be if I depended entirely<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> on casual +contributions,” replied the editor. “I don’t seem to get anything but +earnestness.”</p> + +<p>“Oxford is becoming the home of living causes,” sighed Michael. “That’s +a depressing thought. Do you really think these Rhodes Scholars from +America and Australia and Germany are going to affect us?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” Maurice said. “But everybody seems keen to speculate on +the result.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you take up a strong line of patronage? Why don’t you +threaten these pug-nosed invaders with the thunders of the past?” +Michael demanded fiercely.</p> + +<p>“Would it be popular?” asked Maurice. “Personally of course I don’t care +one way or the other, but I don’t want to let the O.L.G. in for a lot of +criticism.”</p> + +<p>“You really ought to be a wonderful editor,” said Michael. “You’re so +essentially the servant of the public.”</p> + +<p>“Well, with all your grumbles,” said Maurice, “ours is the only serious +paper that has had any sort of a run of late years.”</p> + +<p>“But it lacks individuality,” Michael complained. “It’s so damned +inclusive. It’s like The Daily Telegraph. It’s voluminous and +undistinguished. It shows the same tepid cordiality toward everything, +from a man who’s going to be hanged for murder to a new record at +cricket. Why can’t you infect it with some of the deplorable but rather +delightfully juvenile indiscretion of The Daily Mail?”</p> + +<p>“The Daily Mail,” Maurice scoffed. “That rag!”</p> + +<p>“A man once said to me,” Michael meditatively continued, “that whenever +he saw a man in an empty railway compartment reading The Daily +Telegraph, he always avoided it. You see, he knew that man. He knew how +terrible it would be to listen to him when he had finished his +Telegraph. I feel rather like that about the O.L.G. But after all,” he +added cheerfully, “nobody does read the O.L.G.<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> The circulation depends +on the pledges of their pen sent round to their friends and relations by +the casual contributors. And nobody ever meets a casual contributor. Is +it true, by the way, that the fossilized remains of one were found +in-that great terra incognita—Queen’s College?”</p> + +<p>But Maurice had left him, and Michael strolled down to the lodge to see +if there were any letters. Shadbolt handed him an invitation to dinner +from the Warden. As he opened it, Lonsdale came up with a torn replica +of his own.</p> + +<p>“I say, Michael, this is a rum sort of binge for the Wagger to give. I +spotted all the notes laid out in a row by old Pumpkin-head’s butler. +You. Me. Tommy Grainger. Fitzroy. That ass Appleby. That worm Carben. +And Smithers. There may have been some others too. I hope I don’t get +planted next the Pumpkinette.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Wagger may not be there,” said Michael hopefully. “But if she is, +you’re bound to be next her.”</p> + +<p>“I say, Shadbolt,” Lonsdale demanded, “is this going to be a big squash +at the Wagger’s?”</p> + +<p>“The Warden has given me no instruction, sir, about carriages. And so I +think we may take it for granted as it will be mostly confined to +members of the college, sir. His servant tells me as the Dean is going +and the Senior Tutor.”</p> + +<p>“And there won’t be any does?”</p> + +<p>“Any what, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Any ladies?”</p> + +<p>“I expect as Miss Crackanthorpe will be present. She very rarely +absconds from such proceedings,” said Shadbolt, drawing every word with +the sound of popping corks from the depths of his pompousness.</p> + +<p>Michael and Lonsdale found out that to the list of guests they had +established must be added the names of Maurice, Wedderburn and two +freshmen who were already favorably reported through the college as good +sportsmen.<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p> + +<p>Two evenings later, at seven o’clock, Michael, Maurice, Lonsdale, +Wedderburn, and Grainger, bowed and starched, stood in Venner’s, +drinking peach bitters sharpened by the addition of gin.</p> + +<p>“The men have gone in to hall,” said Venner. “You ought to start round +to the Warden’s lodgings at ten past seven. Now don’t be late. I expect +you’ll have a capital dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Champagne, Venner?” asked Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Oh, bound to be! Bound to be,” said Venner. “The Warden knows how to +give a dinner. There’s no doubt of that.”</p> + +<p>“Caviare, Venner?” asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t say for certain. But if you get an opportunity to drink any +of that old hock, be sure you don’t forget. It’s a lovely wine. I wish +we had a few dozen in the J.C.R. Now don’t go and get tipsy like some of +our fellows did once at a dinner given by the Warden.”</p> + +<p>“Did they, Venner?” asked everybody, greatly interested.</p> + +<p>“It was just after the Transvaal war broke out. Only three or four years +ago. There was a man called Castleton, a cousin of our Castleton, but a +very different sort of man, such a rowdy fellow. He came out from the +Warden’s most dreadfully tipsy, and the men were taking him back to his +rooms, when he saw little Barnaby, a Science don, going across New quad. +He broke away from his friends and shouted out, ‘there’s a blasted +Boer,’ and before they could stop him, he’d knocked poor little Barnaby, +a most nervous fellow, down in the wet grass and nearly throttled him. +It was hushed up, but Castleton was never asked again you may be sure, +and then soon after he volunteered for the front and died of enteric. So +you see what comes of getting tipsy. Now you’d better start.”</p> + +<p>Arm in arm the five of them strolled through Cloisters until they came +to the gothic door of the Warden’s Lodgings.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> Up the Warden’s majestic +staircase they followed the butler into the Warden’s gothic drawing-room +where they shook hands with the great moon-faced Warden himself, and +with Miss Crackanthorpe, who was very much like her brother, and nearly +as round on a much smaller scale. They nodded to the Dean, mentally +calculating how many roll-calls they were behind, for the Dean +notwithstanding the geniality of his greeting had one gray eye that +seemed unable to forget it belonged to the Dean. They nodded to Mr. +Ardle, the Senior Tutor, who blinked and sniffed and bowed nervously in +response. Fitzroy beamed at them: Smithers doubtfully eyed them. The two +freshmen reputed to be good sportsmen smiled grateful acknowledgments of +their condescension. Appleby waved his hand in a gesture of such bland +welcome that Lonsdale seemed to gibber with suppressed mortification and +rage.</p> + +<p>“Will you lay five to one in bobs that I don’t sit next the +Pumpkinette?” whispered Lonsdale to Michael, as they went downstairs to +dinner.</p> + +<p>“Not a halfpenny,” laughed Michael. “You will. And I shall get Ardle.”</p> + +<p>Upon the sage-green walls of the dining-room hung the portraits of three +dead Wardens, and though the usual effect of family pictures was to make +the living appear insignificant beside them, Michael felt that +Pumpkin-head even in the presence of his three ferocious and learned +forerunners had nothing to fear for his own preëminence. Modern life +found in him a figure carved out of the persistent attributes of his +office, and therefore already a symbol of the universal before his +personality had been hallowed by death or had expressed itself in its +ultimate form under the maturing touch of art and time. This quality in +the host diffused itself through the room in such a way that the whole +dinner party gained from it a dignity and a stability which made<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> more +than usually absurd the superficial actions of eating and drinking, and +the general murmur of infinitely fugacious talk.</p> + +<p>Michael taking his first glance round the table after the preliminary +shynesses of settling down, was as much thrilled by his consciousness of +the eternal reality of this dinner party as he would have been if by a +magical transference he could have suddenly found himself pursuing some +grave task in the picture of a Dutch master. He had been to many dinners +in Oxford of which commemorative photographs had been made by +flashlight, and afterward when he saw the print he could scarcely +believe in his own reality, still less in that of the dinner, so +ludicrously invented seemed every group. He wished now that a painter +would set himself the problem of preserving by his art some of these +transitory entertainments. He began to imagine himself with the +commission to set on record the present occasion. He wished for the +power to paint those deeper shadows in which the Warden’s great round +face inclined slowly now toward Fitzroy with his fair complexion and +military rigor of bearing, now toward Wedderburn whose evening dress +acquired from the dignity of its owner the richness of black velvet. +More directly in the light of the first lamp sat Maurice and Appleby +opposite to one another, both imparting to the assemblage a charming +worldliness, Maurice by his loose-fronted shirt, Appleby by the +self-esteem of his restless blue eyes. The two freshmen on either side +of the Dean wonderfully contrasted with his gauntness, and even more did +the withered Ardle, who looked like a specimen of humanity dried as +plants are dried between heavy books, contrast with the sprawling bulk +of Grainger. On the other side, Michael watched with amusement Miss +Crackanthorpe with shining apple-face bobbing nervously between Smithers +pale and solid and domed like a great cheese, and Lonsdale cool<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> and +pink as an ice. In the background from the shadows at either end of the +room the sage-green walls materialized in the lamplight: the three dead +Wardens stared down at the table: and every fifteen minutes bells chimed +in St. Mary’s tower.</p> + +<p>“And how is The Oxford Looking-Glass progressing, Avery?” inquired the +Warden, shining full upon the editor in a steady gaze. “No doubt it +takes up a great deal of your valuable time?”</p> + +<p>The Dean winked his gray decanal eye at the champagne: the Senior Tutor +coughed remotely like a grasshopper: Lonsdale prodded Michael with his +elbow and murmured that “the Wagger had laid Mossy a stymie.”</p> + +<p>Maurice admitted the responsibility of the paper for occupying a +considerable amount of his <i>leisure</i>, but consoled himself for this by +the fact that certainly, The Oxford Looking-Glass was progressing very +well indeed.</p> + +<p>“We don’t altogether know what attitude to take up over the Rhodes +Bequest,” said Maurice. Then boldly he demanded from the Warden what +would be the effect of these imposed scholars from America and Australia +and Africa.</p> + +<p>“The speculation is not without interest,” declared the Warden. “What +does Fitzroy think?”</p> + +<p>Fitzroy threw back his shoulders as if he were going to abuse the Togger +and said he thought the athletic qualifications were a mistake. “After +all, sir, we don’t want the Tabs—I mean to say we don’t want to beat +Cambridge with the help of a lot of foreigners.”</p> + +<p>“Foreigners, Fitzroy? Come, come, we can scarcely stigmatize Canadians +as foreigners. What would become of the Imperial Idea?”</p> + +<p>“I think the Imperial Idea will take a lot of living up to,” said +Wedderburn, “when we come face to face with its<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> practical expression. +Personally I loathe Colonials except at the Earl’s Court Exhibition.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Wedderburn,” said the Warden, “you are luckily young enough to be +able to be particular. I with increasing age begin to suffer from that +terrible disease of age—toleration.”</p> + +<p>“But the Warden is not so very old,” whispered Miss Crackanthorpe to +Lonsdale and Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather not,” Lonsdale murmured encouragingly.</p> + +<p>“I think they’ll wake up Oxford,” announced Smithers; then, as everyone +turned to hear what more he would say, Smithers seemed inclined to melt +into silence, but with a sudden jerk of defiance, he hardened himself +and became volubly opinionative.</p> + +<p>“There’s no doubt,” he continued, “that these fellows will make the +average undergrad look round him a bit.” As Smithers curtailed +undergraduate to the convention of a lady-novelist, a shudder ran round +the dinner party. Almost the butler instead of putting ice into the +champagne might have slipped it down the backs of the guests.</p> + +<p>“In fact, what ho, she bumps,” whispered Lonsdale. “Likewise pip-ip, and +tootle-oo.”</p> + +<p>“Anyway, he won’t be able to ignore them,” said Smithers.</p> + +<p>“We hope not, indeed,” the Warden gravely wished. “What does Lonsdale +think? Lord Cleveden wrote to me to say how deeply interested he was by +the whole scheme—a most appreciative letter, and your father has had a +great experience of colonial conditions.”</p> + +<p>“Has he?” said Lonsdale. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. You mean when he +was Governor. Oh, rather. But I never knew him in those days.” Then +under his breath he muttered to Michael: “Dive in, dive in, you rotter, +I’m getting out of my depth.”</p> + +<p>“I think Oxford will change the Rhodes Scholars much<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> more profoundly +than the Rhodes Scholars will change Oxford,” said Michael. “At least +they will if Oxford hasn’t lost anything lately. Sometimes I’m worried +by that, and then I’m not, for I do really feel that they must be +changed. Civilization must have some power, or we should all revert.”</p> + +<p>“And are we to regard these finished oversea products as barbarians?” +asked the Warden.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said Michael earnestly. “Just as much barbarians as any +freshmen.”</p> + +<p>Everybody looked at the two freshmen on either side of the Dean and +laughed, while they laughed too and tried to appear pleasantly flattered +by the epithet.</p> + +<p>“And what will Oxford give them?” asked the Dean dryly. He spoke with +that contempt of generalizations of which all dons made a habit.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Michael. “But vaguely I would say that Oxford +would cure them of being surprised by themselves or of showing surprise +at anybody else. Marcus Aurelius said what I’m trying to say much better +than I ever can. Also they will gain a sense of humor, or rather they +will ripen whatever sense they already possess. And they’ll have a sense +of continuity, too, and perhaps—but of course this will depend very +much on their dons—perhaps they’ll take as much interest in the world +as in Australia.”</p> + +<p>“Why will that depend on their dons?” challenged Mr. Ambrose.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, you know,” explained Michael apologetically, “dons very often +haven’t much capacity for inquisitiveness. They get frightened very +easily, don’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Very true, very true,” said the Warden. “But, my dear Fane, your +optimism and your pessimism are both quixotic, immensely quixotic.”</p> + +<p>Later on in the quad when the undergraduate members of<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> the dinner party +discussed the evening, Maurice rallied Michael on his conversation.</p> + +<p>“If you can talk your theories, why can’t you write them?” he +complained.</p> + +<p>“Because they’d be almost indecently diaphanous,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Good old Fane!” said Grainger. “But, I say, you are an extraordinary +chap, you know.”</p> + +<p>“He did it for me,” said Lonsdale. “Pumpkin-head would have burst, if +I’d let out I didn’t know what part of the jolly old world my governor +used to run.<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>”</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>STELLA IN OXFORD</h4> + +<p>Alan, when he met Michael at Paddington, was a great deal more cheerful +than when they had gone up together for the previous term. He had +managed to achieve a second class in Moderations, and he had now in view +a term of cricket whose energy might fortunately be crowned with a blue. +Far enough away now seemed Greats and not very alarming Plato and +Aristotle at these first tentative encounters.</p> + +<p>Michael dined with Alan at Christ Church after the Seniors’ match, in +which his host had secured in the second innings four wickets at a +reasonable price. Alan casually nodded to one or two fellow hosts at the +guest table, but did not offer to introduce Michael. All down the hall, +men were coming in to dinner and going out of dinner as unconcernedly as +if it had been the dining-saloon of a large hotel.</p> + +<p>“Who is that man just sitting down?” Michael would ask.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” Alan would reply, and in his tone would somehow rest the +implication that Michael should know better than to expect him to be +aware of each individual in this very much subdivided college.</p> + +<p>“Did you hear the hockey push broke the windows of the socker push in +Peck?” asked one of the Christ Church hosts.</p> + +<p>“No, really?” answered Alan indifferently.</p> + +<p>After hall as they walked back to Meadows’, Michael<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> tried to point out +to him that the St. Mary’s method of dining in hall was superior to that +of the House.</p> + +<p>“The dinner itself is better,” Alan admitted. “But I hate your system of +all getting up from table at the same time. It’s like school.”</p> + +<p>“But if a guest comes to St. Mary’s he sits at his host’s regular table. +He’s introduced to everybody. Why, Alan, I believe if you’d had another +guest to-night, you wouldn’t even have introduced me to him. He and I +would have had to drink coffee in your rooms like a couple of dummies.”</p> + +<p>“Rot!” said Alan. “And whom could you have wanted to meet this evening? +All the men at the guests’ table were absolute ticks.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never met a House man who didn’t think every other House man +impossible outside the four people in his own set,” retorted Michael. +“And yet, I suppose, you’ll say it’s the best college?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Alan agreed.</p> + +<p>Up in his rooms they pondered the long May day’s reluctant death, while +the coffee-machine bubbled and fizzed and The Soul’s Awakening faintly +kindled by the twilight was appropriately sentimental.</p> + +<p>“Will you have a meringue?” Alan asked. “I expect there’s one in the +cupboard.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure there is,” said Michael. “It’s very unlikely that there is a +single cupboard in the House without a meringue. But no, thanks, all the +same.”</p> + +<p>They forsook the window-seat and pulled wicker-chairs very near to the +tobacco-jar squatting upon the floor between them: they lit their pipes +and sipped their coffee. For Alan the glories of the day floated before +him in the smoke.</p> + +<p>“It’s a pity,” he said, “Sterne missed that catch in the slips. Though +of course I wasn’t bowling for the slips. Five for forty-eight would +have looked pretty well. Still<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> four for forty-eight isn’t so bad in an +innings of 287. The point is whether they can afford to give a place to +another bowler who’s no earthly use as a bat. It seems a bit of a tail. +I went in eighth wicket both innings. Two—first knock. Blob—second. +Still four for forty-eight was certainly the best. I ought to play in +the first trial match.” So Alan voiced his hopes.</p> + +<p>“Of course you will,” said Michael. “And at Lord’s. I think I shall ask +my mother and sister up for Eights,” he added.</p> + +<p>Alan looked rather disconcerted.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” Michael asked. “You won’t have to worry about them. +I’ll explain you’re busy with cricket. Stella inquired after you in a +letter this week.”</p> + +<p>During the Easter vacation Alan had stayed once or twice in Cheyne Walk, +and Stella who had come back from an arduous time with music and musical +people in Germany had seemed to take a slightly sharper interest in his +existence.</p> + +<p>“Give her my—er—love, when you write,” said Alan very nonchalantly. +“And I don’t think I’d say anything about those four wickets for +forty-eight. I don’t fancy she’s very keen on cricket. It might bore +her.”</p> + +<p>No more was said about Stella that evening, and nothing indeed was said +about anything except the seven or eight men competing for the three +vacancies in the Varsity eleven. At about a quarter to ten Alan +announced as usual that “those men will be coming down soon for cocoa.”</p> + +<p>“Alan, who are these mysterious creatures that come down for cocoa at +ten?” asked Michael. “And why am I never allowed to meet them?”</p> + +<p>“They’d bore you rather,” said Alan. “They’re people who live on this +staircase. I don’t see them any other time.”<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a></p> + +<p>Michael thought Alan would be embarrassed if he insisted on staying, so +to his friend’s evident relief he got up to go.</p> + +<p>“You House men are like a lot of old bachelors with your fads and +regularities,” he grumbled.</p> + +<p>“Stay, if you like,” said Alan, not very heartily. “But I warn you +they’re all awfully dull, and I’ve made a rule to go to bed at half-past +ten this term.”</p> + +<p>“So long,” said Michael hurriedly, and vanished.</p> + +<p>A few days later Michael had an answer from his mother to his invitation +for Eights Week:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;">173 C<small>HEYNE</small> W<small>ALK</small>,</span><br /> +S.W.<br /> +<i>May 5.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><i>My dearest Michael,</i></p> + +<p><i>I wish you’d asked me sooner. Now I have made arrangements to help +at the Italian Peasant Jewelry Stall in this big bazaar at +Westminster Hall for the Society for the Improvement of the +Condition of Agricultural Laborers all over the world. I think +you’d be interested. It’s all about handicrafts. Weren’t you +reading a book by William Morris the other day? His name is +mentioned a great deal always. I’ve been meeting so many +interesting people. If Stella comes, why not ask Mrs. Ross to +chaperone her? Such a capital idea. And do be nice about poor Dick +Prescott. Stella is so young and impulsive. I wish she could +understand how</i> much much <i>happier she would be married to a nice +man, even though he may be a little older than herself. This +tearing all over Europe cannot be good for her. And now she talks +of going to Vienna and studying under somebody with a perfectly +impossible name beginning with L. Not only that, but she also talks +of unlearning all she has learned and beginning all over again. +This is most absurd,<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> and I’ve tried to explain to her. She should +have thought of this man beginning with L before. At her age to +start scales and exercises again does seem ridiculous. I really +dread Stella’s coming of age. Who knows what she may not take it +into her head to do? I can’t think where she gets this curious vein +of eccentricity. I’ll write to Mrs. Ross if you like. Stella, of +course, says she can go to Oxford by herself, but that I will not +hear of, and I beg you not to encourage the idea, if she suggests +it to you.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Your loving</i></span><br /> +<i>Mother.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael thought Mrs. Ross would solve the difficulty, and he was glad +rather to relieve himself of the responsibility of his mother at Oxford. +He would have had to be so steadily informative, and she would never +have listened to a word. Stella’s view of the visit came soon after her +mother’s.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;">173 C<small>HEYNE</small> W<small>ALK</small>,</span><br /> +S.W.<br /> +<i>May 8.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><i>Dear M.,</i></p> + +<p><i>What’s all this about Mrs. Ross chaperoning me at Oxford? Is it +necessary? At a shot I said to mother, “No, quite unnecessary.” But +of course, if I should disgrace you by coming alone, I won’t. Isn’t +Mrs. Ross a little on the heavy side? I mean, wouldn’t she rather +object to me smoking cigars?</i></p></div> + +<p>“Great scott!” interjaculated Michael.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><i>I’m going to Vienna soon to begin music all over again, so be very +charming to your only sister,</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Stella.</i></p> + +<p><i>P.S.—Do crush mother over Prescott.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael agreed with his mother in thinking a chaperone was absolutely +necessary for Stella’s visit to Oxford, and since the threat of cigars +he cordially approved of the suggestion that Mrs. Ross should come. +Moreover, he felt his former governess would approve of his own attitude +toward Oxford, and he rather looked forward to demonstrating it to her. +In the full-blooded asceticism of Oxford Michael censured his own +behavior when he was seventeen and looked back with some dismay on the +view of himself at that time as it appeared to him now. He was as much +shocked by that period now as at school in his fifteenth year he had +been shocked by the memory of the two horrid little girls at Eastbourne. +Altogether this invitation seemed an admirable occasion to open the door +once again to Mrs. Ross and to let her personality enter his mind as the +sane adjudicator of whatever problems should soon present themselves. It +would be jolly for Alan, too, if his aunt came up and saw him playing +for the Varsity in whatever cricket match was provided to relieve the +tedium of too much rowing.</p> + +<p>So finally, after one or two more protests from Stella, it was arranged +that she should come up for Eights Week under the guardianship of Mrs. +Ross.</p> + +<p>Michael took care some time beforehand to incorporate a body of +assistant entertainers. Lonsdale in consideration of Michael having +helped him with his people for one day last year was engaged for the +whole visit. Maurice was made to vow attendance for at least every other +occasion. Wedderburn volunteered his services. Guy Hazlewood, who was +threatened with Schools, was let off with a lunch. Nigel Stewart spoke +mysteriously of a girl whose advent he expected on which account he +could not pledge himself too straightly. Rooms were taken in the High. +Trains were looked out. On Saturday morning Lonsdale and Michael went +down to the station to meet Mrs. Ross and Stella.<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a></p> + +<p>“I think it was a very bad move bringing me,” said Lonsdale, as they +waited on the platform. “Your sister will probably think me an awful +ass, and ...”</p> + +<p>But the train interrupted Lonsdale’s self-depreciation, and he sustained +himself well through the crisis of the introductions. Michael thought +Mrs. Ross had never so well been suited by her background as now when +tall and straight and in close-fitting gray dress she stood in the +Oxford sunlight. Stella, too, in that flowered muslin relieved Michael +instantly of the faint anxiety he had conceived lest she might appear in +a Munich garb unbecoming to a reserved landscape. It was a very +peculiarly feminine dress, but somehow she had never looked more like a +boy, and her gray eyes, as for one moment she let them rest wide open on +the city’s towers and spires, were more than usually gray and pellucid.</p> + +<p>“I say, I ordered a car to meet us,” said Lonsdale. “I thought we should +buzz along quicker.”</p> + +<p>“What you really thought,” said Michael, “was that you would have to +drive my sister in a hansom.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I say, really,” protested Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“I’m much more frightened of you than you could ever be of me,” Stella +declared.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, I say, really, are you? But I’m an awful ass, Miss Fane,” said +Lonsdale encouragingly. “Hallo, here’s the jolly old car.”</p> + +<p>As they drove past the castle, Lonsdale informed Stella it was the +county gaol, and when they reached the gaol he told her it was probably +Worcester College, or more familiarly Wuggins.</p> + +<p>“You’ll only have to tell her that All Souls is the County Asylum and +that Queens is a marmalade factory, and she’ll have a pretty good notion +of the main points of interest in the neighborhood,” said Michael.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<p>“He always rags me,” explained Lonsdale, smiling confidentially round at +the visitors. “I say, isn’t Alan Merivale your nephew?” he asked Mrs. +Ross. “He’s playing for the Varsity against Surrey. Sent down some very +hot stuff yesterday. We ought to buzz round to the Parks after lunch and +watch the game for a bit.”</p> + +<p>Wedderburn, who had been superintending the preparations for lunch, met +them in the lodge with a profound welcome, having managed to put at +least twenty years on to his age. Lunch had been laid in Lonsdale’s +rooms, since he was one of the few men in college who possessed a +dining-room in addition to a sitting-room. Yet, notwithstanding that +Michael had invited the guests and that they were lunching in Lonsdale’s +rooms, to Wedderburn by all was the leadership immediately accorded.</p> + +<p>The changeless lunch of Eights Week with its salmon mayonnaise and cold +chicken and glimpses through the windows of pink and blue dresses going +to and fro across the green quadrangles, with its laughter and talk and +speculations upon the weather, with its overheated scout and scent of +lilac and hawthorn, went its course: as fugitive a piece of mirthfulness +as the dance of the mayflies over the Cher.</p> + +<p>After lunch they walked to the Parks to watch Alan playing for the +Varsity. Wedderburn, who with people to entertain feared nothing and +nobody, actually went coolly into the pavilion and fetched out Alan who +was already in pads, waiting to go in. Michael watched very carefully +Alan’s meeting with Stella, watched Alan’s face fall when he saw her +beside Maurice and marked how nervously he fidgeted with his gloves. +There was a broken click from the field of play. It was time for Alan to +go in. Michael wished very earnestly he could score a brilliant century +so that Stella hearing the applause could realize how much there was in +him to admire. Yet ruefully he admitted to<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> himself the improbability of +Stella realizing anything at all about the importance of cricket. +However, he had scarcely done with his wishing, when he saw Alan coming +gloomily back from the wicket, clean bowled by the very first ball he +had received.</p> + +<p>“Of course, you know, he isn’t played for his batting,” he hastened to +explain to Stella.</p> + +<p>She, however, was too deeply engaged in discussing Vienna with Maurice +to pay much attention, even when Alan sat down despondently beside them, +unbuckling his pads. It was just as Michael had feared, fond though he +was of Maurice.</p> + +<p>The last Varsity player was soon out, and Wedderburn proposed an early +tea in his rooms to be followed by the river. Turning into Holywell, +they met Guy Hazlewood, who said without waiting to be introduced to +Mrs. Ross and Stella:</p> + +<p>“My dear people, I fall upon your necks. Suggest something for me to do +that for one day and one night will let me entirely forget Schools. We +can’t bear our digs any longer.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you give a party there on Monday night,” suggested Wedderburn +deeply.</p> + +<p>“Let me introduce you to Mrs’sss ... my sissss ... Mr. H’wood,” mumbled +Michael in explanation of Wedderburn’s proposal.</p> + +<p>“What a charming idea,” drawled Guy. “But isn’t it rather a shame to ask +Miss Fane to play? Anyway, I daren’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said Stella. “I should rather like to play in Oxford.”</p> + +<p>So after a kaleidoscope of racing and a Sunday picnic on the upper +river, when everybody ate as chickens drink with a pensive upward glance +at the trend of the clouds,<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> occurred Guy Hazlewood’s party in Holywell, +which might more truly have been called Wedderburn’s party, since he at +once assumed all responsibility for it.</p> + +<p>The digs were much more crowded than anybody had expected, chiefly on +account of the Balliol men invited.</p> + +<p>“Half Basutoland seems to be here,” Lonsdale whispered to Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, with Hazlewood, Comeragh and Anstruther, all sons of Belial, what +else can you expect?” replied Michael.</p> + +<p>Stella had seemed likely at first to give the favor of her attention +more to Hazlewood than to anybody else, but Maurice was in a dauntless +mood and, with Guy handicapped by having to pretend to assent to +Wedderburn’s suggestions for entertainment, he managed at last to +monopolize Stella almost entirely. Alan had declined the invitation with +the excuse of wanting a steady hand and eye for to-morrow. But Michael +fancied there was another reason.</p> + +<p>Stella played three times and was much applauded.</p> + +<p>“Very sporting effort, by Jove,” said Lonsdale, and this was probably +the motive of most of the commendation, though there was a group of +really musical people in the darkest corner who emerged between each +occasion and condoled with Michael on having to hear his sister play in +such inadequate surroundings.</p> + +<p>Michael himself was less moved by Stella’s playing than he had ever +been. Nor was this coldness due to any anxiety for her success. He was +sure enough of that in this uncritical audience.</p> + +<p>“Do you think Stella plays as well as she did?” he asked Mrs. Ross.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps this evening she may be a little excited,” Mrs. Ross suggested.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” said Michael doubtfully. “But what I mean<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> is that, if she +isn’t going to advance quite definitely, there really isn’t any longer +an excuse for her to arrogate to herself a special code of behavior.”</p> + +<p>“Stella says a great deal more than she does,” Mrs. Ross reassured him. +“You’d be surprised, as indeed I was surprised, to find how simple and +childlike she really is. I think an audience is never good for her.”</p> + +<p>“But, after all, her life is going to be one audience after another in +quick succession,” Michael pointed out.</p> + +<p>“Gradually an audience will cease to rouse her into any violence of +thought or accentuation of superficial action—oh, Michael,” Mrs. Ross +exclaimed, breaking off, “what dreadfully long words you’re tempting me +to use, and why do you make me talk about Stella? I’d really rather talk +about you.”</p> + +<p>“Stella is becoming a problem to me,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“And you yourself are no longer a problem to yourself?” Mrs. Ross +inquired.</p> + +<p>“Not in the sense I was, when we last talked together.”</p> + +<p>Michael was a little embarrassed by recalling that conversation. It +seemed to link him too closely for his pleasure to the behavior which +had led up to it, to be a part of himself at the time, farouche and +uncontrolled.</p> + +<p>“And all worries have passed away?” persisted Mrs. Ross.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Michael quickly. “For one thing,” he added as if he +thought he had been too abrupt, “I’m too comfortably off to worry much +about anything. Boredom is the only problem I shall ever have to face. +Seriously though, Mrs. Ross, I really am rather shocked when I think of +myself as sixteen and seventeen.” Michael was building brick by brick a +bridge for Mrs. Ross to step over the chasm of three years. “I seem to +see myself,” he persevered, “with very untidy hair, with very loose +joints, doing and saying and thinking the most impossible things. I +blush<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> now at the memory of myself, just as I should blush now with +Oxford snobbishness to introduce a younger brother like myself then, say +to the second-year table in hall.” Michael paused for a moment, half +hoping Mrs. Ross would assure him he had caricatured his former self, +but as she said nothing, he continued: “When I came up to Oxford I found +that the natural preparation for Oxford was not a day-school like St. +James’, but a boarding-school. Therefore I had to acquire in a term what +most of my contemporaries had been given several years to acquire. I +remember quite distinctly my father saying to my mother, ‘By gad, +Valérie, he ought to go to Eton, you know,’ and my mother disagreeing, +‘No, no, I’m sure you were right when you said St. James’.’ That’s so +like mother. She probably had never thought the matter out at all. She +was probably perfectly vague about the difference between St. James’ and +Eton, but because it had been arranged so, she disliked the idea of any +alteration. I’m telling you all this because, you know, you provided as +it were the public-school influence for my early childhood. After you I +ought to have passed on to a private school entirely different from +Randell House, and then to Eton or Winchester. I’m perfectly sure I +could have avoided everything that happened when I was sixteen or +seventeen, if I’d not been at a London day-school.”</p> + +<p>“But is it altogether fair to ascribe everything to your school?” asked +Mrs. Ross. “Alan for instance came very successfully, as far as +normality is concerned, through St. James’.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but Alan has the natural goodness of the average young Englishman. +Possibly he benefited by St. James’. Possibly at Eton, and with a +prospect of money, he would have narrowed down into a mere athlete, into +one of the rather objectionable bigots of the public-school theory. Now<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> +I was never perfectly normal. I might even have been called morbid and +unhealthy. I should have been, if I hadn’t always possessed a sort of +curious lonely humor which was about twice as severe as the conscience +of tradition. At the same time, I had nothing to justify my abnormality. +No astounding gift of genius, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“But, Michael,” interrupted Mrs. Ross, “I don’t fancy the greatest +geniuses in the world ever justified themselves at sixteen or +seventeen.”</p> + +<p>“No, but they must have been upheld by the inner consciousness of +greatness. You get that tremendously through all the despondencies of +Keats’ letters for instance. I have never had that. Stella absorbed all +the creative and interpretative force that was going. I never have and +never shall get beyond sympathy, and even the value that gives my +criticism is to a certain extent destroyed by the fact that the moment I +try to express myself more permanently than by mouth, I am done.”</p> + +<p>“But still, I don’t see why a day-school should have militated against +the development of that sympathetic and critical faculty.”</p> + +<p>“It did in this way,” said Michael. “It gave me too much with which to +sympathize before I could attune my sympathy to criticism. In fact I was +unbalanced. Eton would have adjusted this balance. I’m sure of that, +because since I’ve been at Oxford I find my powers of criticism so very +much saner, so very much more easily economized. I mean to say, there’s +no wastage in futile emotions. Of course, it’s partly due to being +older.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Michael,” Mrs. Ross protested, “if you talk like this I shall +begin to regret your earlier extravagance. This dried-up self-confidence +seems to me not quite normal either.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, that’s only because I’m criticizing my earlier self.<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> I really am +now in a delightful state of cool judgment. Once I used to want +passionately to be like everybody else. I thought that was the goal of +social happiness. Then I wanted to be violently and conspicuously +different from everybody else. Now I seem to be getting near the right +mean between the two extremes. I’m enjoying Oxford enormously. I can’t +tell you how happy I am here, how many people I like. And I appreciate +it so much the more because to a certain extent at first it was a +struggle to find that wide normal road on which I’m strolling along now. +I’m so positive that the best of Oxford is the best of England, and that +the best of England is the best of humanity that I long to apply to the +world the same standards we tacitly respect—we undergraduates. I +believe every problem of life can be solved by the transcendency of the +spirit which has transcended us up here. You remember I used to say you +were like Pallas Athene? Well, just those qualities in you which made me +think of that resemblance I find in Oxford. Don’t ask me to say what +they are, because I couldn’t explain.”</p> + +<p>“I think you have a great capacity for idealization,” said Mrs. Ross +gravely. “I wonder how you are going to express it practically. I wonder +what profession you’ll choose.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose I shall choose a profession at all,” said Michael. +“There’s no financial reason—at any rate—why I should.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you won’t have to decide against a profession just yet,” said +Mrs. Ross. “And now tell me, just to gratify my curiosity, why you think +Stella’s playing has deteriorated—if you really think it has.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t say it had,” Michael contradicted in some dismay. “I +merely said that to-night it did not seem up to her level. Perhaps she +was anxious. Perhaps she felt among all these undergraduates, as I felt +in my first week. Perhaps<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> she’s thinking what schoolboys they all are, +and how infinitely youthful they appear beside those wild and +worldly-wise Bohemians to whose company she has been accustomed for so +long. I long to tell her that these undergraduates are really so much +wiser, even if literature means Mr. Soapy Sponge’s Sporting Tour, and +art The Soul’s Awakening, and religion putting on a bowler to go and +have a hot breakfast at the O.U.D.S. after chapel, and politics the +fag-ends of paternal or rather ancestral opinion, and life a hot bath +and changing after a fox-hunt or a grouse-drive.”</p> + +<p>Farther conversation was stopped by Wedderburn driving everybody down to +supper with pastoral exhortations in his deepest bass. Michael, after +his talk with Mrs. Ross, was relieved to find himself next to Lonsdale +and sheltered by a quivering rampart of jellies from more exacting +company.</p> + +<p>“These Basutos aren’t so bad when you talk to them,” said Lonsdale. +“Comeragh was at m’tutor’s. I wonder if he still collects bugs. I rather +like that man Hazlewood. I thought him a bit sidy at first, but he’s +rather keen on fishing. I don’t think much of the girl that Trinity +man—what’s his name—Stewart has roped in. She looks like something +left over from a needlework stall. I say, your sister jolly well knows +how to punch a piano. Topping, what? Mossy’s been very much on the spot +to-night. He and Wedders are behaving like a couple of theatrical +managers. Why didn’t Alan Merivale turn up? I was talking to some of the +cricket push at the Club, and it doesn’t look a hundred quid to a tanner +on his Blue. Bad luck. He’s a very good egg.”</p> + +<p>Michael listened vaguely to Lonsdale’s babble. He was watching the +passage of the cigars and cigarettes down the table. Thank heaven, +Stella had let the cigars go by.</p> + +<p>The party of 196 Holywell broke up. Outside in the shadowy street of +gables they stood laughing and talking<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> for a moment. Guy Hazlewood, +Comeragh and Anstruther looked down from the windows at their parting +guests.</p> + +<p>“It’s been awfully ripping,” these murmured to their hosts. The hosts +beamed down.</p> + +<p>“We’ve been awfully bucked up by everything. Special vote of thanks to +Miss Fane.”</p> + +<p>“You ought all to get Firsts now,” said Wedderburn.</p> + +<p>Then he and Lonsdale and Michael and Maurice set off with Stella and +Mrs. Ross to the High Street rooms. In different directions the rest of +the party vanished on echoing footsteps into the moon-bright spaces, +into the dark and narrow entries. Voices faint and silvery rippled along +the spell-bound airs of the May night. The echoing footsteps died out to +whispers. There was a whizzing of innumerable clocks, and midnight began +to clang.</p> + +<p>“We must hurry,” said the escort, and they ran off down the High toward +St. Mary’s, reaching the lodge on the final stroke.</p> + +<p>“Shall I come up to your rooms for a bit?” Maurice suggested to Michael.</p> + +<p>“I’m rather tired,” objected Michael, who divined that Maurice was going +to talk at great length about Stella.</p> + +<p>He was too jealous of Alan’s absence that evening to want to hear +Maurice’s facile enthusiasm.<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h4>SYMPATHY</h4> + +<p>Mrs. Ross and Stella left Oxford two days after the party, and Michael +was really glad to be relieved of the dread that Stella in order to +assert her independence of personality would try to smash the glass of +fashion and dint the mold of form. Really he thought the two occasions +during her visit on which he liked her best and admired her most were +when she was standing on the station platform. Here she was expressed by +that city of spires confusing with added beauty that clear sky of +Summer. Here, too, her personality seemed to add an appropriate +foreground to the scene, to promise the interpretation that her music +would give, a promise, however, that Michael felt she had somehow +belied.</p> + +<p>Alan dropped out of the Varsity Eleven the following week, and he was in +a very gloomy mood when Michael paid him a visit of condolence.</p> + +<p>“These hard wickets have finished me off,” he sighed. “I shall take up +golf, I think.”</p> + +<p>The bag of clubs he had brought up on his first day was lying covered +with gray fluff under the bed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, don’t play golf,” protested Michael, “you’ve got two more years +to get your Blue and all your life to play golf, which is a rotten game +and has ruined Varsity cricket.”</p> + +<p>“But one can be alone at golf,” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“Alone?” repeated Michael. “Why on earth should you want to play an +outdoor game alone?”<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a></p> + +<p>“Because I get depressed sometimes,” Alan explained. “What good am I?”</p> + +<p>Michael began to laugh.</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing to laugh at,” said Alan sadly. “I’ve been thinking of my +future. I shall never have enough money to marry. I shall never get my +Blue. I shall get a fourth in Greats. Perhaps I shan’t even get into the +Egyptian Civil Service. I expect I shall end as a bank clerk. Playing +cricket for a suburban club on Saturday afternoons. That’s all I see +before me. When is Stella going to Vienna?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that she is going,” said Michael. “She always talks a +great deal about things which don’t always come off.”</p> + +<p>“I was rather surprised she seemed to like that man Avery so much,” Alan +said. “But I suppose he pretended to know an awful lot about music. I +don’t think I care for him.”</p> + +<p>“Some people don’t,” Michael admitted. “I think women always like him, +though.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I should think they did,” Alan agreed bitterly. “Sorry I’m so +depressing. Have a meringue or something.”</p> + +<p>“Alan, why, are you in love with Stella?” Michael challenged.</p> + +<p>“What made you think I was?” countered Alan, looking alarmed.</p> + +<p>“It’s pretty obvious,” Michael said. “And curiously enough I can quite +understand it. Generally, of course, a brother finds it difficult to +understand what other people can see in his sister, but I’m never +surprised when they fall in love with Stella.”</p> + +<p>“A good many have?” asked Alan, and his blue eyes were sharpened by a +pain deeper than that of seeing a catch in the slips missed off his +bowling.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve realized for a long time how utterly hopeless it was for me,” +Alan sighed. “I’m evidently going to be a failure.”</p> + +<p>“Would you care for some advice?” inquired Michael very tentatively.</p> + +<p>“What sort of advice?” Alan asked.</p> + +<p>Michael took this for assent, and plunged in.</p> + +<p>“Let her alone,” he adjured his friend. “Let her absolutely alone. She’s +very young, you know, and you’re not very old. Let her alone for at +least a year. I suggest two years. Don’t see much of her, and don’t let +her think you care. That would interest her for a week, and really, +Alan, it’s not good for Stella to think that everybody falls in love +with her. I don’t mind about Maurice. It would do him good to be turned +down.”</p> + +<p>“Would he be?” demanded Alan gloomily.</p> + +<p>“Of course, of course ... it seems funny to be talking to you about love +... you used to be so very scornful about it.... I expect you know +you’ll fall in love pretty deeply now.... Alan, I’m frightfully keen you +should marry Stella. But let her alone. Don’t let her interfere with +your cricket. Don’t take up golf on account of her.”</p> + +<p>Michael was so much in earnest with his exhortation to Alan that he +picked up a meringue and was involved in the difficulties of eating it +before he was aware he was doing so. Alan began to laugh, and the heavy +airs of disappointment and hopelessness were lightened.</p> + +<p>“It’s funny,” said Michael, “that I should have an opportunity now of +talking to you about love and cricket.”</p> + +<p>“Funny?” Alan repeated.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember three years ago on the river one night how I wished +you would fall in love, and you said something about it being bad for +cricket?”</p> + +<p>“I believe I do remember vaguely,” said Alan.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p> + +<p>Michael saw that after the explanation of his depression he wanted to +let the subject drop, and since that was the very advice he had +conferred upon Alan, he felt it would be unfair to tempt him to +elaborate this depression merely to gratify his own pleasure in the +retrospect of emotion. So Stella was not discussed again for a long +while, and as she did after all go to Vienna to study a new technique, +the abstention was not difficult. Michael was glad, since he had +foreseen the possibility of a complication raveled by Maurice. Her +departure straightened this out, for Maurice was not inclined to gather +strength from absence. Other problems more delicate of adjustment even +than Stella began to arise, problems connected with the social aspects +of next term.</p> + +<p>Alan would still be in college. Scholars at Christ Church were allowed +sometimes to spend even the whole of their four years in college. +Michael tried in vain to persuade him to ask leave to go into digs. Alan +offered his fourth year to companionship with Michael, but nothing would +induce him to emerge from college sooner. And why did Michael so +particularly want him? There were surely men in his own college with +whom he was intimate enough to share digs. Michael admitted there were +many, but he did not tell Alan that the real reason he had been so +anxious for his partnership was to have an excuse to escape from an +arrangement made lightly enough with Maurice Avery in his first or +second term that in their third year they should dig together. Maurice +had supposed the other day that the arrangement stood, and Michael, not +wishing to hurt his feelings, had supposed so too. A few days later +Maurice had come along with news of rooms in Longwall. Should he engage +them? Michael said he hated Longwall as a prospective dwelling-place, +and Maurice had immediately deferred to his prejudice.<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> + +<p>It was getting unpleasantly near a final arrangement, for the +indefatigable Maurice would produce address after address, until Michael +seemed bound ultimately to accept. Lonsdale and Grainger had invited him +to dig with them at 202 High. Michael suggested Maurice as well, but +they shook their heads. Wedderburn was already partially sharing, that +is to say, though he had his own sitting-room he was in the same house +and would no doubt join in the meals. Maurice was not to be thought of. +Maurice was a very good fellow but—Maurice was—but—and Michael in +asking Lonsdale and Grainger why they declined his company, asked +himself at the same time what were his own objections to digging with +Maurice. He tried to state them in as kindly a spirit as he could, and +for a while he told himself he wished to be in digs with people who +represented the broad stream of normal undergraduate life; he accused +himself in fact of snobbishness, and justified the snobbishness by +applying it to undergraduate Oxford as a persistent attribute. As time +went by, however, and Maurice produced rooms on rooms for Michael’s +choice, he began almost to dislike him, to resent the assumption of a +desire to dig with him. Where was Maurice’s sensitiveness that it could +not react to his unexpressed hatred of the idea of living with him? Soon +it would come to the point of declaring outright that he did not want to +dig with him. Such an announcement would really hurt his feelings, and +Michael did not want to do that. As soon as Maurice had receded into the +background of casual encountership, he would take pleasure in his +company again. Meanwhile, however, it really seemed as if Maurice were +losing all his superficial attractiveness. Michael wondered why he had +never before noticed how infallibly he ran after each new and petty +phase of art, how vain he was too, and how untidy. It was intolerable to +think of spending a year’s close association<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> with all those paint-boxes +and all that modeling wax and all those undestroyed proof-sheets of The +Oxford Looking-Glass. Finally, he had never noticed before how many +cigarettes Maurice smoked and with what skill he concealed in every sort +of receptacle the stained and twisted stumps that were left over. That +habit would be disastrous to their friendship, and Michael knew that +each fresh cigarette lighted by him would consume a trace more of the +friendship, until at last he would come to the state of observing him +with a cold and mute resentment. He was in this attitude of mind toward +his prospective companion, when Maurice came to see him. He seemed +nervous, lighting and concealing even more cigarettes than usual.</p> + +<p>“About digs in Longwall,” he began.</p> + +<p>“I won’t live in Longwall,” affirmed Michael.</p> + +<p>“Do you think you could find anybody else?”</p> + +<p>“Why, have you got hold of some digs for three?” asked Michael +hopefully. This would be a partial solution of the difficulty, as long +as the third person was a tolerably good egg.</p> + +<p>Maurice seemed embarrassed.</p> + +<p>“No; well, as a matter of fact, Castleton rather wants to dig with me. +The New College man he was going to live with is going down, and he had +fixed up some rather jolly digs in Longwall. He offered me a share, but +of course I said I was digging with you, and there’s no room for a +third.”</p> + +<p>“I can go in with Tommy Grainger and Lonny,” said Michael quickly.</p> + +<p>Maurice looked much relieved.</p> + +<p>“As long as you don’t feel I’ve treated you badly,” he began.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Michael, resenting for the moment Maurice’s +obvious idea that he was losing something<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> by the defection. But as soon +as he could think of Maurice unlinked to himself for a year, his +fondness for him began to return and his habit of perpetually smoking +cigarettes was less irritating. He accepted Maurice’s invitation to stay +at Godalming in July with an inward amusement roused by the penitence +which had prompted it.</p> + +<p>Stella’s unexpectedly prompt departure to Vienna had left Michael free +to make a good many visits during the Long Vacation. He enjoyed least +the visit to High Towers, because he found it hard not to be a little +contemptuous of the adulation poured out upon Maurice by his father and +mother and sisters. Mr. Avery was a stockbroker with a passion for +keeping as young as his son. Mrs. Avery was a woman who, when her son +and her husband were not with her, spoiled the dogs, and sometimes even +her daughters. She was just as willing to spoil Michael, especially when +his politeness led him into listening in shady corners of the +tennis-lawn to Mrs. Avery’s adorations of Maurice. He found Godalming +oppressive with the smart suburbanity of Surrey. He disliked the +facility of life there, the facile thought, the facile comfort, the +facile conversation. Everything went along with a smoothness that suited +the civilized landscape, the conventional picturesqueness and the +tar-smeared roads. After a week Michael was summoned away by a telegram. +Without a ruse, he would never have escaped from this world of +light-green Lovat tweeds, of fashionable rusticity and carefully pressed +trousers.</p> + +<p>“Dear Mrs. Avery,” he wrote, preening himself upon the recuperative +solitude of empty Cheyne Walk whence his mother had just departed to +France. “I enjoyed my visit so much, and so much wish I had not been +called away on tiresome business. I hope the garden-party at the +Nevilles was a great success, and that the High Towers croquet pair +distinguished themselves. Please remember me to Mr. Avery.”<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a></p> + +<p>“Thank Heaven that’s done!” he sighed, and lazily turned the pages of +Bradshaw to discover how to reach Wedderburn in the depths of South +Wales.</p> + +<p>The vacation went by very quickly with quiet intervals in London between +his visits, of which he enjoyed most the fortnight at Cressingham +Hall—a great Palladian house in the heart of the broad Midlands. It was +mid-August with neither shooting nor golf to disturb the pastoral calm. +Lonsdale was trying under Lord Cleveden’s remonstrances to obtain a +grasp of rural administration. So he and his sister Sylvia with Michael +drove every day in a high dogcart to various outlying farms of the +estate. Lonsdale managed to make himself very popular, and after all as +he confided to Michael that was the main thing.</p> + +<p>“And how’s his lordship, sir?” the tenant would inquire.</p> + +<p>“Oh, very fit,” Lonsdale would reply. “I say, Mr. Hoggins, have you got +any of that home-brewed beer on draught? My friend Mr. Fane has heard a +good deal about it.”</p> + +<p>In a cool farm-parlor Lonsdale and Michael would toast the health of +agriculture and drink damnation to all Radicals, while outside in the +sun were Sylvia with Mrs. Hoggins, looking at the housewife’s +raspberries and gooseberries.</p> + +<p>“I envy your life,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“A bit on the slow side, don’t you think?”</p> + +<p>“Plenty of time for thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said Lonsdale. “But then I’ve got no brains. I really haven’t, you +know. The poor old governor’s quite worried about it.”</p> + +<p>However, when after dinner Lord Cleveden bade his son and his guest draw +up their chairs and when, as he ceremoniously circulated the port, he +delivered majestic reminiscences of bygone celebrities and notorieties, +Michael scarcely thought that anything would ever worry him very<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> much, +not even a dearth of partridges, still less a dearth of brains in his +only son.</p> + +<p>“Dear Lady Cleveden,” he wrote, when once again he sat in the empty +house in Cheyne Walk. “London is quite impossible after Cressingham.”</p> + +<p>And so it was with the listless August people drooping on the +Embankment, the oily river and a lack-luster moon.</p> + +<p>Michael was surprised at such a season to get a telegram from Prescott, +inviting him to dine at the Albany. His host was jaded by the hot London +weather, and the soldier-servant waited upon him with more solicitude +than usual. Prescott and Michael talked of the commonplace for some +time, or rather Michael talked away rather anxiously while Prescott lent +him a grave attention. At last Michael’s conversation exhausted itself, +and for a few minutes there was silence, while Prescott betrayed his +nervousness by fidgeting with the ash on his cigar. At last he burnt +himself and throwing away the cigar leaped forthwith into the tide of +emotion that was deepening rapidly around his solitary figure.</p> + +<p>“Daresay your mother told you I wanted to marry Stella. Daresay Stella +told you. Of course, I realize it’s quite absurd. Said so at once, and +of course it’s all over now. Phew! it’s fearfully hot to-night. Always +feel curiously stranded in London in August, but I suppose that’s the +same with most people.”</p> + +<p>Michael had an impulse to ask Prescott to come away with him, but the +moment for doing so vanished in the shyness it begot, and a moment later +the impulse seemed awkwardly officious. Yet by Prescott’s confidence +Michael felt himself committed to a participation in his existence that +called for some response. But he could not with any sincerity express a +regret for Stella’s point of view.</p> + +<p>“Mother was very anxious she should accept you,” said<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> Michael, and +immediately he had a vision of Prescott like the puppet of an +eighteenth-century novelist kneeling to receive Stella’s stilted +declaration of her refusal.</p> + +<p>“Your mother was most extraordinarily gracious and sympathetic. But of +course I’m a man of fifty. I suppose you thought the idea very +ridiculous.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think Stella is old enough to marry,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“But don’t you think it’s better for girls to marry when they’re young?” +asked Prescott, and as he leaned forward, Michael saw his eyes were very +bright and his actions feverish. “I’ve noticed that tendencies recur in +families. Time after time. I don’t like this Viennese business, yet if +Stella had married me I shouldn’t have interfered with her,” he added, +with a wistfulness that was out of keeping with his severely +conventional appearance. “Still, I should have always been in the +background.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I expect that was what she felt,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>He did not mean to be brutal, but he saw at once how deeply he had +wounded Prescott, and suddenly in a panic of inability to listen any +longer, he rose and said he must go.</p> + +<p>As he was driving to Waterloo Station on the following afternoon to go +down to Basingstead, he saw vaguely on the posters of the starved August +journals “Suicide of a Man About Town.” At Cobble Place newspapers were +read as an afterthought, and it was not until late on the day after that +above a short paragraph the headline “Tragedy in the Albany” led him on +to learn that actually Prescott was the man about town who had killed +himself.</p> + +<p>Michael’s first emotion was a feeling of self-interest in being linked +so closely with an event deemed sufficiently important to occupy the +posters of an evening paper. For the moment the fact that he had dined +with Prescott a few hours beforehand seemed a very remarkable +coincidence. It<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> was only after he had had to return to London and +attend the inquest, to listen to the coroner’s summing up of the +evidence of depression and the perspiring jury’s delivery of their +verdict of temporary insanity he began to realize that in the crisis of +a man’s life his own words or behavior might easily have altered the +result. He was driving to Waterloo Station again in order to take up the +thread of his broken visit. On the posters of the starved August +journals he read now with a sharp interest “Cat Saves Household in +Whitechapel Fire.” This cat stood for him as the symbol of imaginative +action. He bought the evening papers at Waterloo, and during the journey +down to Hampshire read about this cat who had saved a family from an +inquest’s futile epitaph, and who even if unsuccessful would have been +awarded the commendatory platitudes of the coroner.</p> + +<p>Michael had not said by what train he would arrive, and so after the +journey he was able to walk to Basingstead through lanes freshening for +evening. By this time the irony of the cat’s fortuitous interference was +blunted, and Michael was able to see himself in clearer relation to the +fact of Prescott’s death. He was no longer occupied by the strange +sensation of being implicated in one of the sufficiently conspicuous +daily deaths exalted by the press to the height of a tragedy. Yet for +once the press had not been so exaggerative. Prescott’s life was surely +a tragedy, and his death was only not a tragedy because it had violated +all the canons of good form and had falsified the stoicism of nearly +fifty years. Yet why should not the stoic ideal be applied to such a +death? It was an insult to such perfect manners to suppose that a +hopeless love for a girl had led him to take his life. Surely it would +be kinder to ascribe it to the accumulative boredom of August in London, +or possibly to a sudden realization of vulgarity creeping up to the very +portals of the Albany.<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a></p> + +<p>Michael was rather anxious to believe in this theory, because he was +beginning to reproach himself more seriously than when the cat had first +obtruded a sardonic commentary on his own behavior in having given away +to the panic of wishing to listen no longer to the dead man’s +confidences. With all his personal regrets it was disconcerting to think +of a man whose attitude to life had seemed so correct making this +hurried exit, an exit too that left his reputation a prey to the public, +so that his whole existence could be soiled after death by the +inquisitive grubbing of a coroner. Prescott had always seemed secure +from an humiliation like this. The mezzotints of stern old admirals, the +soldier-servant, the fashionable cloister in which he lived, the +profound consciousness he always betrayed of the importance of restraint +whether in morals or cravats had seemed to combine in unrelaxing +guardianship of his good form. The harder Michael thought about the +business, the more incredible it appeared. Himself in an earlier mood of +self-distrust had accepted Prescott as an example to whose almost +contemptuous attitude of withdrawal he might ultimately aspire. He had +often reproached himself for outlived divergencies of thought and +action, and with the example of Prescott he had hammered into himself +the possibility of eternal freedom from their recurrence. And now he +must admit that mere austerity unless supported by a spiritual +encouragement to endure was liable at any moment to break up pitiably +into suicide. The word itself began to strike him with all the force of +its squalid associations. The fresh dust of the Hampshire lanes became a +gray miasma. Loneliness looped itself slowly round his progress so that +he hurried on with backward glances. The hazel-hedges were somber and +monotonous and defiled here and there by the rejected rags of a tramp. +The names of familiar villages upon the signposts lost their intimations +of sane humanity, and turned to<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> horrible abstractions of the dead life +of the misshapen boot or empty matchbox at their foot. The comfortable +assurance of a prosperous and unvexed country rolling away to right and +left forsook him, and only the pallid road writhed along through the +twilight. “My nerves are in a rotten state,” he told himself, and he was +very glad to see Basingstead Manor twinkling in the night below, while +himself was still walking shadowless in a sickly dusk.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room of Cobble Place all was calm, as indeed, Michael +thought, why on earth should it not be? Mrs. Carthew’s serene old age +drove out the last memory of the coroner’s court, and here was Mrs. Ross +coming out of a circle of lamplight to greet him, and here in Cobble +Place was her small son sleeping.</p> + +<p>“You look tired and pale, Michael,” said Mrs. Ross. “Why didn’t you wire +which train you were coming by? I would have met you with the chaise.”</p> + +<p>“Poor fellow, of course he’s tired!” said Mrs. Carthew. “A most +disturbing experience. Come along. Dinner will do him good.”</p> + +<p>The notion of suicide began to grow more remote from reality in this +room, which had always been to Michael soft and fragrant like a great +rose in whose heart, for very despair of being able ever to express in +words the perfection of it, one swoons to be buried. The evening went +the calm course of countless evenings at Cobble Place. Michael played at +backgammon with Mrs. Carthew: Joan Carthew worked at the accounts of a +parochial charity: May Carthew knitted: Mrs. Ross, reading in the +lamplight, met from time to time Michael’s glances with a concern that +never displayed itself beyond the pitch of an unexacting sympathy. He +was glad, as the others rustled to greet the ten strokes of the clock, +to hear Mrs. Ross say she would stay up for a while and keep him +company.<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a></p> + +<p>“Unless you want to work?” she added.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>When the others had gone to bed, he turned to her:</p> + +<p>“Do you know, Mrs. Ross, I believe I could have prevented Prescott’s +death. He began to talk about Stella, and I felt embarrassed and came +away.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear Michael, I think you’re probably accusing yourself most +unfairly. How could you have supposed the terrible sequel to your +dinner?”</p> + +<p>“That’s just it. I believe I did know.”</p> + +<p>“You thought he was going to kill himself?”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t think anything so definite as that, but I had an intuition +to ask him to come away with me, and I was afraid he’d think it rather +cheek and, oh, Mrs. Ross, what on earth good am I? I believe I’ve got +the gift of understanding people, and yet I’m afraid to use it. Shall I +ever learn?”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at Mrs. Ross in despair. He was exasperated by his own +futility. He went on to rail at himself.</p> + +<p>“The only gift I have got! And then my detestable self-consciousness +wrecks the first decent chance I’ve had to turn it to account.”</p> + +<p>They talked for some time. At first Mrs. Ross consoled him, insisting +that imagination affected by what had happened later was playing him +false. Then she seemed to be trying to state an opinion which she found +it difficult to state. She spoke to Michael of qualities which in the +future with one quality added would show his way in the world clear and +straight before him. He was puzzled to guess at what career she was +hinting.</p> + +<p>“My dear Michael, I would not tell you for anything,” she affirmed.</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Why not? Why, because with all the ingenuous proclamations<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> of your +willingness to do anything that you’re positive you can do better than +anything else, I’m quite, quite sure you’re still the rather perverse +Michael of old, and as I sit here talking to you I remember the time +when I told you as a little boy that you would have been a Roundhead in +the time of the Great Rebellion. How angry you were with me! So what I +think you’re going to do—I almost said when you’re grown up—but I mean +when you leave Oxford, I shall have to tell you after you have made up +your own mind. I shall have to give myself merely the pleasure of +saying, ‘I knew it.’”</p> + +<p>“I suppose really I know what you think I shall do,” said Michael +slowly. “But you’re wrong—at least, I think you’re wrong. I lack the +mainspring of the parson’s life. Talk to me about Kenneth instead of +myself. How’s he getting on?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s splendid at five years old, but I want to give him something +more than I ever managed to give you.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally,” said Michael, smiling. “He’s your son.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, would you be surprised if I told you that I thought of....” +Mrs. Ross broke off abruptly. “No, I won’t tell you yet.”</p> + +<p>“You’re full of unrevealed mysteries,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s bedtime for me. Good night.”</p> + +<p>Two mornings later Michael had a letter from his mother in London. He +wondered why he should be vaguely surprised by her hurried return. +Surely Prescott’s death could not have been a reason to bring her home.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;">173 C<small>HEYNE</small> W<small>ALK</small>,</span><br /> +S.W.</p> + +<p class="nind"><i>My dearest Michael,</i></p> + +<p><i>I’m so dreadfully upset about poor Dick Prescott. I have so few old +friends, so very few, that I can’t afford to lose him. His devotion +to your father was perfectly wonderful.<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> He gave up everything to +us. He remained in society just enough to be of use to your father, +but he was nearly always with us. I think he was fond of me, but he +worshiped him. Perhaps I was wrong in trying to encourage the idea +of marrying Stella. But I console myself by saying that that had +nothing to do with this idea of his to take his own life. You see, +when your father died, he found himself alone. I’ve been so +selfishly interested in reëntering life. He had no wish to do so. +Michael, I can’t write anything more about it. Perhaps, dearest +boy, you wouldn’t mind giving up some of your time with the +Carthews, and will come back earlier to be with me in London for a +little time.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Your loving</i></span><br /> +<i>Mother.</i></p> + +<p><i>P.S.—I hope the funeral was properly done.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael realized with a start the loneliness of his mother, and in his +mood of self-reproachfulness attacked himself for having neglected her +ever since the interests of Oxford had arisen to occupy his own life so +satisfyingly. He told Mrs. Ross of the letter, and she agreed with him +in thinking he ought to go back to London at once. Michael had only time +for a very short talk with old Mrs. Carthew before the chaise would +arrive.</p> + +<p>“There has been a fate upon this visit,” said the old lady. “And I’m +sorry for it. I’d promised myself a great many talks with you. Besides, +you’ll miss Alan now, and he’ll be disappointed, and as for Nancy, +she’ll be miserable.”</p> + +<p>“But I must go,” Michael said.</p> + +<p>“Of course you must go,” said Mrs. Carthew, thumping with her stick on +the gravel path. “You must always think first of your mother.”</p> + +<p>“You told me that before on this very path a long time<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> ago,” said +Michael thoughtfully. “I didn’t understand so well why at the time. Now, +of course,” he added shyly, “I understand everything. I used to wonder +what the mystery could be. I used to imagine all sorts of the most +extraordinary things. Prisons and lunatic asylums among others.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carthew chuckled to herself.</p> + +<p>“It’s surprising you didn’t imagine a great deal more than you did. +How’s Oxford?”</p> + +<p>“Ripping,” said Michael. “And so was your advice about Oxford. I’ve +never forgotten. It was absolutely right.”</p> + +<p>“I always am absolutely right,” said Mrs. Carthew.</p> + +<p>The wheels of the chaise were audible; and Michael must go at once.</p> + +<p>“If I’m alive in two years, when you go down,” said Mrs. Carthew, “I’d +like to give you some advice about the world. I’m even more infallible +about the world. Although I married a sailor, I’m a practical and +worldly old woman.”</p> + +<p>Michael said good-bye to all the family standing by the gate of Cobble +Place, to Mrs. Ross with the young Kenneth now in knickerbockers by her +side and soon, thought Michael, a subject fit for speculation; to +delightful May and Joan; to the smiling Carthew cook; all waving to him +in the sunlight with the trim cotoneaster behind them.</p> + +<p>It gave Michael a consciousness of a new and most affectionate intimacy +to find his mother alone in the house in Cheyne Walk. It was scarcely +yet September, and the desolation of London all around seemed the more +sharply to intagliate upon his senses the fineness of his mother’s +figure set in the frame of that sedate house. They had tea together in +her own room, and it struck him with a sudden surprise to see her once +again in black. The room with its rose du Barri and clouded pastels +sustained her beauty and to her somber attire lent a deeper poignancy; +or perhaps it<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> was something apart from the influence of the room, this +so incontestable pathos, and was rather the effect of the imprisonment +of her elusiveness by a chain whose power Michael had not suspected. +Always, for nearly as many years as he could remember, when he had +kissed her she had seemed to evade the statement of any positive and +ordinary affection. Her personality had fluttered for a moment to his +embrace and fled more than swiftly. In one moment as Michael kissed her +now, the years were swept away, and he was sitting up for an extra half +hour at the seaside, while she with her face flushed by another August +sunset was leaning over him. The river became the sea, and the noise of +the people on the Embankment were the people walking on the promenade +below. In one moment as Michael kissed her now, her embrace gave to him +what it had not given during all the years between—a consciousness that +he depended upon her life.</p> + +<p>“Dearest boy,” she murmured, “how good of you to come back so quickly +from the Carthews!”</p> + +<p>“But I would much rather be with you,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>Indeed, as he sat beside her holding her hand, he wondered to himself +how he had been able to afford to miss so many opportunities of sitting +like this, and immediately afterward wondered at himself for being able +to sit like this without any secret dread that he was making himself +absurd by too much demonstrativeness. After all, it was very easy to +show emotion even to one’s mother without being ridiculous.</p> + +<p>“Poor Dicky Prescott,” she said, and tears quickly blurred her great +gray eyes and hung quivering on the shadowy lashes beneath. Michael held +her hand closer when he saw she was beginning to cry. He felt no awe of +her grief, as he had when she told him of his father’s death. This +simpler sorrow brought her so much nearer to him. She<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> was speaking of +Prescott’s death as she might have spoken of the loss of a cherished +possession, a dog perhaps or some familiar piece of jewelry.</p> + +<p>“I shall never get used to not having him to advise me. Besides, he was +the only person to whom I could talk about Charles—about your father. +Dicky was so bound up with all my life. So long as he was alive, I had +some of the past with me.”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded with comprehending gravity of assent.</p> + +<p>“Darling boy, I don’t mean that you and darling Stella are not of course +much more deeply precious to me. You are. But I can’t help thinking of +that poor dear man, and the way he and Charles used to walk up and down +the quarter-deck, and I remember once Charles lent him a stud. It’s the +silly little sentimental memories like that which are so terribly +upsetting when they’re suddenly taken away.”</p> + +<p>Now she broke down altogether, and Michael with his arms about her, held +her while she wept.</p> + +<p>“Dearest mother, when you cry I seem to hold you very safely,” he +whispered. “I don’t feel you’ll ever again be able to escape.”</p> + +<p>She had ceased from her sobbing with a sudden shiver and catch of the +breath and looked at him with frightened eyes.</p> + +<p>“Michael, he once said that to me ... before you were born. Before ... +on a hillside it was ... how terribly well I remember.”</p> + +<p>Michael did not want her to speak of his father. He felt too helpless in +the presence of that memory. The death of Prescott was another matter, a +trivial and pathetic thing. Quickly he brought his mother back to that, +until she was tired with the flowing of many tears.</p> + +<p>Michael spent the rest of the Long Vacation with his mother in London, +and gradually he made himself a companion to her. They went to theaters +together, because it<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> gave her a sentimental pleasure to think how much +poor Dicky Prescott would have enjoyed this piece once upon a time. +Between them was the unspoken thought of how much somebody else would +have enjoyed this piece also. Michael teased his mother lightly about +her bazaars, until she told him he was turning into a second Prescott +himself. He discussed seriously the problem of Stella, but he did not +say a word of his hope that she would fall in love with Alan. Alan, +however, who was already back in town, came to spend week-ends that were +very much like the week-ends spent at Carlington Road in the past. Mrs. +Fane enjoyed dining with her son and his friend. She asked the same sort +of delightfully foolish questions about Oxford that she used to ask +about school. In October Mrs. Carruthers arrived back in town, and by +this time Mrs. Fane was ready to begin again to flit from charity to +charity, and from fad to fad. Yet, however much she seemed to become +again her old elusive, exquisite self, Michael never again let her +escape entirely from the intimacy which had been created by the +sentimental shock of Prescott’s death, and he went up for his third year +at Oxford with a feeling that somehow during this vacation he had grown +more sure of himself and to his mother more precious.</p> + +<p>“What have you done this vac?” they asked him in Venner’s on the night +of reunion.</p> + +<p>“Nothing very much,” he said, and to himself he thought less than usual +in fact, and yet really in one way such a very great deal.<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + +<h4>202 HIGH</h4> + +<p>The large room at 202 High Street which Michael shared with Grainger and +Lonsdale was perhaps in the annals of university lodgings the most +famous. According to tradition, the house was originally part of the +palace of a cardinal. Whether it had been the habitation of +ecclesiastical greatness or not, it had certainly harbored grandeur of +some kind; to this testified the two fireplaces surmounted by +coats-of-arms in carved oak that enhanced this five-windowed room with a +dignity which no other undergraduate lodging could claim. The house at +this period was kept by a retired college cook, who produced for dinner +parties wonderful old silver which all his tenants believed to have been +stolen from the kitchen of his college. The large room of 202 High gave +the house its character, but there were many other rooms besides. +Wedderburn, for instance had on the third story a sitting-room whose +white paneling and Georgian grace had been occupied by generations of +the transitory exquisites of art and fashion. Downstairs in the aqueous +twilight created by a back garden was the dining-room which the four of +them possessed in common. As for the other lodgers, none were St. Mary’s +men, and their existence was only alluded to by Michael and his friends +when the ex-cook charged them for these strangers’ entertainments.</p> + +<p>Michael was the first to arrive at Two Hundred and Two,<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> and he +immediately set to work to arrange in the way that pleased him best the +decorative and personal adjuncts contributed by Grainger, Lonsdale, and +himself. For his own library he found a fine set of cupboards which he +completely filled. The books of Grainger and Lonsdale he banished to the +dining-room, where their scant numbers competed for space on the shelves +with jars of marmalade, egg-cups, and toast-racks. The inconvenience of +the confusion was helpfully obviated first by the fact that their +collection, or rather their accumulation, was nearly throughout in +duplicate owing to the similar literary tastes and intellectual travaux +forcés of Grainger and Lonsdale, and secondly by the fact that for a +year to neither taste nor intellect was there frequent resort. With +their pictures Michael found the same difficulty of duplication, but as +there were two fireplaces he took an ingenious delight in supporting +each fireplace with similar pictures, so that Thorburn’s grouse, Cecil +Aldin’s brilliant billiard-rooms, Sir Galahad and Eton Society were to +be found at either end. Elsewhere on the spacious walls he hung his own +Blakes and Frederick Walkers, and the engraving of the morning stars +singing together he feathered with the photographic souvenirs of +Lonsdale’s fagdom. As for the pictures that belonged to the ex-cook, +mostly very large photogravures of Marcus Stone such as one sees in the +corridors of theaters, these he took upstairs and with them covered +Wedderburn’s white-paneled walls after he had removed the carefully hung +Dürers to the bathroom. This transference wasted a good deal of time, +but gave him enough amusement when Wedderburn arrived to justify the +operation. The pictures all disposed, he called for a carpenter to hang +Grainger’s triumphal oars and Lonsdale’s hunting trophies of masks, pads +and brushes, and surveyed with considerable satisfaction the +accumulative effect of the great room now characterized by their joint +possessions.<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> Michael was admiring his work when Lonsdale arrived and +greeted him boisterously.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! I say, are we all straight? How topping! But wait a bit. I’ve +got something that’s going to put the jolly old lid on this jolly old +room. What’s the name of the joker who keeps these digs? Macpherson?”</p> + +<p>He shouted from the landing to the ex-cook.</p> + +<p>“I say, send up the packing-case that’s waiting for me downstairs.”</p> + +<p>Michael inquired what was inside.</p> + +<p>“Wait a bit, my son,” said the beaming owner. “I’ve got something in +there that’s going to make old Wedders absolutely green. I’ve thought +this out. I told my governor I was going into digs with some of the +æsthetic push and didn’t want to be cut out, so he’s lent me this.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth is it?” Michael asked on a note of ambiguous welcome.</p> + +<p>The packing-case shaped like a coffin had been set down on the floor by +the ex-cook and his slave. Lonsdale was wrenching off the top.</p> + +<p>“I had a choice between a mummy and a what d’ye call it, and I chose the +what d’ye call it,” said Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>He had torn the last piece of the cover away, and lying in straw was +revealed the complete armor of a Samurai.</p> + +<p>“Rum-looking beggar. Worth twenty of those rotten statues of +Wedderburn’s. It was a present to the governor from somebody in the +East, but as I promised not to go to dances in it, he lent it to me. +Rather sporting of him, what? Where shall we put him?”</p> + +<p>“I vote we hide it till this evening,” suggested Michael, “and then put +it in Wedder’s bed. He’ll think he’s in the wrong room.”</p> + +<p>“Ripping!” cried Lonsdale. “In pyjamas, what?”</p> + +<p>That Japanese warrior never occupied the æsthetic niche<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> that Lord +Cleveden from his son’s proposal may have thought he would occupy. +Otherwise he played an important part in the life of Two Hundred and +Two. Never did any visitor come to stay for the week-end, but Sammy, as +he was soon called, was set to warm his bed. To Lonsdale, returning home +mildly drunk from Trinity Clareter or Phoenix Wine, he was always ready +to serve as a courteous listener of his rambling account of an evening’s +adventures. He was borrowed by other digs to annoy the landladies: he +went for drives in motor cars to puzzle country inns. Lonsdale tried to +make him into a college mascot, and he drove in state to the St. Mary’s +grind on the box seat of the coach. He was put down on the pavement +outside the lodge with a plate for pennies and a label “Blind” round his +neck. But Sammy’s end was a sad one. He had been sent to call on the +Warden, and was last seen leaning in a despondent attitude against the +Warden’s gothic door. Whether the butler broke him up when Sammy fell +forward onto his toes, or whether he was imprisoned eternally in a coal +cellar, no one knew. Lord Cleveden was informed he had been stolen.</p> + +<p>If Michael had tried hard to find two people in whose company it would +be more difficult to work than with any other pair in the university, he +could scarcely have chosen better than Lonsdale and Grainger. Neither of +them was reading an Honor School, and the groups called H2 or C3 or X26, +that with each term’s climax they were compelled to pass in order to +acquire the degree of bachelor of arts, produced about a week before +their ordeal a state of irritable industry, but otherwise were unheeded. +Michael was not sorry to let his own reading beyond the irreducible +minimum slide during this gay third year. He promised himself a fourth +year, when he would withdraw from this side of Oxford life and in some +cloistered digs work really hard.<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> Meanwhile, he enjoyed 202 High as the +quintessence of youth’s amenity.</p> + +<p>Some of the most enduring impressions of Oxford were made now, though +they were not perhaps impressions that marked any development in himself +by intellectual achievements or spiritual crises. In fact, at the time +the impressions seemed fleeting enough; and it was only when the third +year was over, when Two Hundred and Two was dismantled of every vestige +of this transient occupation that Michael in summoning these impressions +from the past recaptured, often from merely pictorial recollections, as +much of Oxford as was necessary to tell him how much Oxford had meant.</p> + +<p>There were misty twilights in November when Lonsdale came back spattered +with mud after a day with the Bicester or the V.W.H. At such an hour +Michael, who had probably been sitting alone by the roaring fire, was +always ready to fling away his book, and, while Lonsdale grunted and +labored to pull off his riding-boots to hear the tale of a great run +across a great piece of country.</p> + +<p>There was the autumn afternoon when Grainger stroked St. Mary’s to +victory in the Coxwainless Fours. Another oar was hung in Two Hundred +and Two, and a bonfire was made in Cuther’s quad to celebrate the +occasion. Afterward Grainger himself triumphantly drunk between Michael +and Lonsdale was slowly persuaded along the High and put to bed, while +Wedderburn prescribed in his deepest voice a dozen remedies.</p> + +<p>There were jovial dinner parties when rowing men from Univ and New +College sat gigantically round the table and ate gigantically and +laughed gigantically, and were taken upstairs to Wedderburn’s dim-lit +room to admire his statues of Apollo, his old embroideries and his Dürer +woodcuts. These giants in their baggy blanket trousers, their +brass-buttoned coats and Leander ties nearly as pink as their<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> own +faces, made Wedderburn’s white Apollos look almost mincing and the +embroideries rather insipid. There were other dinner parties even more +jovial when the Palace of Delights, otherwise 202 High, entertained the +Hotel de Luxe, otherwise 230 High, the abode of Cuffe, Sterns, and +Sinclair, or the Chamber of Horrors, otherwise 61 Longwall, where +Maurice and Castleton lived. After dinner the guests and the hosts would +march arm in arm down to college and be just in time to make a +tremendous noise in Venner’s, after which they would visit some of the +second-year men, and with bridge to wind up the evening would march arm +in arm up the High and home again.</p> + +<p>In the Lent term there were windy afternoons with the St. Mary’s +beagles, when after a long run Lonsdale and Michael would lose the +college drag and hire a dogcart in which they would come spanking back +to Oxford with the March gale dying in their wake and the dusk gathering +fast. In the same term there was a hockey cup-match, when St. Mary’s was +drawn to play an unfamiliar college on the enemy’s ground. 202 High +wondered how on earth such an out-of-the-way ground could possibly be +reached, and the end of it was that a coach was ordered in which a dozen +people drove the mile or so to the field of play, with Lonsdale blowing +the horn all the way down High Street and Cornmarket Street and the +Woodstock Road.</p> + +<p>Michael during the year at Two Hundred and Two scarcely saw anybody who +was not in the heart of the main athletic vortex of the university. In +one way, his third year was a retrogression, for he was nearer to the +life of his first year than to his second. The Oxford Looking-Glass had +created for him a society representing various interests. This was now +broken up, partly by the death of the paper, partly by the more highly +intensified existence of the founders. Maurice certainly remained the +same and was already talking<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> of starting another paper. But Wedderburn +was beginning to think of a degree and was looking forward to entering +his father’s office and becoming in another year a prosperous partner in +a prosperous firm. Guy Hazlewood had gone down and was away in +Macedonia, trying to fulfill a Balliol precept to mix yourself up in the +affairs of other nations or your own as much as possible. Townsend and +Mowbray thought now of nothing but of being elected President of the +Union, and as Michael was not a member and hated politics he scarcely +saw them. Nigel Stewart had gone to Ely Theological College. The Oxford +Looking-Glass was shattered into many pieces. Alan, however, Michael saw +more often than last year, because Alan was very popular at Two Hundred +and Two.</p> + +<p>Michael more and more began to assume the opinions and the attitude of +his companions. He began more and more rigidly to apply their somewhat +naïve standards in his judgment of the world. He was as intolerant and +contemptuous as his friends of any breach of what he almost stated to +himself as the public-school tradition. Oxford was divided into Bad Men +and Good Eggs. The Bad Men went up to London and womanized—some even of +the worst womanized in Oxford: they dressed in a style that either by +its dowdiness or its smartness stamped them: they wore college colors +round their straw hats and for their ties: they were quiet, +surreptitious, diligent, or blatantly rowdy in small sections, and at +least half the colleges in the Varsity contained nothing but Bad Men. +The Good Eggs went up to London and got drunk; and if they womanized no +one must know anything about it. Drink was the only vice that should be +enjoyed communely; in fact, if it were enjoyed secretly, it transformed +the victim into the very worst of Bad Men. The Good Eggs never made a +mistake in dress: they only wore old school colors or Varsity club<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> +colors: they were bonhomous, hearty, careless, and rowdy in large +groups. Only the men from about eight colleges were presumed to be Good +Eggs: the rest of the Varsity had to demonstrate its goodness.</p> + +<p>Michael sometimes had misgivings about this narrowly selected paucity of +Good Eggs. He never doubted that those chosen were deservedly chosen, +but he did sometimes speculate whether in the masses of the Bad Men +there might not be a few Good Eggs unrecognized as Eggs, unhonored for +their Goodness. Yet whenever he made an excursion into the midst of the +Bad Men, he was always bound to admit the refreshment of his very firm +prejudice in favor of the Good Eggs. What was so astonishing about Good +Eggery was the members’ obvious equipment for citizenship of the world +as opposed to the provincialism of Bad Mannery. Unquestionably it was +possible to meet the most intelligent, the most widely read Bad Men; but +intellect and culture were swamped by their barbarous self-proclamation. +They suffered from an even bitterer snobbishness than the Good Eggs. In +the latter case, the snobbishness was largely an inherited pride: with +the Bad Men it was obviously an acquired vanity. Where, however, Michael +found himself at odds with Good Eggery was in the admission to titular +respect of the Christ Church blood. This growing toleration was being +conspicuously exemplified in the attitude of St. Mary’s, that most +securely woven and most intimate nest of Good Eggery.</p> + +<p>When Michael had first come up there had been an inclination at his +college to regard with as much contemptuous indifference an election to +the Bullingdon as an election to the Union. It was tacitly understood at +St. Mary’s that nothing was necessary to enhance the glory of being a +St. Mary’s man. Gradually, however, the preponderance of Etonian +influence outweighed the conventional self-sufficiency<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> of the +Wykehamists, and several men in Michael’s year joined the Bullingdon, +one of the earliest of these destroyers of tradition being Lonsdale. The +result of this action was very definitely a disproportion in the +individual expenditure of members of the college. St. Mary’s had always +been a college for relatively rich men, but in accordance with the +spirit of the college to form itself into an aristocratic republic, it +had for long been considered bad form to spend more than was enough to +sustain each member of this republic on an equality with his fellows.</p> + +<p>Now Lonsdale was so obviously a Good Egg that it did not matter when he +played with equal zest roulette and polo or hunted three times a week or +wore clothes of the last extreme of fashion. But Michael and Grainger +were not sure they cared very much for all of Lonsdale’s friends from +the House. Certainly they were Etonians and members of the Bullingdon, +but so many of their names were curiously familiar from the hoardings of +advertisements that neither Michael nor Grainger could altogether +believe in their assumption of the privilege of exclusion on the ground +of inherited names.</p> + +<p>“I think these Bullingdon bloods are rather rotters,” protested Michael, +after an irritating evening of vacuous wealth.</p> + +<p>“I <i>must</i> ask them in sometimes,” apologized Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“Why?” rumbled Wedderburn, and on his note of interrogation the +Bullingdon bloods were impaled to swing unannaled.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think all this sort of thing is very good for the college,” +debated Grainger. “It’s all very well for you, Lonny, but some of the +second-year men behave rather stupidly. Personally I hate roulette at +St. Mary’s. As for some of the would-be fresher bloods, they’re like a +lot of damned cavalry subalterns.”<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p> + +<p>“You can’t expect the college to be handed over entirely to the rowing +push,” said Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“That’s better than turning Venner’s into Tattersall’s,” said +Wedderburn.</p> + +<p>The effect of enlarging the inclusiveness of Good Eggery was certainly +to breed a suspicion that it was largely a matter of externals; and +therefore among the St. Mary’s men who disliked the application of money +as a social standard an inclination grew up to suppose that Good Eggery +might be enlarged on the other side. The feeling of the college, that +elusive and indefinable aroma of opinion, declared itself unmistakably +in this direction, and many Bad Men became Good Eggs.</p> + +<p>“We’re all growing older,” said Michael to Wedderburn in explanation of +the subtle change manifesting itself. “And I suppose a little wiser. +Castleton will be elected President of the J.C.R. at the end of this +year. Not Tommy Grainger, although he’ll be President of the O.U.B.C., +not Sterne, although he’ll be in the Varsity Eleven. Castleton will be +elected because he never has believed and he never will believe in mere +externals.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless for all of his third year, with whatever fleeting doubts he +had about the progress of St. Mary’s along the lines laid down by the +Good Eggery of earlier generations, Michael remained a very devoted +adherent of the principle. He was able to perceive something more than +mere externals in the Best Eggery. This was not merely created by money +or correct habiliment or athletic virtuosity. This existed inherently in +a large number of contemporary undergraduates. Through this they +achieved the right to call themselves the Best. It was less an assertion +of snobbishness than of faith. Good Eggery had really become a religion. +It was not inconsistent with Christianity: indeed, it probably derived +itself from Christianity through<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> many mailclad and muscular +intercedents. Yet it shrank from anything definitely spiritual as it +would have shrunk from the Salvation Army. Men who intended to be +parsons were of course exceptions, but parsons were regarded as a facet +of the existing social order rather than as trustees for the heirs of +universal truth. Social service was encouraged by fashion, so long as it +meant no more than the supporting of the College Mission in the slums of +Bristol by occasional week-ends. Members of the college would play +billiards in the club for dockhands under or over seventeen, would +subscribe a guinea a year, and as a great concession would attend the +annual report in the J.C.R. There must, however, be no more extravagance +in religion and social service than there should be in dress. The +priestly caste of Good Eggery was represented not by the parsons, but by +the schoolmasters and certain dons. The schoolmasters were the most +powerful, and tried to sustain the legend common to all priestly castes +that they themselves made the religion rather than that they were mere +servants of an idea. Mature Good Eggs affected to laugh at the +schoolmasters whose leading-strings they had severed, but an instinctive +fear endured, so that in time to come Good Egglets would be handed over +for the craft to mold as they had molded their fathers. It could +scarcely be denied that schoolmasters like priests were disinclined to +face facts: it was indubitable that they lived an essentially artificial +life: it was certain that they fostered a clod-headed bigotry, that they +were tempted to regard themselves as philanthropists, that they feared +dreadfully the intrusion of secular influence. It could scarcely be +denied that the Schoolmasterdom of England was a priestcraft as powerful +and arrogant as any which had ever been. But they were gentlemen, that +is to say they shaved oftener than Neapolitan priests; they took a cold +bath in the morning, which probably<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> Calvin’s ministers never did; they +were far more politely restrained than the Bacchantes and not less +chaste than the Vestal Virgins. These clean and honest, if generally +rather stupid gentlemen, were the wielders of that afflatus, the +public-school spirit, and so far as Michael could see at present, Good +Eggs were more safe morally with that inspiration than they might have +been with any other. And if a touch of mysticism were needed, it might +be supplied by Freemasonry at the Apollo Lodge; while the Boy Scouts +were beginning to show how admirably this public-school spirit could +blow through the most unpromising material of the middle classes.</p> + +<p>Michael so much enjoyed the consciousness of merit which is the supreme +inducement offered by all successful religions, and more than any by +Good Eggery, that he made up his mind quite finally that Good Eggery +would carry him through his existence, however much it were complicated +by the problem of Bad Mannery. During that year at Two Hundred and Two +he grew more and more deeply convinced that to challenge any moral +postulate of Good Eggery was merely contumacious self-esteem. One of the +great principles of Good Eggery was that the Good Egg must only esteem +himself as a valuable unit in Good Eggery. His self-esteem was entitled +to rise in proportion with the distance he could run or kick or throw or +hit.</p> + +<p>Analyzed sharply, Michael admitted that Good Eggery rested on very frail +foundations, and it was really surprising with what enthusiasm it +managed to sustain the Good Eggs themselves, so that apparently without +either spiritual exaltation or despair, without disinterested politics +or patriotism, without any deep humanity even, the Good Eggs were still +so very obviously good. Certainly the suicide of Prescott made Michael +wonder how much that rather ignominious surrender by such a Good Egg +might have been<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> avoided with something profounder than Good Eggery at +the back of life’s experience. But suicide was an accident, Michael +decided, and could not be used in the arguments against the fundamental +soundness of Good Eggery as the finest social nourishment in these days +of a bourgeoning century.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, at St. Mary’s the Good Eggs flourished, and time went by with +unexampled swiftness. In the last days of the Lent term, after St. +Mary’s had been defeated by Christ Church in the final of the +Association Cup, Michael, Grainger and Lonsdale determined to drown woe +by a triple Twenty-firster. Every contemporary Good Egg in St. Mary’s +and several from other colleges were invited. Forty Good Eggs, groomed +and polished and starched, sat down at the Clarendon to celebrate this +triple majority. Upon that banquet age did not lay one hesitant touch. +The attainment of discretion was celebrated in what might almost have +been hailed as a debauch of youthfulness. Forty Good Eggs drank +forty-eight bottles of Perrier Jouet ’93. They drank indeed the last +four dozen gages of that superb summer stored in the J.C.R., the last +four dozen lachrymatories of the 1893 sun, nor could it be said that +vintage of Champagne had funeral games unworthy of its foam and fire. +Forty Good Eggs went swinging out of the Clarendon about half-past nine +o’clock, making almost more noise than even the Corn had ever heard. +Forty Good Eggs went swinging along toward Carfax, swinging and singing, +temporarily deified by the last four dozen of Perrier Jouet ’93. Riotous +feats were performed all down the High. Two trams were unhorsed. Hansoms +were raced. Bells were rung. Forty Good Eggs, gloriously, ravishingly +drunk, surged into the lodge. There was just time to see old Venner. In +the quiet office was pandemonium. Good Eggs were dancing hornpipes; Good +Eggs were steadying themselves with<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> cognac; Good Eggs were gently +herded out of the little office as ten o’clock chimed. “Bonner! Bonner!” +the forty Good Eggs shouted, and off they went not to St. Cuthbert’s, +but actually to the great lawn in front of New Quad. Third-year men when +they did come into college roaring drunk took no half-measures of +celebration. Excited freshmen and second-year men came swarming out of +Cloisters, out of Parsons’ Quad, out of Cuther’s to support these wild +seniors. What a bonfire it was! Thirty-one chairs, three tables, two +doors, twelve lavatory seats, every bundle of faggots in college and +George Appleby’s bed. Somebody had brought Roman candles. O exquisite +blue and emerald stars! Somebody else had brought Chinese crackers as +big as red chimneys. O sublime din! Lonsdale was on the roof of +Cloisters trying to kill a gargoyle with hurtling syphons. Michael was +tossing up all by himself to decide whether he should tell the Senior +Tutor or the Warden what he really thought of him. A fat welterweight, a +straggler from New College, had been shorn of his coat-tails, and was +plunging about like an overgrown Eton boy. With crimson faces and +ruffled hair and scorched shirt-fronts the guests of the Twenty-firster +acclaimed to-night as the finest tribute ever paid to years of +discretion.</p> + +<p>Next morning the three hosts paid ten guineas each to the Dean.</p> + +<p>“I thought you people were supposed to have come of age,” he said +sardonically.</p> + +<p>So incomparably slight was the hang-over from Perrier Jouet ’93 that +Grainger, Lonsdale, and Michael smiled very cheerfully, produced their +check books, and would, if Mr. Ambrose had not been so discouraging, +have been really chatty.</p> + +<p>After Collections of Lent term, that opportunity accepted by the college +authorities to be offensive in bulk, Michael felt<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> his historical +studies were scarcely betraying such an impulse toward research as might +have been expected of him at this stage. Mr. Harbottle, the History +tutor, an abrupt and pleasant man with the appearance of a cat and the +manners of a dog, yapped vituperations from where he sat with all the +other dons in judgment along the High Table in Hall.</p> + +<p>The Warden turned on his orbit and shone full-faced upon Michael.</p> + +<p>“A little more work, Mr. Fane, will encourage us all. Your Collection +papers have evidently planted a doubt in Mr. Harbottle’s mind.”</p> + +<p>“He never does a stroke of honest work, Warden,” yapped the History +tutor. “If he stays up ten years he’ll never get a Fourth.”</p> + +<p>“In spite of Mr. Harbottle’s discouraging prophecy, we must continue to +hope, Mr. Fane, that you will obtain at least a Second next term.”</p> + +<p>“Next term!” Michael gasped. “But I was expecting to take Schools next +year.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid,” said the Warden, “that according to Mr. Ambrose the fabric +of the college will scarcely survive another year of your residence. I +believe I echo your views, Mr. Ambrose?”</p> + +<p>The Dean blinked his gray eye and finally said that possibly Mr. Fane +would change next term, adding that a more immediately serious matter +was a deficit of no less than seven chapels. Michael pointed out that he +designed in his fourth year to go as it were into industrious solitude +far away from St. Mary’s.</p> + +<p>“Are you suggesting Iffley?” inquired the Warden.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, not so far as that; but right away,” said Michael. “Somewhere +near Keble. Miles away.”</p> + +<p>“But we have to consider next term,” the Warden urged.<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> “Next term, I +take it, you will still be occupied with the fashionable distractions of +High Street?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll make an offer,” barked Mr. Harbottle. “If he likes to do another +Collection paper at the beginning of next term, and does it +satisfactorily, I will withdraw my opposition, and as far as I’m +concerned he can take his Schools next year.”</p> + +<p>“What luck?” asked everybody in the lodge when Michael had emerged from +the ordeal.</p> + +<p>“I had rather a hot time,” said Michael. “Still Harbottle behaved like a +gentleman on the whole.”</p> + +<p>Maurice arrived in the lodge soon after Michael, and conveyed the +impression that he had left the tutorial forces of the college reeling +under the effect of his witty cannonade. Then Michael went off to +interview the Dean in order to adjust the difficulty which had been +created by the arrears of his early rising. With much generosity he +admitted the whole seven abstentions, and was willing not merely to stay +up a week to correct the deficit, but suggested that he should spend all +the Easter vacation working in Oxford.</p> + +<p>So it fell out that Michael managed to secure his fourth year, and in +the tranquillity of that Easter vacation it seemed to him that he began +to love Oxford for the first time with a truly intense passion and that +a little learning was the least tribute he could offer in esteem. It was +strange how suddenly history became charged with magic. Perhaps the +Academic Muse sometimes offered this inspiration, if one spent hours +alone with her. Michael was sad when the summer term arrived in its +course. So many Good Eggs would be going down for ever after this term, +and upon Two Hundred and Two High brooded the shadow of dissolution. +Alan again hovered on the edge of the Varsity Eleven, but a freshman who +bowled rather better the same sort of<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> ball came up, and it seemed +improbable he would get his Blue. However, the disappointment was +evidently not so hard for Alan to bear nowadays. He was indeed becoming +gravely interested in philosophy, and Michael was forced to admit that +he seemed to be acquiring most unexpectedly a real intellectual grasp of +life. So much the better for their companionship next year in those +rooms in St. Giles’ which Michael had already chosen.</p> + +<p>The summer term was going by fast. It was becoming an experience almost +too fugitive to be borne, this last summer term at Two Hundred and Two. +Michael, Grainger, and Lonsdale had scarcely known how to endure some +offensive second-year men from Oriel being shown their room for next +year. They resented the thought of these Oriel men leaning out of the +window and throwing cushions at their friends and turning to the left to +keep a chapel at Oriel, instead of scudding down to St. Mary’s on the +right. Wedderburn was always the one who voiced sentimentally the +unexpressed regrets of the other three. He it was who spoke of the grime +and labor of the paternal office, of Life with a capital letter as large +as any lady novelist’s, and of how one would remember these evenings and +the leaning-out over a cushioned window-sill and the poring upon this +majestic street.</p> + +<p>“We don’t realize our good luck until it’s too late really,” said +Wedderburn seriously. “We’ve wasted our time, and now we’ve got to go.”</p> + +<p>“Well, dash it all, Wedders,” said Lonsdale, “don’t talk as if we were +going to bolt for a train before hall. We aren’t going down for three +weeks yet, and jolly old Michael and jolly old Tommy aren’t going down +for another year.”</p> + +<p>“Lucky devils!” sighed Wedderburn. “By gad, if I only had my time at the +Varsity all over again.”<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a></p> + +<p>But just when Wedderburn had by his solemnity almost managed really to +impress the company with a sense of fleeting time, and when even upon +Lonsdale was descending the melancholy of the deep-dyed afternoon, +across the road they could see sauntering three men whom they all knew +well.</p> + +<p>“Tally-ho-ho-ho-whooop!” shouted Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>The three men saluted thus came upstairs to the big room of Two Hundred +and Two, and a bout of amiable ragging and rotting passed away the hour +before dinner and restored to the big room itself the wonted air of +imperishable good-fellowship.</p> + +<p>“Lucky you lads turned up,” said Lonsdale. “Old Wedders has been moping +in his window-seat like a half-plucked pigeon. We’re dining in hall +to-night, are you?”</p> + +<p>The newcomers were dining in hall, and so in a wide line of brilliant +ties and ribbons the seven of them strolled down to college.</p> + +<p>There were very few people in hall that night, and Venner’s was +pleasantly empty. Venner himself was full of anecdotes, and as they sat +on the table in the middle of the room, drinking their coffee, it seemed +impossible enough to imagine that they would not be forever here +drinking their coffee on a fine June evening.</p> + +<p>“Going down soon, Venner,” said Wedderburn, who was determined to make +somebody sad.</p> + +<p>“What a pity you’re not taking a fourth year!” said Venner. “You ought +to have read an Honor School. I always advise the men to read for +honors. The dons like it, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Got to go and earn my living, Venner,” said Wedderburn.</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Venner cheerfully. “Then you’ll<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> be married all the +sooner, or perhaps you’re not a marrying man.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t found the right girl yet, Venner,” said Wedderburn.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” chuckled Venner. “You don’t want to be +thinking about girls up here. Some of our men go getting engaged before +they’ve gone down, and it always messes them up in the Schools.”</p> + +<p>Maurice Avery came in while Venner was speaking. He seemed restless and +worried, and as Venner went on his restlessness increased.</p> + +<p>“But very few of our men have got into trouble here with girls. We had +one man once who married a widow. He was dreadfully chaffed about it, +and couldn’t stand it any longer. The men never let him alone.”</p> + +<p>“Married a widow, while he was still up?” people asked incredulously.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” said Venner. “And actually brought her down for Eights and +introduced her to the Warden on the barge. She was a most severe-looking +woman, and old enough to be his mother. There was some trouble once at +202 High—that’s where you are, isn’t it?” He turned to Lonsdale. “But +there won’t be any more trouble because Macpherson vowed he wouldn’t +have a servant-girl in the house again.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose that’s why we have that perspiring boy,” grumbled Wedderburn. +“But what happened, Venner?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the usual thing, of course. There were five of our men living +there that year, and she picked out the quietest one of the lot and said +it was him. He had to pay fifty pounds, and when he’d paid it all, the +other four came up to him one by one and offered to pay half.”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed, and Maurice suddenly announced that he was in a devil +of a fix with a girl.<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a></p> + +<p>“A girl at a village near here,” he explained. “There’s no question of +her having a baby or anything like that, you know; but her brother +followed me home one night, and yesterday her father turned up. I got +Castleton to talk to him. But it was damned awkward. He and old +Castleton were arguing like hell in our digs.”</p> + +<p>Maurice stopped and, lighting a cigarette, looked round him as if +expectant of the laughter which had hailed Venner’s story. Nobody seemed +to have any comment to make, and Michael felt himself blushing violently +for his friend.</p> + +<p>“Bit chilly in here to-night, Venner,” said Lonsdale.</p> + +<p>“You are a confounded lot of prigs!” said Maurice angrily, and he walked +out of Venner’s just as Castleton came in.</p> + +<p>“My dear old Frank Castleton,” said Lonsdale immediately, “I love you +very much and I think your hair is beautifully brushed, but you really +must talk to our Mr. Avery very, very seriously. He mustn’t be allowed +to make such a bee-luddy fool of himself by talking like a third-rate +actor.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” asked Castleton gruffly.</p> + +<p>Lonsdale explained what Maurice had done, and Castleton looked +surprised, but he would not take part in the condemnation.</p> + +<p>“You’re all friends of his in here,” he pointed out. “He probably +thought it was a funny story.” There was just so much emphasis on the +pronoun as made the critics realize that Castleton himself was really +more annoyed than he had superficially appeared.</p> + +<p>An awkwardness had arisen through the inculpation of Maurice, and +everybody found they had work to do that evening. Quickly Venner’s was +emptied.</p> + +<p>Michael, turning out of Cloisters to stroll for a while on the lawns of +New Quad before he gave himself to the generalizations of whatever +historian he had chosen to beguile<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> this summer night, came up to +Maurice leaning over the parapet by the Cher.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, are you going to condescend to speak to me after the brick I +dropped in Venner’s?” asked Maurice bitterly.</p> + +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t be so theatrically sarcastic,” complained Michael, +who was half-unconsciously pursuing the simile which lately Lonsdale had +found for Maurice’s behavior.</p> + +<p>“Well, why on earth,” Maurice broke out, “it should be funny when Venner +tells a story about some old St. Mary’s man and yet be”—he paused, +evidently too vain, thought Michael a little cruelly, to stigmatize +himself—“and yet be considered contrary to what is <i>done</i> when I tell a +story about myself, I don’t quite know, I must admit.”</p> + +<p>“It was the introduction of the personal element which made everybody +feel uncomfortable,” said Michael. “Venner’s tale had acquired the +impersonality of a legend.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, god, Michael, you do talk rot sometimes!” said Maurice fretfully. +“It’s nothing on earth but offensive and very youthful priggishness.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if I sounded like you,” said Michael, “when I talked rather +like you at about seventeen.”</p> + +<p>Maurice spluttered with rage at this, and Michael saw it would be +useless to remonstrate with him reasonably. He blamed himself for being +so intolerant and for not having with kindlier tact tried to point out +why he had made a mistake; and yet with all his self-reproach he could +not rid himself of what was something very near to active dislike of +Maurice at that moment.</p> + +<p>But Maurice went on, unperceiving.</p> + +<p>“I hate this silly pretense up here—and particularly at St. +Mary’s—that nobody ever looks at a woman. It’s nothing but infernal +hypocrisy. Upon my soul, I’m glad I’m going down this term. I really +couldn’t have stood another<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> year, playing with the fringe of existence. +It seems to me, Michael, if you’re sincere in this attitude of yours, +you’ll have a very dismal waking up from your dream. As for all the +others, I don’t count them. I’m sick of this schoolboy cant. Castleton’s +worth everybody else in this college put together. He was wonderful with +that hulking fellow who came banging at the door of our digs. I wonder +what you’d have done, if you’d been digging with me.”</p> + +<p>“Probably just what Castleton did,” said Michael coldly. “You evidently +weren’t at home. Now I must go and work. So long.”</p> + +<p>He left Maurice abruptly, angry with him, angry with himself. What could +have induced Maurice to make such a fool of himself in Venner’s? Why +hadn’t he been able to perceive the difference of his confession from +Venner’s legendary narration which, unfettered by the reality of present +emotions, had been taken under the protection of the comic spirit? The +scene in retrospect appeared improbable, just as improbable in one way, +just as shockingly improbable as the arrival of an angry rustic father +at some Varsity digs in Longwall. And why had he made the recollection +worse for himself by letting Maurice enlarge upon his indignation? It +had been bad enough before, but that petulant outbreak had turned an +accidental vulgarity into vulgarity itself most cruelly vocal. Back in +Two Hundred and Two, Michael heard the comments upon Maurice, and as +Grainger and Lonsdale delivered their judgment, he felt they had all +this time tolerated the offender merely for a certain capacity he +possessed for entertainment. They spoke of him now, as one might speak +of a disgraced servant.</p> + +<p>“Oh, let Maurice drop,” said Michael wearily. “It was one of those +miserable aberrations from tact which can happen to anybody. I’ve done +the same sort of thing<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> myself. It’s an involuntary spasm of +bad-manners, like sneezing over a crowded railway-carriage.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose one must make allowances,” said Grainger. “These +artistic devils are always liable to breaks.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Michael. “Hoist the Union Jack. It’s an +extraordinary thing, the calm way in which an Englishman is always ready +to make art responsible for everything.”</p> + +<p>Next day Maurice overtook Michael on the way to a lecture.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he began impetuously, “I made an awful fool of myself yesterday +evening. What shall I do?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I was really horribly worried, you know, and I think I rather jumped at +the opportunity to get the beastly business off my chest, as a sort of +joke.”</p> + +<p>“Come and dine at the Palace of Delights this evening,” Michael invited. +“And tell Frank Castleton to come.”</p> + +<p>“We can’t afford to be critical during the last fortnight of jolly old +Two Hundred and Two,” said Michael to Lonsdale and Grainger, when they +received rather gloomily at first the news of the invitation.</p> + +<p>Maurice in the course of the evening managed to reinstate himself. He so +very divertingly drew old Wedders on the subject of going down.</p> + +<p>The last week of the summer term arrived, and really it was very +depressing that so many Good Eggs were irrevocably going to be lost to +the St. Mary’s J.C.R.</p> + +<p>“I think my terminal dinner this term will have to be the same as my +first one,” said Michael. “Only twice as large.”</p> + +<p>So they all came, Cuffe and Sterne and Sinclair and a dozen more. And +just because so many of the guests were going down, not a word was said +about it. The old amiable<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> ragging and rotting went on as if the college +jokes of to-night would serve for another lustrum yet, as if Two Hundred +and Two would merely be empty of these familiar faces for the short +space of a vacation. Not a pipe was gone from its rack; not a picture +was as yet deposed; not a hint was given of change, either by the +material objects of the big room or by the merry and intimate community +that now thronged it. Then the college tenor was called upon for a song, +and perhaps without any intention of melancholy he sang O Moon of My +Delight. Scarcely was it possible even for these Good Eggs, so rigidly +conscious of each other’s rigidity, not to think sentimentally for a +moment how well the turning down of that empty glass applied to them. +The new mood that descended upon the company expressed itself in +reminiscence; and then, as if the sadness must for decency’s sake be +driven out, the college jester was called upon for the comic song whose +hebdomadal recurrence through nine terms had always provoked the same +delirious encore. Everything was going on as usual, and at a few minutes +to midnight Auld Lang Syne ought not to have been difficult. It had been +sung nearly as often as the comic song, but it was shouted more +fervently somehow, less in tune somehow, and the silence at its close +was very acute. Twelve o’clock was sounding; the guests went hurrying +out; and, leaning from the windows of Two Hundred and Two, Grainger, +Lonsdale, Wedderburn, and Michael heard their footsteps clattering down +the High.</p> + +<p>“I suppose we’d better begin sorting out our things to-morrow,” said +Michael.<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<h4>PLASHERS MEAD</h4> + +<p>Stella came back from Vienna for a month in the summer. Indeed she was +already arrived, when Michael reached Cheyne Walk. He was rather anxious +to insist directly to her that her disinclination to marry Prescott had +nothing to do with his death. Michael did not feel it would be good for +Stella at nineteen to believe to that extent in her power. One or two of +her letters had betrayed an amount of self-interest that Michael +considered unhealthy. With this idea in view, he was surprised when she +made no allusion to the subject, and resented a little that he must be +the one to lead up to it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t let’s talk of what happened nearly a year ago,” protested +Stella.</p> + +<p>“You were very much excited by it at the time,” Michael pointed out.</p> + +<p>“Ah, but lots of things have happened since then.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of things?”</p> + +<p>He disapproved of the suggestion that the suicide of a lifelong friend +was a drop in the ocean of incident that swayed round Stella.</p> + +<p>“Oh, loves and deaths and jealousies and ambitions,” said she lightly. +“Things do happen in Vienna. It’s much more eventful than Paris. I don’t +know what made me come back to London. I’m missing so much fun.”<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a></p> + +<p>This implication that he and his mother were dull company for her was +really rather irritating.</p> + +<p>“You’d better go and look up some of your Bohemian friends,” he advised +severely. “They’re probably all hanging about Chelsea still. It’s not +likely that any of them is farther on with his art than he was two years +ago. Who was that bounder you were so fond of, and that girl who +painted? Clarissa Vine, wasn’t she called? What about her?”</p> + +<p>“Poor old George,” said Stella. “I really must try and get hold of him. +I haven’t seen Clarie for some time. She made a fool of herself over +some man.”</p> + +<p>The result of Michael’s sarcastic challenge was actually a tea-party in +the big studio at 173 Cheyne Walk, which Stella herself described as +being like turning out a lumber-room of untidy emotions.</p> + +<p>“They’re as queer as old-fashioned clothes,” she said. “But rather +touching, don’t you think, Michael? Though after all,” she added +pensively, “I haven’t gone marching at a very great pace along that +triumphant career of mine. I don’t know that I’ve much reason to laugh +at them. Really in one way poor Clarie is in a better position than me. +At least she can afford to keep the man she’s living with. As for George +Ayliffe, since he gave up trying to paint the girls he was in love with, +he has become ‘one of our most promising realists.’”</p> + +<p>“He looks it,” said Michael sourly.</p> + +<p>What had happened to Stella during this last year? She had lost nearly +all her old air of detachment. Formerly a radiance of gloriously +unpassionate energy had shielded her from any close contact with the +vulgar or hectic or merely ordinary life round her. Michael had doubted +once or twice the wisdom of smoking cigars and had feared that artistic +license of speech and action might be carried too far, but,<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a> looking +back on his earlier opinion of Stella, he realized he had only been +doubtful on his own account. He had never really thought she ran the +least danger of doing anything more serious in its consequence than +would have been enough to involve him or his mother in a brief +embarrassment. Now, though he was at a loss to explain how he was aware +of the change, she had become vulnerable. With this new aspect of her +suddenly presented, he began to watch Stella with a trace of anxiety. He +was worried that she seemed so restless, so steadily bored in London. He +mistrusted the brightening of her eyes, when she spoke of soon going +back to Vienna. Then came a week when Stella was much occupied with +speculations about the Austrian post, and another week when she was +perturbed by what she seemed anxious to suppose its vagaries. A hint +from Michael that there was something more attractive in Vienna than a +new technique of the piano made her very angry; and since she had always +taken him into her confidence before, he tried to persuade himself that +his suspicion was absurd and to feel tremendously at ease when Stella +packed up in a hurry and went back with scarcely two days’ warning of +her departure to Vienna.</p> + +<p>It was a sign of the new intimacy of relation between himself and his +mother that Michael was able to approach naturally the subject of +Stella’s inquietude.</p> + +<p>“My dear boy, I’m just as much worried as you are,” Mrs. Fane assured +him. “I suppose I ought to have been much more unpleasant than I can +ever bear to make myself. No doubt I ought to have forbidden her quite +definitely to go back—or perhaps I should have insisted on going back +with her. Though I don’t know what I would have done in Vienna. They +make pastry there, don’t they? I daresay there are very good tea-shops.”</p> + +<p>“I think it would have been better,” said Michael firmly. Mrs. Fane +turned to him with a shrug of helplessness.<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a></p> + +<p>“My dear boy, you know how very unpleasant Stella can be when she is +crossed. Really very unpleasant indeed. Girls are so much more difficult +to manage than boys. And they begin by being so easy. But after eighteen +every month brings a new problem. Their clothes, you know. And of course +their behavior.”</p> + +<p>“It’s quite obvious what’s the matter,” said Michael. “Funny thing. I’ve +never concerned myself very much with Stella’s love-affairs before, but +this time she seemed less capable of looking after herself.”</p> + +<p>“Would you like to go out to Vienna?” she suggested.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, really, I must go away and work. Besides I shouldn’t do any +good. Nor would you,” Michael added abruptly.</p> + +<p>“I wish Dick Prescott were alive,” his mother sighed. “Really, you know, +Michael, I was shocked at Stella’s callousness over that business.”</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear mother, be fair. It wasn’t anything to do with Stella, +and she has no conventional affections. That’s one comfort—you do know +where you are with her. Now, let’s leave Stella alone and talk about +your plans. You’re sure you don’t mind my burying myself in the country? +I must work. I’m going down into Oxfordshire with Guy Hazlewood.”</p> + +<p>Michael had met Guy the other evening in the lobby of a theater. He had +come back from Macedonia with the intention of settling somewhere in the +country. He was going to devote himself to poetry, although he exacted +Michael’s pledge not to say a word of this plan for fear that people +would accuse him of an affected withdrawal. He was sensitive to the +strenuous creed of his old college, to that atmosphere of faint contempt +which surrounded a man who was not on the way toward administering +mankind or acres. He had not yet chosen his retreat. That would be +revealed<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> in a flash, if his prayer were to be granted. Meanwhile why +should not Michael accompany him to some Cotswold village? They would +ride out from Oxford on bicycles and when they had found the ideal inn, +they would stay there through August and September, prospecting the +country round. Michael was flattered by Guy’s desire for his +companionship. Of all the men he had known, he used to admire Guy the +most. Two months with him would be a pleasure he would not care to +forego, and it was easy enough to convince himself that he would be +powerless to influence Stella in any direction and that anyway, whether +he could or could not, it would be more serviceable for her character to +win or lose her own battles.</p> + +<p>Michael and Guy left Oxford in the mellow time of an afternoon in +earliest August and rode lazily along the Cheltenham road. At nightfall, +just as the stripling moon sank behind a spinney of firs that crowned +the farthest visible dip of that rolling way ahead across the wold, they +turned down into Wychford. The wide street of the town sloped very +rapidly to a valley of intertwining streams whence the air met them +still warm with the stored heat of the day, yet humid and languorous +after the dry upland. On either side, as they dipped luxuriously down +with their brakes gently whirring, mostly they were aware of many white +hollyhocks against the gray houses that were already bloomed with dusk +and often tremulous with the voyaging shadows of candle-light. At the +Stag Inn they found a great vaulted parlor, a delicate roast of lamb, a +salad very fragrant with mint and thyme, cream and gooseberries and ale.</p> + +<p>“This is particularly good ale,” said Guy.</p> + +<p>“Wonderful ale,” Michael echoed.</p> + +<p>Once again they filled their pewter mugs.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me exceptionally rich and tawny,” said Guy.<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a></p> + +<p>“And it has a very individual tang,” said Michael. “Another quart, I +think, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Two, almost,” Guy suggested, and Michael agreed at once.</p> + +<p>“I vote we stay here,” said Guy.</p> + +<p>“I’ll wire them to send along my books to-morrow,” decided Michael.</p> + +<p>After supper they went on down the street and came to the low parapet of +a bridge in one of whose triangular bays they stood, leaning over to +count in the stream below the blurred and jigging stars. Behind them in +the darkness was the melodious roar of falling water, and close at hand +the dusty smell of ivy. Farther exploration might have broken the spell +of mystery; so in silence they pored upon the gloom, until the rhythmic +calm and contemplation were destroyed by a belated wagon passing over +the bridge behind them. They went back to the Stag and that night in +four-posters slept soundly.</p> + +<p>Next morning Michael and Guy went after breakfast to visit the bridge on +which they had stood in the starlight. It managed curiously to sustain +the romantic associations with which they had endowed it on the night +before. A mighty sycamore, whose roots in their contest with the floods +had long grappled in desperate convolutions with the shelving bank of +the stream below, overshadowed the farther end: here also at right +angles was a line of gabled cottages crumbling into ruin and much +overgrown with creepers. They may have been old almshouses, but there +was no sign of habitation, and they seemed abandoned to chattering +sparrows whose draggled nests were everywhere visible in the ivy. Beyond +on the other side of the bridge the stream gurgled toward a sluice that +was now silent; and beyond this, gray buildings deep embowered in elms +and sycamores surrounded what was evidently a mill pool. They walked<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> on +to where the bridge became a road that in contrast with the massed trees +all round them shone dazzlingly in the sunshine. A high gray wall +bounded the easterly side; on the west the road was bordered by a low +quickset hedge that allowed a view of a wide valley through which the +river, having gathered once more its vagrant streams and brooks, flowed +in prodigal curves of silver as far as the eye could follow. The hills +that rose to right and left of the valley in bald curves were at this +season colorless beside the vivider green of the water-meadows at their +base, which was generally indeterminate on account of plantations whence +at long intervals the smoke of hidden mills and cottages ascended. When +the road had traversed the width of the valley, it trifurcated. One +branch followed westward the gentle undulations of the valley; a second +ran straight up the hill, disappearing over a stark sky-line almost +marine in its hint of space beyond. The main branch climbed the hill +diagonally to the right and conveyed a sense of adventure with a +milestone which said fifty miles to an undecipherable town.</p> + +<p>Michael and Guy took this widest road for a while, but they soon paused +by a gate to look back at Wychford. The sun shone high, and the beams +slanting transversely through the smoke of the chimneys in tier upon +tier gave the clustered gray roofs a superficial translucence like that +of an uncut gem. The little town built against the hill nowhere +straggled, and in its fortified economy and simplicity of line it might +have been cut on wood by a mediæval engraver. Higher up along the hill’s +ridge went rocketing east and west the windswept highway from Oxford +over the wold to Gloucestershire. They traced its course by the +telegraph-poles whose inclinations had so long been governed by the wind +that the mechanic trunks were as much a natural feature of the landscape +as the trees, themselves not much less lean and sparse. It was a view of +such extension that roads<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> more remote were faint scars on the hills, +and the streams of the valley narrowed ultimately to thin blades of +steel. The traffic of generations might be thought to have converged +upon this town, so much did it produce the effect of waiting upon that +hillside, so little sense did it have of seeming to obtrude its presence +upon the surroundings.</p> + +<p>Gradually the glances of Guy and Michael came back from the fading +horizons of this wide country to concentrate first upon the town and +then upon the spire that with glittering weather-vane rose lightly as +smoke from the gray fabric of its church, until finally they must have +rested simultaneously upon a long low house washed by one stream and by +another imprisoned within a small green island.</p> + +<p>“It’s to let,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Guy.</p> + +<p>The unspoken thought that went sailing off upon the painted board was +only expressed by the eagerness with which they stared at the proffered +house.</p> + +<p>“I might be able to take it,” said Guy at last.</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him in admiration. Such a project conceived in his +company did very definitely mark an altogether new stage and, as it +seemed to him, a somewhat advanced stage in his relationship with the +world.</p> + +<p>They discovered the entrance immediately behind the almshouses in the +smell of whose ivy they had lingered on the bridge last night. They +passed through a wooden gateway in a high gray wall and, walking down a +stained gravel path between a number of gnarled fruit trees trimmed as +espaliers to conform with an antique mode of insuring fertility, they +came at last round an overgrown corner close against the house. Seen +from the hillside, it had quickly refined itself to be for them at least +the intention of that great view, of that wide country of etched-in +detail. The just background had been given, the only background that<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> +would have enabled them to esteem all that was offered here in this form +of stone well-ordered, gray, indigenous, the sober crown of the valley.</p> + +<p>Guy from the moment he saw it had determined to take this house: his +inquiries about the rent and the drains, his discussion of the terms of +the agreement, of the dampness within, of the size of the garden were +the merest conventions of the house-hunter, empty questions whose +answers really had very slight bearing on the matter in hand. Here he +said to Michael he would retire: here he would live and write poetry: +here life would be escorted to the tread of great verse: here an eremite +of art he would show forth the austerity of his vocation.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Michael’s books arrived, and at Guy’s exhortation he worked +in the orchard of Plashers Mead—so the small property of some twenty +acres was called. Guy was busy all day with decorators and carpenters +and masons. The old landlord had immediately surrendered his house to so +enterprising a tenant; an agreement for three years had been signed; and +Guy was going to make all ready in summer that this very autumn with +what furniture he had he might inhabit his own house set among these +singing streams.</p> + +<p>Michael found it a little hard to pay the keenest attention to Anson’s +or to Dicey’s entertainment of his curiosity about the Constitution, too +much did the idea of Guy’s emancipation alluringly rustle as it were in +the tree-tops, too much did the thought of Guy’s unvexed life draw +Michael away from his books. And even if he could blot out Guy’s +prospect, it was impossible not to follow in fancy the goldfinches to +their thistle-fields remote and sunny, the goldfinches with their +flighted song.</p> + +<p>Summer passed, and Michael did not find that the amount of information +he had absorbed quite outweighed a powerful impression, that was shaping +in his mind, of having wasted<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> a good deal of time in staring at trees +and the funnels of light between them, in listening to the wind and the +stream, to the reapers and the progress of time.</p> + +<p>One evening in mid-September he and Guy went after supper to see how +some newly painted room looked by candlelight. They sat on a couple of +borrowed windsor chairs in the whitewashed room that Guy had chosen for +his own. Two candles stuck on the mantelpiece burned with motionless +spearheads of gold, and showed to their great satisfaction that by +candlelight as well as by day the green shelves freshly painted were +exactly the green they had expected. When they blew out the candles, +they realized, such a plenitude of silver light was left behind, that +the full moon of harvest was shining straight in through the easterly +bow window which overhung the stream.</p> + +<p>“By gad, what a glorious night!” sighed Guy, staring out at the orchard. +“We’ll take a walk, shall we?”</p> + +<p>They went through the orchard where the pears and pippins were lustered +by the sheen and glister of the moon. They walked on over grass that +sobbed in the dewfall beneath their footsteps. They faded from the world +into a web of mist when trees rose suddenly like giants before them and +in the depths of whose white glooms on either side they could hear the +ceaseless munching of bullocks at nocturnal pasturage. Then in a moment +they had left the mist behind them and stood in the heart of the valley, +watching for a while the willows jet black against the moon, and the +gleaming water at their base.</p> + +<p>“I wish you were going to be up next term,” said Michael. “I really can +hardly bear to think of you here. You are a lucky devil.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you come and join me?” Guy suggested,</p> + +<p>“I wish I could. Perhaps I will after next year. And yet what should I +do? I’ve dreamed enough. I must decide<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> what I’m going to <i>try</i> to do, +at any rate. You see, I’m not a poet. Guy, you ought to start a sort of +lay monastery—a house for people to retreat into for the purpose of +meditation upon their careers.”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, it would be a jolly good thing if some people did +do that.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Michael. “I should get caught in the web of the +meditation. I should hear the world as just now we heard those bullocks. +Guy, Wychford is a place of dreams. You’ll find that. You’ll live on and +on at Plashers Mead until everything about you turns into the sort of +radiant unreality we’ve seen to-night.”</p> + +<p>The church-clock with raucous whizz and clangor sounded ten strokes.</p> + +<p>“And time,” Michael went on, “will come to mean no more than a brief +disturbance of sound. Really I’m under the enchantment already. I’m +beginning to wonder if life really does hold a single problem that could +not be dissolved at once by this powerful moonshine.”</p> + +<p>Next day Michael said he must go back to London to-morrow since he +feared that if he dallied he would never go back. Guy could not dissuade +him from his resolve.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to spoil my picture of you in this valley,” Michael +explained. “You know, I feel inclined to put Plashers Mead into the +farthest recesses of my heart, so that whatever happens when I go down +next year, it will be so securely hidden that I shall have the mere +thought of it for a refuge.”</p> + +<p>“And more than the thought of it, you silly ass,” Guy drawled.</p> + +<p>They drove together to the railway station five miles away. In the +sleepy September heat the slow train puffed in. Hot people with bunches +of dahlias were bobbing to one another in nearly all the compartments. +Michael sighed.<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a></p> + +<p>“Don’t go,” said Guy. “It’s much too hot.”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I must.”</p> + +<p>Just then a porter came up to tell Guy there were three packing-cases +awaiting his disposal in the luggage-office.</p> + +<p>“Some of my books,” he shouted, as the train was puffing out. Michael +watched from the window Guy and the porter, the only figures among the +wine-dark dahlias of the platform.</p> + +<p>“What fun unpacking them,” he thought, and leaned back regretfully to +survey the placid country gliding past.</p> + +<p>Yet even after that secluded and sublunary town where Guy in retrospect +seemed to be moving as remotely as a knight in an old tale, London, or +rather the London which shows itself in the neighborhood of great +railway termini, impressed Michael with nearly as sharp a romantic +strangeness, so dreadfully immemorial appeared the pale children, +leaning over scabrous walls to salute the passing train. Always, as one +entered London, one beheld these children haunting the backs of houses +whose frontal existence as a mapped-out street was scarcely credible. To +Michael they were goblins that lived only in this gulley of fetid +sunlight through which the trains endlessly clanged. Riding through +London in a hansom a few minutes later, the people of the city became +unreal to him, and only those goblin-children remained in his mind as +the natural inhabitants. He drove on through the quiet streets and +emerged in that space of celestial silver which was called Chelsea; but +the savage roar of the train, as it had swept through those gibbering +legions of children, was still in Michael’s ears when the hansom pulled +up before the sedate house in Cheyne Walk.</p> + +<p>The parlormaid showed no surprise at his unexpected arrival, and +informed him casually with no more indication of human interest than +would have been given by a clock striking<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a> its mechanical message of +time that Miss Stella was in the studio. That he should have been +unaware of his sister’s arrival seemed suddenly to Michael a too +intimate revelation of his personality to the parlormaid, and he +actually found himself taking the trouble to deceive this machine by an +affectation of prior knowledge. He was indeed caught up and imprisoned +by the coils of infinitely small complications that are created by the +social stirrings of city life. The pale children seen from the train +sank below the level of ordinary existence, no longer conspicuous in his +memory, no longer even faintly disturbing. As for Plashers Mead and the +webs of the moon, they were become the adventure of a pleasant dream. He +was in fact back in town.</p> + +<p>Michael went quickly to the studio and found Stella not playing as he +hoped, but sitting listless. Then he realized how much at the very +moment the parlormaid told him of Stella’s return he had feared such a +return was the prelude to disaster. Almost he had it on his lips to ask +abruptly what was the matter. It cost him an effort to greet her with +just that amount of fraternal cordiality which would not dishonor by its +demonstrativeness this studio of theirs. He was so unreasonably glad to +see her back from Vienna that a gesture of weakness on her side would +have made him kiss her.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, I didn’t expect to see you,” was, however, all he said.</p> + +<p>“Nor did I you,” was what she answered.</p> + +<p>Presently she began to give him an elaborate account of the journey from +Austria, and Michael knew that exactly in proportion to its true +insignificance was the care she bestowed upon its dreariness and dust.</p> + +<p>Michael began to wish it were not exactly a quarter-of-an-hour before +lunch. Such a period was too essentially consecrated to orderly ideas +and London smoothness for it to<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> admit the intrusion of anything more +disturbing than the sound of a gong. What could have brought Stella back +from Vienna?</p> + +<p>“Did you come this morning?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. Last night. Why?” she demanded. “Do I look as crumpled as all +that?”</p> + +<p>For Stella to imply so directly that something had happened which she +had expected to change materially even her outward appearance was +perhaps a sign he would soon be granted her confidence. He rather wished +she would be quick with it. If he were left too long to form his own +explanations, he would be handicapped at the crucial moment. Useless +indeed he were imagining all this, he thought in supplement, as the +lunch-gong restored by its clamor the atmosphere of measured life where +nothing really happens.</p> + +<p>After lunch Stella went up to her room: the effect of the journey, she +turned round to say, still called for sleep. Michael did not see her +again before dinner. She came down then, looking very much older than he +had ever seen her, whether because she was dressed in oyster-gray satin +or was in fact much older, Michael did not know. She grumbled at him for +not putting on a dinner jacket.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look so horrified at the notion,” she cried petulantly. “Can’t +you realize that after a year with long-haired students I want a +change?”</p> + +<p>After dinner Michael asked her to come and play in the studio.</p> + +<p>“Play?” she echoed. “I’m never going to play again.”</p> + +<p>“What perfect rot you are talking,” said Michael, in a damnatory +generalization which was intended to cover not merely all she had been +saying, but even all she had been doing almost since she first announced +her intention of going to Vienna.</p> + +<p>Stella burst into tears.<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a></p> + +<p>“Come on, let’s go to the studio,” said Michael. He felt that Stella’s +tears were inappropriate to the dining-room. Indeed, only the fact that +she was wearing this evening frock of oyster-gray satin, and was +therefore not altogether the invulnerable and familiar and slightly +boyish Stella imprinted on his mind, prevented him from being shocked to +the point of complete emotional incapacity. It seemed less of an outrage +to fondle however clumsily this forlorn creature in gray satin, even +though he did find himself automatically and grotesquely saying to +himself “Enter Tilburina stark mad in white satin and the Confidante +stark mad in white muslin.”</p> + +<p>“Come along, come along,” he begged her. “You must come to the studio.”</p> + +<p>Michael went on presenting the studio with such earnestness that he +himself began to endow it with a positively curative influence; but when +at last Stella had reached the studio, not even caring apparently +whether on the way the parlormaid saw her tears, and when she had +plunged disconsolately down upon the divan, still weeping, Michael +looked round at their haven with resentment. After all, it was merely an +ungainly bleak whitewashed room, and Stella was crying more bitterly +than before.</p> + +<p>“Look here, I say, why don’t you tell me what you’re crying about? You +can’t go on crying forever, you know,” Michael pointed out. “And when +you’ve stopped crying, you’ll feel such an ass if you haven’t explained +what it was all about.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t possibly tell anybody,” said Stella, looking very fierce. +Then suddenly she got up, and so surprising had been her breakdown that +Michael scarcely stopped to think that her attitude was rather unusually +dramatic.</p> + +<p>“But I’m damned if I <i>will</i> give up playing,” she proclaimed;<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> and, +sitting down at the piano, forthwith she began to play into oblivion her +weakness.</p> + +<p>It was a very exciting piece she played, and Michael longed to ask her +what it was called, but he was afraid to provoke in her any renewal of +self-consciousness; so he enjoyed the fiery composition and Stella’s +calm with only a faint regret that he would never know its name and +would never be able to ask her to play it again. When she had finished, +she swung round on the stool and asked him what had happened to Lily +Haden.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—really—they’ve left Trelawny Road,” he said, feeling +vaguely an unfair flank attack was being delivered.</p> + +<p>“And you never think of her, I suppose?” demanded Stella.</p> + +<p>“Well, no, I don’t very much.”</p> + +<p>“Yet I can remember,” said Stella, “when you were absolutely miserable +because she had been flirting with somebody else.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I was very miserable,” Michael admitted. “And you were rather +contemptuous about it, I remember. You told me I ought to be more +proud.”</p> + +<p>“And don’t you realize,” Stella said, “that just because I did remember +what I told you, I made my effort and began to play the piano again?”</p> + +<p>Michael waited. He supposed that she would now take him into her +confidence, but she swung round to the keyboard, and when she had +finished playing she had become herself again, detached and cool and +masterful. It was incredible that the wet ball of a handkerchief half +hidden by a cushion could be her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>Michael made up his mind that Stella’s unhappiness was due to a +love-affair which had been wrecked either by circumstance or +temperament, and he tried to persuade himself of his indignation against +the unknown man. He was sensible<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> of a desire to punch the fellow’s +head. With the easy exaggerations of the night-time he could picture +himself fighting duels with punctilious Austrian noblemen. He went so +far as mentally to indite a letter to Alan and Lonsdale requesting their +secondary assistance. Then the memory of Lily began to dance before him. +He forgot about Stella in speculations about Lily. Time had softened the +trivial and shallow infidelity of which she had been guilty. Time with +night for ally gave her slim form an ethereal charm. He had been reading +this week of the great imaginative loves of the Middle Ages, and of that +supple and golden-haired girl he began to weave an abstraction of +passion like the Princess of Trebizond. He slept upon the evocation of +her beauty just as he was setting forth upon a delicate and intangible +pursuit. Next morning Michael suggested to Stella they should revisit +Carlington Road.</p> + +<p>“My god, to think we once lived here!” exclaimed Stella, as they stood +outside Number 64. “To me it seems absolutely impossible, but then of +course I was much more away from it than you ever were.”</p> + +<p>Stella was so ferocious in her mockery of their childish haunts and +habitations that Michael began to perceive her old serene contempt was +become tinged with bitterness. This morning she was too straightly in +possession of herself. It was illogical after last night.</p> + +<p>“Well, thank heaven, everything does change,” she murmured. “And that +ugly things become even more ugly.”</p> + +<p>“Only for a time,” objected Michael. “In twenty years if we visit +Carlington Road we shall think how innocent and intimate and pretty it +all is.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t thinking so much of Carlington Road,” said Stella. “I was +really thinking of people.”</p> + +<p>“Even they become beautiful again after a time,” argued Michael.<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a></p> + +<p>“It would take a very long time for some,” said Stella coldly.</p> + +<p>Michael had rather dreaded his mother’s return, with Stella in this +mood, and he was pleased when he found that his fears had been +unjustifiable. Stella in fact was very gentle with her mother, as if she +and not herself had suffered lately.</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad you’re back, darling Stella, and so delighted to think you +aren’t going to Petersburg to-morrow, because the man at Vienna whose +name begins with that extraordinary letter....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, mother,” Stella laughed, “the letter was quite ordinary. It was +only L.”</p> + +<p>“But the name was dreadful, dear child. It always reminded one of furs. +A most oppressive name. So that really you’ll be in London all this +winter?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, only I shan’t play much,” said Stella.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Carruthers is so anxious to meet you properly,” Mrs. Fane said. +“And Mabel Carruthers is really very nice. Poor girl! I wish you could +be friends with her. She’s interested in nothing her mother does.”</p> + +<p>Michael was really amazed when Stella, without a shrug, without even a +wink at him, promised simply to let Mrs. Carruthers “meet her properly,” +and actually betrayed as much interest in Mabel Carruthers as to inquire +how old she was.</p> + +<p>Maurice arrived at Cheyne Walk, just before Michael went up for term, to +say he had taken a most wonderful studio in Grosvenor Road. He was +anxious that Michael should bring his sister to see it, but Stella would +not go.</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much, my dear,” she said to him, “but I’ve seen too much of +the real thing. I’m in no mood just now for a sentimental imitation.”</p> + +<p>“I think you ought to come,” said Michael. “It would<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a> be fun to see +Maurice living in Grosvenor Road with all the Muses. Castleton will have +such a time tidying up after them when he joins him next year.”</p> + +<p>But Stella would not go.<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + +<h4>99 ST. GILES</h4> + +<p>It was strange to come up to Oxford and to find so many of the chief +figures in the college vanished. For a week Michael felt that in a way +he had no business still to be there, so unfamiliar was the college +itself inhabited by none of his contemporaries save a few Scholars. Very +soon, however, the intimacy of the rooms in St. Giles which he shared +with Alan cured all regrets, and with a thrill he realized that this +last year was going to be of all the years at Oxford the best, indeed +perhaps of all the years of his life the best.</p> + +<p>College itself gave Michael a sharper sense of its entity than he had +ever gathered before. He was still sufficiently a part of it not to feel +the implicit criticism of his presence that in a year or two, revisiting +Oxford, he would feel; and he was also far enough away from the daily +round to perceive and admire the yearly replenishment which preserved +its vigor notwithstanding the superficially irreparable losses of each +year. There were moments when he regretted 202 High with what now seemed +its amazingly irresponsible existence, but 202 High had never given him +quite the same zest in returning to it as now 99 St. Giles could give. +Nothing had ever quite equaled those damp November dusks, when after a +long walk through silent country Michael and Alan came back to the din +of Carfax and splashed their way along the crowded and greasy Cornmarket +toward St. Giles,<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> those damp November dusks when they would find the +tea-things glimmering in the firelight. Buttered toast was eaten; tea +was drunk; the second-best pipe of the day was smoked to idle cracklings +of The Oxford Review and The Star; a stout landlady cleared away, and +during the temporary disturbance Michael pulled back the blinds and +watched the darkness and fog slowly blotting out St. John’s and the +alley of elm-trees opposite, and giving to the Martyrs’ Memorial and +even to Balliol a gothic and significant mystery. The room was quiet +again; the lamps and the fire glowed; Michael and Alan, settled in deep +chairs, read their History and Philosophy; outside in the November night +footsteps went by; carts and wagons occasionally rattled; bells chimed; +outside in the November murk present life was manifesting its +continuity; here within, the battles and the glories, the thoughts, the +theories and the speculations of the past for Michael and Alan moved +across printed pages under the rich lamplight.</p> + +<p>Dinner dissolved the concentrated spell of two hours. But dinner at 99 +St. Giles was very delightful in the sea-green dining-room whose +decorations had survived the departing tenant who created them. Michael +and Alan did not talk much; indeed, such conversation as took place +during the meal came from the landlady. She possessed so deft a capacity +for making apparently the most barren observations flower and fruit with +intricate narrations, that merely an inquiry as to the merit of the +lemon-sole would serve to link the occasion with an intimate revelation +of her domestic past.</p> + +<p>After dinner Michael and Alan read on toward eleven o’clock, at which +hour Alan usually went to bed. It was after his departure that in a way +Michael enjoyed the night most. The mediæval chronicles were put back on +their shelf; Stubbs or Lingard, Froude, Freeman, Guizot, Lavisse<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> or +Gregorovius were put back; round the warm and silent room Michael +wandered uncertain for a while; and at the end of five minutes down came +Don Quixote or Adlington’s Apuleius, or Florio’s Montaigne, or Lucian’s +True History. The fire crumbled away to ashes and powder; the fog stole +into the room; outside was now nothing but the chimes at their measured +intervals, nothing but the noise of them to say a city was there; at +that hour Oxford was truly austere, something more indeed than austere, +for it was neither in time nor in space, but the abstraction of a city. +Only when the lamps began to reek did Michael go up to bed by +candlelight. In his vaporous room, through whose open window the sound +of two o’clock striking came very coldly, he could scarcely fancy +himself in the present. The effort of intense reading, whether of bygone +institutions or of past adventure, had left him in the condition of +physical freedom that saints achieve by prayer. He was aware of nothing +but a desire to stay forever like this, half feverish with the triumph +of tremendous concentration, to undress in this stinging acerbity of +night air, and to lie wakeful for a long time in this world of dreaming +spires.</p> + +<p>99 St. Giles exercised just that industrious charm which Michael had +anticipated from the situation. The old house overlooked such a wide +thoroughfare that the view, while it afforded the repose of movement, +scarcely ever aroused a petty inquisitiveness into the actions of the +passers-by. The traffic of the thoroughfare like the ships of the sea +went by merely apprehended, but not observed. The big bay-window hung +over the street like the stern-cabin of a frigate, and as Michael sat +there he had the impression of being cut off from communication, the +sense of perpetually leaving life astern. The door of 99 St. Giles did +not open directly on the street, but was reached by a tortuous passage +that ran the whole depth of the house. This entrance helped<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> very much +the illusion of separation from the ebb and flow of ordinary existence, +and was so suggestive of a refuge that involuntarily Michael always +hurried through it that the sooner he might set his foot on the steep +and twisted staircase inside the house. There was always an excitement +in reaching this staircase again, an impulse to run swiftly up, as if +this return to the sitting-room was veritably an escape from the world. +Here the books sprawled everywhere. At 202 High they had filled the +cupboards in orderly fashion. Here they overflowed in dusty cataracts, +and tottered upward in crazy escalades and tremulous piles. All the +shelves were gorged with books. Moreover, Michael every afternoon bought +more books. The landlady held up her hands in dismay as, crunching up +the paper in which they had been wrapped, he considered in perplexity +their accommodation. More space was necessary, and the sea-green +dining-room was awarded shelves. Here every morning after breakfast came +the exiles, the dull and the disappointing books which had been banished +from the sitting-room. Foot by foot the sea-green walls disappeared +behind these shelves. In Lampard’s bookshop Michael was certainly a +personality. Lampard himself even came to tea, and sat nodding his +approbation.</p> + +<p>As for Alan, he used to stay unmoved by the invading volumes. He had +stipulated at the beginning that one small bookcase should be reserved +for him. Here Plato and Aristotle, Herodotus and Thucydides always had +room to breathe, without ever being called upon to endure the +contamination of worm-eaten bibliophily.</p> + +<p>“Where the deuce has my Stubbs got to?” Michael would grumble, delving +into the musty cascade of old plays and chap books which had temporarily +obliterated the current literature of the week’s work.</p> + +<p>Alan would very serenely take down Plato from his own<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> trim and +unimpeded shelves, and his brow would already be knitted with the effort +of fixing half-a-dozen abstractions before Michael had decided after a +long excavation that Stubbs had somehow vanished in the by-ways of +curious reading.</p> + +<p>Yet notwithstanding the amount of time occupied by arranging and buying +and finding books, Michael did manage to absorb a good deal of history, +even of that history whose human nature has to be sought arduously in +charters, exchequer-rolls and acts of parliament. Schools were drawing +near; the dates of Kings and Emperors and Popes in their succession +adorned the walls of his bedroom, so that even while he was cleaning his +teeth one fact could be acquired.</p> + +<p>Only on Sunday evenings did Michael allow himself really to reënter the +life of St. Mary’s. These Sunday evenings had all the excitement of a +long-interrupted reunion. To be sure, Venner’s was thronged with people +who seemed to be taking life much too lightly; but Tommy Grainger was +there, still engaged with a pass-group. People spoke hopefully of going +head this year. Surely with Tommy and three other Blues in the boat, St. +Mary’s must go head. The conversation was so familiar that it was almost +a shock to find so many of the faces altered. But Cuffe was still there +with his mouth perpetually open just as wide as ever. Sterne was still +there and likely, so one heard, to make no end of runs next summer. +George Appleby was very much in evidence since Lonsdale’s departure. +George Appleby was certainly there, and Michael rather liked him and +accepted an invitation to lunch. In hall the second-year men were not +quite as rowdy as they used to be, and when they were rowdy, somehow to +Michael and the rest of the fourth year they seemed to lack the +imagination of themselves when they—but after all the only true judges +of that were the Princes and Cardinals and Poets staring down from +their<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> high golden frames. The dons, too, at High Table might know, for +there they sat, immemorial as ever.</p> + +<p>Wine in Common Room was just the same, and it really was very jolly to +be sitting between Castleton—that very popular President of J.C.R.—and +Tommy Grainger. There certainly was a great and grave satisfaction in +leading off with a more ceremonious health drinking than had ever been +achieved in the three years past. Michael found it amusing to catch the +name of some freshman and, shouting abruptly a salute, to behold him +wriggle and blush and drink his answer and wonder who on earth was +hailing <i>him</i>. Michael often asked himself if it really were possible he +could appear to that merry rout at the other end of J.C.R. in truly +heroic mold. He supposed, with a smile at himself for so gross a fraud, +that he really did for them pass mortal stature and that already he had +a bunch of legends dangling from his halo. Down in Venner’s after wine, +Michael fancied the shouts of the freshmen wandering round Cloisters +were more raucous than once they had seemed. Sometimes really they were +almost irritating, but the After was capital, although the new comic +song of the new college jester lacked perhaps a little the perfect lilt +of “Father says we’re going to beat them.” Yet, after all, the Boer war +had been over three years now: no doubt “Father says we’re going to beat +them” would have sounded a little stale. Last term, however, at Two +Hundred and Two it had rung as fresh as ever. But the singer was gone +now. It was meet his song should perish with his withdrawal from the +Oxford scene. Still the After was quite good sport, and Michael was glad +to think he and Grainger and Sterne were giving the last After but one +of this term. He bicycled back to the digs with his head full of +chatter, of clinking glasses and catchy tunes. Nevertheless, all +consciousness of the evening’s merriment faded out, as he hurried up the +crooked staircase to<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> the sitting-room where Alan, upright at the table +amid Thucydidean commentaries, was reading under the lamp’s immotionable +rays, his hair glinting with what was now rare gold.</p> + +<p>During this autumn term neither Michael nor Alan spoke of Stella except +as an essentially third person. She was in London, devoting so much of +herself so charmingly to her mother that Mrs. Fane nearly abandoned +every other interest in her favor. There were five Schumann recitals, of +which press notices were sent to 99 St. Giles. Michael as he read them +handed them on to Alan.</p> + +<p>“Jolly good,” said he, in a tone of such conventional praise that +Michael really began to wonder whether he had after all changed his mind +instead of merely concealing his intention. However, since conversation +between these two had been stripped to the bare bones of intercourse, +Michael could not bring himself to violate this habit of reserve for the +sake of a curiosity the gratification of which in true friendship should +never be demanded, nor even accepted with deeper attention than the +trivial news of the day casually offered. Nor would Michael have felt it +loyal to Alan to try from Stella to extract a point of view regarding +him. Anyway, he reassured himself, nothing could be done at present.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of term Mrs. Ross wrote a letter to Michael whose news +was sufficiently unexpected to rouse the two of them to a conversation +of greater length than any they had had since term began.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">C<small>OBBLE</small> P<small>LACE</small>,</span><br /> +<i>November 30.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><i>My dear Michael,</i></p> + +<p><i>You will be surprised to hear that I have become a Catholic, or I +suppose I should say to you, if you still adhere to<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> your theories, +a Roman Catholic. My reasons for this step, apart of course from +the true reason—the grace of God—were, I think, connected a good +deal with my boy. When your friend Mr. Prescott killed himself, I +felt very much the real emptiness of such a life that on the +surface was so admirable, in some ways so enviable. I am dreadfully +anxious that Kenneth—he is Kenneth Michael now—I hope you won’t +be vexed I should have wished him to have Michael also—well, as I +was saying—that Kenneth should grow up with all the help that the +experience of the past can give him. It has become increasingly a +matter of astonishment to me how so many English boys manage to +muddle through the crises of their boyhood without the Sacraments. +I’m afraid you’ll be reading this letter in rather a critical +spirit, and perhaps resenting my implication that you, for +instance, have come through so many crises without the Sacraments. +But I’m not yet a good enough theologian to argue with you about +the claims of your Church. Latterly I’ve felt positively alarmed by +the prospect of grappling with Kenneth’s future. I have seen you +struggle through, and I know I can say win a glorious victory over +one side of yourself. But I have seen other things happen, even +from where I live my secluded life. If my husband had not been +killed I might not perhaps have felt this dread on Kenneth’s +account. But I like to think that God in giving me that great +sorrow has shown His purpose by offering me this new and unimagined +peace and security and assurance. I need scarcely say I have had a +rather worrying time lately. It is strange how when love and faith +are the springs of action one must listen with greater patience +than one could listen for any lesser motive to the opinions of +other people.</i></p> + +<p><i>Joan and Mary whom I’ve always thought of as just wrapped up in the +good works of their dear good selves,<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> really rose in their wrath +and scorched me with the fieriest opposition. I could not have +believed they had in them to say as much in all their lives as they +said to me when I announced my intention. Nor had I any idea they +knew so many English clergymen. I believe that to gratify them I +have interviewed half the Anglican ministry. Even a Bishop was +invoked to demonstrate my apostacy. Nancy, too, wrote furious +letters. She was not outraged so much theologically, but her sense +of social fitness was shattered.</i></p> + +<p><i>My darling old mother was the only person who took my resolve +calmly. “As long as you don’t try to convert me,” she said, “and +don’t leave incense burning about the house, well—you’re old +enough to know your own mind.” She was so amusing while Joan and +Mary were marshaling arguments against me. She used to sit playing +“Miss Milligan” with a cynical smile, and said, when it was all +over and in spite of everyone I had been received, that she had +really enjoyed Patience for the first time, as Joan and Mary were +too busy to prevent her from cheating.</i></p> + +<p><i>How are you and dear old Alan getting on? Of course you can read +him this letter. I’ve not written to him because I fancy he won’t +be very much interested. Forgive me that I did not take you into my +confidence beforehand, but I feared a controversy with a real +historian about the continuity of the Anglican church.</i></p> + +<p><i>My love to you both at Oxford.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Your affectionate</i></span><br /> +<i>Maud Ross.</i></p></div> + +<p>“Great scott!” Michael exclaimed, as he finished the letter. “Alan! +could you ever in your wildest dreams have imagined that Mrs. Ross, the +most inveterate Whig and Roundhead and Orange bigot, at least whenever +she used to argue with me, would have gone over?”<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a></p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” Alan asked, sinking slowly to earth from his +Platonic <i>ovpavos</i>. “Gone over where?”</p> + +<p>“To Rome—become a Roman Catholic.”</p> + +<p>“Who?” gasped Alan, staggered now more than Michael. “Mrs. Ross—Aunt +Maud?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard,” said Michael. +“She—and Kenneth,” he added rather maliciously, seeing that Alan’s +Britannic prejudice was violently aroused. “I’ll read you her letter.”</p> + +<p>Plato was shut up for the evening before Michael was halfway through, +and almost before the last sentence had been read, Alan’s wrath +exploded.</p> + +<p>“It’s all very fine for her to laugh like that at Joan and Mary and +Nancy,” he said, coloring hotly. “But they were absolutely right, and +Mrs. Ross—I mean Aunt Maud——”</p> + +<p>“I was afraid you were going to disown the relationship,” Michael +laughed.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Maud is absolutely wrong. Why, my uncle would have been furious. +Even if <i>she</i> became a Catholic she had no business to take Kenneth with +her. The more I think of it—you know, it really is a bit thick.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you object?” Michael asked curiously. “I never knew you thought +about religion at all, except so far as occasionally to escort your +mother politely to Matins, and that was after all to oblige her more +than God. Besides, you’re reading Greats, and I always thought that the +Greats people in their fourth year abstained from anything like a +definite opinion for fear of losing their First.”</p> + +<p>“I may not have a definite opinion about Christianity,” said Alan. “But +Catholicism is ridiculous, anyway—it doesn’t suit English people.”</p> + +<p>“There you’re treading on the heels of the School of Modern History +which you affect to despise. You really don’t know, if I may say so, +what could or could not suit<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> the English people unless you know what +has or has not suited them.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you become a Catholic yourself,” challenged Alan, “if you’re +so keen on them?”</p> + +<p>“For a logician,” said Michael, “your conclusion is bad, being entirely +unrelated to any of our premises. Secondly, were I inclined to label +myself as anything, I should be disposed to label myself as a Catholic +already.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know that affectation!” scoffed Alan.</p> + +<p>“Well, the net result of our commentary is that you, like everybody +else, object to Mrs. Ross changing her opinions, because you don’t like +it. Her position is negligible, the springs of action being religious. +Now if my mother went over to Rome I should be rather bucked on her +account.”</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, if you don’t mind my saying so,” suggested Alan as +apologetically as his outraged conventionality would allow, “your mother +has always been rather given to—er—all sorts of new cults, and it +wouldn’t be so—er—noticeable in her case. But supposing Stella——”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him sharply.</p> + +<p>“Supposing Stella did?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course she’s artistic and she’s traveled and—oh, well, I don’t +know—Stella’s different.”</p> + +<p>At any rate, thought Michael, he was still in love with Stella. She was +evidently beyond criticism.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t worry,” said Michael. “I don’t think she ever will.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t think Aunt Maud ever would,” Alan pointed out.</p> + +<p>“And, great scott, it’s still absolutely incredible,” Michael murmured.</p> + +<p>Although in the face of Alan’s prejudice Michael had felt very strongly +that Mrs. Ross had done well by her change of communion, or rather by +her submission to a communion, for<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> he never could remember her as +perfervid in favor of any before, at the same time to himself he rather +regretted the step, since it destroyed for him that idea he had kept of +her as one who stood gravely holding the balance. He dreaded a little +the effect upon her of a sudden plunge into Catholicism, just as he had +felt uneasy when eight or nine years ago Alan had first propounded the +theory of his uncle being in love with her. Michael remembered how the +suggestion had faintly shocked his conception of Miss Carthew. It was a +little disconcerting to have to justify herself to Nancy, or indeed to +anyone. It seemed to weaken her status. Moreover, his own deep-implanted +notion of “going over to Rome” as the act of a weakling and a +weather-cock was hard to allay. His own gray image of Pallas Athene +seemed now to be decked with meretricious roses. He was curious to know +what his mother would think about the news. Mrs. Fane received it as +calmly as if he had told her Mrs. Ross had taken up palmistry; to her +Catholicism was only one of the numberless fads that made life amusing. +As for Stella, she did not comment on the news at all. She was too much +occupied with the diversions of the autumn season. Yet Stella was +careful to impress on Michael that her new mode of life had not been +dictated by any experience in Vienna.</p> + +<p class="top5">“Don’t think I’m drowning care,” she wrote. “I made a damned fool of +myself and luckily you’re almost the only person who knows anything +about it. I’ve wiped it out as completely as a composition I’ve learned +and played and done with. Really I find this pottering life that mother +and I lead very good for my music. I’m managing to store up a reserve of +feeling. The Schumann recitals were in some ways my best efforts so far. +Just now I’m absolutely mad about dancing and fencing; and as mother’s +life is entirely<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> devoted to the theory of physical culture at this +exact moment, we’re both happy.”</p> + +<p>Michael told Alan what Stella said about dancing and fencing, and he was +therefore not surprised when Alan informed him, with the air of one who +really has discovered something truly worth while, that there was a +Sword club at Oxford.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t you better join as well next term?” he suggested. “Rather good +ecker, I fancy.”</p> + +<p>“Much better than golf,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather,” Alan agreed, in lofty innocence of any hidden allusion to +his resolve of last summer.</p> + +<p>For the Christmas vacation Michael went to Scotland, partly because he +wanted to brace himself sharply for the last two terms of his Oxford +time, but more because he had the luxurious fancy to stay in some town +very remote from Oxford, there meditating on her spires like gray and +graceful shapes of mist made perdurable forever. Hitherto Oxford had +called him back, as to a refuge most severe, from places whose warmth or +sensuousness or gaiety was making her cold beauty the more desirable. +Now Michael wished to come back for so nearly his ultimate visit as to a +tender city of melting outlines. Therefore to fulfill this vision of +return he refused Guy Hazlewood’s invitation to Plashers Mead. It seemed +to him that no city nearer than Aberdeen would give him the joy of +charging southward in the train, back to the moist heart of England and +that wan aggregation of immaterial domes and spires.</p> + +<p>Aberdeen was spare and harsh enough even for Michael’s mood, and there +for nearly five weeks of northeasterly weather he worked at political +economy. It was a very profitable vacation; and that superb and frozen +city of granite indifferent to the howling North sent him back more<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a> +ready to combat the perilous dreams which like the swathes of mist +destroying with their transmutations the visible fabric of Oxford +menaced his action.</p> + +<p>Certainly it needed the physical bracing of his sojourn at Aberdeen to +keep Michael from dreaming away utterly his last Lent term. February was +that year a month of rains from silver skies, of rains that made Oxford +melodious with their perpetual trickling. They were rains that lured him +forth to dabble in their gentle fountains, to listen at the window of +Ninety-nine to their rippling monody, and at night to lie awake +infatuated.</p> + +<p>Still, even with all the gutterspouts in Oxford jugging like +nightingales and with temptation from every book of poetry to abandon +history, Michael worked fairly steadily, and when the end of term +surprised him in the middle of his industry, he looked back with +astonishment at the amount of apposite reading accomplished in what +seemed, now so cruelly swift were the hours, a mere week of rain.</p> + +<p>He obtained leave to stay up during the Easter vacation, and time might +have seemed to stand still, but that Spring on these rathe mornings of +wind and scudded blue sky was forward with her traceries, bringing with +every morning green Summer visibly nearer. The urgency of departure less +than the need for redoubled diligence in acquiring knowledge obsessed +Michael all this April. Sitting in the bay-window at Ninety-nine on +these luminous eves of Spring, he vexed himself with the thought of +disturbing so soon his books, of violating with change the peaceful +confusion achieved in two terms. The fancy haunted him that for the +length of the Long Vacation 99 St. Giles would drowse under the +landlady’s nick-nacks brought out to replace his withdrawn treasures; +that nothing would keep immortal the memory of him and Alan save their +photographs in frames of almost royal ostentation. Vaguely through his +mind ran<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a> the notion of becoming a don, that forever he might stay here +in Oxford, a contemplative intellectual cut-off from the great world. +For a week the notion ripened swiftly, and Michael worked very hard in +his determination to proceed from a First to the competition for a +Fellowship. The notion ripened too swiftly, however, and fell with a +plump, fit for nothing, when he suddenly realized he would have to stay +on in Oxford alone, since of all his friends he could see not one who +would be likely in the academic cloister to accompany his meditations. +With a gesture of weary contempt Michael flung Stubbs into the corner, +and resolved that, come what might in the History Schools, for what +remained of his time at Oxford he would enjoy the proffered anodyne.</p> + +<p>After he had disowned his work, he took to wandering rather aimlessly +about the streets; but their aspect, still unfrequented as yet by the +familiar figures of term-time, made him feel sad. Guy Hazlewood was +summoned by telegram from where at Plashers Mead he was presumed to have +found abiding peace. He came bicycling in from the Witney road at noon +of a blue April day so richly canopied with rolling clouds that the +unmatured season took on some of June’s ampler dignity. After lunch they +walked to Witham Woods, and Guy tried to persuade Michael to come to +Wychford when the summer term was over. He was full of the plan for +founding that lay monastery, that cloister for artists who wished +between Oxford and the world a space unstressed by anything save ordered +meditation. Michael was captured anew by the idea he had first +propounded, and they talked gayly of its advantages, foreseeing, if the +right people could be induced to come, a period of intense stimulation +against a background of serenity. Then Guy began to talk of how day by +day he was subduing words to rhyme and meter.<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a></p> + +<p>“And you, what would you do?” he asked.</p> + +<p>At once Michael realized the futility of their scheme for him.</p> + +<p>“I should only dream away another year,” he said rather sadly, “and so +if you don’t mind, old chap, I think I won’t join you.”</p> + +<p>“Rot!” Guy drawled. “I’ve got it all clear now in my mind. Up at seven. +At breakfast we should take it in turns to read aloud great poetry. From +eight to ten retire to our cells, and work at a set piece—a sonnet or +six lines of prose. Ten to eleven a discussion on what we’d done. Eleven +to one work at our own stuff. One o’clock lunch with some reading aloud. +All the afternoon to do what we like. Dinner at seven with more reading +aloud, and in the evening reading to ourselves. Not a word to be spoken +after nine o’clock, and bed at eleven. After tea twice a week we might +have academic discussions.”</p> + +<p>“It sounds perfect,” said Michael, “if you’re already equipped with the +desire to be an artist, and what is more important if deep down in +yourself you’re convinced you have the least justification for ambition. +But, Guy, what a curious chap you are. You seem to have grown so much +younger since you went down.”</p> + +<p>Guy laughed on a note of exultation that sounded strange indeed in one +whom when still at Balliol Michael had esteemed as perhaps the most +perfect contemporary example of the undergraduate tired by the +consciousness of his own impeccable attitude. Guy had always possessed +so conspicuously that Balliol affectation of despising accentuations of +seriousness, of humor, of intention, of friendship, of everything indeed +except parlor rowdiness with cushions and sofas, that Michael was almost +shocked to hear the elaborately wearied Guy declare boisterously<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a>:</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, that is the great secret. The moment you go down, you do +grow younger.”</p> + +<p>He must be in love, thought Michael suddenly; and, so remote was love +seeming to him just now, he blushed in the implication by his inner self +of having penetrated uninvited the secret of a friend.</p> + +<p>Guy talked all tea-time of the project, and when they had eaten enough +bread and honey, they set out for Oxford by way of Godstow. The generous +sun was blanched by watery clouds. A shrewd wind had risen while they +sat in the inn, and the primroses looked very wan in the shriveled +twilight. Michael had Guy’s company for a week of long walks and snug +evenings, but the real intimacy which he had expected would be +consummated by this visit never effected itself somehow. Guy was more +remote in his mood of communal ambitions than he was at Oxford, living +his life of whimsical detachment. After he went back to Plashers Mead, +Michael only missed the sound of his voice, and was not conscious of +that more violent wrench when the intercourse of silence is broken.</p> + +<p>It happened that year St. Mark’s Eve fell upon a Sunday, and Michael, +having been reading the poems of Keats nearly all the afternoon, was +struck by the coincidence. Oxford on such an occasion was able to +provide exactly the same sensation for him as Winchester had given to +the poet. Michael sat in his window-seat looking out over the broad +thoroughfare of St. Giles, listening to the patter and lisp of Sabbath +footfalls, to the burden of the bells; and as he sat there with the city +receding in the wake of his window, he was aware more poignantly than +ever of how actually in a few weeks it would recede. The bells and the +footsteps were quiet for a while: the sun had gone: it was the vesper +stillness of evening prayer: slowly the printed page before him faded +from recognition. Already the farther corners of<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> the room were black, +revealing from time to time, as a tongue of flame leaped up in the +grate, the golden blazonries of the books on the walls. It was +everywhere dark when the people came out of church, and the footsteps +were again audible. Michael envied Keats the power which he had known to +preserve forever that St. Mark’s Eve of eighty years ago in Winchester. +It was exasperating that now already the footfalls were dying away, that +already their sensation was evanescent, that he could not with the wand +of poetry forbid time to disturb this quintessential hour of Oxford. Art +alone could bewitch the present in the fashion of that enchantress in +the old fairy tale who sent long ago a court to sleep.</p> + +<p>What was the use of reading history unless the alchemy of literature had +transcended the facts by the immortal presentation of them? These +charters and acts of parliament, these exchequer-rolls and raked-up +records meant nothing. Ivanhoe held more of the Middle Ages than all of +Maitland’s fitting and fussing, than all of Stubbs’ ponderous +conclusions. The truth of Ivanhoe, the truth of the Ingoldsby Legends, +the truth of Christabel was indeed revealed to the human soul through +the power of art to unlock for one convincing moment truth with the same +directness of divine exposition as faith itself.</p> + +<p>Now here was Oxford opening suddenly to him her heart, and he was +incapable of preserving the vision. The truth would state itself to him, +and as he tried to restate it, lo, it was gone. Perhaps these moments +that seemed to demand expression were indeed mystical assurances of +human immortality. Perhaps they were not revealed for explanation. After +all, when Keats had wrought forever in a beautiful statement the fact of +a Sabbath eve, the reader could not restate why he had wrought it +forever. Art could do no<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> more than preserve the sense of the fact: it +could not resolve it in such a way that life would cease to be the +baffling attempt it was on the individual’s part to restate to himself +his personal dreams.</p> + +<p>Oh, this clutching at the soul by truth, how damnably instantaneous it +was, how for one moment it could provoke the illusion of victory over +all the muddled facts of existence: how a moment after it could leave +the tantalized soul with a despairing sense of having missed by the +breadth of a hair the entry into knowledge. By the way, was there not +some well-reasoned psychological explanation of this physical condition?</p> + +<p>The sensation of St. Mark’s Eve was already fled. Michael forsook the +chilling window-seat and went with lighted candle to search for the +psychological volume which contained a really rational explanation of +what he had been trying to apprehend. He fumbled among his books for a +while, but he could not find the one he wanted. Then, going to pull down +the blinds, he was aware of Oxford beyond the lamplit thoroughfare, with +all her spires and domes invisible in the darkness, the immutable city +that neither mist nor modern architects could destroy, the immortal +academy whose spirit would surely outdare the menace of these reforming +Huns armed with Royal Commissions, and wither the cowardly betrayers of +her civilization who, even now before the barbarian was at her gates, +were cringing to him with offers to sell the half of her heritage of +learning. Michael, aware of Oxford all about him in the darkness, wished +he could be a member of Convocation and make a flaming speech in defense +of compulsory Greek. That happened to be the proposed surrender to +modern conditions which at the moment was agitating his conservative +passion.</p> + +<p>“Thank heaven I live when I do,” he said to himself.<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> “If it were 2000 +A.D., how much more miserable I should be.”</p> + +<p>He went down to dinner and, propping The Anatomy of Melancholy against +the cruet, deplored the twentieth century, but found the chicken rather +particularly good.<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + +<h4>THE LAST TERM</h4> + +<p>Michael meant to attend the celebration of May Morning on St. Mary’s +tower, but when the moment came it was so difficult to get out of bed +that he was not seen in the sun’s eye. This lapse of enthusiasm saddened +him rather. It seemed to conjure a little cruelly the vision of speeding +youth.</p> + +<p>The last summer-term was a period of tension. Michael found that +notwithstanding his vow of idleness the sight of the diligence of the +other men in view of Schools impelled him also to labor feverishly. He +was angry with himself for his weakness, and indeed tried once or twice +to join on the river the careless parties of juniors, but it was no +good. The insistent Schools forbade all pleasure, and these leafy days +were spent hour after hour of them at his table. Eights Week came round, +and though the college went head of the river, for Michael the +achievement was merely a stroke of irony. For three years he and his +friends, most of whom were now fled, had waited for this moment, had +counted upon this bump-supper, had planned a hundred diversions for this +happy date. Michael now must attend without the majority of them, and he +went in rather a critical frame of mind, for though to be sure Tommy +Grainger was drunk in honor of his glorious captaincy, it was not the +bump-supper of his dreams. Victory had come too late.</p> + +<p>Tired of the howling and the horse-play, tired of the<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> fretful +fireworks, he turned into Venner’s just before ten o’clock.</p> + +<p>“Why aren’t you with your friends, making a noise?” asked Venner.</p> + +<p>“Ought to go home and work,” Michael explained.</p> + +<p>“But surely you can take one night off. You used always to be well to +the fore on these occasions.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t feel like it, Venner.”</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t work too hard, you know,” said the old man, blinking kindly +at him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s not work, Venner. It’s age.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what a thing to say. Hark! They’re having a rare time to-night. I +don’t expect the dons’ll say much. They expect a bit of noise after a +bump-supper. Why ever don’t you go out and do your share?”</p> + +<p>Venner was ready to go home, and Michael leaving the little office in +his company paused irresolutely in Cloisters for a moment. It was no +good. He could not bring himself to be flung into that vortex of +ululation. He turned away from its direction and walked with Venner to +the lodge.</p> + +<p>“Don’t forget to mark me down as out of college, Shadbolt,” he warned +the porter. “I don’t want to be hauled to-morrow morning for damage done +in my absence.”</p> + +<p>The porter held up his hand in unctuous deprecation.</p> + +<p>“There is no fear of my making a mistake, Mr. Fane. I was observing your +egress, sir,” he said pompously, “and had it registered in my book +before you spoke.”</p> + +<p>Shadbolt unlocked the door for Michael and Venner to pass out into the +High. Michael walked with Venner as far as St. Mary’s bridge, and when +the old man had said good night and departed on his way home, he stood +for a while watching the tower in the May moonlight. He could hear the +shouts of those doing honor to the prowess of the<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> Eight. From time to +time the sky was stained with blue and green and red from the Roman +candles. To himself standing here now he seemed as remote from it all as +the townsfolk loitering on the bridge in the balmy night air to listen +to the fun. Already, thought Michael, he was one of the people, small as +emmets, swarming at the base of this slim and lovely tower. He regretted +sharply now that he had not once more, even from distant St. Giles, +roused himself to salute from the throbbing summit May Morning. It was +melancholy to stand here within the rumor of the communal joy, but +outside its participation; and presently he started to walk quickly back +to his digs, telling himself with dreadful warning as he went that +before Schools now remained scarcely more than a week.</p> + +<p>Alan was in a condition of much greater anxiety even than Michael. +Michael had nothing much beyond a moral pact with the college +authorities to make him covet a good class: to Alan it was more +important, especially as he had given up the Sudan and was intending to +try for the Home Civil Service.</p> + +<p>“However, I’ve given up thinking of a First, and if I can squeeze a +Second, I shall be jolly grateful,” he told Michael.</p> + +<p>The day of Schools arrived. The Chief Examiner had caused word to be +sent round that he would insist on the rigor of the law about black +clothes. So that year many people went back to the earlier mode of the +university examination and appeared in evening-dress. The first four +days went by with their monotony of scratching pens, their perspiring +and bedraggled women-candidates, their tedious energy and denial of +tobacco. Alan grew gloomier and gloomier. He scarcely thought he had +even escaped being plowed outright. For the fourth night preparatory to +the two papers on his Special Subject, Michael ordered iced asparagus +and quails in aspic, a bottle of champagne and two<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> quarts of cold black +coffee. He sat up all night, and went down tight-eyed and pale-faced to +the final encounter. In the afternoon he emerged, thanked heaven it was +all over, and, instead of celebrating his release as he had intended +with wine and song, slept in an armchair through the benign June +evening. Alan, who had gone to bed at his usual hour the night before, +spent his time reading the credentials of various careers offered to +enterprising young men by the Colonies. The day after, however, nothing +seemed to matter except that the purgatorial business was done forever, +and that Oxford offered nearly a fortnight of impregnable idleness.</p> + +<p>This fortnight, when she was so prodigal with her beauty and when her +graciousness was a rich balm to the ordeal she had lately exacted, was +not so poignant as Michael had expected. Indeed, it was scarcely +poignant at all so far as human farewells went, though there was about +it such an underlying sadness as deepens the mellow peace of a fine +autumn day.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Michael that in after years he would always think of Oxford +dowered so with Summer, and brooding among her trees. Matthew Arnold had +said she did not need June for beauty’s heightening. That was true. Her +beauty was not heightened now, but it was displayed with all the grave +consciousness of an unassertive renown. Michael dreaded more the loss of +this infoliated calm than of any of the people who were enjoying its +amenity. There were indeed groups upon the lawns that next year would +not form themselves, that forever indeed would be irremediably +dispersed; but the thought of himself and other members scattered did +not move him with as much regret as the knowledge that next year himself +would have lost the assurance that he was an organic part of this +tutelary landscape. The society of his contemporaries was already broken +up: the end of the third year had effected that. This farewell<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> to +Oxford herself was harder, and Michael wished that from the very first +moment of his arrival he had concentrated upon the object of a +Fellowship. Such a life would have suited him well. He would not have +withered like so many dons: he would each year have renewed his youth in +the stream of freshmen. He would have been sympathetic, receptive, and +worldly enough not to be despised by each generation in its course. Now, +since he had not aimed at such a career, he must go. The weather +opulently fine mocked his exit.</p> + +<p>Michael and Alan had decided to stay up for Commemoration. Stella and +Mrs. Fane had been invited: Lonsdale and Wedderburn were coming up: +Maurice was bringing his mother and sisters. For a brief carnival they +would all be reunited, and rooms would be echoing to the voices of their +rightful owners. Yet after all it would be but a pretense of reviving +their merry society. It was not a genuine reunion this, that was +requiring women to justify it. Oxford, as Michael esteemed her, was +already out of his reach. She would be symbolized in the future by these +rooms at 99 St. Giles, and Michael made up his mind that no intrusion of +women should spoil for him their monastic associations. He would stay +here until the last day, and for Commemoration he would try to borrow +his old rooms in college, thus fading from this wide thoroughfare +without a formal leave-taking. He would drop astern from the bay-window +whence for a time he had watched the wrack and spume of the world +drifting toward the horizon in its wake. Himself would recede so with +the world, and without him the bay-window would hold a tranquil course, +unrocked by the loss or gain of him or the transient voyagers of each +new generation. Very few eves and sunsets were still his to enjoy from +this window-seat. Already the books were being stacked in preparation +for their removal to the studio<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> at 173 Cheyne Walk. Dusty and derelict +belongings of him and Alan were already strewn about the landings +outside their bedrooms. Even the golf-bag of Alan’s first term, woolly +now with the accumulated mildew of neglect, had been dragged from its +obscurity. Perhaps it would be impossible to drop astern as +imperceptibly as he would have liked. Too many reminders of departure +littered the rooms with their foreboding of finality.</p> + +<p>“I’m shore I for one am quite sorry you’re going,” said the landlady. “I +never wish to have a nicer norer quieter pair of gentlemen. It’s to be +hoped, I’m shore, that next term’s comings-ins from St. John’s will be +half as nice. Yerse, I shall be very pleased to have these coverlets—I +suppose you would call them coverlets—and you’re leaving the shelves in +the dining-room? Yerse, I’m shore they’ll be as handy as anything for +the cruets and what not. And so you’re going to have a dinner here to +eleven gentlemen—oh, eleven in all, yerse, I see.”</p> + +<p>It was going to be rather difficult, Michael thought, to find exactly +the ten people he wished to invite to this last terminal dinner. Alan, +Grainger, and Castleton, of course. Bill Mowbray and Vernon Townsend. +And Smithers. Certainly, he would ask Smithers. And why not George +Appleby, who was Librarian of the Union this term, and no longer +conceivable as that lackadaisical red rag which had fluttered Lonsdale +to fury? What about the Dean? And if the Dean, why not Harbottle, his +History tutor? And for the tenth place? It was really impossible to +choose from the dozen or so acquaintances who had an equal claim upon +it. He would leave the tenth place vacant, and just to amuse his own +fancy he would fill it with the ghost of himself in the December of his +first term.</p> + +<p>Michael, when he saw his guests gathered in the sea-green dining-room of +99 St. Giles, knew that this last terminal<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> dinner was an anachronism. +After all, the prime and bloom of these eclectic entertainments had been +in the two previous years. This was not the intimate and unusual society +he had designed to gather round him as representative of his four years +at the Varsity. This was merely representative of the tragical +incompleteness of Oxford. It was certainly a very urbane evening, but it +was somehow not particularly distinctive of Oxford, still less of +Michael’s existence there. Perhaps it had been a mistake to invite the +two dons. Perhaps everyone was tired under the strain of Schools. +Michael was glad when the guests went and he sat alone in the +window-seat with Alan.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow, my mother and Stella are coming up,” he reminded Alan. “It’s +rather curious my mother shouldn’t have been up all the time, until I’m +really down.”</p> + +<p>“Is that man Avery coming up?” Alan asked.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“I suppose your people see a good deal of him now he’s in town,” said +Alan, trying to look indifferent to the answer.</p> + +<p>“Less than before he went,” said Michael. “Stella’s rather off studios +and the Vie de Bohême.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he has a studio?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you know?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t take very much interest in his movements,” Alan loftily +explained.</p> + +<p>They smoked on for a while without speaking.</p> + +<p>“I must go to bed,” announced Alan at last.</p> + +<p>“Not yet, not yet,” Michael urged him. “I don’t think you’ve quite +realized that this is our last night in Ninety-nine.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve settled to stay on here during Commem Week,” said Alan. “Your +people are staying at the Randolph?”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded, wondering to himself if it were possible that Alan could +really have been so far-sighted as to stay<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> on in St. Giles for the sake +of having the most obvious right to escort his mother and Stella home. +“But why aren’t you going into college?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I thought it would be rather a fag moving in for so short a time. +Besides, it’s been rather ripping in these digs.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him gratefully. He had himself feared to voice his +appreciation of this last year with Alan: he was feeling sentimental +enough to dread on Alan’s side a grudging assent to his enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it has been awfully ripping,” he agreed.</p> + +<p>“I should like to have had another year,” sighed Alan. “I think I was +just beginning to get a dim sort of a notion of philosophy. I wonder how +much of it is really applicable?”</p> + +<p>“To what? To God?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“No, the world—the world we live in.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t fancy, you know,” said Michael, “that the intellectual part of +Oxford is directly applicable to the world at all. What I mean to say +is, that I think it can only be applied to the world through our +behavior.”</p> + +<p>“Well, of course,” said Alan, “that’s a truism.”</p> + +<p>Michael was rather disconcerted. The thought in his mind had seemed more +worthy of expression.</p> + +<p>“But the point is,” Alan went on, “whether our philosophic education, +our mental training has any effect on our behavior. It seems to me that +Oxford is just as typically Oxford whatever a man reads.”</p> + +<p>“That wasn’t the case at school,” said Michael. “I’m positive for +instance the Modern side was definitely inferior to the Classical +side—in manners and everything else. And though at Oxford other +circumstances interfere to make the contrast less violent, it doesn’t +seem to me one gains the quintessence of the university unless one reads +Greats. Even<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> History only supplies that in the case of men +exceptionally sensitive to the spirit of place. I mean to say sensitive +in such a way that Oxford, quite apart from dons and undergraduates, can +herself educate. I’m tremendously anxious now that Oxford should become +more democratic, but I’m equally anxious that, in proportion as she +offers more willingly the shelter of her learning to the people, the +learning she bestows shall be more than ever rigidly unpractical, as +they say.”</p> + +<p>“So you really think philosophy is directly applicable?” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“How Socratic you are,” Michael laughed. “Perhaps the Rhodes Scholars +will answer your question. I remember reading somewhere lately that it +was confidently anticipated the advent of the Rhodes Scholars would +transform a provincial university into an imperial one. That may have +been written by a Cambridge man bitterly aware of his own provincial +university. Yet a moment’s reflection should have taught him that +provincialism in academic matters is possibly an advantage. Florence and +Athens were provincial. Rome and London and Oxford are +metropolitan—much more dangerously exposed to the metropolitan snares +of superficiality and of submerged personality with the corollary of +vulgar display. Neither Rome nor London nor Oxford has produced her own +poets. They have always been sung by the envious but happy provincials. +Rome and London would have treated Shelley just as Oxford did. Cambridge +would have disapproved of him, but a bourgeois dread of interference +would have let him alone. As for an imperial university, the idea is +ghastly. I figure something like the Imperial Institute filled with +Colonials eating pemmican. The Eucalyptic Vision, it might be called.”</p> + +<p>“And you’d make a distinction between imperial and metropolitan?” Alan +asked.<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a></p> + +<p>“Good gracious, yes. Wouldn’t you distinguish between New York and +London? Imperialism is the worst qualities of the provinces gathered up +and exhibited to the world in the worst way. A metropolis takes +provincialism and skims the cream. It is a disintegrating, but for +itself a civilizing, force. A metropolis doesn’t encourage creative art +by metropolitans. It ought to be engaged all the time in trying to make +the provincials appreciate what they themselves are doing.”</p> + +<p>“I think you’re probably talking a good deal of rot,” said Alan +severely. “And we seem to have gone a long way from my question.”</p> + +<p>“About the application of philosophy?”</p> + +<p>Alan nodded.</p> + +<p>“Dear man, as were I a Cantabrian provincial, I should say. Dear man! +Doesn’t it make you shiver? It’s like the ‘Pleased to meet you,’ of +Americans and Tootingians. It’s so terribly and intrusively personal. So +informative and unrestrained, so gushing and——”</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d answer my question,” Alan grumbled, “and call me what you +like without talking about it.”</p> + +<p>“Now I’ve forgotten my answer,” said Michael. “And it was a wonderful +answer. Oh, I remember now. Of course, your philosophy is applicable to +the world. You coming from a metropolitan university will try to infect +the world with your syllogisms. You will meet Cambridge men much better +educated than yourself, but all of them incompetent to appreciate their +own education. You will gently banter them, trying to allay their +provincial suspicion of your easy manner. You will——”</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> will simply not be serious,” said Alan. “And so I shall go to +bed.”</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, I’m only talking like this because if I were serious, I +couldn’t bear to think that to-night is almost<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> the end of our fourth +year. It is, in fact, the end of 99 St. Giles.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it isn’t as if we were never going to see each other again,” said +Alan awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“But it is,” said Michael. “Don’t you realize, even with all your +researches into philosophy, that after to-night we shall only see each +other in dreams? After to-night we shall never again have identical +interests and obligations.”</p> + +<p>“Well, anyway, I’m going to bed,” said Alan, and with a good-night very +typical in its curtness of many earlier ones uttered in similar accents, +he went upstairs.</p> + +<p>Michael, when he found himself alone, thought it wiser to follow him. It +was melancholy to watch the moon above the empty thoroughfare, and to +hear the bells echoing through the spaces of the city.<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + +<h4>THE LAST WEEK</h4> + +<p>Michael’s old rooms in college were lent to him for three or four days +as he had hoped they would be. The present occupant, a freshman, was not +staying up for Commemoration, and though next term he would move into +larger rooms for his second year, his effects had not yet been +transferred. Michael found it interesting to deduce from the evidence of +his books and pictures the character of the owner with whom he had +merely a nodding acquaintance. On the whole, he seemed to be a dull +young man. The photographs of his relatives were dull: his books were +dull and unkempt: his pictures were dull, narrative rather than +decorative. Probably there was nothing in the room that was strictly +individual, nothing that he had acquired to satisfy his own taste. Every +picture had probably been brought to Oxford because its absence would +not be noticed in whatever spare bedroom it had previously been hung. +Every book seemed either a survival of school or the inexpensive pastime +of a railway journey. The very clock on the mantelpiece, which was still +drearily ticking, looked like the first prize of a consolation race, +rather than the gratification of a personal choice. Michael reproached +the young man for being able to spend three terms a year without an +attempt to garnish decently the gothic bookshelves, without an effort to +leave upon this temporary abode the impression of his lodging. He almost +endowed the room<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> itself with a capacity for criticism, feeling it must +deplore three terms of such undistinguished company. Yet, after all, he +had left nothing to tell of his sojourn here. Although he and the dull +young freshman had both used this creaking wicker-chair, for their +successors neither of them could preserve the indication of their +precedence. One relic of his own occupation, however, he did find in the +fragments of envelopes which he had stuck to the door on innumerable +occasions to announce the time of his return. These bits of paper that +straggled in a kite’s tail over the oak door had evidently resisted all +attempts to scrub them off. There were usually a few on every door in +college, but no one had ever so extensively advertised his movements as +Michael, and to see these obstinate bits of tabs gave him a real +pleasure, as if they assured him of his former existence here. Each one +had marked an ubiquitous hour that was recorded more indelibly than many +other occasions of higher importance.</p> + +<p>There was not, however, much time for sentimentalizing over the past, as +somewhere before one o’clock his mother and Stella would arrive, and +they must be met. Alan came with him to the railway station, and it was +delightful to see Wedderburn with them, and in another part of the train +Maurice with his mother and sisters. They must all have lunch at the +Randolph, said Wedderburn immediately. Mrs. Fane was surprised to find +the Randolph such a large hotel, and told Michael that if she had known +it were possible to be at all comfortable in Oxford, she would have come +up to see him long before. In the middle of lunch Lonsdale appeared, +having according to his own account traced Michael’s movements with +tremendous determination. He was introduced to Mrs. Fane, who evidently +took a fancy to him. She was looking, Michael thought, most absurdly +young as Lonsdale rattled away to her, himself quite unchanged<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> by a +year at Scoone’s and a recent failure to enter the Foreign Office.</p> + +<p>“I say, this is awfully sporting of you, Mrs. Fane. You know, one feels +fearfully out of it, coming up like this. Terribly old, and all that. +I’ve been mugging away for the Diplomatic and I’ve just made an awful +ass of myself. So I thought I wouldn’t ask my governor to come up. He’s +choking himself to pieces over my career at present, but I’ve had an +awfully decent offer from a man I know who runs a motor business, and I +don’t think I’ve got the ambassadorial manner, do you? I think I shall +be much better at selling cars, don’t you? I say, which balls are you +going to? Because I must buzz round and see about tickets.”</p> + +<p>Lonsdale’s last question seemed to demand an answer, and Mrs. Fane +looked at Michael rather anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Michael, what balls are we going to?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>“Trinity, the House, and the Apollo,” he told her.</p> + +<p>“What house is that? and I don’t think I ever heard of Apollo College. +It sounds very attractive. Have I said something foolish?” Mrs. Fane +looked round her, for everyone was laughing.</p> + +<p>“The House is Christ Church, mother,” said Michael, and then swiftly he +remembered his father might have made that name familiar to her. If he +had, she gave no sign; and Michael blushing fiercely, went on quickly to +explain that the Apollo was the name of the Masonic Lodge of the +university. Stella and Mrs. Fane rested that afternoon, and Michael with +Wedderburn, Lonsdale, and several other contemporaries spent a jolly +time in St. Mary’s, walking round and reviving the memories of former +rags. Alan had suggested that, as he would be near the Randolph, he +might as well call in and escort Mrs. Fane and Stella down to tea in +Michael’s rooms. Mrs. Avery with Blanche and Eileen Avery had also been +invited, and there was very little space<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a> left for teacups. Wedderburn, +however, assisted by Porcher on whom alone of these familiar people time +had not laid a visible finger, managed to make everybody think they had +enjoyed their tea. Afterward there was a general move to the river for a +short time, but as Lonsdale said, it must be for a very short time in +order that everyone might be in good form for the Trinity ball. Mrs. +Fane thought she would like to stay with Michael and talk to him for a +while. It was strange to see her sitting here in his old room, and to be +in a way more sharply aware of her than he had ever been, as he watched +her fanning herself and looking round at the furniture, while the echoes +of laughter and talk died away down the stone staircase without.</p> + +<p>“Dear Michael,” she said. “I wish I’d seen this room when you lived in +it properly.”</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>“When I lived in it properly,” he answered, “I should have been made so +shy by your visit that I think you’d have hated me and the room.”</p> + +<p>“You must have been so domestic,” said his mother. “Such a curious thing +has happened.”</p> + +<p>“Apropos of what?” asked Michael, smiling.</p> + +<p>“You know Dick Prescott left Stella all his money, well——”</p> + +<p>“But, mother, I didn’t know anything about it.”</p> + +<p>“It was rather vague. He left it first to some old lady whom he intended +to live four or five years, but she died this week, and so Stella +inherits it at once. About two thousand a year. It’s all in land, and +will have to be managed. Huntingdonshire, or some country nobody +believes in. It’s all very difficult. She must marry at once.”</p> + +<p>“But, mother, why because she is to be better off and own land in +Huntingdonshire, is she to marry at once?” asked Michael.<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a></p> + +<p>“To avoid fortune-hunters, odd foreign counts, and people.”</p> + +<p>“But she’s not twenty-one yet,” he objected.</p> + +<p>“My dearest boy, I know, I know. That’s why she must marry. Don’t you +see, when she’s of age, she’ll be able to marry whom she likes, and you +know how headstrong Stella is.”</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said Michael suddenly, “supposing she married Alan?”</p> + +<p>“Delightful boy,” she commented.</p> + +<p>“You mean he’s too young?”</p> + +<p>“For the present, yes.”</p> + +<p>“But you wouldn’t try to stop an engagement, would you?” he asked very +earnestly.</p> + +<p>“My dearest Michael, if two young people I were fond of fell in love, I +should be the last person to try to interfere,” Mrs. Fane promised.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t say anything to Alan about Stella having more money. I +think he might be sensitive about it.”</p> + +<p>“Darling Stella!” she sighed. “So intoxicated with poverty—the notion +of it, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said Michael suddenly and nervously, “you know, don’t you, +that the day after to-morrow is the House ball—the Christ Church ball?”</p> + +<p>“Where your father was?” she said gently, pondering the past.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“I’ll show you his old rooms,” Michael promised.</p> + +<p>“Darling boy,” she murmured, putting out her hand. He held it very +tightly for a moment.</p> + +<p>Next day after the Trinity ball Alan, who was very cheerful, told +Michael he thought it would be good sport to invite everybody to tea at +99 St. Giles.<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, I particularly didn’t want that to happen,” said Michael, taken +aback.</p> + +<p>Alan was puzzled to know his reason.</p> + +<p>“You’ll probably think me absurd,” said Michael. “But I rather wanted to +keep Ninety-nine for a place that I could remember as more than all +others the very heart of Oxford, the most intimate expression of all I +have cared for up here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, so you can, still,” said Alan severely. “My asking a few people +there to tea won’t stop you.”</p> + +<p>“All the same, I wish you wouldn’t,” Michael persisted. “I moved into +college for Commem just to avoid taking anybody to St. Giles.”</p> + +<p>“Not even Stella?” demanded Alan.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, of course, if you don’t want me to, I won’t,” said Alan +grudgingly. “But I think you’re rather ridiculous.”</p> + +<p>“I am, I know,” Michael agreed. “But thanks for honoring me. Do you +think Stella has altered much since she was in Vienna, and during this +year in town?”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit,” Alan declared enthusiastically. “And yet in one way she +has,” he corrected himself. “She seems less out of one’s reach.”</p> + +<p>“Or else you know better how to stretch,” Michael laughed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of her attitude to me,” said Alan a little +stiffly.</p> + +<p>“Most generalizations come down to a particular fact,” Michael answered. +But he would not tease Alan too much because he really wished him to +have confidence.</p> + +<p>After the Trinity ball it seemed to Michael now not very rash to sound +Stella about her point of view with regard to Alan. For this purpose he +invited her to come in a canoe with him on the Cher. Yet when together +they were gliding<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> down the green tunnels of the stream, when all the +warmth of June was at their service, when neither question nor answer +could have cast on either more than a momentary shadow, Michael could +not bring himself to approach the subject even indirectly. They +discussed lazily the success of the Trinity ball, without reference to +the fact that Stella had danced three-quarters of her program with Alan. +She did not even bother to say he was a good dancer, so much was the +convention of indifference demanded by the brother and sister in their +progress along this fronded stream.</p> + +<p>That night in the Town Hall Michael did not dance a great deal himself +at the Masonic ball. He sat with Lonsdale in the gallery, and together +they much diverted themselves with the costumes of the Freemasons. It +was really ridiculous to see Wedderburn in a red cloak and inconvenient +sword dancing the Templars quadrille.</p> + +<p>“I think the English are curious people,” said Michael. “How absurd that +all these undergraduates should belong to an Apollo Lodge and wear these +aprons and dress up like this! Look at Wedders!”</p> + +<p>“Enter Second Ruffian, what?” Lonsdale chuckled.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it does take the place of religion,” Michael ejaculated, in a +tone of bewilderment. “Can you see my sister and Alan Merivale +anywhere?” he added casually.</p> + +<p>“When’s that coming off?” asked Lonsdale. He had taken to an eyeglass +since he had been in London, and the enhanced eye glittered very wisely +at Michael.</p> + +<p>“You think?”</p> + +<p>“What? Rather! My dear old bird, I’ll lay a hundred to thirty. Look at +them now.”</p> + +<p>“They’re only dancing,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“But what dancing! Beautiful action. I never saw a pair go down so +sweetly to the gate. By the way, what are you going to do now you’re +down?”<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a></p> + +<p>Michael shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you wouldn’t like to come into the motor business?”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks very much,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, you must do something, you know,” said Lonsdale, letting fall his +eyeglass in disapproval. “You’ll find that out in town.”</p> + +<p>Michael was engaged for the next dance to one of Maurice’s sisters. Amid +the whirl of frocks, as he swung round this pretty and insipid creature +in pink crêpe-de-chine, he was dreadfully aware that neither his nor her +conversation mattered at all, and that valuable time was being robbed +from him to the strains of the Choristers waltz. Really he would have +preferred to leave Oxford in a manner more solemn than this, not tangled +up with frills and misses and obvious music. Looking down at Blanche +Avery, he almost hated her. And to-morrow there would be another ball. +He must dance with her again, with her and with her sister and with a +dozen more dolls like her.</p> + +<p>Next morning, or rather next noon, for it was noon before people woke +after these balls that were not over until four o’clock, Michael looked +out of his bedroom window with a sudden dismay at the great elms of the +deer park, deep-bosomed, verdurous, entranced beneath the June sky.</p> + +<p>“This is the last whole day,” he said, “the last day when I shall have a +night at the end of it; and it’s going to be absolutely wasted at a +picnic with all these women.”</p> + +<p>Michael scarcely knew how to tolerate that picnic, and wondered +resentfully why everybody else seemed to enjoy it so much.</p> + +<p>“Delicious life,” said his mother, as he punted her away from the +tinkling crowd on the bank. “I’m not surprised you like Oxford, dear +Michael.”</p> + +<p>“I like it—I liked it, I mean, very much more when it<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> was altogether +different from this sort of thing. The great point of Oxford—in fact, +the whole point of Oxford—is that there are no girls.”</p> + +<p>“How charmingly savage you are, dear boy,” said his mother. “And how +absurd to pretend you don’t care for girls.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t,” he asserted. “In Oxford I actually dislike them very +much. They’re out of place except in Banbury Road. Dons should never +have been allowed to marry. Really, mother, women in Oxford are wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, I can’t argue with you. But there seem to me to be a great +many of them.”</p> + +<p>“Great scott, you don’t think it’s like this in term-time, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it?” said Mrs. Fane, apparently very much surprised. “I thought +undergraduates were so famously susceptible. I’m sure they are, too.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say you really thought this Commem herd was always +roaming about Oxford?”</p> + +<p>“Michael, your Oxford expressions are utterly unintelligible to me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you realize you are up here for Commem—for Commemoration?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“How wonderful!” she said. “Don’t tell me any more. It’s so romantic, to +be told one is ‘up’ for something.”</p> + +<p>Michael began to laugh, and the irritation of seeing the peaceful banks +of the upper river dappled with feminine forms, so that everywhere the +cattle had moved away to browse in the remote corners of the meadows, +vanished.</p> + +<p>The ball at Christ Church seemed likely to be the most successful and to +be the one that would remain longest in the memories of those who had +taken part in this Commemoration. Nowhere could an arbiter of pleasure +have found so perfect a site for his most elaborate entertainment. +There<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a> was something very strangely romantic in this gay assembly +dancing in the great hall of the House, so that along the cloisters +sounded the unfamiliar noise of fiddles; but what gave principally the +quality of romance and strangeness was that beyond the music, beyond the +fantastically brilliant hall, stretched all around the dark quadrangles +deserted now save where about their glooms dresses indeterminate as +moths were here and there visible. The decrescent moon would scarcely +survive the dawn, and meanwhile there would be darkness everywhere away +from the golden heart of the dance in that great hall spinning with +light and motion.</p> + +<p>Alan was evidently pleased that he was being able to show Stella his own +college. He wore about him an air of confidence that Michael did not +remember to have seen so plainly marked before. He and Stella were +dancing together all the time here at Christ Church, and Michael felt +he, too, must dance vigorously, so that he should not find himself +overlooking them. He was shy somehow of overlooking them, and when +Blanche Avery and Eileen Avery and half a dozen more cousins and sisters +of friends had been led back to their chaperones, Michael went over to +his mother and invited her to walk with him in the quadrangles of Christ +Church. She knew why he wanted her to walk with him, and as she took his +arm gently, she pressed it to her side. He thought again how +ridiculously young she seemed and how the lightness of her touch was no +less than that of the ethereal Eileen or the filmy Blanche. He wished he +had asked her to dance with him, but yet on second thoughts was glad he +had not, since to walk with her thus along these dark cloisters, down +which traveled fainter and fainter the fiddles of the Eton Boating Song, +was even better than dancing. Soon they were in Peckwater, standing +silent on the gravel, almost overweighted by that heavy Georgian +quadrangle.<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a></p> + +<p>“He lived either on that staircase or that one,” said Michael. “But all +the staircases and all the rooms in Peck are just the same, and all the +men who have lived in them for the past fifty years are just the same. +The House is a wonderful place, and the type it displays best changes +less easily than any other.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know him when he lived here,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>With her hand still resting lightly upon his sleeve, Michael felt the +palpitation of long-stored-up memories and emotions. As she stood here +pensive in the darkness, the years were rolling back.</p> + +<p>“I expect if he were alive,” she went on softly, “he would wonder how +time could have gone by so quickly since he was here. People always do, +don’t they, when they revisit places they’ve known in younger days? When +he was here, I must have been about fifteen. Funny, severe, +narrow-minded old father!”</p> + +<p>Michael waited rather anxiously. She had never yet spoken of her life +before she met his father, and he had never brought himself to ask her.</p> + +<p>“Funny old man! He was at Cambridge—Trinity College, I think it was +called.”</p> + +<p>Then she was silent for a while, and Michael knew that she was linking +her father and his father in past events; but still she did not voice +her thoughts, and whatever joys or miseries of that bygone time were +being recalled were still wrapped up in her reserve: nor did Michael +feel justified in trying to persuade her to unloose them, even here in +this majestic enclosure that would have engulfed them all as soon as +they were free.</p> + +<p>“You’re not cold?” he tenderly demanded.</p> + +<p>Surely upon his arm she had shivered.</p> + +<p>“No, but I think we’ll go back to the ballroom,” she sighed.<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a></p> + +<p>Michael felt awed when their feet grated again in movement over the +gravel. Behind them in the quadrangle there were ghosts, and the noise +of walking here seemed sacrilegious upon this moonless and heavy summer +night. Presently, however, two couples came laughing into the lamplight +at the corner. The sense of decorous creeds outraged by his mother’s +behavior of long ago vanished in the relief that present youth gave with +its laughing company and fashionable frocks. Beside such heedlessness it +were vain to conjure too remorsefully the past. After all, Peckwater was +a place in which young men should crack whips and shout to one another +across window-boxes; here there should be no tombs. Michael and his +mother went on their way to the hall, and soon the music of the waltzing +filled magically the lamplit entries of the great college, luring them +to come back with light hearts, so importunate was the gaiety.</p> + +<p>Michael rather reproached himself afterward for not trying to take +advantage of his mother’s inclination to yield him a more extensive +confidence. He was sure Stella would not have allowed the opportunity to +slip by so in a craven embarrassment; or was it rather a fine +sensitiveness, an imaginative desire to let the whole of that history +lie buried in whatever poor shroud romance could lend it? As he was +thinking of Stella, herself came toward him over the shining floor of +the ballroom emptied for the interval between two dances. How delicately +flushed she was and how her gray eyes were lustered with joy of the +evening, or perhaps with fortunate tidings. Michael was struck by the +direct way in which she was coming toward him without bothering through +self-consciousness to seem to find him unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>“Come for a walk with me in the moonlight,” she said, taking his arm.</p> + +<p>“There’s no moon yet, but I’ll take you for a walk.”</p> + +<p>The clock was striking two, as they reached Tom quad,<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> and the +decrescent moon to contradict him was already above the roofs. They +strolled over to the fountain and stood there captured by loveliness, +silent themselves and listening to the talk and laughter of shimmering +figures that reached them subdued and intermittent from the flagged +terraces in the distance.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said Stella suddenly, “you’re very fond of Alan?”</p> + +<p>“Rather, of course I am.”</p> + +<p>“So am I.”</p> + +<p>Then she blushed, and her cheeks were very crimson in the moonlight. +Michael had never seen her blush like this, had never been aware before +of her maidenhood that now flooded his consciousness like a bouquet of +roses. Hitherto she had always been for Michael a figure untouched by +human weakness. Even when last summer he had seen her break down +disconsolate, he had been less shocked by her grief than by its +incongruity in her. This blush gave to him his only sister as a woman.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with Alan is that he thinks he can’t marry me because I +have money, whereas he will be dependent on what he earns. That’s +rubbish, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” he agreed warmly. “I’ll tell him so, if you like.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think he’d pay much attention,” she said. “But you know, poor +old Prescott left me a lot of land.”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s got to be managed, hasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Michael. “You’ll want a land agent.”</p> + +<p>“Why not Alan?” she asked. “I don’t want to marry somebody in the Home +Civil Service. I want him to be with me all day. Wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“You’ve not told mother?” Michael suggested cautiously.<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a></p> + +<p>“Not yet. I shall be twenty-one almost at once, you know.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that got to do with it?”</p> + +<p>He was determined that in Stella’s behavior there should be no +reflection, however pale, of what long ago had come into the life of an +undergraduate going down from Christ Church. He wished for Stella and +Alan to have all the benisons of the world. “You’ve no right to assume +that mother will object,” he told her.</p> + +<p>But Stella did not begin to speak, as she was used, of her determination +to have her own way in spite of everybody. She was a softer Stella +to-night; and that alone showed to Michael how right he had been to wish +with all his heart that she would fall in love with Alan.</p> + +<p>“There he is!” she cried, clapping her hands.</p> + +<p>Michael looked up, and saw him coming across the great moonlit space, +tall and fair and flushed as he should be coming like this to claim +Stella. Michael punched Alan to express his pleasure, and then he +quickly left them standing by the fountain close together.<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3> + +<h4>THE LAST DAY</h4> + +<p>At sunrise when the stones of Oxford were the color of lavender, a +photograph was taken of those who had been dancing at the Christ Church +ball; after which, their gaiety recorded, the revelers went home. +Michael was relieved when Alan offered to drive his mother and Stella +back to the Randolph. He was not wishing for company that morning, but +rather to walk slowly down to college alone. He waited, therefore, to +see the dancers disappear group by group round various corners, until +the High was desolate and he was the only human figure under this +virginal sky. In his bedroom clear and still and sweet with morning +light he did not want to go to bed. The birds fluttering on the lawns, +the sun sparkling with undeterrent rays of gold not yet high and fierce, +and all the buildings of the college dreaming upon the bosom of this +temperate morn made him too vigilant for beauty. It would be wrong to +sleep away this Oxford morning. With deliberate enjoyment he changed +from ruffled evening dress into flannels.</p> + +<p>In the sitting-room Michael looked idly through the books, and glanced +with dissatisfaction at the desquamating backs of the magazines. There +was nothing here fit to occupy his attention at such a peerless hour. +Yet he still lingered by the books. Habit was strong enough to make him +feel it necessary at least to pretend to read during the hours before<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> +breakfast. Finally in desperation he pulled out one of the magazines, +and as he did so a small volume bound in paper fell onto the floor. It +was Manon Lescaut, and Michael was pleased that the opportunity was +given to him of reading a book he had for a long time meant to read. +Moreover, if it were disappointing, this edition was so small that it +would fit easily into his pocket and be no bother to carry. He wondered +rather how Manon Lescaut had come into this bookshelf, and he opened it +at an aquatint of ladies deject and lightly clothed—<i>c’est une douzaine +de filles de joie</i>, said the inscription beneath. Here, Michael feared, +was the explanation of how the Abbé Prévost found himself squeezed away +between Pearson’s and The Strand. Here at last was evidence in these +rooms of a personal choice. Here spoke, if somewhat ignobly, the +character of the purchaser. Michael slipped the small volume into his +pocket and went out.</p> + +<p>The great lawns in front of New Quad stretched for his solitary pleasure +in the golden emptiness of morn. At such an hour it were vain to repine; +so supreme was beauty like this that Michael’s own departure from Oxford +appeared to him as unimportant as the fall of a petal unshaken by any +breath of summer wind. With the air brimming to his draught and with +early bees restless along the herbaceous border by the stream’s parapet, +Michael began to read Manon Lescaut. He would finish this small volume +before breakfast, unless the fumes of the sun should drug him out of all +power to award the Abbé his fast attention. The great artist was +stronger than the weather, and Michael read on while the sun climbed the +sky, while the noises of a new day began, while the footsteps of +hurrying scouts went to and fro.</p> + +<p>It was half-past eight when he finished that tale of love. For a few +moments he sat dazed, visualizing that dreadful<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> waste near New Orleans +where in the sand it was so easy for the star-crossed Chevalier to bury +the idol of his heart.</p> + +<p>Porcher was surprised to find Michael up and wide awake.</p> + +<p>“You oughtn’t to have gone and tired yourself like that, sir,” he said +reproachfully.</p> + +<p>Michael rather resented putting back the little book among those +magazines. He felt it would be almost justifiable to deprive the owner +of what he so evidently did not esteem, and he wondered if, when he had +cut the pages with his prurient paper-knife the purchaser had wished at +the end of this most austere tale that he had not spent his money so +barrenly. <i>C’est une douzaine de filles de joie.</i> It was a bitter +commentary on human nature, that a mere aquatint of these poor naked +creatures jolting to exile in their tumbril should extort half a crown +from an English undergraduate to probe their history.</p> + +<p>“Dirty-minded little beast,” said Michael, as he confiscated the edition +of Manon Lescaut, placing it in his suitcase. Then he went out into St. +Mary’s Walks, and at the end of the longest vista sat down on a +garden-bench beside the Cherwell. Before him stretched the verdurous way +down which he had come; beyond, taking shape among the elms, was the +college; to right and left were vivid meadows where the cattle were +scarcely moving, so lush was the pasturage here; and at his side ran the +slow, the serpentine, the tree-green tranquil Cher.</p> + +<p>As he sat here among the bowers of St. Mary’s, the story he had just +read came back to him with a double poignancy. He scarcely thought that +any tale of love could purify so sharply every emotion but that of pity +too profound for words. He wondered if his father had loved with such a +devotion of self-destruction as had inspired des Grieux. It was strange +himself should have been so greatly moved by a story of love at the +moment when he was making ready to<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a> enter the world. He had not thought +of love during all the time he had been up at Oxford. Now he went back +in memory to the days when Lily had the power to shake his soul, even as +the soul of des Grieux had been shaken in that inn-yard of Amiens, when +coming by the coach from Arras he first beheld Manon. How trivial had +been Lily’s infidelity compared with Manon’s: how shallow had been his +own devotion beside the Chevalier’s. But the love of des Grieux for +Manon was beyond the love of ordinary youth. The Abbé by his art had +transmuted a wild infatuation, a foolish passion for a wanton into +something above even the chivalry of the noblest lover of the Middle +Ages. It was beyond all tears, this tale; and the dry grief it now +exacted gave to Michael in some inexplicable way a knowledge of life +more truly than any book since Don Quixote. It was an academic tale, +too: it was told within the narrowest confines of the most rigid form. +There was not in this narrative one illegitimate device to excite an +easy compassion in the reader: it was literature of a quality marmoreal, +and it moved as only stone can move. The death of Manon in the +wilderness haunted him even as he sat here: almost he too could have +prostrated himself in humiliation before this tragedy.</p> + +<p>“There is no story like it,” said Michael to the sleek river. <i>N’exigez +point de moi que je vous décrive mes sentiments, ni que je vous rapporte +mes dernières expressions.</i> And it was bought by an undergraduate for +half a crown because he wanted to stare like the peasant-folk. <i>C’est +une douzaine de filles de joie.</i> How really promising that illustration +must have looked: how the coin must have itched in his pocket: how +carefully he must have weighed the slimness of the book against his +modesty: how easy it had been to conceal behind those magazines.</p> + +<p>But he could not sit here any longer reconstructing the<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a> shamefaced +curiosity of a dull young freshman, nor even, with so much to arrange +this last morning, could he continue to brood upon the woes of the +Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut. It was time to go and rouse +Lonsdale. Lonsdale had slept long enough in those ground-floor rooms of +his where on the first day of the first term the inextricable Porcher +had arranged his wine. It did not take long to drag Lonsdale out of bed.</p> + +<p>“You slack devil, I’ve not been to bed at all,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“More silly ass you,” Lonsdale yawned. “Now don’t annoy me while I’m +dressing with your impressions of the sunrise.” Michael watched him eat +his breakfast, while he slowly and with the troublesome aid of his +eyeglass managed to focus once again the world.</p> + +<p>“I was going to tell you something deuced interesting about myself when +you buzzed off this morning. You’ve heard of Queenie Molyneux—well, +Queenie ...”</p> + +<p>“Wait a bit,” Michael interrupted. “I haven’t heard of Queenie +Molyneux.”</p> + +<p>“Why, she’s in the Pink Quartette.”</p> + +<p>Michael still looked blank, and Lonsdale adjusting his eyeglass looked +at him in amazement.</p> + +<p>“The Pink Quartette in My Mistake.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that rotten musical comedy,” said Michael. “I haven’t seen it.”</p> + +<p>Lonsdale shook his head in despair, and the monocle tinkled down upon +his plate. When he had wiped it clean of marmalade, he asked Michael in +a compassionate voice if he <i>never</i> went to the theater, and with a sigh +returned to the subject of Queenie.</p> + +<p>“It’s the most extraordinary piece of luck. A girl that everyone in town +has been running after falls in love with me. Now the question is, what +ought I to do? I can’t<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a> afford to keep her, and I’m not cad enough to +let somebody else keep her, and use the third latchkey. My dear old +chap, I don’t mind telling you I’m in the deuce of a fix.”</p> + +<p>“Are you very much in love with her?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Of course I am. You don’t get Queenies chucked at your head like +turnips. Of course I’m frightfully keen.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you marry her?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“What? Marry her? You don’t seem to understand who I’m talking about. +Queenie Molyneux! She’s in the Pink Quartette in My Mistake.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t marry a chorus-girl.”</p> + +<p>“Other people have,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, but—er—you know, Queenie has rather a reputation. I +shouldn’t be the first.”</p> + +<p>“The problem’s too hard for me,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>In his heart he would have liked to push Manon Lescaut into Lonsdale’s +hands and bid him read that for counsel. But he could not help laughing +to himself at the notion of Lonsdale wrestling with the moral of Manon +Lescaut, and if the impulse had ever reached his full consciousness, it +died on the instant.</p> + +<p>“Of course, if this motor-car business is any good,” Lonsdale was +saying, “I might be able in a year or two to compete with elderly +financiers. But my advice to you ...”</p> + +<p>“You asked for my advice,” said Michael, with a smile.</p> + +<p>“I know I did. I know I did. But as you haven’t ever been to see My +Mistake—the most absolutely successful musical comedy for years—why, +my dear fellow, I’ve been thirty-eight times!... and my advice to you is +‘avoid actresses.’ Oh, yes, I know it’s difficult, I know, I know.”</p> + +<p>Lonsdale shook his head so often that the monocle fell on the floor, and +his wisdom was speechless until he could find it again.<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a></p> + +<p>Michael left him soon afterward, feeling rather sadly that the horizon +before him was clouding over with feminine forms. Alan would soon be +engaged to his sister. It was delightful, of course, but in one way it +already placed a barrier between their perfect intercourse. Maurice +would obviously soon be thinking of nothing but women. Already even up +at Oxford a great deal of his attention had been turned in that +direction: and now Lonsdale had Queenie. This swift severance from youth +by all his friends, this preoccupation with womanhood was likely to be +depressing, thought Michael, unless himself also fell in love. That was +very improbable, however. Love filled him with fear. The Abbé Prévost +that morning had expressed for him in art the quintessence of what he +knew with sharp prevision love for him would mean. He felt a dread of +leaving Oxford that quite overshadowed his regret. Here was shelter—why +had he not shaped his career to stay forever in this cold peace? And, +after all, why should he not? He was independent. Why should he enter +the world and call down upon himself such troubles and torments as had +vexed his youth in London? From the standpoint of moral experience he +had a right to stay here: and yet it would be desolate to stay here +without a vital reason, merely to grow old on the fringe of the +university. Could he have been a Fellow, it would have been different: +but to vegetate, to dream, to linger without any power of art to put +into form even what he had experienced already, that would inevitably +breed a pernicious melancholy. On the other hand, he might go to +Plashers Mead. He might almost make trial of art. Guy would inspire him, +Guy living his secluded existence with books above a stream. Whatever +occurred to him in the way of personal failure, he could on his side +encourage Guy. His opinion might be valuable, for although he seemed to +have no passion to create, he was sure<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a> his judgment was good. How Guy +would appreciate Manon; and perhaps like so many classics he had taken +it as read, nor knew yet what depths of pity, what profundities of +beauty awaited his essay.</p> + +<p>Michael made up his mind that instead of going to London this afternoon +he would ride over to Wychford and either stay with Guy or in any case +announce his speedy return to stay with him for at least the rest of the +summer. Alan would escort his mother and Stella home. It would be easier +for Alan that way. His mother would be so charming to him, and +everything would soon be arranged. With this plan to unfold, Michael +hurried across to Ninety-nine. Alan was already up. Everything was +packed. Michael realized he could already regard the digs without a pang +for the imminence of final departure. Perhaps the Abbé Prévost had +deprived him of the capacity for a merely sentimental emotion, at any +rate for the present.</p> + +<p>Alan looked rather doubtful over Michael’s proposal.</p> + +<p>“I hate telling things in the train,” he objected.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t got to tell anything in the train,” Michael contradicted. +“My mother is sure to invite you to dinner to-night, and you can tell +her at home. It’s much better for me to be out of it. I shall be back in +a few days to pack up various things I shall want for Plashers Mead.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a most extraordinary thing,” said Alan slowly, “that the moment +you think there’s a chance of my marrying your sister, you drop me like +a hot brick.”</p> + +<p>Michael touched his shoulder affectionately.</p> + +<p>“I’m more pleased about you and her than about anything that has ever +happened,” he said earnestly. “Now are you content?”</p> + +<p>“Of course, I oughtn’t to have spoken to her,” said Alan. “I really +don’t know, looking back at last night, how on<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a> earth I had the cheek. I +expect I said a lot of rot. I ought certainly to have waited until I was +in the Home Civil.”</p> + +<p>“You must chuck that idea,” said Michael. “Stella would loathe the Civil +Service.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t marry ...” Alan began.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got to manage her affairs. She has a temperament. She also has +land.” Then Michael explained about Prescott, and so eloquent was he +upon the need for Stella’s happiness that Alan began to give way.</p> + +<p>“I always thought I should be too proud to live on a woman,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Don’t make me bring forward all my arguments over again,” Michael +begged. “I’m already feeling very fagged. You’ll have all your work cut +out. To manage Stella herself, let alone her piano and let alone her +land, is worth a very handsome salary. But that’s nothing to do with it. +You’re in love with each other. Are you going to be selfish enough to +satisfy your own silly pride at the expense of her happiness? I could +say lots more. I could sing your praises as ...”</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much. You needn’t bother,” interrupted Alan gruffly.</p> + +<p>“Well, will you not be an ass?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try.”</p> + +<p>“Otherwise I shall tell you what a perfect person you are.”</p> + +<p>“Get out,” said Alan, flinging a cushion.</p> + +<p>Michael left him and went down to the Randolph. He found Stella already +dressed and waiting impatiently in the lobby for his arrival. His mother +was not yet down.</p> + +<p>“It’s all right,” he began, “I’ve destroyed the last vestige of Alan’s +masculine vanity. Mother will be all right—if,” said Michael severely, +pausing to relish the flavor of what might be the last occasion on which +he would administer<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a> with authority a brotherly admonition. “<i>If</i> you +don’t put on a lot of side and talk about being twenty-one in a couple +of months. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p>Stella for answer flung her arms round his neck, and Michael grew purple +under the conspicuous affront she had put upon his dignity.</p> + +<p>“You absurd piece of pomposity,” she said. “I really adore you.”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake don’t talk in that exaggerated way,” Michael muttered. +“I hope you aren’t going to make a public ass of Alan like that. He’d be +rather sick.”</p> + +<p>“If you say another word,” Stella threatened, “I’ll clap my hands and go +dancing all round this hotel.”</p> + +<p>At lunch Michael explained that he was not coming to town for a day or +two, and his mother accepted his announcement with her usual gracious +calm. Just before they were getting ready to enter their cab to go to +the station, Michael took her aside.</p> + +<p>“Mother, you’ll be very sympathetic, won’t you?” Then he whispered to +her, fondling her arm. “They really are so much in love, but Alan will +never be able to explain how much, and I swear to you he and Stella were +made for each other.”</p> + +<p>“But they don’t want to be married at once?” asked Mrs. Fane, in some +alarm.</p> + +<p>“Oh, not to-morrow,” Michael admitted. “But don’t ask them to have a +year’s engagement. Will you promise me?”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you come back to-night and talk to me about it?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Because they’ll be so delightful talking to you without me. I should +spoil it. And don’t forget—Alan is a <i>slow</i> bowler, but he gets +wickets.”</p> + +<p>Michael watched with a smile his mother waving to him<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a> from the cab +while still she was vaguely trying to resolve the parting metaphor he +had flung at her. As soon as the cab had turned the corner, he called +for his bicycle and rode off to Wychford.</p> + +<p>He went slowly with many roadside halts, nor was there the gentlest rise +up which he did not walk. It was after five o’clock when he dipped from +the rolling highway down into Wychford. There were pink roses everywhere +on the gray houses. As he went through the gate of Plashers Mead, he +hugged himself with the thought of Guy’s pleasure at seeing him so +unexpectedly on this burnished afternoon of midsummer. The leaves of the +old espalier rustled crisply: they were green and glossy, and the +apples, still scarcely larger than nuts, promised in the autumn when he +and Guy would be together here a ruddy harvest. The house was +unresponsive when he knocked at the door. He waited for a minute or two, +and then he went into the stone-paved hall and up the steep stairs to +the long corridor, at whose far end the framed view of the open doorway +into Guy’s green room glowed as vividly as if it gave upon a high-walled +sunlit garden. The room itself was empty. There were only the books and +a lingering smell of tobacco smoke, and through the bay-window the +burble of the stream swiftly flowing. Michael looked out over the +orchard and away to the far-flung horizon of the wold beyond.</p> + +<p>Here assuredly, he told himself, was the perfect refuge. Here in this +hollow waterway was peace. From here sometimes in the morning he and Guy +would ride into Oxford, whence at twilight they would steal forth again +and, dipping down from the bleak road, find Plashers Mead set safe in a +land that was tributary only to the moon. Guy’s diamond pencil, with +which he was wont upon the window to inscribe mottoes, lay on the sill. +Michael picked it up and scratched<a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a> upon the glass: <i>The fresh green lap +of fair King Richard’s land</i>, setting the date below.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly coming down past the house with the stream he saw in a +canoe Guy with a girl. The canoe swept past the window and was lost +round the bend, hidden immediately by reeds and overarching willows. Yet +Michael had time to see the girl, to see her cheeks of frailest rose, to +know she was a fairy’s child and that Guy was deep in love. Although the +fleet vision thrilled him with a romantic beauty, Michael was +disheartened. Even here at Plashers Mead, where he had counted upon +finding a cloister, the disintegration of life’s progress had begun. It +would be absurd for him to intrude now upon Guy. He would scarcely be +welcomed now in this June weather. After all, he must go to London; so +he left behind him the long gray house and walked up the slanting hill +that led to the nearest railway station. By the gate where he and Guy +had first seen Plashers Mead, he paused to throw one regret back into +that hollow waterway, one regret for the long gray house on its green +island circled by singing streams.</p> + +<p>There were two hours to wait at the station before the train would +arrive. He would be in London about half-past nine. Discovering a meadow +pied with daisies, Michael slept in the sun.</p> + +<p>When he woke, the grass was smelling fresh in the shadows, and the sun +was westering. He went across to the station and, during the ten minutes +left before his train came in, walked up and down the platform in the +spangled airs of evening, past the tea-roses planted there, slim tawny +buds and ivory cups dabbled with creamy flushes.</p> + +<p>It was dark when Michael reached Paddington, and he felt depressed, +wishing he had come back with the others. No doubt they would all be at +the theater. Or should he drive home and perhaps find them there?<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a></p> + +<p>“Know anything about this golf-bag, Bill?” one porter was shouting to +another.</p> + +<p>Michael went over to look at the label in case it might be Alan’s bag. +But it was an abandoned golf-bag belonging to no one: there were no +initials even painted on the canvas. This forsaken golf-bag doubled +Michael’s depression, and though he had always praised Paddington as the +best of railway stations, he thought to-night it was the gloomiest in +London. Then he remembered in a listless way that he had forgotten to +inquire about his suit-case, which had been sent after him from Oxford +to Shipcott, the station for Wychford. It must be lying there now with +Manon Lescaut inside. He made arrangements to recapture it, which +consummated his depression. Then he called a hansom and drove to Cheyne +Walk. They had all gone to the Opera, the parlormaid told him. Michael +could not bear to stay at home to-night alone: so, getting back into the +hansom, he told the man to drive to the Oxford Music-hall. It would be +grimly amusing to see on the programs there the theatrical view of St. +Mary’s tower.</p> + +<p class="c">THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK</p> + +<p><a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="BOOK_TWO" id="BOOK_TWO"></a>BOOK TWO<br /> +ROMANTIC EDUCATION</h2> + +<p><a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Sancta ad vos anima atque istius inscia culpae</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">descendam, magnorum haud umquam indignus avorum.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIRGIL.</td></tr> +</table> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">For Fancy cannot live on real food:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In youth she will despise familiar joy</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">To dwell in mournful shades, as they grow real,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Then buildeth she of joy her fair ideal.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">ROBERT BRIDGES.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I-a" id="CHAPTER_I-a"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>OSTIA DITIS</h4> + +<p>When Michael reached the Oxford Music-hall he wondered why he had +overspurred his fatigue to such a point. There was no possibility of +pleasure here, and he would have done better to stay at home and cure +with sleep what was after all a natural depression. It had been foolish +to expect a sedative from contact with this unquiet assemblage. In the +mass they had nothing but a mechanical existence, subject as they were +to the brightness or dimness of the electrolier that regulated their +attention. Michael did not bother to buy a program. From every podgy +hand he could see dangling the lithograph of St. Mary’s tower with its +glazed moonlight; and he was not sufficiently aware of the glib atom who +bounced about the golden dazzle of the stage to trouble about his name. +He mingled with the slow pace of the men and women on the promenade. +They were going backward and forward like flies, meeting for a moment in +a quick buzz of colloquy and continuing after a momentary pause their +impersonal and recurrent progress. Michael was absorbed in this +ceaseless ebb and flow of motion where the sidelong glances of the +women, as they brushed his elbow in the passing crowd, gave him no +conviction of an individual gaze. Once or twice he diverted his steps +from the stream and tried to watch in a half-hearted way the +performance; but as he leaned over the<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a> plush-covered barrier a woman +would sidle up to him, and he would move away in angry embarrassment +from the questioning eyes under the big plumed hat. The noise of popping +corks and the chink of glasses, the whirr of the ventilating fans, the +stentorophonic orchestra, the red-faced raucous atom on the stage +combined to irritate him beyond further endurance; and he had just +resolved to walk seven times up and down the promenade before he went +home, when somebody cried in heartiest greeting over his shoulder, +“Hullo, Bangs!”</p> + +<p>Michael turned and saw Drake, and so miserable had been the effect of +the music-hall that he welcomed him almost effusively, although he had +not seen him during four years and would probably like him rather less +now than he had liked him at school.</p> + +<p>“<i>My</i> lord! fancy seeing you again!” Drake effused.</p> + +<p>Michael found himself shaken warmly by the hand in support of the +enthusiastic recognition. After the less accentuated cordiality of +Oxford manners, it was strange to be standing like this with clasped +hands in the middle of this undulatory crowd.</p> + +<p>“I <i>say</i>, Bangs, old man, we must have a drink on this.”</p> + +<p>Drake led the way to the bar and called authoritatively for two whiskies +and a split Polly.</p> + +<p>“Quite a little-bit-of-fluffy-all-right,” he whispered to Michael, +seeming to calculate with geometrical eyes the arcs and semicircles of +the barmaid’s form. She with her nose in the air poured out the liquid, +and Michael wondered how any of it went into the glass. As a matter of +fact, most of it splashed onto the bar, whence Drake presently took his +change all bedewed with alcohol, and, lifting his glass, wished Michael +a jolly good chin-chin.</p> + +<p>“’D luck,” Michael muttered in response.</p> + +<p>“<i>My</i> lord!” Drake began again. “Fancy meeting you of<a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a> all people. And +not a bit different. I said to myself: ‘I’m jiggered if that isn’t old +Bangs,’ and—well, <i>my</i> lord! but I was surprised. Do you often come out +on the randan?”</p> + +<p>“Not very often,” Michael admitted. “I just happened to be alone +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Good for you, old sport. What have you been doing since you left +school?”</p> + +<p>“I’m just down from Oxford,” Michael informed him.</p> + +<p>“Pretty good spree up there, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, rather,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, I had the chance to go,” said Drake. “But it wasn’t good enough. +It’s against you in the City, you know. Waste of time really, except of +course for a parson or a schoolmaster.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I expect it would have been rather a waste of time for you,” +Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rotten! So you moved from—where was it?—Carlington Road?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we moved to Cheyne Walk.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s see. That’s in Hampstead, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s rather nearer the river,” suggested Michael. “Are you still +in Trelawny Road?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, still in the same old hovel. My hat! Talking of Trelawny Road, it +<i>is</i> a small world. Who do you think I saw last week?”</p> + +<p>“Not Lily Haden?” Michael asked, in spite of a wish not to rise so +quickly to Drake’s hook.</p> + +<p>“You’re right. I saw the fair Lily. But where do you think I saw her? +Bangs, old boy, I tell you I’m not a fellow who’s easily surprised. But +this knocked me. Of course, you’ll understand the Hadens flitted from +Trelawny Road soon after you stopped calling. So who knows what’s +happened since? I give you three guesses where I saw her.”<a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a></p> + +<p>“I hate riddles,” said Michael fretfully.</p> + +<p>“At the Orient,” said Drake solemnly. “The Orient Promenade. You could +have knocked me down with a feather.”</p> + +<p>Michael stared at Drake, scarcely realizing the full implication of what +he just announced. Then suddenly he grasped the horrible fact that +revealed to him here in a music-hall carried a double force. His one +instinct for the moment was to prevent Drake from knowing into what +depths his news had plunged him.</p> + +<p>“Has she changed?” asked Michael, and could have kicked himself for the +question.</p> + +<p>“Well, of course there was a good deal of powder,” said Drake. “I’m not +easily shocked, but this gave me a turn. She was with a man, but even if +she hadn’t been, I doubt if I’d have had the nerve to talk to her. I +wouldn’t have known what to say. But, of course, you know, her mother +was a bit rapid. That’s where it is. Have another drink. You’re looking +quite upset.”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head. He must go home.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you coming down West a bit?” asked Drake, in disappointment. +“The night’s still young.”</p> + +<p>But Michael was not to be persuaded.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t let’s lose sight of each other now we’ve met. What’s your +club? I’ve just joined the Primrose myself. Not a bad little place. You +get a rare good one-and-sixpenny lunch. You ought to join. Or perhaps +you’re already suited?”</p> + +<p>“I belong to the Bath,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course, if you’re suited, that’s all right. But any time you +want to join the Primrose just let me know and I’ll put you up. The sub +isn’t really very much. Guinea a year.”</p> + +<p>Michael thanked him and escaped as quickly as he could.<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a> Outside even in +Oxford Street the air was full of summer, and the cool people sauntering +under the sapphirine sky were as welcome to his vision as if he had +waked from a fever. His head was throbbing with the heat of the +music-hall, and the freshness of night-air was delicious. He called a +hansom and told the driver to go to Blackfriars Bridge, and from there +slowly along the Embankment to Cheyne Walk. For a time he leaned back in +the cab, thinking of nothing, barely conscious of golden thoroughfares, +of figures in silhouette against the glitter, and of the London roar +rising and falling. Presently in the quiet of the shadowy cross-streets +he began to appreciate what seemed the terrible importance to himself of +Drake’s news.</p> + +<p>“It concerns me,” he began to reiterate aloud. “It concerns me—me—me. +It’s useless to think that it doesn’t. It concerns me.”</p> + +<p>Then a more ghastly suggestion whispered itself. How should he ever know +that he was not primarily responsible? The idea came over him with +sickening intensity; and upright now he saw in the cracked mirrors of +the cab a face blanched, a forehead clammy with sweat, and over his +shoulder like a goblin the wraith of Lily. It was horrible to see so +distorted that beautiful memory which time had etherealized out of a +reality, until of her being nothing had endured but a tenuous image of +earliest love. Now under the shock of her degradation he must be dragged +back by this goblin to face his responsibility. He must behold again +close at hand her shallow infidelity. He must assure himself of her +worthlessness, hammer into his brain that from the beginning she had +merely trifled with him. This must be established for the sake of his +conscience. Where the devil was this driver going?</p> + +<p>“I told you down the Embankment,” Michael shouted through the trap.<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a></p> + +<p>“I can’t go down the Embankment before I gets there, can I, sir?” the +cabman asked reproachfully.</p> + +<p>Michael closed the trap. He was abashed when he perceived they were +still only in Fleet Street. Why had he gone to The Oxford to-night? Why +had he spoken to Drake? Why had he not stayed at Wychford? Why had he +not returned to London with the others? Such regrets were valueless. It +was foredoomed that Lily should come into his life again. Yet there was +no reason why she should. There was no reason at all. Men could hardly +be held responsible for the fall of women, unless themselves had upon +their souls the guilt of betrayal or desertion. It was ridiculous to +argue that he must bother because at eighteen he had loved her, because +at eighteen he had thought she was worthy of being loved. No doubt the +Orient Promenade was the sequel of kissing objectionable actors in the +back gardens of West Kensington. Yet the Orient Promenade? That was a +damnable place. The Orient Promenade? He remembered her kisses. Sitting +in this cab, he was kissing her now. She had ridden for hours deep in +his arms. Not Oxford could cure this relapse into the past. Every spire +and every tower had crashed to ruins around his staid conceptions, so +that they too presently fell away. Four years of plastic calm were +unfashioned, and she was again beside him. Every passing lamp lit up her +face, her smoldering eyes, her lips, her hair. The goblin took her +place, the goblin with sidelong glances, tasting of scent, powdered, +pranked, soulless, lost. What was she doing at this moment? What +invitation glittered in her look? Michael nearly told the driver to turn +his horse. He must reach the Orient before the show was done. He must +remonstrate with her, urge her to go home, help her with money, plead +with her, drag her by force away from that procession. But the hansom +kept on its way. All down the Embankment,<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> all along Grosvenor Road the +onrushing street-lamps flung their balls of light with monotonous +jugglery into the cab. To-night, anyhow, it was too late to find her. He +would sleep on whatever resolve he took, and in the morning perhaps the +problem would present itself in less difficult array.</p> + +<p>Michael reached home before the others had come back from the Opera, and +suddenly he knew how tired he was. To-day had been the longest day he +could ever remember. Quickly he made up his mind to go to bed so that he +would not be drawn into the discussion of the delightful engagement of +Stella and Alan. He felt he could hardly face the irony of their +happiness when he thought of Lily. For a while he sat at the window, +staring at the water and bathing his fatigue in the balm of the generous +night. Even here in London peace was possible, here where the reflected +lamps in golden pagodas sprawled across the width of the river and where +the glutted tide lapped and sucked the piers of the bridge, nuzzled the +shelving strand and swirled in sleepy greed around the patient barges at +their moorings. A momentary breeze frilled the surface of the stream, +blurring the golden pagodas of light so that they jigged and glittered +until the motion died away. Eastward in the sky over London hung a tawny +stain that blotted out the stars.</p> + +<p>From his window Michael grew more and more conscious of the city +stirring in a malaise of inarticulate life beneath that sinister stain. +He was aware of the stealthy soul of London transcending the false +vision of peace before his eyes. There came creeping over him the +dreadful knowledge that Lily was at this moment living beneath that +London sky, imprisoned, fettered, crushed beneath that grim suffusion, +that fulvid vile suffusion of the nocturnal sky. He began to spur his +memory for every beautiful record of her that was stamped upon it. She +was walking toward him in Kensington Gardens: not a contour of her +delicate progress<a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a> had been blunted by the rasp of time. Five years ago +he had been the first to speak: now, must it be she who sometimes spoke +first? Seventeen she had told him had been her age, and they had kissed +in the dark midway between two lamps. No doubt she had been kissed +before. In that household of Trelawny Road anything else was +inconceivable. The gray streets of West Kensington in terrace upon +terrace stretched before him, and now as he recalled their barren stones +it seemed to him there was not one corner round which he might not +expect to meet her face to face. “<i>Michael, why do you make me love you +so?</i>” That was her voice. It was she who had asked him that question. +Never before this moment had he realized the import of her demand. Now, +when it was years too late to remedy, it came out of the past like an +accusation. He had answered it then with closer kisses. He had released +her then like a ruffled bird, secure that to-morrow and to-morrow and +to-morrow she would nestle to his arms for cherishing. And now if he +thought more of her life beneath that lurid stain he would go mad; if he +conjured to himself the vision of her now—had not Drake said she was +powdered and painted? To this had she come. And she was here in London. +Last week she had been seen. It was no nightmare. It was real, horrible +and real. He must go out again at once and find her. He must not sit +dreaming here, staring at the silly Thames, the smooth and imperturbable +Thames. He must plunge into that phantasmagoric city; he must fly from +haunt to haunt; he must drag the depths of every small hell; he must +find her to-night.</p> + +<p>Michael rose, but on the instant of his decision his mother and Stella +drove up. Alan was no longer with them. He must have gone home to +Richmond. How normal sounded their voices from the pavement below. +Perhaps he would after all go down and greet them. They might wonder<a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a> +otherwise if something had happened. Looking at himself as he passed the +mirror on his way down, he saw that he really was haggard. If he pleaded +a headache, his countenance would bear him out. In the end he shouted to +them over the balusters, and both of them wanted to come up with +remedies. He would not let them. The last thing his mood desired was the +tending of cool hands.</p> + +<p>“I’m only fagged out,” he told them. “I want a night’s sleep.”</p> + +<p>Yet he knew how hard it would be to fall asleep. His brain was on fire. +Morning, the liquid morning of London summer, was unimaginable. He shut +the door of his room and flung himself down upon the bed. Contact with +the cool linen released the pent-up tears, and the fire within burnt +less fiercely as he cried. His surrender to self-pity must have lasted +half an hour. The pillow-case was drenched. His body felt battered. He +seemed to have recovered from a great illness. The quiet of the room +surprised him, as he looked round in a daze at the familiar objects. The +cataclysm of emotion so violently expressed had left him with a sense +that the force of his grief must have shaken the room as it had shaken +him. But everything was quiet; everything was the same. Now that he had +wept away that rending sense of powerlessness to aid her, he could +examine the future more calmly. Already the numbness was going, and the +need for action was beginning to make itself felt. Yet still all his +impulses were in confusion. He could not attain to any clear view of his +attitude.</p> + +<p>He was not in love with her now. He was neither covetous of her kisses +nor in any way of her bodily presence. To his imagination at present she +appeared like one who has died. It seemed to him that he desired to +bring back a corpse, that over a lifeless form he wished to lament the +loss of beauty, of passion and of youth. But immediately afterward,<a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a> so +constant was the impression of her as he had last known her, so utterly +incapable was Drake’s account to change his outward picture of her, he +could not conceive the moral disintegration wrought by her shame. It +seemed to him that could he be driving with her in a hansom to-night, +she would lie still and fluttered in his arms, the Lily of five years +ago whom now to cherish were an adorable duty.</p> + +<p>Therefore, he was in love with her. Otherwise to every prostitute in +London he must be feeling the same tenderness. Yet they were of no +account. Were they of no account? <i>C’est une douzaine de filles de +joie.</i> When he read Manon this morning—how strange! this morning he had +been reading Manon at Oxford—he was moved with pity for all poor light +women. And Lily was one of them. They did not banish them to New Orleans +nowadays, but she was not less an outcast. It was not because he was +still in love with her that he wished to find her. It was because he had +known her in the old days. He bore upon his own soul the damning weight +that in the past she had said, “<i>Michael, why do you make me love you +so?</i>” If there was guilt, he shared the guilt. If there was shame, he +was shameful. Others after him had sinned against her casually, counting +their behavior no more than a speck of dust in the garbage of human +emotion with which she was already smirched. He may not have seduced +her, but he had sinned against her, because while loving her he had let +her soul elude him. He had made her love him. He had trifled with her +sensuousness, and to say that he was too young for blame was cowardly. +It was that very youth which was the sin, because under society’s laws, +whatever fine figure his love might seem to him to have cut, he should +have known that it was a profitless love for a girl. He shared in the +guilt. He partook of the shame. That was incontrovertible.<a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a></p> + +<p>Suddenly a new aspect of the situation was painfully visible. Had not +his own mother been sinned against by his father? That seemed equally +incontrovertible. Prescott had known it in his heart. Prescott had said +to him in the Albany on the night he killed himself that he wanted to +marry Stella in order to be given the right to protect her. Prescott +must always have deplored the position in which his friend’s mistress +had been placed. That was a hard word to use for one’s mother. It seemed +to hiss with scorn. No doubt his father would have married her, if Lady +Saxby had divorced him. No doubt that was the salve with which he had +soothed his conscience. Something was miserably wrong with our rigid +divorce law, he may have said. He must have cursed it innumerable times +in order to console his conscience, just as himself at eighteen had +cursed youth when he could not marry Lily. His mother had been sinned +against. Nothing could really alter that. It was useless to say that the +sinner had in the circumstances behaved very well, that so far as he was +able he had treated her honorably. But nothing could excuse his father’s +initial weakness. The devotion of a lifetime could not wash out his +deliberate sin against—and who was she? Who was his mother? Valérie ... +and her father was at Trinity, Cambridge ... a clergyman ... a +gentleman. And his father had taken her away, had exposed her to the +calumny of the world. He had afterward behaved chivalrously at any rate +by the standards of romance. But by what small margin had his own mother +escaped the doom of Lily? All his conceptions of order and safety and +custom tottered and reeled at such a thought. Surely such a realization +doubled his obligation to atone by rescuing Lily, out of very +thankfulness to God that his own mother had escaped the evil which had +come to her. How wretchedly puny now seemed all his own repinings. All +he had gained for his own character<a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a> had been a vague dissatisfaction +that he could not succeed to the earldom in order to prove the sanctity +of good breeding. There had been no gratitude; there had been nothing +but a hurt conceit. The horror of Drake’s news would at least cure him +forever of that pettiness. Already he felt the strength that comes from +the sight of a task that must be conquered. He had been moved that +morning by the tale of Manon Lescaut. This tale of Lily was in +comparison with that as an earthquake to the tunneling of a mole beneath +a croquet-lawn. And now must he regard his father’s memory with +condemnation? Must he hate him? He must hate him, indeed, unless by his +own behavior he could feel he had accepted in substitution the burden of +his father’s responsibility. And he had admired him so much dying out +there in Africa for his country. He had resented his death for the sake +of thousands more unworthy living comfortably at home.</p> + +<p>“All my standards are falling to pieces,” thought Michael. “Heroes and +heroines are all turning into cardboard. If I don’t make some effort to +be true to conviction, I shall turn to cardboard with the rest.”</p> + +<p>He began to pace the room in a tumult of intentions, vows and +resolutions. Somehow before he slept he must shape his course. Four +years had dreamed themselves away at Oxford. Unless all that education +was as immaterial as the fogs of the Isis, it must provide him now with +an indication of his duty. He had believed in Oxford, believed in her +infallibility and glory, he had worshiped all she stood for. He had +surrendered himself to her to make of him a gentleman, and unless these +four years had been a delusion, his education must bear fruit now.</p> + +<p>Michael made up his mind suddenly, and as it seemed to him at the moment +in possession of perfect calm and clarity of judgment, that he would +marry Lily. He had accepted<a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a> marriage as a law of his society. Well, +then that law should be kept. He would test every article of the creed +of an English gentleman. He would try in the fire of his purpose honor, +pride, courtesy, and humility. All these must come to his aid, if he +were going to marry a whore. Let him stab himself with the word. Let him +not blind himself with euphemisms. His friends would have no euphemisms +for Lily. How Lonsdale had laughed at the idea of marrying Queenie +Molyneux, and she might have been called an actress. How everybody would +despise his folly. There would not be one friend who would understand. +Least of all would his mother understand. It was a hard thing to do; and +yet it would be comparatively easy, if he could be granted the grace of +faith to sustain him. Principles were rather barren things to support +the soul in a fight with convention. Principles of honor when so very +personal were apt to crumple in the blast of society’s principles all +fiercely kindled against him. Just now he had thought of the +thankfulness he owed to God. Was it more than a figure of speech, an +exaggerative personification under great emotion of what most people +would call chance? At any rate, here was God in a cynical mood, and the +divine justice of this retributive situation seemed to hint at something +beyond mere luck. And if principles were strong enough to sustain him to +the onset, faith might fire him to the coronation of his +self-effacement. He made up his mind clearly and calmly to marry Lily, +and then he quickly fell into sleep, where as if to hearten him he saw +her slim and lovely, herself again, treading for his dreams the ways of +night like a gazelle.</p> + +<p>Next morning when Michael woke, his resolve purified by sleep of +feverish and hysterical promptings was fresh upon his pillow. In the +fatigue and strain of the preceding night the adventure had caught a +hectic glow of exaltation. Now,<a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a> with the sparrows twittering and the +milkman clanking and yodeling down Cheyne Walk and the young air puffing +the curtains, his course acquired a simplicity in this lucid hour of +deliberation, which made the future normal and even obvious. There was a +great relief in this fresh following breeze after the becalmed inaction +of Oxford: it seemed an augury of life’s importance that so immediately +on top of the Oxford dream he should find such a complete dispersion of +mist and so urgent a fairway before him. The task of finding Lily might +easily occupy him for some time, for a life like hers would be made up +of mutable appearances and sudden strange eclipses. It might well be a +year before she was seen again on the Orient Promenade. Yet it was just +as likely that he would find her at once. For a moment he caught his +breath in thinking of the sudden plunge which that meeting would +involve. He thought of all the arguments and all the dismay that the +revelation of his purpose would set in motion. However, the marriage had +to be. He had threshed it all out last night. But he might reasonably +hope for a brief delay. Such a hope was no disloyalty to his +determination.</p> + +<p>Stella was already at breakfast when he came downstairs. Michael raised +his eyebrows in demand for news of her and Alan.</p> + +<p>“Mother was the sweetest thing imaginable,” she said. “And so we’re +engaged. I wanted to come and talk to you last night, but I thought you +would rather be left alone.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you’re happy,” he said gravely. “And I’m glad you’re safe.”</p> + +<p>Stella looked at him in surprise.</p> + +<p>“I’ve never been anything but safe,” she assured him.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you?” he asked, looking at her and reproving himself for the +thought that this gray-eyed sister of his could ever have exposed +herself to the least likelihood of<a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a> falling into Lily’s case. Yet there +had been times when he had felt alarmed for her security and happiness. +There had been that fellow Ayliffe, and more serious still there had +been that unknown influence in Vienna. Invulnerable she might seem now +in this cool dining-room on a summer morning, but there had been times +when he had doubted.</p> + +<p>“What are you looking at?” she asked, flaunting her imperious boyishness +in his solemn countenance.</p> + +<p>“You. Thinking you ought to be damned grateful.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“Everything.”</p> + +<p>“You included, I suppose,” she laughed.</p> + +<p>Still it had been rather absurd, Michael thought, as he tapped his egg, +to suppose there was anything in Stella’s temperament which could ever +link her to Lily. Should he announce his quest for her approbation and +sympathy? It was difficult somehow to begin. Already a subtle change had +taken place in their relation to each other since she was engaged to +Alan. Of course, his reserve was ridiculous, but he could not bring +himself to break through now. Besides, in any case it were better to +wait until he had found Lily again. It would all sound very +pretentiously noble in anticipation, and though she would have every +right to laugh, he did not want her to laugh. When he stood on the brink +of marriage, they would none of them be able to laugh. There was a grim +satisfaction in that.</p> + +<p>“When does mother suggest you should be married?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“We more or less settled November. Alan has given up the Civil Service. +That’s my first piece of self-assertion. He’s coming for me this +morning, and we’re going to lunch at Richmond.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve never met Mr. and Mrs. Merivale?”</p> + +<p>Stella shook her head.<a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a></p> + +<p>“Old Merivale’s a ripping old boy. Always making bad puns. And Mrs. +Merivale’s a dear.”</p> + +<p>“They must both be perfect to have been the father and mother of Alan,” +said Stella.</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t get too excited over him,” Michael advised. “Or over +yourself, either. You might give me the credit of knowing all about it +long before either of you.”</p> + +<p>“Darling Michael,” she cried, bounding at him like a puppy.</p> + +<p>“When you’ve done making an ass of yourself you might chuck me a roll.”</p> + +<p>Alan arrived soon after breakfast, and he and Michael had a few minutes +together, while Stella was getting ready to go out.</p> + +<p>“Were your people pleased?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course. Naturally the mater was a little nervous. She thought I +seemed young. Talked a good deal about being a little boy only yesterday +and that sort of rot.”</p> + +<p>“And your governor?”</p> + +<p>“He supposed I was determined to steal her,” said Alan, with a whimsical +look of apology for the pun. “And having worked that off he spent the +rest of the evening relishing his own joke.”</p> + +<p>Stella came down ready to start for Richmond. Both she and Alan were in +white, and Michael said they looked like a couple of cricketers. But he +envied them as he waved them farewell from the front door through which +the warm day was deliciously invading the house. Their happiness +sparkled on the air as visibly almost as the sunshine winking on the +river. Those Richmond days belonged imperishably to him and Alan, yet +for Alan this Saturday would triumph over all the others before. Michael +turned back into the house rather sadly. The radiance of the morning had +been dislustered by their departure, and Michael against his will<a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a> had +to be aware of the sense of exclusion which lovers leave in their wake. +He waited indoors until his mother came down. She was solicitous for the +headache of last night, and while he was with her he was not troubled by +regrets for the break-up of established intercourse. He asked himself +whether he should take her into his confidence by announcing the tale of +Lily. Yet he did not wish to give her an impression of being more +straightly bound to follow his quest than by the broadest rules of +conduct. He felt it would be easier to explain when the marriage had +taken place. How lucky for him that he was not financially dependent! +That he was not, however, laid upon him the greater obligation. He could +find, even if he wished one, no excuse for unfulfillment.</p> + +<p>Michael and his mother talked for a time of the engagement. She was +still somewhat doubtful of Alan’s youth, when called upon to adapt +itself to Stella’s temperament.</p> + +<p>“I think you’re wrong there,” said Michael. “Alan is rather a rigid +person in fundamentals, you know, and his youth will give just that +flexibility which Stella would demand. In another five years he would +have been ensconced behind an Englishman’s strong but most unmanageable +barrier of prejudice. I noticed so much his attitude toward Mrs. Ross +when she was received into the Roman Church. I asked him what he would +say if Stella went over. He maintained that she was different. I think +that’s a sign he’ll be ready to apply imagination to her behavior.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I hope he won’t think that whatever she does is right,” Mrs. +Fane objected.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” laughed Michael. “Imagination will always be rather an effort +for Alan. Mother, would you be worried if I told you I wanted to go away +for a while—I mean to say, go away and perhaps more or less not be +heard of for a while?”<a name="page_366" id="page_366"></a></p> + +<p>“Abroad?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Not necessarily abroad. I’m not going to involve myself in a dangerous +undertaking; but I’m just sufficiently tired of my very comfortable +existence to wish to make an experiment. I may be away quite a short +time, but I might want to be away a few months. Will you promise me not +to worry yourself over my movements? Some of the success of this +undertaking will probably depend on a certain amount of freedom. You can +understand, can’t you, that the claims of home, however delightful, +might in certain circumstances be a problem?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re taking steps to prepare my mind for something very +extremely unpleasant,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Let’s ascribe it all to my incurably romantic temperament,” Michael +suggested.</p> + +<p>“And I’m not to worry?”</p> + +<p>“No, please don’t.”</p> + +<p>“But when are you going away?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not really going away at all,” Michael explained. “But if I didn’t +come back to dinner one night or even the next night, would you be +content to know quite positively that I hadn’t been run over?”</p> + +<p>“You’re evidently going to be thoroughly eccentric. But I suppose,” she +added wistfully, “that after your deserted childhood I can hardly expect +you to be anything else. Yet it seems so comfortable here.” She was +looking round at the chairs.</p> + +<p>“I’m not proposing to go to the North Pole, you know,” Michael said, +“but I don’t want to obey dinner-gongs.”</p> + +<p>“Very noisy and abrupt,” she agreed.</p> + +<p>Soon they were discussing all kinds of substitutions.</p> + +<p>“Mother, what an extraordinary lot you know about noise,” Michael +exclaimed.<a name="page_367" id="page_367"></a></p> + +<p>“Dearest boy, I’m on the committee of a society for the abatement of +London street noises.”</p> + +<p>“So deeply occupied with reform,” he said, patting her hand.</p> + +<p>“One must do something,” she smiled.</p> + +<p>“I know,” he asserted. “And therefore you’ll let me ride this new +hobby-horse I’m trying without thinking it bucks. Will you?”</p> + +<p>“You know perfectly well that you will anyhow,” said Mrs. Fane, shaking +her head.</p> + +<p>Michael felt justified in letting the conversation end at this +admission. Maurice Avery had invited him to come round to the studio in +order to assist at Castleton’s induction, and Michael walked along the +Embankment to 422 Grosvenor Road.</p> + +<p>The large attic which ran all the width of the Georgian house was in a +state of utter confusion, in the midst of which Castleton was hard at +work hammering, while Maurice climbed over chairs in eager advice, and +at the Bechstein Grand a tall dark young man was playing melodies from +Tchaikovsky’s symphonies.</p> + +<p>“Just trying to make this place a bit comfortable,” said Castleton. “Do +you know Cunningham?” He indicated the player, and Michael bowed.</p> + +<p>“Making it comfortable,” Michael repeated. “My first impression was just +the reverse. I suppose it’s no good asking you people to give me lunch?”</p> + +<p>“Rather, of course,” Maurice declared. “Castleton, it’s your turn to buy +lunch.”</p> + +<p>“One extraordinary thing, Michael,” said Castleton, “is the way in which +Maurice can always produce a mathematical reason for my doing something. +You’d think he kept a ledger of all our tasks.”</p> + +<p>“We can send old Mother Wadman if you’re tired,”<a name="page_368" id="page_368"></a> Maurice offered. +Castleton, however, seemed to think he wanted some fresh air; so he and +Cunningham went out to buy things to eat.</p> + +<p>“I was fairly settled before old Castleton turned up,” Maurice +explained, “but we shall be three times as comfortable when he’s +finished. He’s putting up divans.”</p> + +<p>Maurice indicated with a gesture the raw material on which Castleton was +at work. They were standing by the window which looked out over +multitudinous roofs.</p> + +<p>“What a great rolling sense of human life they do give,” said Michael. +“A sea really with telegraph poles and wires for masts and rigging, and +all that washing like flotillas of small boats. And there’s the +lighthouse,” he pointed to the campanile of Westminster Chapel.</p> + +<p>“The sun sets just behind your lighthouse, which is a very bad simile +for anything so obscurantist as the Roman Church,” said Maurice. “We’re +having such wonderful green dusks now. This is really a room made for a +secret love-affair, you know. Such nights. Such sunny summer days. What +is it Browning says? Something about sparrows on a housetop lonely. We +two were sparrows. You know the poem I mean. Well, no doubt soon I shall +meet the girl who’s meant to share this with me. Then I really think I +could work.”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded absently. He was wondering if an attic like this were not +the solution of what might happen to him and Lily when they were +married. Whatever bitterness London had given her would surely be driven +out by life in a room like this with a view like this. They would be +suspended celestially above all that was worst in London, and yet they +would be most essentially and intimately part of it. The windows of the +city would come twinkling into life as incomprehensibly as the stars. +Whatever bitterness she had guarded would vanish, because to see her in +a room<a name="page_369" id="page_369"></a> like this would be to love her. How well he understood Maurice’s +desire for a secret love-affair here. Nobody wanted a girl to perfect +Plashers Mead. Even Guy’s fairy child at Plashers Mead had seemed an +intrusion; but here, to protect one’s loneliness against the +overpowering contemplation of the life around, love was a necessity. And +perhaps Maurice would begin to justify the ambition his friends had for +his career. It might be so. Perhaps himself might find an inspiration in +an attic high up over roofs. It might be. It might be so.</p> + +<p>“What are you thinking about?” Maurice asked.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking you were probably right,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>Maurice looked pleasantly surprised. He was rather accustomed to be +snubbed when he told Michael of his desire for feminine companionship.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to get married, you know,” he hastily added.</p> + +<p>“That would depend,” said Michael. “If one married what is called an +impossible person and lived up here, it ought to be romantic enough to +make marriage rather more exciting than any silvery invitation to St. +Thomas’ Church at half-past two.”</p> + +<p>“But why are you so keen about marriage?” Maurice demanded.</p> + +<p>“Well, it has certain advantages,” Michael pointed out.</p> + +<p>“Not among the sparrows,” said Maurice.</p> + +<p>“Most of all among the sparrows,” Michael contradicted. He was becoming +absorbed by his notion of Lily in such surroundings. It seemed to remove +the last doubt he had of the wisdom or necessity of the step he proposed +to take. They would be able to reënter the world after a long +retirement. For her it should be a convalescence, and for him the +opportunity which Oxford denied to test academic values on the +touchstone of human emotions. It was obvious that his education lacked +something, though his academic education<a name="page_370" id="page_370"></a> was finished. He supposed he +had apprehended dimly the risk of this incompletion in Paris during that +first Long Vacation. It was curious how already the quest of Lily had +assumed less the attributes of a rescue than of a personal desire for +the happiness of her company. No doubt he must be ready for a shock of +disillusion when they did meet, but for the moment Drake’s account of +her on the Orient Promenade lost all significance of evil. The news had +merely fired him with the impulse to find her again.</p> + +<p>“It is really extraordinarily romantic up here,” Maurice exclaimed, +bursting in upon his reverie.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose that’s the reason,” Michael admitted.</p> + +<p>“The reason of what?” Maurice asked.</p> + +<p>“Of what I was thinking,” Michael said.</p> + +<p>Maurice waited for him to explain further, but Michael was silent; and +almost immediately Castleton came back with provision for lunch.</p> + +<p>Soon after they had eaten Michael said he would leave them to their +hammering. Then he went back to Cheyne Walk and, finding the house still +and empty in the sunlight, he packed a kit-bag, called a hansom-cab, and +told the driver to go to the Seven Sisters Road.<a name="page_371" id="page_371"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II-a" id="CHAPTER_II-a"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>NEPTUNE CRESCENT</h4> + +<p>The existence of the Seven Sisters Road had probably not occurred to +Michael since in the hazel-coppices of Clere Abbey he had first made of +it at Brother Aloysius’ behest the archetype of Avernus, and yet his +choice of it now for entrance to the underworld was swift as instinct. +The quest of Lily was already beginning to assume the character of a +deliberate withdrawal from the world in which he familiarly moved. With +the instant of his resolve all that in childhood and in youth he had +apprehended of the dim territory, which in London sometimes lay no +farther away than the other side of the road, demanded the trial of his +experience.</p> + +<p>That he had never yet been to the Seven Sisters Road gave it a mystery; +that it was not very far from Kentish Town gave it a gruesomeness, for +ever since Mrs. Pearcey’s blood-soaked perambulator Kentish Town had +held for him a macaber significance: of the hellish portals mystery and +gruesomeness were essential attributes. The drive was for a long time +tediously pleasant in the June sunshine; but when the cab had crossed +the junction of the Euston Road with the Tottenham Court Road, unknown +London with all its sly and labyrinthine romance lured his fancy onward. +Maple’s and Shoolbred’s, those outposts of shopping civilization, were +left behind, and the Hampstead Road with a hint of roguery began. He was +not sure what exactly made<a name="page_372" id="page_372"></a> the Hampstead Road so disquieting. It was +probably a mere trick of contrast between present squalor and the +greenery of its end. The road itself was merely grim, but it had a +nightmare capacity for suggesting that deviation by a foot from the +thoroughfare itself would lead to obscure calamities. Those bright +yellow omnibuses in which he had never traveled, how he remembered them +from the days of Jack the Ripper, and the horror of them skirting the +Strand by Trafalgar Square on winter dusks after the pantomime. Even now +their painted destinations affected him with a dismay that real people +could be familiar with this sinister route.</p> + +<p>Here was the Britannia, a terminus which had stuck in his mind for years +as situate in some gray limbo of farthest London. Here it was, a tawdry +and not very large public-house exactly like a hundred others. Now the +cab was bearing round to the right, and presently upon an iron railway +bridge Michael read in giant letters the direction Kentish Town behind a +huge leprous hand pointing to the left. The hansom clattered through the +murk beneath, past the dim people huddled upon the pavement, past a +wheel-barrow and the obscene skeletons and outlines of humanity chalked +upon the arches of sweating brick. Here then was Kentish Town. It lay to +the left of this bridge that was the color of stale blood. Michael told +the driver to stop for one moment, and he leaned forward over the apron +of the cab to survey the cross-street of swarming feculent humanity that +was presumably the entering highway. A train roared over the bridge; a +piano organ gargled its tune; a wagon-load of iron girders drew near in +a clanging tintamar of slow progress. Michael’s brief pause was enough +to make such an impression of pandemoniac din as almost to drive out his +original conception of Kentish Town as a menacing and gruesome suburb. +But just as the cab reached the beginning of the<a name="page_373" id="page_373"></a> Camden Road, he caught +sight of a slop-shop where old clothes smothered the entrance with their +mucid heaps and, just beyond, of three houses from whose surface the +stucco was peeling in great scabs and the damp was oozing in livid +arabesques and scrawls of verdigris. This group restored to Kentish Town +a putative disquiet, and the impression of mere dirt and noise and +exhalations of fried fish were merged in the more definite character +allotted by his prefiguration.</p> + +<p>The Camden Road was, in contrast with what had gone before, a wide and +easy thoroughfare which let in the blue summer sky; and it was not for +some minutes that Michael began to notice what a queerness came from the +terraces that branched off on either side. The suggestion these terraces +could weave extended itself to the detached houses of the main road. In +the gaps between them long parallelograms of gardens could be seen +joining others even longer that led up to the backs of another road +behind. Sometimes it seemed that fifty gardens at once were visible, +circumscribed secretive pleasure-grounds in the amount of life they +could conceal, the life that could prosper and decay beneath their +arbors merely for that conspiracy of gloating windows. It was impossible +not to speculate upon the quality of existence in these precise +enclosures; and to this the chapels of obscure sects that the cab +occasionally passed afforded an indication. To these arid little +tabernacles the population stole out on Sunday mornings. There would be +something devilish about these reunions. Upon these pinchbeck creeds +their souls must surely starve, must slowly shrink to desiccated imps. +Anything more spiritually malevolent than those announcements chalked +upon the black notice-board of the advent of the hebdomadal messiah, the +peregrine cleric, the sacred migrant was impossible to imagine. With +what apostolic cleverness would he impose himself upon these people, and +how after the gravid midday meal of the Sabbath<a name="page_374" id="page_374"></a> he would sit in those +green arbors like a horrible Chinese fum. The cabman broke in upon +Michael’s fantastic depression by calling down through the trap that +they were arrived at the Nag’s Head and what part of Seven Sisters Road +did he want.</p> + +<p>Michael was disappointed by the Seven Sisters Road. It seemed to be +merely the garish mart of a moderately poor suburban population. There +was here nothing to support the diabolic legend with which under the +suggestion of Brother Aloysius he had endowed it. Certainly of all the +streets he had passed this afternoon there had been none less +inferential of romance than this long shopping street.</p> + +<p>“What number do you want, sir?” the driver repeated.</p> + +<p>“Well, really I want rooms,” Michael explained. “Only this seems a bit +noisy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is a bit boisterous,” the cabman agreed.</p> + +<p>Michael told him to drive back along the Camden Road; but when he began +to examine the Camden Road as a prospective place of residence, it +became suddenly very dull and respectable. The locked-up chapels and the +quiet houses declined from ominousness into respectability, and he +wondered how he had managed only a quarter of an hour ago to speculate +upon the inner life they adumbrated. Nothing could be less surreptitious +than those chatting nursemaids, and actually in one of the +parallelograms of garden a child was throwing a scarlet ball high into +the air. The cab was already nearing the iron railway bridge of Kentish +Town, and Michael had certainly no wish to lodge in a noisy slum.</p> + +<p>“Try turning off to the left,” he called to the driver through the roof.</p> + +<p>The maneuver seemed likely to be successful, for they entered almost +immediately a district of Victorian terraces, where the name of each +street was cut in stone upon the first house; and so fine and +well-proportioned was each<a name="page_375" id="page_375"></a> superscription that the houses’ declension +from gentility was the more evident and melancholy.</p> + +<p>Michael was at last attracted to a crescent of villas terminating an +unfrequented gray street and, for the sake of a pathetic privacy, +guarded in front by a sickle-shaped inclosure of grimy Portugal laurels. +Neptune Crescent, partly on account of its name and partly on account of +the peculiar vitreous tint which the stone had acquired with age, +carried a marine suggestion. The date <i>1805</i> in spidery numerals and the +iron verandas, which even on this June day were a mockery, helped the +illusion that here was a forgotten by-way in an old sea-port. A card +advertising Apartments stood in the window of Number Fourteen. Michael +signaled the driver to stop: then he alighted and rang the bell. The +Crescent was strangely silent. Very far away he could hear the whistle +of a train. Close at hand there was nothing but the jingle of the +horse’s harness and the rusty mewing of a yellow cat which was wheedling +its lean body in and out of the railings of the falciform garden.</p> + +<p>Soon the landlady opened the door and stood inquisitively in the narrow +passage. She was a woman of probably about thirty-five with stubby +fingers; her skin was rather moist, but she had a good-natured +expression, and perhaps when the curl-papers were taken out from her +colorless hair, and when lace frills and common finery should soften her +turgid outlines she would be handsome in a labored sort of way. The +discussion with Mrs. Murdoch about her vacant rooms did not take long. +Michael had made up his mind to any horrors of dirt and discomfort, and +he was really pleasantly surprised by their appearance. As for Mrs. +Murdoch, she was evidently too much interested to know what had brought +Michael to her house to make any difficulties in the way of his +accommodation.</p> + +<p>“Will you want dinner to-night?” she asked doubtfully.<a name="page_376" id="page_376"></a></p> + +<p>“No, but I’d like some tea now, if you can manage it; and I suppose you +can let me have a latchkey?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got the kettle on the boil at this moment. I was going out myself +for the evening. Meeting my husband at the Horseshoe. There’s only one +other lodger—Miss Carlyle. And she’s in the profession.”</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Murdoch made this announcement, she looked up at the fly-frecked +ceiling, and Michael thought how extraordinarily light and meaningless +her eyes were and how curiously dim and heavy this small sitting-room +was against the brilliancy of the external summer.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, tea when I can get it,” said Mrs. Murdoch cheerfully. “And +the double-u is just next your bedroom on the top floor. That’s all, I +think.”</p> + +<p>She left him with a backward smile over her shoulder, as if she were +loath to relinquish the study of this unusual visitor to Neptune +Crescent.</p> + +<p>Michael when he was alone examined the chairs that were standing about +the room as stiff as grenadiers in their red rep. He stripped them of +their antimacassars and pulled the one that looked least uncomfortable +close to the window. Outside, the yellow cat was still mewing; but the +cab was gone and down the gray street that led to Neptune Crescent here +and there sad-gaited wayfarers were visible. Two or three sparrows were +cheeping in a battered laburnum, and all along the horizon the blue sky +descending to the smoke of London had lost its color and had been turned +to the similitude of tarnished metal. A luxurious mournfulness was in +the view, and he leaned out over the sill scenting the reasty London +air.</p> + +<p>It was with a sudden shock of conviction that Michael realized he was in +Neptune Crescent, Camden Town, and that yesterday he had actually been +in Oxford. And why was he here? The impulse which had brought him must<a name="page_377" id="page_377"></a> +have lain deeper in the recesses of his character than those quixotic +resolutions roused by Drake’s legend of Lily. He would not otherwise +have determined at once upon so complete a demigration. He would have +waited to test the truth of Drake’s story. His first emotional despair +had vanished with almost unaccountable ease. Certainly he wanted to be +independent of the criticism of his friends until he had proved his +purpose unwavering, and he might ascribe this withdrawal to a desire for +a secluded and unflinching contemplation of a life that from Cheyne Walk +he could never focus. But ultimately he must acknowledge that his +sojourn here, following as it did straight upon his entrance into the +underworld through the disappointing portals of the Seven Sisters Road, +was due to that ancient lure of the shades. This experience was +foredoomed from very infancy. It was designated in childish dreams to +this day indelible. He could not remember any period in his life when +the speculum of hidden thought had not reflected for his fear that +shadow of evil which could overcast the manifestations of most ordinary +existence. Those days of London fog when he had sat desolately in the +pinched red house in Carlington Road; those days when on his lonely +walks he had passed askance by Padua Terrace; the shouting of murders by +newspaper-boys on drizzled December nights; all those dreadful +intimations in childhood had procured his present idea of London. With +the indestructible truth of earliest impressions they still persisted +behind the outward presentation of a normal and comfortable procedure in +the midst of money, friends, and well-bred conventions. Nor had that +speculum been merely the half-savage fancy of childhood, the endowment +by the young of material things with immaterial potencies. Phantoms +which had slunk by as terrors invisible to the blind eyes of grown-ups +had been abominably incarnate for him. Brother Aloysius had been<a name="page_378" id="page_378"></a> +something more than a mere personification, and that life which the +ex-monk had indicated as scarcely even below the surface, so easy was it +to enter, had he not entered it that one night very easily?</p> + +<p>Destiny, thought Michael, had stood with pointed finger beside the +phantoms and the realities of the underworld. There for him lay very +easily discernible the true corollary to the four years of Oxford. They +had been years of rest and refreshment, years of armament with wise and +academic and well-observed theories of behavior that would defeat the +victory of evil. It was very satisfactory to discover definitely that he +was not a Pragmatist. He had suspected all that crew of philosophers. He +would bring back Lily from evil, not from any illusion of evil. He would +not allow himself to disparage the problem before him by any +speciousness of worldly convenience. It was imperative to meet Lily +again as one who moving in the shadows meets another in the nether +gloom. They had met first of all as boy and girl, as equals. Now he must +not come too obviously from the world she had left behind her. Such an +encounter would never give him more than at best a sentimental appeal; +at worst it could have the air of a priggish reclamation, and she would +forever elude him, she with secret years within her experience. His +instinct first to sever himself from his own world must have been +infallible, and it was on account of that instinct that now he found +himself in Neptune Crescent leaning over the window-sill and scenting +the reasty London air.</p> + +<p>And how well secluded was this room. If he met Lonsdale or Maurice or +Wedderburn, it would be most fantastically amusing to evade them at the +evening’s end, to retreat from their company into Camden Town; into +Neptune Crescent unimaginable to them; into this small room with its red +rep chairs and horsehair sofa and blobbed valances and curtains;<a name="page_379" id="page_379"></a> to +this small room where the dark blue wall-paper inclosed him with a +matted vegetation and the picture of Belshazzar’s Feast glowered above +the heavy sideboard; to this small room made rich by the two thorny +shells upon the mantelpiece, by the bowl of blond goldfish in ceaseless +dim circumnatation, and by those colored pampas plumes and the bulrushes +in their conch of nacreous glass.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Murdoch came in with tea which he drank while she stood over him +admiringly.</p> + +<p>“Do you think you’ll be staying long?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>Michael asked if she wanted the rooms for anyone else.</p> + +<p>“No. No. I’m really very glad to let them. You’ll find it nice and quiet +here. There’s only Miss Carlyle, who’s in the profession and comes in +sometimes a little late. Mr. Murdoch is a chemist. But of course he +hasn’t got his own shop now.”</p> + +<p>She paused, and seemed to expect Michael would comment on Mr. Murdoch’s +loss of independence; so he said, “Of course not,” nodding wisely.</p> + +<p>“There was a bit of trouble through his being too kind-hearted to a +servant-girl,” said Mrs. Murdoch, looking quickly at the door and +shaking her curl-papers. “Yes. Though I don’t know why I’m telling you +straight off as you might say. But there, I’m funny sometimes. If I take +to anybody, there’s nothing I won’t do for them. Alf—that <i>is</i> my old +man—he gets quite aggravated with me over it. So if you happen to get +into conversation with him, you’d better not let on you know he used to +have a shop of his own.”</p> + +<p>Michael, wondering how far off were these foreshadowed intimacies with +his landlord, promised he would be very discreet, and asked where Mr. +Murdoch was working now.</p> + +<p>“In a chemist’s shop. Just off of the Euston Road. You know,” she said, +beaming archly. “It’s what you might call<a name="page_380" id="page_380"></a> rather a funny place. Only he +gets good money, because the boss knows he can trust him.”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded his head in solemn comprehension of Mr. Murdoch’s +reputation, and asked his landlady if she had such a thing as a +postcard.</p> + +<p>“Well, there. I wonder if I have. If I have, it’s in the kitchen +dresser, that’s a sure thing. Perhaps you’d like to come down and see +the kitchen?”</p> + +<p>Michael followed her downstairs. There were no basements in Neptune +Crescent, and he was glad to think his bedroom was above his +sitting-room and on the top floor. It would have been hot just above the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Miss Carlyle has her room here,” said Mrs. Murdoch, pointing next door +to the kitchen. “Nice and handy for her as she’s rather late sometimes. +I hate to hear anybody go creaking upstairs, I do. It makes me nervous.”</p> + +<p>The kitchen was pleasant enough and looked out upon a narrow strip of +garden full of coarse plants.</p> + +<p>“They’ll be very merry and bright, won’t they?” said Mrs. Murdoch, +smiling encouragement at the greenery. “It’s wonderful what you can do +nowadays for threepence.”</p> + +<p>Michael asked what they were.</p> + +<p>“Why, sunflowers, of course, only they want another month yet. I have +them every year—yes. They’re less trouble than rabbits or chickens. Now +where did I see that postcard?”</p> + +<p>She searched the various utensils, and at last discovered the postcard +stuck behind a mutilated clock.</p> + +<p>“What <i>will</i> they bring out next?” demanded Mrs. Murdoch, surveying it +with affectionate approbation. “Pretty, I call it.”</p> + +<p>A pair of lovers in black plush were sitting enlaced beneath a pink +frosted moon.<a name="page_381" id="page_381"></a></p> + +<p>“Just the thing, if you’re writing to your young lady,” said Mrs. +Murdoch, offering it to Michael.</p> + +<p>He accepted it with many expressions of gratitude, but when he was in +his own room he laughed very much at the idea of sending it to his +mother in Cheyne Walk. However, as he must write and tell her he would +not be home for some time, he decided to go out and buy both writing +materials and unillustrated postcards. When he came back he found Mrs. +Murdoch feathered for the evening’s entertainment. She gave him the +latchkey, and from his window Michael watched her progress down Neptune +Crescent. Just before her lavender dress disappeared behind the Portugal +laurels she turned round and waved to him. He wondered what his mother +would say if she knew from what curious corner of London the news of his +withdrawal would reach her to-night.</p> + +<p>The house was very still, and the refulgence of the afternoon light +streaming into the small room fused the raw colors to a fiery +concordancy. Upon the silence sounded presently a birdlike fidgeting, +and Michael going out onto the landing to discover what it was, caught +to his surprise the upward glance of a thin little woman in untidy pink.</p> + +<p>“Hulloa!” she cried. “I never knew there was anybody in—you did give me +a turn. I’ve only just woke up.”</p> + +<p>Michael explained the situation, and she seemed relieved.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been asleep all the afternoon,” she went on. “But it’s only +natural in this hot weather to go to sleep in the afternoon if you don’t +go out for a walk. Why don’t you come down and talk to me while I have +some tea?”</p> + +<p>Michael accepted the invitation with a courtesy which he half suspected +this peaked pink little creature considered diverting.</p> + +<p>“You’ll excuse the general untidiness,” she said. “But<a name="page_382" id="page_382"></a> really in this +weather anyone can’t bother to put their things away properly.”</p> + +<p>Michael assented, and looked round at the room. It certainly was untidy. +The large bed was ruffled where she had been lying down, and the soiled +copy of a novelette gave it a sort of stale slovenry. Over the foot hung +an accumulation of pink clothes. On the chairs, too, there were clothes +pink and white, and the door bulged with numberless skirts. Miss Carlyle +herself wore a pink blouse whose front had escaped the constriction of a +belt. Even her face was a flat unshaded pink, and her thin lips would +scarcely have showed save that the powder round the edges was slightly +caked. Yet there was nothing of pink’s freshness and pleasant crudity in +the general effect. It was a tired, a frowsy pink like a fondant that +has lain a long while in a confectioner’s window.</p> + +<p>“Take a chair and make yourself at home,” she invited him. “What’s your +name?”</p> + +<p>He told her “Fane.”</p> + +<p>“You silly thing, you don’t suppose I’m going to call you Mr. Fane, do +you? What’s your other name? Michael? That’s Irish, isn’t it? I used to +know a fellow once called Micky Sullivan. I suppose they call you Micky +at home.”</p> + +<p>He was afraid he was invariably known as Michael, and Miss Carlyle +sighed at the stiff sort of a name it was.</p> + +<p>“Mine’s Poppy,” she volunteered. “That’s much more free and easy. Or I +think so,” she added rather doubtfully, as Michael did not immediately +celebrate its license by throwing pillows at her. “Are you really +lodging here?” she went on. “You don’t look much like a pro.”</p> + +<p>Michael said that was so much the better, as he wasn’t one.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got you at last,” cried Poppy. “You’re a shop-walker at +Russell’s.”<a name="page_383" id="page_383"></a></p> + +<p>He could not help laughing very much at this, and the queer pink room +seemed to become more faded at the sound of his merriment. Poppy looked +offended by the reception of her guess, and Michael hastened to restore +her good temper by asking questions of her.</p> + +<p>“You’re on the stage, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I usually get into panto,” she admitted.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you acting now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I don’t think. You needn’t be funny.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”</p> + +<p>“You mind your business,” she said bitterly. “And I’ll look after mine.”</p> + +<p>“There doesn’t seem to be anything very rude in asking if you’re acting +now,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, shut up! As if you didn’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Know what?” he repeated.</p> + +<p>He looked so genuinely puzzled that Poppy seemed to make an effort to +overcome her suspicion of his mockery.</p> + +<p>“It’s five years since I went on the game,” she said.</p> + +<p>Michael blushed violently, partly on her account, partly for his own +stupidity, and explained that Mrs. Murdoch had told him she was in the +profession.</p> + +<p>“Well, you didn’t expect her to say ‘my ground-floor front’s a gay +woman,’ did you?”</p> + +<p>He agreed that such an abrupt characterization would have surprised him.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m going out to get dinner now,” she announced.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you dine with me?” Michael suggested.</p> + +<p>She looked at him doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Can you afford it?”</p> + +<p>“I think I could manage it.”</p> + +<p>“Because if we <i>are</i> in the same house that doesn’t say you’ve got to +pay my board, does it?” she demanded proudly.<a name="page_384" id="page_384"></a></p> + +<p>“Once in a way won’t matter,” Michael insisted. “And we might go on to a +music hall afterward.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we might, if I hadn’t got to pay the woman who’s looking after my +kid for some clothes she’s made for him,” said Poppy. “And sitting with +you at the Holborn all night won’t do that. No, you can give me dinner +and then I’ll P.O. I’m not going to put on a frock even for you, because +I never get off only when I’m in a coat and skirt.”</p> + +<p>Michael rose to leave the room while Poppy got ready.</p> + +<p>“Go on, sit down. As you’re going to take me out to dinner, you can talk +to me while I dress as a reward.”</p> + +<p>In this faded pink room where the sun was by now shining with a splendor +that made all the strewn clothes seem even more fusty and overblown, +Michael could not have borne to see a live thing take shape as it were +from such corruption. He made an excuse therefore of letters to be +written and left Poppy to herself, asking to be called when she was +ready.</p> + +<p>Michael’s own room upstairs had a real solidity after the ground-floor +front. He wondered if it were possible that Lily was inhabiting at this +moment such a room as Poppy’s. It could not be. It could not be. And he +realized that he had pictured Lily like Manon in the midst of luxury, +craving for magnificence and moving disdainfully before gilded mirrors. +This Poppy Carlyle of Neptune Crescent belonged to another circle of the +underworld. Lily would be tragical, but this little peaked creature +downstairs was scarcely even pathetic. Indeed, she was almost grotesque +with the coat and skirt that was to insure her getting off. Of course +her only chance was to attract a jaded glance by her positive plainness, +her schoolma’am air, her decent unobtrusiveness. Yet she was plucky, and +she had accepted the responsibility of supporting her child. There was, +too, something admirable in the candor with which she had treated him. +There<a name="page_385" id="page_385"></a> was something friendly and birdlike about her, and he thought how +when he had been first aware of her movements below he had compared them +to a bird’s fidgeting. There was something really appealing about the +gay woman of the ground-floor front. He laughed at her description; and +then he remembered regretfully that he had allowed her to forego what +might after all have been for her a pleasant evening because she must +pay for some clothes the woman who was looking after her child. He could +so easily have offered to give her the money. No matter, he could make +amends at once and offer it to her now. It would be doubtless an unusual +experience for her to come into contact with someone whose rule of life +was not dictated by the brutal self-interest of those with whom her +commerce must generally lie. She would serve to bring to the proof his +theory that so much of the world’s beastliness could be cleansed by +having recourse to the natural instincts of decent behavior without any +grand effort of reformation. Nevertheless, Michael did feel very +philanthropic when he went down to answer Poppy’s summons.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he began at once. “It was stupid of me just now not to suggest +that I should find the money for your kid’s clothes. Look here, we’ll go +to the Holborn after dinner and——” he paused. He felt a delicacy in +inquiring how much exactly she might expect to lose by giving him her +company—“and—er—I suppose a couple of pounds would buy something?”</p> + +<p>“I say, kiddie, you’re a sport,” she said. “Only look here, don’t go and +spend more than what you can afford. It isn’t as if we’d met by chance, +as you might say.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no, I can afford two pounds,” Michael assured her.</p> + +<p>“Where shall we go? I know a nice room which the woman lets me have for +four shillings. That’s not too much, is it?”<a name="page_386" id="page_386"></a></p> + +<p>He was touched by her eager consideration for his purse, and he +stammered, trying to explain as gently as he could that the two pounds +was not offered for hire.</p> + +<p>“But, kiddie, I can’t bring you back here. Not even if you do lodge +here. These aren’t gay rooms.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” said Michael. “The money is a +present.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, is it?” she flamed out. “Then you can keep your dirty money. +Thanks, I haven’t come down to charity. Not yet. If I’m not good enough +for you, you can keep your money. I believe you’re nothing more than a +dirty ponce. I’ve gone five years without keeping a fellow yet. And I’m +not going to begin now. That’s very certain. Are you going out or am I +going out? Because I don’t want to be seen with you. You and your +presents. Gard! I should have to be drunk on claret and lemon before I +went home with you.”</p> + +<p>Michael had nothing to say to her and so he went out, closing the front +door quickly upon her rage. His first impression when he gained the +fresh air was of a fastidious disgust. Here in the Crescent the orange +lucency of the evening shed such a glory that the discoloration of the +houses no longer spoke of miserably drawn-out decay, but took on rather +the warmth of live rock. The deepening shadows of that passage where the +little peaked creature had spat forth her fury made him shudder with the +mean and vicious passions they now veiled. Very soon, however, his +disgust died away. Looking back at Neptune Crescent, he knew there was +not one door in all that semicircle which did not putatively conceal +secrets like those of Number Fourteen. Like poisonous toadstools in +rankness and gloom, the worst of human nature must flourish here. It was +foolish to be disgusted; indeed, already a half-aroused curiosity had +taken its place, and Michael regretted that he had not stayed to<a name="page_387" id="page_387"></a> hear +what more she would have said. How far she had been from appreciating +the motives that prompted his offer of money. Poppy’s injustice began to +depress him. He felt, walking southward to Piccadilly, an acute sense of +her failure to be grateful from his point of view. It hurt him to find +sincerity so lightly regarded. Then he realized that it was her vanity +which had been touched. <i>Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.</i> The +ability to apply such a famous generalization directly to himself gave +Michael a great satisfaction. It was strange to be so familiar with a +statement, and then suddenly like this to be staggered by its truth. He +experienced a sort of pride in linking himself on to one of the great +commonplaces of rhetoric. He need no longer feel misjudged, since Poppy +had played a universal part. In revulsion he felt sorry for her. He +hated to think how deeply her pride must have been wounded. He could not +expect her to esteem the reason which had made him refuse her. She could +have little comprehension of fastidiousness and still less could she +grasp the existence of an abstract morality that in its practical +expression must have seemed to her so insulting. That, however, did not +impugn the morality, nor did it invalidate the desire to befriend her. +Impulse had not really betrayed him: the mistake had been in his +tactlessness, in a lack of worldly knowledge. Moreover, Poppy was only +an incident, and until Lily was found he had no business to turn aside. +Nevertheless, he had learned something this evening; he had seen proved +in action a famous postulate of feminine nature, and the truth struck +him with a sharpness that no academic demonstration had ever had the +power to effect.</p> + +<p>On the whole, Michael was rather pleased with himself as he rode on the +front seat of the omnibus down Tottenham Court Road in the cool of the +evening.</p> + +<p>At the Horseshoe he alighted and went into the saloon<a name="page_388" id="page_388"></a> bar on the chance +of seeing what Mr. Murdoch looked like; but there was no sign of the +landlady and her husband. The saloon bar smelt very strongly of spilt +stout; and a number of men, who looked like draymen in tailcoats and +top-hats, were arguing about money. He was glad to leave the tavern +behind; and in a Soho restaurant he ate a tranquil dinner, listening +with much amusement to the people round him. He liked to hear each petty +host assure his guests that he had brought them to a place of which very +few but himself knew. All the diners under the influence of this +assurance stared at one another like conspirators.</p> + +<p>Just before nine o’clock. Michael reached the Orient Palace of +Varieties, and with excitement bubbling up within him, notwithstanding +all his efforts to stay unmoved, he joined the throng of the Promenade. +He looked about him at first in trepidation. Although all the way from +Camden Town he had practiced this meeting with Lily, now at its approach +his presence of mind vanished, and he felt that to meet her suddenly +without a longer preparation would lead him to make a fool of himself. +However, in the first quick glance he could not see anyone who resembled +her, and he withdrew to the secluded apex of the curving Promenade +whence he could watch most easily the ebb and flow of the crowd. That on +the stage a lady of the haute école was with a curious wooden rapidity +putting a white horse through a number of tricks did not concern his +attention beyond the moment. For him the Promenade was the performance. +Certainly at the Orient it was a better staged affair than that weary +heterogeneous mob at The Oxford. At the Orient there was an unity of +effect, an individuality, and a conscious equipment. At The Oxford the +whole business had resembled a suburban parade. Here was a real +exposition of vice like the jetty of Alexandria in olden days. Indeed, +so cynical was the function of the Orient Promenade<a name="page_389" id="page_389"></a> that the frankness +almost defeated its object, and the frequenters instead of profiting by +the facilities for commerce allowed themselves to be drugged into +perpetual meditation upon an attractive contingency.</p> + +<p>Seen from this secluded corner, the Promenade resembled a well-filled +tank in an aquarium. The upholstery of shimmering green plush, the dim +foreground, the splash of light from the bar in one corner, the gliding +circumambient throng among the pillars and, displayed along the barrier, +the bright-hued ladies like sea-anemones—there was nothing that spoiled +the comparison. Moreover, the longer Michael looked, the more nearly was +the effect achieved. At intervals women whose close-fitting dresses +seemed deliberately to imitate scales went by: and generally the people +eyed one another with the indifferent frozen eyes of swimming fish. +There was indeed something cold-blooded in the very atmosphere, and it +was from, this rapacious and vivid shoal of women that he was expecting +Lily to materialize. Yet he was better able to imagine her in the luxury +of the Orient than sleeping down the sun over a crumpled novelette in +such a room as Poppy’s in Camden Town.</p> + +<p>The evening wore itself away, and the motion in that subaqueous air was +restful in its continuity. Michael was relieved by the assurance that he +had still a little time in which to compose himself to face the shock he +knew he must ultimately expect from meeting Lily again. The evening wore +itself away. The lady of the haute école was succeeded by a band of +Caucasian wrestlers, by a troupe of Bolivian gymnasts, by half a dozen +cosmopolitan ebullitions of ingenuity. The ballet went its mechanical +course, and as each line of dancers grouped themselves, it was almost +possible to hear the click of the kaleidoscope’s shifting squares and +lozenges. Michael wondered vaguely about the girls in the ballet and +whether they were happy. It seemed absurd<a name="page_390" id="page_390"></a> to think that down there on +the stage there were eighty or ninety individuals each with a history, +so little more did they seem from here than dolls. And on the Promenade +where it was quite certain that every woman had a history to account for +her presence there, how utterly living had quenched life. The ballet was +over, and he passed out into the streets.</p> + +<p>For a fortnight Michael came every evening to the Orient without finding +Lily. They were strange evenings, these that were spent in the heart of +London without meeting anyone he knew. It was no doubt by the merest +chance that none of his friends saw him at the Orient, and yet he began +to fancy that actually every evening he did, as it were, by some +enchantment fade from the possibility of recognition. He felt as if his +friends would not perceive his presence, so much would they in that +circumambient throng take on the characteristics of its eternal motion. +They too, he felt, irresponsive as fish, would glide backward and +forward with the rest. Nor did Michael meet anyone whom he knew at any +of the restaurants or cafés to which he went after the theater. By the +intensity of his one idea, the discovery of Lily, he cut himself off +from all communion with the life of the places he visited. He often +thought that perhaps acquaintances saw him there, that perhaps he had +seemed deliberately to avoid their greetings and for that reason had +never been hailed. Yet he was aware of seeing women whom he had seen the +night before, mostly because they bore a superficial likeness to Lily; +and sometimes he would be definitely conscious of a dress or a hat, +perceiving it in the same place at the same hour, but never meeting the +wearer’s glance.</p> + +<p>He did not make any attempt to be friendly with Poppy after their +unpleasant encounter, and he always tried to be sure they would not meet +in the hall or outside the front<a name="page_391" id="page_391"></a> door. That he was successful in +avoiding her gave him a still sharper sense of the ease with which it +was possible to seclude one’s self from the claims of human intercourse. +He was happy in his room at Neptune Crescent, gazing out over the +sickle-shaped garden of Portugal laurels, listening in a dream to the +distant cries of railway traffic and reading the books which every +afternoon he brought back from Charing Cross Road, so many books indeed +that presently the room in 14 Neptune Crescent came curiously to +resemble rooms in remote digs at Oxford, where poor scholars imposed +their books on surroundings they could not afford to embellish. Mrs. +Murdoch could not make Michael out at all. She used to stand and watch +him reading, as if he were performing an intricate surgical operation.</p> + +<p>“I never in all my life saw anyone read like you do,” she affirmed. +“Doesn’t it tire your eyes?”</p> + +<p>Then she would move a step nearer and spell out the title of the book, +looking sideways at it like a fat goose.</p> + +<p>“Holy Living and Holy Dying. Ugh! Enough to give you the horrors, isn’t +it? And only this morning they hung that fellow at Pentonville. This +<i>is</i> Tuesday, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>After three or four days of trying to understand him, Mrs. Murdoch +decided that Alf must be called in to solve his peculiarity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Alfred Murdoch was younger than Michael had expected. He could +scarcely have been more than forty, and Michael had formed a +preconception of an elderly chemist reduced by misfortune and misdeeds +to the status of one of those individuals who with a discreet manner +somewhere between a family doctor and a grocer place themselves at the +service of the public in an atmosphere of antiseptics. Mr. Murdoch was +not at all like this. He was a squat swarthy man with one very dark eye +that stared fixedly regardless of the expression of its fellow. Michael +could<a name="page_392" id="page_392"></a> not make up his mind whether this eye were blind or not. He +rather hoped it was, but in any case its fierce blankness was very +disconcerting. Conversation between Michael and Mr. Murdoch was not very +lively, and Mrs. Murdoch’s adjutant inquisitiveness made Michael the +more monosyllabic whenever her husband did commit himself to a direct +inquiry.</p> + +<p>“I looked for you in the Horseshoe the other evening,” said Michael +finally, at a loss how in any other way to give Mr. Murdoch an +impression that he took the faintest interest in his existence.</p> + +<p>“In the Horseshoe?” repeated Mr. Murdoch, in surprise. “I never go to +the Horseshoe only when a friend asks me in to have one.”</p> + +<p>Michael saw Mrs. Murdoch frowning at him, and, perceiving that there was +a reason why her husband must not suppose she had been to the Horseshoe +on the evening of his arrival, he said he had gathered somehow, he did +not exactly know where or why or when, that Mr. Murdoch was often to be +found in the Horseshoe. He wished this awkward and unpleasant man would +leave him and cock his rolling eye anywhere else but in his room.</p> + +<p>“Bit of a reader, aren’t you?” inquired the chemist.</p> + +<p>Michael admitted he read a good deal.</p> + +<p>“Ever read Jibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?” continued the +chemist.</p> + +<p>“Some of it.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Murdoch said in that case it was just as well he hadn’t bought some +volumes he’d seen on a barrow in the Caledonian Road.</p> + +<p>“Four-and-six, with two books out in the middle,” he proclaimed.</p> + +<p>Michael could merely nod his comment, though he racked his brains to +think of some remark that would betray a vestige<a name="page_393" id="page_393"></a> of cordiality. Mr. +Murdoch got up to retire to the kitchen. He evidently did not find his +tenant sympathetic. Outside on the landing Michael heard him say to his +wife: “Stuck up la-di-da sort of a ——, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>Presently the wife came up again.</p> + +<p>“How did you like my old man?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very much.”</p> + +<p>“Did you notice his eye?”</p> + +<p>Michael said he had noticed something.</p> + +<p>“His brother Fred did that for him.”</p> + +<p>She spoke proudly, as if Fred’s act had been a humane achievement. “When +they were boys,” she explained. “It gives him a funny look. I remember +when I first met him it gave me the creeps, but I don’t notice it really +now. Would you believe he couldn’t see an elephant with it?”</p> + +<p>“I wondered if it were blind,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Blind as a leg of mutton,” said Mrs. Murdoch, and still there lingered +in her accents a trace of pride. Then suddenly her demeanor changed and +there crept over her countenance what Michael was bound to believe to be +an expression of coyness.</p> + +<p>“Don’t say anything more to Alf about the Horseshoe. You see, I only +gave you the idea I was meeting him, because I didn’t really know you +very well at the time. Of course really I’d gone to see my sister. No, +without a joke, I was spending the evening with a gentleman friend.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at her in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“My old man wouldn’t half knock me about, if he had the least suspicion. +But it’s someone I knew before I was married, and that makes a +difference, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Does your husband go out with lady friends he knew before he was +married?” Michael asked, and wondered if Mrs. Murdoch would see an +implied reproof.</p> + +<p>“What?” she shrilled. “I’d like to catch him nosing<a name="page_394" id="page_394"></a> after another +woman. He wouldn’t see a hundred elephants before I’d done with him. I’d +show him.”</p> + +<p>“But why should you have freedom and not he?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Never mind about him. You let him try. You see what he’d get.”</p> + +<p>Michael did not think the argument could be carried on very profitably. +So he showed signs of wanting to return to his book, and Mrs. Murdoch +retired. What extraordinary standards she had, and how bitterly she was +prepared to defend a convention, for after all in such a marriage the +infidelity of the husband was nothing but a conventional offense: she +obviously had no affection for him. The point of view became very +topsyturvy in Neptune Crescent, Michael decided.</p> + +<p>On the last evening of the fortnight during which he had regularly +visited the Orient, Michael went straight back to Camden Town without +waiting to scan the cafés and restaurants until half-past twelve as he +usually had. This abode in Neptune Crescent was empty, and as always +when that was the case the personality of the house was very vivid upon +his imagination. As he turned up the gas-jet in the hall, the cramped +interior with its fusty smell and its thread-bare staircarpet +disappearing into the upper gloom round the corner seemed to be +dreadfully closing in upon him. The old house conveyed a sense of having +the power to choke out of him every sane and orderly and decent impulse. +For a whim of tristfulness, for the luxury of consummating the ineffable +depression the house created in him, Michael prepared to glance at every +one of the five rooms. The front door armed with the exaggerated +defenses of an earlier period in building tempted him to lock and +double-lock it, to draw each bolt and to fasten the two clanking chains. +He had the fantastic notion to do this so that Mr. and Mrs.<a name="page_395" id="page_395"></a> Murdoch and +Poppy might stay knocking and ringing outside in the summer night, while +himself escaped into the sunflowers of the back garden and went climbing +over garden wall and garden wall to abandon this curious mixture of +salacity and respectableness, of flimsiness and solidity, this quite +indefinably raffish and sinister and yet in a way strangely cozy house. +He opened gingerly the door of the ground-floor front. He peered +cautiously in, lest Poppy should be lying on her bed. The gas-jet was +glimmering with a scarcely perceptible pinhead of blue flame, but the +light from the passage showed all her clothes still strewn about. From +the open door came out the faint perfume of stale scent which mingled +with the fusty odor of the passage in a most subtle expression of the +house’s personality. He closed the door gently. In the silence it seemed +almost as if the least percussion would rouse the very clothes from +their stupor of disuse. In the kitchen was burning another pinhead of +gas, and the light from the passage reaching here very dimly was only +just sufficient to give all the utensils a ghostly sheen and to show the +mutilated hands at a quarter past five upon the luminous face of the +clock. This unreal hour added the last touch to unreality, and when +Michael went upstairs and saw the books littering his room, even they +were scarcely sound guarantors of his own actuality. He had a certain +queasiness in opening the door of the Murdochs’ bedroom, and he was +rather glad when he was confronted here by a black void whose secrecy he +did not feel tempted to violate. With three or four books under his arm +he went upstairs to bed. As he leaned out of the window two cats yawled +and fizzed at one another among the laurels, and then scampered away +into muteness. From a scintillation of colored lights upon the horizon +he could hear the scrannel sounds of the railway come thinly along the +night air. Nothing else broke the silence of the nocturnal streets. +Michael<a name="page_396" id="page_396"></a> felt tired, and he was disappointed by his failure to find +Lily. Just as he was dozing off, he remembered that his Viva Voce at +Oxford was due some time this week. He must go back to Cheyne Walk +to-morrow, and on this resolution he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>Michael woke up with a start and instantly became aware that the house +was full of discordant sounds. For a minute or two he lay motionless +trying to connect the noise with the present, trying to separate his +faculties from the inspissate air that seemed to be throttling them. He +was not yet free from the confusion of sleep, and for a few seconds he +could only perceive the sound almost visibly churning the clotted +darkness that was stifling him. Gradually the clamor resolved itself +into the voices of Mr. Murdoch, Mrs. Murdoch and Poppy at the pitch of +excitement. Nothing was intelligible except the oaths that came up in a +series of explosions detached from the main din. He got out of bed and +lit the gas, saw that it was one o’clock, dressed himself roughly, and +opened the door of his room.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lad, you thought you was very clever.”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t think I was clever. Now then.”</p> + +<p>“Yes! You can spend all your money on that muck. The sauce of it. In a +hansom!”</p> + +<p>Here Poppy’s voice came in with a malignant piping sound.</p> + +<p>“Muck yourself, you dirty old case-keeper!”</p> + +<p>“You call me a case-keeper? What men have I ever let you bring back +here?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Murdoch’s voice was swollen with wrath.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how many men I haven’t brought back. So now, you great +ugly mare!” Poppy howled.</p> + +<p>“The only fellow you’ve ever brought to my house is that one-eyed —— +who calls himself my husband. Mister <i>Mur</i>doch! Mis-ter <i>Murdoch!</i> And +you get out of my house in<a name="page_397" id="page_397"></a> the streets where you belong. I don’t want +no two-and-fours in <i>my</i> house.”</p> + +<p>“Hark at her!” Poppy cried, in a horrible screaming laugh. “Why don’t +you go back on the streets yourself? Why, I can remember you as one of +the old fourpenny Hasbeens when I was still dressmaking; a dirty drunken +old teat that couldn’t have got off with a blind tramp.”</p> + +<p>Michael punctuated each fresh taunt and accusation with a step forward +to interfere; and every time he held himself back, pondering the +impossibility of extracting from these charges and countercharges any +logical assignment of blame. It made him laugh to think how +extraordinarily in the wrong they all three were and at the same time +how they were all perfectly convinced they were right. The only factor +left out of account was Mrs. Murdoch’s own behavior. He wondered rather +what effect that gentleman friend would produce on the husband. He +decided that he had better go back to bed until the racket subsided. +Then, just as he was turning away in the midst of an outpouring of +vileness far more foul than anything uttered so far, he heard what +sounded like a blow. That of course could not be tolerated, and he +descended to intervene.</p> + +<p>The passage was the field of battle, and the narrow space seemed to give +not only an added virulence to the fight, but also an added grotesquery. +When Michael arrived at the head of the staircase, Alf had pinned his +wife to the wall and was shouting to Poppy over his shoulder to get back +into her own room. Poppy would go halfway, but always a new insult would +occur to her, and she would return to fling it at Mrs. Murdoch, stabbing +the while into its place again a hatpin which during her retreats she +always half withdrew.</p> + +<p>As for Mrs. Murdoch, she was by now weeping hysterically<a name="page_398" id="page_398"></a> and +occasionally making sudden forward plunges that collapsed like jelly.</p> + +<p>Michael paused at the head of the stairs, wondering what to say. It +seemed to him really rather a good thing that Alf was restraining his +wife. It would be extremely unpleasant to have to separate the two women +if they closed with each other. He had almost decided to retire upstairs +again, when Poppy caught sight of him and at once turned her abuse in +his direction.</p> + +<p>“What’s it got to do with you?” she screamed. “What’s the good in you +standing gaping there? We all know what <i>you</i> are. We all know what +she’s always going up to <i>your</i> room for.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Murdoch was heaving and puffing and groaning, and while Alf held +her, his rolling eye with fierce and meaningless stare nearly made +Michael laugh. However, he managed to be serious, and gravely advised +Poppy to go to bed.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you dare try to order me about!” she shrieked. “Keep your +poncified ways for that fat old maggot which her husband can’t hardly +hold, and I don’t blame him. She’s about as big as a omnibus.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you wicked woman,” sobbed Mrs. Murdoch. “Oh, you mean, hateful +snake-in-the-grass! Oh, you filth!”</p> + +<p>“Hold your jaw,” commanded Alf. “If you don’t want me to punch into +you.”</p> + +<p>“All day she’s in his room. Let him stand up and deny it if he can, the +dirty tyke. Why don’t you punch into <i>him,</i> Alf?” Poppy screamed.</p> + +<p>Still that wobbling eye, blank and ferocious, was fixed upon vacancy.</p> + +<p>“Let <i>me</i> look after Mrs. Murdoch I <i>don’t</i> think!” shouted Poppy. “And +be a man, even if you can’t keep your old <a name="page_399" id="page_399"></a>woman out of the lodger’s +room. —— ——! I wouldn’t half slosh his jaw in, if I was a man, +the —— ——!”</p> + +<p>It was a question for Michael either of laughing outright or of being +nauseated at the oaths streaming from that little woman’s thin magenta +lips. He laughed. Even with her paint, she still looked so respectable. +When he began to laugh, he laughed so uncontrollably that he had to hold +on to the rail of the balusters until they rattled like ribs.</p> + +<p>Michael’s laughter stung the group to frenzied action. Mrs. Murdoch spat +in her husband’s face, whereupon he immediately loosed his grip upon her +shoulders. In a moment she and Poppy were clawing each other. Michael, +though he was still laughing unquenchably, rushed downstairs to part +them. He had an idea that both of the women instantly turned and +attacked him. The hat-stand fell over: the scurfy front-door mat slid up +and down the oil cloth: there was a reek of stale scent and dust and +spirituous breath.</p> + +<p>At last Michael managed to secure Poppy’s thin twitching arms and to +hold her fast, though she was kicking him with sharp-heeled boots and he +was weak with inward laughter. Mrs. Murdoch in the lull began fecklessly +to gather together the strands of her disordered hair. Alf, who had gone +to peep from the window of the ground-floor front in case a policeman’s +bull’s-eye were glancing on Neptune Crescent, reappeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>“What a smell of gas!” he exclaimed nervously.</p> + +<p>There was indeed a smell of gas, and Michael remembered that Poppy in +her struggle had grasped the bracket. She must have dislocated the lead +pipe rather badly, for the light was already dimming and the gas was +rushing out fast. The tumultuous scene was allayed. Mr. Murdoch hurried +to cut off the main. Poppy retired into her room, slammed and locked the +door. Michael went upstairs to bed, and just as darkness descended upon +the house he saw his landlady painfully trying to raise the hat-stand, +while with the<a name="page_400" id="page_400"></a> other arm she felt aimlessly for strands of tumbled +hair.</p> + +<p>Next morning Michael was surprised to see Mrs. Murdoch enter very +cheerfully with his tea; her hair that so short a time since had seemed +eternally intractable had now shriveled into subjugatory curl-papers: of +last night’s tear-smudged face remained no memory in this beaming +countenance.</p> + +<p>“Quite a set-out we had last night, didn’t we?” she said expansively. +“But that Poppy, really, you know, she is the limit. Driving home with +my old man in a hansom cab. There’s a nice game to get up to. I was +bound to let her have it. I couldn’t have held myself in.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ll get rid of her now,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, she’s not so bad in some ways, and very quiet as a rule. She +was a bit canned last night, and I suppose I’d had one or two myself. +Oh, well, it wouldn’t do, would it, if we never had a little enjoyment +in this life?”</p> + +<p>She left him wondering how he would ever be able to readjust his +standards to the topsyturvy standards of the underworld, the topsyturvy +feuds and reconciliations, the hatreds; the loves and jealousies and +fears. But to-day he must leave this looking-glass world for a time.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Murdoch was very much upset by his departure from Neptune Crescent.</p> + +<p>“It seems such a pity,” she said. “And just as I was beginning to get +used to your ways. Oh, well, we’ll meet again some day, I hope, this +side of the cemetery.”</p> + +<p>Michael felt some misgivings about ordering a hansom after last night, +but Mrs. Murdoch went cheerfully enough to fetch one. He drove away from +Neptune Crescent, waving to her where she stood in the small doorway +looking very large under that rusty frail veranda. He also waved rather +maliciously to Poppy, as he caught sight of her sharp nose pressed +against the panes of the ground-floor front.<a name="page_401" id="page_401"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III-a" id="CHAPTER_III-a"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>THE CAFÉ D’ORANGE</h4> + +<p>Michael came back to Cheyne Walk with a sense of surprise at finding +that it still existed; and when he saw the parlormaid he half expected +she would display some emotion at his reappearance. After Neptune +Crescent, it was almost impossible to imagine a female who was not +subject to the violence of her mutable emotions. Yet her private life, +the life of the alternate Sunday evening out, might be as passionate and +gusty as any scene in Neptune Crescent. He looked at the +tortoise-mouthed parlormaid with a new interest, until she became waxily +pink under his stare.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Fane is in the drawing-room, sir.” It was as if she were rebuking +his observation.</p> + +<p>His mother rose from her desk when he came to greet her.</p> + +<p>“Dearest boy, how delightful to see you again, and so thoughtful of you +to send me those postcards.”</p> + +<p>If she had asked him directly where he had been, he would have told her +about Neptune Crescent, and possibly even about Lily. But as she did +not, he could reveal nothing of the past fortnight. It would have seemed +to him like the boring recitation of a dream, which from other people +was a confidence he always resented.</p> + +<p>“Stella and Alan are in the studio,” she told him.</p> + +<p>They chatted for a while of unimportant things, and then Michael said he +would go and find them. As he crossed the<a name="page_402" id="page_402"></a> little quadrangle of pallid +grass and heard in the distance the sound of the piano he could not keep +back the thought of how utterly Alan’s company had replaced his own. Not +that he was jealous, not that he was not really delighted; but a period +of life was being rounded off. The laws of change were being rather +ruthless just now. Both Alan and Stella were so obviously glad to see +him that the fleck of bitterness vanished immediately, and he was at +their service.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been?” Stella demanded. “We go to Richmond. We send +frantic wires to you to join us on the river, and when we come back +you’re gone. Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been away,” Michael answered, with a certain amount of +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“My dear old Michael, we never supposed you’d been hiding in the +cistern-cupboard for a fortnight,” said Stella, striking three chords of +cheerful contempt.</p> + +<p>“I believe he went back to Oxford,” suggested Alan.</p> + +<p>“I am going up to-morrow,” Michael said. “When is your Viva?”</p> + +<p>“Next week. Where are you going to stay?”</p> + +<p>“In college, if I can get hold of a room.”</p> + +<p>“Bother Oxford,” interrupted Stella. “We want to know where you’ve been +this fortnight.”</p> + +<p>“You do,” Alan corrected.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you both later on,” Michael volunteered. “Just at present I +suppose you won’t grudge me a secret. People who are engaged to be +married should show a very special altruism toward people who are not.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, I will not have you being important and carrying about a +secret with you,” Stella declared.</p> + +<p>“You can manage either me or Alan,” Michael offered. “But you simply +shall not manage both of us. Personally, I recommend you to break-in +Alan.”<a name="page_403" id="page_403"></a></p> + +<p>With evasive banter he succeeded in postponing the revelation of what he +was, as Stella said, up to.</p> + +<p>“We’re going in for Herefords,” Alan suddenly announced without +consideration for the trend of the talk. “You know. Those white-faced +chaps.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking about this place of Stella’s in Huntingdonshire,” Alan +explained. “We went down to see it last week.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Alan, why did you tell him? He doesn’t deserve to be told.”</p> + +<p>“Is it decent?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Awfully decent,” said Alan. “Rather large, you know.”</p> + +<p>“In fact, we shall belong to the squirearchy,” cried Stella, crashing +down upon the piano with the first bars of Chopin’s most exciting +Polonaise and from the Polonaise going off into an absurd impromptu +recitative.</p> + +<p>“We shall have a dog-cart—a high and shining dog-cart—and we shall go +bowling down the lanes of the county of Hunts—because in books about +people who live in the county and of the county and by with or from the +county dog-carts invariably bowl—we shall have a herd of Herefordshire +bulls and bullocks and bullockesses—and my husband Alan with a straw in +his mouth will go every morning with the bailiff to inspect their +well-being—and three days every week from November to March we shall +go hunting in Huntingdon—and when we aren’t actually hunting in +Huntingdon we shall be talking about hunting—and we shall also talk +about the Primrose League and the foot-and-mouth disease and the +evolutions of the new High Church Vicar—we shall....”</p> + +<p>But Michael threw a cushion at her, and the recitative came to an end.</p> + +<p>They all three talked for a long while more seriously of plans for life +at Hardingham Hall.<a name="page_404" id="page_404"></a></p> + +<p>“You know dear old Prescott requested me in his will that I would hyphen +his name on to mine, whether I were married or single,” said Stella. “So +we shall be Mr. and Mrs. Prescott-Merivale. Alan has been very good +about that, though I think he’s got a dim idea it’s putting on side. +Stella Prescott-Merivale or The Curse of the County! And when I play I’m +going to be Madame Merivale. I decline to be done out of the Madame! and +everybody will pronounce it Marivahleh and I shall receive the unanimous +encomia of the critical press.”</p> + +<p>“Life will be rather a rag,” said Michael, with approbation.</p> + +<p>“Of course it’s going to be simply wonderful. Can’t you see the +headlines? From Chopin to Sheep. Madame Merivale, the famous Virtuosa, +and her Flock of Barbary Long-tails.”</p> + +<p>It was all so very remote from Neptune Crescent, Michael thought. They +really were going to be so ridiculously happy, these two, in their +country life. And now they were talking of finding him a house close to +Hardingham Hall. There must be just that small Georgian house, they +vowed, where with a large garden of stately walks and a +well-proportioned library of books he could stay in contented retreat. +They promised him, too, that beyond the tallest cedar on the lawn a +gazebo should command the widest, the greenest expanse of England ever +beheld.</p> + +<p>“It would so add to our reputation in the county of Hunts,” said Stella, +“if you were near by. We should feel so utterly Augustan. And of course +you’d ride a nag. I’m not sure really that you wouldn’t have to wear +knee-breeches. I declare, Michael, that the very idea makes me feel like +Jane Austen, or do I mean Doctor Johnson?”</p> + +<p>“I should make up your mind which,” Michael advised.</p> + +<p>“But you know what I mean,” she persisted. “The doctor<a name="page_405" id="page_405"></a>’s wife would +come in to tea and tell us that her husband had dug up a mummy or +whatever it was the Romans left about. And I should say, ‘We must ask my +brother about it. My brother, my dear Mrs. Jumble, will be sure to know. +My brother knows everything.’ And she would agree with a pursed-up +mouth. ‘Oh, pray do, my dear Mrs. Prescott-Merivale. Everyone says your +brother is a great scholar. It’s such a pleasure to have him at the +Lodge. So very distinguished, is it not?’”</p> + +<p>“If you’re supposed to be imitating Jane Austen, I may as well tell you +at once that it’s not a bit like it.”</p> + +<p>“But I think you ought to come and live near us,” Alan solemnly put in.</p> + +<p>“Of course, my dear, he’s coming,” Stella declared.</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m not,” Michael contradicted. But he was very glad they +wanted him; and then he thought with a pang how little they would want +him with Lily in that well-proportioned library. How little Lily would +enjoy the fat and placid Huntingdon meadows. How little, too, she would +care to see the blackbird swagger with twinkling rump by the shrubbery’s +edge or hear him scatter the leaves in shrill affright. In the quick +vision that came to him of a sleek lawn possessed by birds, Michael +experienced his first qualm about the wisdom of what he intended to do.</p> + +<p>“And how about Michael’s wife?” Alan asked.</p> + +<p>Michael looked quite startled by a query so coincident with his own.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course we shall find someone quite perfect for him,” Stella +confidently prophesied.</p> + +<p>“No, really,” said Michael to hide his embarrassment. “I object. +Matchmaking ought not to begin during an engagement.”</p> + +<p>Stella paid no heed to the protest, and she began to describe<a name="page_406" id="page_406"></a> a +lady-love who should well become the surroundings in which she intended +to place him.</p> + +<p>“I think rather a Quakerish person, don’t you, Alan? Rather neat and +tiny with a great sense of humor and....”</p> + +<p>“In fact, an admirable sick nurse,” Michael interposed, laughing.</p> + +<p>Soon he left them in the studio and went for a walk by the side of the +river, thinking, as he strolled in the shade of the plane-trees, how +naturally Stella would enter the sphere of English country life now that +by fortune the opportunity had been given to her of following in the +long line of her ancestors. That she would be able to do so seemed to +Michael an additional reason why he should consider less the security of +his own future, and he was vexed with himself for that fleeting +disloyalty to his task.</p> + +<p>Michael stayed at 202 High for his Viva. He occupied Wedderburn’s old +white-paneled room, which he noted with relief was still sacred to the +tradition of a carefully chosen decorousness. The Viva was short and +irrelevant. He supposed he had obtained a comfortable third, and really +it seemed of the utmost unimportance in view of what a gulf now lay +between him and Oxford. However, he mustered enough interest to stay in +Cheyne Walk until the lists were out, and during those ten days he made +no attempt to find Lily.</p> + +<p>Alan got a third in Greats and Michael a first in History. Michael’s +immediate emotion was of gladness that Alan had no reason now to feel +the disappointment. Then he began to wonder how on earth he had achieved +a first. Many letters of congratulation arrived; and one or two of the +St. Mary’s dons suggested he should try for a fellowship at All Souls. +The idea occupied his fancy a good deal, for it was attractive to have +anything so remote come suddenly within the region of feasibleness. He +would lose nothing by trying<a name="page_407" id="page_407"></a> for it, and if he succeeded what a +congenial existence offered itself. With private means he would be able +to divide his time between Oxford and London. There would really be +nothing to mar the perfect amenity of the life that seemed to stretch +before him. Since he apparently had some talent (he certainly had not +worked hard enough to obtain a first without some talent) he would +prosecute the study of history. He would make himself famous in a select +sort of way. He would become the authority of a minor tributary to the +great stream of research. A set of very scholarly, very thorough works +would testify to his reputation. There were plenty of archaic problems +still to be solved. He cast a proprietary glance over the centuries, and +he had almost decided to devote himself to the service of Otto I and +Sylvester II, when in a moment the thought of Lily, sweeping as visibly +before his mind as the ghost in an Elizabethan play, made every kind of +research into the past seem a waste of resolution. He tore up the +congratulatory letters and decided to let the future wait a while. This +pursuit of Lily was a mad business, no doubt, but to come to grips with +the present called for a certain amount of madness.</p> + +<p>Alan remonstrated with him, when he heard that he had no intention of +trying for All Souls.</p> + +<p>“You are an extraordinary chap. You were always grumbling when you were +up that you didn’t know what you ought to do, and now when it’s +perfectly obvious you won’t make the slightest attempt to do it.”</p> + +<p>“Used I to grumble?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, not exactly grumble. But you were always asking theoretical +questions which had no answer,” said Alan severely.</p> + +<p>“What if I told you I’d found an answer to a great many of them?”</p> + +<p>“Ever since I’ve been engaged to Stella you’ve found it<a name="page_408" id="page_408"></a> necessary to be +very mysterious. What are you playing at, Michael?”</p> + +<p>“It’s imaginable, don’t you think, that I might be making up my mind to +do something which I considered more vital for me than a fellowship at +All Souls?”</p> + +<p>“But it seems so obvious after your easy first that you should clinch +it.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you it was a fluke.”</p> + +<p>“My third wasn’t a fluke,” said Alan. “I worked really hard for it.”</p> + +<p>“Thirds and firsts are equally unimportant in the long run,” Michael +argued. “You have already fitted into your place with the most complete +exactitude. There’s no dimension in your future that can possibly +trouble you. Supposing I get this fellowship? It will either be too big +for me, in which case I shall have to be perpetually puffing out my +frills and furbelows to make a pretense of filling it, or it will be too +small, and I shall have to pare down my very soul in order to squeeze +into it most uncomfortably.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never do anything,” Alan prophesied. “Because you’ll always be +doubting.”</p> + +<p>“I might get rid finally of that sense of insecurity,” Michael pointed +out. “With all doubts and hesitations I’m perfectly convinced of one +great factor in human life—the necessity to follow the impulse which +lies deeper than any reason. Reason is the enemy of civilization. Reason +carried to the <i>n<sup>th</sup></i> power can always with absurd ease be debauched +by sentiment, and sentiment is mankind’s wretched little lament for +disobeying impulse. Women preserve this divinity because they are +irrational. The New Woman claims equality with man because she claims to +be as reasonable as men. She has fixed on voting for a Member of +Parliament as the medium to display her reasonableness. The franchise is +to be endowed with a sacramental significance. If<a name="page_409" id="page_409"></a> the New Women win, +they will degrade themselves to the slavery of modern men. But of course +they won’t win, because God is so delightfully irrational. By the way, +it’s worth noting that the peculiar vestment with which popular fancy +has clothed the New Woman is called rational costume. You often hear of +‘rationals’ as a synonym for breeches. What was I saying? Oh, yes, about +God being irrational. You never know what he’ll do next. He is a +dreadful problem for rationalists. That’s why they have abolished him.”</p> + +<p>“You’re confusing two different kinds of reason,” said Alan. “What you +call impulse—unless your impulse is mere madness—is what I might call +reason.”</p> + +<p>“In that case I recommend you as a philosopher to set about the +reconstruction of your terminology. I’m not a philosopher, and therefore +I’ve given this vague generic name ‘impulse’ to something which +deserves, such a powerful and infallible and overmastering impetus does +it give to conduct, a very long name indeed.”</p> + +<p>“But if you’re going through life depending on impulse,” Alan objected, +“you’ll be no better off than a weathercock. You can’t discount reason +in this way. You must admit that our judgments are modified by +experience.”</p> + +<p>“The chief thing we learn from experience is to place upon it no +reliance whatever.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no good arguing with you,” Alan said. “Because what you call +impulse I call reason, and what you call reason I call imperfect logic.”</p> + +<p>“Alan, I can’t believe you only got a third. For really, you know, your +conversation is a model of the philosophic manner. Anyway, I’m not going +to try to be a Fellow of All Souls and you are going to be a country +squire. Let’s hold on to what certainties we can.”</p> + +<p>Michael would have liked to lead him into a discussion<a name="page_410" id="page_410"></a> of the problem +of evil, so that he might ascertain if Alan had ever felt the +intimations of evil which had haunted his own perceptions. However, he +thought he had tested to the utmost that third in Greats, and therefore +he refrained.</p> + +<p>There was a discussion that evening about going away. August was already +in sight and arrangements must be made quickly to avoid the burden of it +in London. In the end, it was arranged that Mrs. Fane and Stella and +Alan should go to Scotland, where Michael promised to join them, if he +could get away from London.</p> + +<p>“If you can get away!” Stella scoffed. “What rot you do talk.”</p> + +<p>But Michael was not to be teased out of his determination to stay where +he was, and in three or four days he said good-bye to the others +northward bound, waving to them from the steps of 173 Cheyne Walk on +which already the August sun was casting a heavy heat untempered by the +stagnant sheen of the Thames.</p> + +<p>That evening Michael went again to the Orient Promenade; but there was +no sign of Lily, and it seemed likely that she had gone away from London +for a while. After the performance he visited the Café d’Orange in +Leicester Square. He had never been there yet, but he had often noticed +the riotous exodus at half-past twelve, and he argued from the quality +of the frequenters who stood wrangling on the pavement that the Café +d’Orange would be a step lower than any of the night-resorts he had so +far attended. He scarcely expected to find Lily here. Indeed, he was +rather inclined to think that she was someone’s mistress and that +Drake’s view of her at the Orient did not argue necessarily that she had +yet sunk to the promiscuous livelihood of the Promenade.</p> + +<p>Downstairs at the Café d’Orange was rather more like a corner of hell +than Michael had anticipated. The tobacco<a name="page_411" id="page_411"></a> smoke which could not rise in +these subterranean airs hung in a blue murk round the gaudy hats and +vile faces, while from the roof the electric lamps shone dazzlingly down +and made a patchwork of light and shade and color. In a corner left by +the sweep of the stairs a quartet of unkempt musicians in seamy tunics +of beer-stained scarlet frogged with debilitated braid were grinding out +ragtime. The noisy tune in combination with the talking and laughter, +the chink of glasses and the shouted acknowledgments of the waiters made +such a din that Michael stood for a moment in confusion, debating the +possibility of one more person threading his way through the serried +tables to a seat.</p> + +<p>There were three arched recesses at the opposite end of the room, and in +one of these he thought he could see a table with a vacant place. So +paying no heed to the women who hailed him on the way he moved across +and sat down. A waiter pounced upon him voraciously for orders, and soon +with an unrequited drink he was meditating upon the scene before him in +that state of curious tranquillity which was nearly always induced by +ceaseless circumfluent clamor. Sitting in this tunnel-shaped alcove, he +seemed to be in the box of a theater whence the actions and voices of +the contemplated company had the unreality of an operatic finale. After +a time the various groups and individuals were separated in his mind, so +that in their movements he began to take an easily transferred interest, +endowing them with pleasant or unpleasant characteristics in turn. Round +him in the alcove there were strange contrasts of behavior. At one table +four offensive youths were showing off with exaggerated laughter for the +benefit of nobody’s attention. Behind them in the crepuscule of two +broken lamps a leaden-lidded girl; ivory white and cloying the air with +her heavy perfume, was arguing in low passionate tones with a cold-eyed +listener who with a straw was tracing niggling hieroglyphics<a name="page_412" id="page_412"></a> upon a +moist surface of cigarette-ash. In the deepest corner a girl with a high +complexion and bright eyes was making ardent love to a partially drunk +and bearded man, winking the while over her shoulder at whoever would +watch her comedy. The other places were filled by impersonal women who +sipped from their glasses without relish and stared disdainfully at each +other down their powdered noses. At Michael’s own table was a blotchy +man who alternately sucked his teeth and looked at his watch; and +immediately opposite sat a girl with a merry, audacious and somewhat +pale face of the Gallic type under a very large and round black hat +trimmed with daisies. She was twinkling at Michael, but he would not +catch her eye, and he looked steadily over the brim of her hat toward +the raffish and rutilant assemblage beyond. Along two sides of the wall +were large mirrors painted with flowers and bloated Naiads; here in +reflection the throng performed its antics in numberless reduplications. +Advertisements of drink decorated the rest of the space on the walls, +and at intervals hung notices warning ladies that they must not stay +longer than twenty minutes unless accompanied by a gentleman, that they +must not move to another table unless accompanied by a gentleman, and +with a final stroke of ironic propriety that they must not smoke unless +accompanied by a gentleman. The tawdry beer hall with its reek of +alcohol and fog of tobacco smoke, with its harborage of all the flotsam +of the underworld, must preserve a fiction of polite manners.</p> + +<p>Michael was not allowed to maintain his attitude of disinterested +commentary, for the girl in the daisied hat presently addressed him, and +he did not wish to hurt her feelings by not replying.</p> + +<p>“You’re very silent, kiddie,” she said. “I’ll give you a penny for +them.”<a name="page_413" id="page_413"></a></p> + +<p>“I really wasn’t thinking about anything in particular,” said Michael. +“Will you have a drink?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t mind if I do. Alphonse!” she shouted, tugging at the arm of the +overloaded waiter who was accomplishing his transit. “Bring me a hot +whisky-and-lemon. There’s a love.”</p> + +<p>Alphonse made the slightest sign of having heard the request and passed +on. Michael held his breath while the girl was giving her order. He was +expecting every moment that the waiter would break over the alcove in a +fountain of glass.</p> + +<p>“I’ve taken quite a fancy to whisky-and-lemon hot,” she informed +Michael. “You know. Anyone does, don’t they? Get a sudden fit and keep +on keeping on with one drink, I mean. This’ll be my sixth to-night. But +I’m a long way off being drunk, kiddie. Do you like my new hat? I reckon +it’ll bring me luck.”</p> + +<p>“I expect it will,” Michael said.</p> + +<p>“You are serious, aren’t you? When I first saw you I thought you was the +spitting image of a fellow I know—Bert Saunders, who writes about the +boxing matches for Crime Illustrated. He’s more of a bright-eyes than +you are, though.”</p> + +<p>The whisky-and-lemon arrived, and she drank Michael’s health.</p> + +<p>“Funny-tasting stuff when you come to think of it,” she said +meditatingly. “What’s your name, kiddie?”</p> + +<p>He told her.</p> + +<p>“Michael,” she repeated. “You’re a Jew, then?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, kid, I suppose you know best, but Michael is a Jewish name, isn’t +it? Michael? Of course it is. I don’t mind Jew fellows myself. One or +two of them have been very good to me. My name’s Daisy Palmer.”</p> + +<p>The conversation languished slightly, because Michael<a name="page_414" id="page_414"></a> since his +encounter with Poppy at Neptune Crescent was determined to be very +cautious.</p> + +<p>“You look rather French,” was his most audacious sally toward the +personal.</p> + +<p>“Funny you should have said that, because my mother was a stewardess on +the Calais boat. She was Belgian herself.”</p> + +<p>Again the conversation dropped.</p> + +<p>“I’m waiting for a friend,” Daisy volunteered. “She’s been having a row +with her fellow, and she promised to come on down to the Orange and tell +me about it. Dolly Wearne is her name. She ought to have been here by +now. What’s the time, kid?”</p> + +<p>It was after midnight, and Daisy began to look round anxiously.</p> + +<p>“I’m rather worried over Doll,” she confided to Michael, “because this +fellow of hers, Hungarian Dave, is a proper little tyke when he turns +nasty. I said to Doll, I said to her, ‘Doll, that dirty rotter you’re so +soft over’ll swing for you before he’s done. Why don’t you leave him,’ I +said, ‘and come and live along with me for a bit?’”</p> + +<p>“And what did she say?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>But there was no answer, for Daisy had caught sight of Dolly herself +coming down the stairs, and she was now hailing her excitedly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, doesn’t she look shocking white,” exclaimed Daisy. “Doll!” she +shouted, waving to her. “Over here, duck.”</p> + +<p>The four offensive youths near them in the alcove mimicked her in +exaggerated falsetto.</p> + +<p>“—— to you,” she flung scornfully at them over her shoulder. There was +a savage directness, a simple coarseness in the phrase that pleased +Michael. It seemed to him that nothing except that could ever be said to +these young men. Whatever else might be urged against the Café<a name="page_415" id="page_415"></a> +d’Orange, at least one was able to hear there a final verdict on +otherwise indescribable humanity.</p> + +<p>By this time Dolly Wearne, a rather heavy girl with a long retreating +chin and flabby cheeks, had reached her friend’s side. She began +immediately a voluble tale:</p> + +<p>“Oh, Daisy, I put it across him straight. I give you my word, I told him +off so as he could hardly look me in the face. ‘You call yourself a +man,’ I said, ‘why, you dirty little alien.’ That’s what I called him. I +did straight, ‘you dirty little——’”</p> + +<p>“This is my friend,” interrupted Daisy, indicating Michael, who bowed. +It amused him to see how in the very middle of what was evidently going +to be a breathless and desperate story both the girls could remember the +convention of their profession.</p> + +<p>“Pleased to meet you,” said Dolly, offering a black kid-gloved hand with +half-a-simper.</p> + +<p>“What will you drink?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“Mine’s a brandy and soda, please. ‘You dirty little alien,’ I said.” +Dolly was helter-skelter in the track of her tale again.</p> + +<p>“Go on, did you? And what did he say?” asked Daisy admiringly.</p> + +<p>“He never said nothing, my dear. What could he say?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” nodded Daisy wisely.</p> + +<p>“‘For two years,’ I said, ‘you’ve let a girl keep you,’ I said, ‘and +then you can go and give one of my rings to that Florrie. Let me get +hold of her,’ I said. ‘I’ll tear her eyes out.’ ‘No, you won’t, now +then,’ he said. ‘Won’t I? I will, then,’ and with that I just lost +control of my feelings, I felt that wild....”</p> + +<p>“What did you do, Doll?” asked Daisy, plying her with brandy to soothe +the outraged memory.</p> + +<p>“What did I do? Why, I spat in his tea and came straight off down to the +Orange. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you can sit drinking<a name="page_416" id="page_416"></a> tea while you break my +heart.’ Don’t you ever go and have a fancy boy, Daise. Why, I was a +straight girl when I first knew him. Straight—well, anyway not on the +game like what I am now.” Here Dolly Wearne began to weep with bitter +self-compassion. “I’ve slaved for that fellow, and now he serves me like +dirt.”</p> + +<p>“Go on. Don’t cry, duck,” Daisy begged. “Come home with me to-night and +we can send and fetch your things away to-morrow. I wouldn’t cry over +him,” she said fiercely. “There’s no fellow worth crying over. The best +of them isn’t worth crying over.”</p> + +<p>The four offensive youths in the alcove began to mock Dolly’s tears, and +Michael, who was already bitten with some of the primitive pugnacity of +the underworld, rose to attack them.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” Daisy commanded. “I wouldn’t mess my hands, if I was you, +with such a pack of filth. Sit down, you stupid boy. You’ll get us all +into trouble.”</p> + +<p>Michael managed by a great effort to resume his seat, but for a minute +or two he saw the beerhall through a mist of rage.</p> + +<p>Gradually Dolly’s tears ceased to flow, and after another brandy she +became merely more abusive of the faithless Dave. Her cheeks swollen +with crying seemed flabbier than ever, and her long retreating chin +expressed a lugubrious misanthropy.</p> + +<p>“Rotten, I call it, don’t you?” said the sympathetic Daisy, appealing to +Michael.</p> + +<p>He agreed with a profound nod.</p> + +<p>“And she’s been that good to him. You wouldn’t believe.”</p> + +<p>Michael thought it was rather risky to embark upon an enumeration of +Dolly’s virtuous acts. He feared another relapse into noisy grief.<a name="page_417" id="page_417"></a></p> + +<p>At this moment the subject of Daisy’s eulogy rose from her seat and +stared very dramatically at a corner of the main portion of the +beerhall.</p> + +<p>“My God!” she said, with ominous calm.</p> + +<p>“What is it, duck?” asked Daisy, anxiously peering.</p> + +<p>“My God!” Daisy repeated intensely. Then suddenly she poured forth a +volley of obloquy, and with an hysterical scream caught up her glass +evidently intending to hurl it in the direction of her abuse. Daisy +seized one arm: Michael gripped the other, and together they pulled her +back into her chair. She was still screaming loudly, and the noise of +the beerhall, hitherto scattered and variable in pitch, concentrated in +a low murmur of interest. Round about them in the alcove the neighbors +began to listen: the girl who had been arguing so passionately with the +cold-eyed man stopped and stared; the partially drunk and bearded man +collapsed into a glassy indifference, while his charmer no longer winked +over her shoulder at the spectators of her wooing; the four offensive +youths gaped like landed trout; even the blotchy-faced man ceased to +look at his watch and confined himself to sucking steadily his teeth.</p> + +<p>It seemed probable, Michael thought, that there was going to be rather a +nasty row. Dolly would not listen to persuasion from him or her friend. +She was going to attack that Florrie; she was going to mark that Florrie +for life with a glass; she was going to let her see if she could come it +over Doll Wearne. It would take more than Florrie to do that; yes, more +than half-a-dozen Florries, it would.</p> + +<p>The manager of the Orange had been warned, and he was already edging his +way slowly toward the table. The friends of Florrie were using their +best efforts to remove her from the temptation to retaliate. Though she +declared loudly that nothing would make her quit the<a name="page_418" id="page_418"></a> Orange, and +certainly that Dolly less than anybody, she did suffer herself to be +coaxed away.</p> + +<p>Dolly, when she found her rival had retreated, burst into tears again +and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of inquisitive sympathizers, +which made her utterly hysterical. Michael, without knowing quite how it +had happened, found that he was involved in the fortunes and enmities +and friendships of a complete society. He found himself explaining to +several bystanders the wrong which Dolly had been compelled to endure at +the hands of Hungarian Dave. It was extraordinary how suddenly this +absurd intrigue of the underworld came to seem tremendously important. +He felt that all his sense of proportion was rapidly disappearing. In +the middle of an excited justification of Dolly’s tears he was aware +that he and his surroundings and his attitude were to himself +incredible. He was positively in a nightmare, and a prey to the +inconsequence of dreams. Or was all his life until this moment a dream, +and was this reality? One fact alone presented itself clearly, which was +the necessity to see the miserable Dolly safely through the rest of the +evening. He felt very reliant upon Daisy, who was behaving with +admirable composure, and when he asked her advice about the course of +action, he agreed at once with her that Dolly must be persuaded into a +cab and be allowed in Daisy’s rooms in Guilford Street a freedom of rage +and grief that was here, such was the propriety of the Orange, a very +imprudent display of emotion.</p> + +<p>“She’ll be barred from coming down here,” said Daisy. “Come on, let’s +get her home.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s that Florrie?” screamed Dolly.</p> + +<p>“She’s gone home. So what’s the use in your carrying on so mad? The +manager’s got his eye on us, Doll. Come on, Doll, let’s get on home. I +tell you the manager’s looking at us. You are a silly girl.”<a name="page_419" id="page_419"></a></p> + +<p>“—— the manager,” said Dolly obstinately. “Let him look.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you come and see if you can find Florrie outside?” Daisy +suggested.</p> + +<p>Dolly was moved by this proposal, and presently she agreed to vacate the +Orange, much to Michael’s relief, for he was expecting every moment to +see her attack the manager with the match-stand that was fretting her +fingers. As it happened, Daisy’s well-meant suggestion was very unlucky +because Hungarian Dave, the cause of all the bother, was standing on the +pavement close to the entrance.</p> + +<p>Daisy whispered to Michael to get a cab quickly, because Hungarian Dave +was close at hand. He looked at him curiously, this degraded individual +in whose domestic affairs he was now so deeply involved. A very +objectionable creature he was, too, with his greasy hair and large red +mouth. His cap was pulled down over the eyes, and he may have wished not +to be seen; but an instinct for his presence made Dolly turn round, and +in a moment she was in the thick of the delight of telling him off for +the benefit of a crowd increasing with every epithet she flung. It was +useless now to attempt to get her away, and Michael and Daisy could only +drag her back when she seemed inclined to attack him with finger-nails +or hatpin.</p> + +<p>“Get a cab,” cried Daisy. “Never mind what she says. Get a cab, and +we’ll put the silly thing into it and drive off. The coppers will be +here in a moment.”</p> + +<p>Michael managed to hail a hansom immediately, but when he turned back to +the scene of the pavement the conditions of the dispute were entirely +changed. Hungarian Dave, infuriated or frightened, had knocked Dolly +down, and she was just staggering to her feet, when a policeman stepped +into the circle.</p> + +<p>“Come on, move along,” he growled.<a name="page_420" id="page_420"></a></p> + +<p>The bully had merged himself in the ring of onlookers, and Dolly, with a +cry of fury, flung herself in his direction.</p> + +<p>“Stop that, will you?” the policeman said savagely, seizing her by the +arm.</p> + +<p>“Go on, it’s a dirty shame,” cried Daisy. “Why don’t you take the fellow +as knocked her down?”</p> + +<p>Michael by this time had forced his way through the crowd, rage beating +upon his brain like a great scarlet hammer.</p> + +<p>“You infernal ass,” he shouted to the constable. “Haven’t you got the +sense to see that this woman was attacked first? Where is the blackguard +who did it?” he demanded of the stupid, the gross, the vilely curious +press of onlookers. No one came forward to support him, and Hungarian +Dave had slipped away.</p> + +<p>“Move on, will you?” the policeman repeated.</p> + +<p>“Damn you,” cried Michael. “Will you let go of that woman’s arm?”</p> + +<p>The constable with a bovine density of purpose proceeded apparently to +arrest the wretched Dolly, and Michael maddened by his idiocy felt that +the only thing to do was to hit him as hard as he could. This he did. +The constable immediately blew his whistle. Other masses of inane bulk +loomed up, and Michael was barely able to control himself sufficiently +not to resist all the way to Vine Street, as two of them marched him +along, and four more followed with Daisy and Dolly. A spumy trail of +nocturnal loiterers clung to their wake.</p> + +<p>Next morning Michael appeared before the magistrate. He listened to the +charge against him and nearly laughed aloud in court, because the whole +business so much resembled the trial in Alice in Wonderland. It was not +that the magistrate was quite so illogical as the King of Hearts; but he +was so obviously biassed in favor of the veracity of<a name="page_421" id="page_421"></a> a London +policeman, that the inconsequence of the nightmare which had begun last +night was unalterably preserved. Michael, aware of the circumstances +which had led up to what was being made to appear as wantonly riotous +behavior in Leicester Square, could not fail to be exasperated by the +inability of the magistrate to understand his own straightforward story. +He began to sympathize with the lawless population. The law could only +seem to them an unintelligent machine for crushing their freedom. If the +conduct of this case were a specimen of administration, it was obvious +that arrest must be synonymous with condemnation. The magistrate in the +first place seemed dreadfully overcome by the sorrow of beholding a +young man in Michael’s position on the police-court.</p> + +<p>“I cannot help wondering when I see a young man who has had every +opportunity ...” the magistrate went on in a voice that worked on the +stale air of the court like a rusty file.</p> + +<p>“I’m not a defaulting bank clerk,” Michael interrupted. “Is it +impossible for you to understand——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t speak to me like that. Keep quiet. I’ve never been spoken to like +that in all my experience as a magistrate. Keep quiet.”</p> + +<p>Michael sighed in compassion for his age and stupidity.</p> + +<p>“Are there any previous convictions against Wearne and Palmer?” the +magistrate inquired. He was told that the woman Palmer had not hitherto +appeared, but that Wearne had been previously fined for disorderly +conduct in Shaftesbury Avenue. “Ah!” said the magistrate. “Ah!” he +repeated, looking over the rim of his glasses. “And the case against the +male defendant? I will take the evidence of Constable C11254.”</p> + +<p>“Your worship, I was on duty yesterday evening at 12.25<a name="page_422" id="page_422"></a> in Leicester +Square. Hearing a noise in the direction of the Caffy Dorringe and +observing a crowd collect, I moved across the road to disperse it. The +defendant Wearne was using obscene language to an unknown man; and +wishing to get her to move on I took hold of her arm. The male +defendant, also using very obscene language, attempted to rescue her and +struck me on the chest. I blew my whistle....”</p> + +<p>The ponderous constable with his thick red neck continued a sing-song +narrative.</p> + +<p>When Michael’s turn came to refute some of the evidence against him, he +merely shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“It’s really useless, you know, for me to say anything. If ‘damn you’ is +obscene, then I was obscene. If a girl is knocked down by a bully and on +rising to her feet is instantly arrested by a dunderhead in a blue +uniform, and if an onlooker punches this functionary, then I did assault +the constable.”</p> + +<p>“This sort of insolence won’t do,” said the magistrate trembling with a +curious rarefied passion. “I have a very good mind to send you to prison +without the option of a fine, but in consideration....”</p> + +<p>Somehow or other it was made to appear a piece of extraordinary +magnanimity on the part of the magistrate that Michael was only fined +three guineas and costs.</p> + +<p>“I wish to pay the fines of Miss Palmer and Miss Wearne,” he announced.</p> + +<p>Later in the morning Michael, with the two girls, emerged into the +garish summer day. Not even yet was the illusion of a nightmare +dissipated, for as he looked at his two companions, feathered, frilled +and bedraggled, who were walking beside him, he could scarcely +acknowledge even their probable reality here in the sun.</p> + +<p>“I shan’t drink hot whisky-and-lemon again in a hurry,”<a name="page_423" id="page_423"></a> vowed Daisy. “I +knew it was going to bring me bad luck when I said it tasted so funny.”</p> + +<p>“But you said your hat was going to be lucky,” Michael pointed out.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve been properly sucked in over that,” Daisy agreed.</p> + +<p>“Nothing ever brings me luck,” grumbled Dolly resentfully.</p> + +<p>As Michael looked at the long retreating chin and down-drawn mouth he +was inclined to agree that nothing could invigorate this fatal +mournfulness with the prospect of good fortune.</p> + +<p>“I reckon I’ll go home and have a good lay down,” said Daisy. “Are you +going to have dinner with me?” she asked, turning to Dolly.</p> + +<p>“Dinner?” echoed Dolly. “Nice time to talk to anyone about their dinner, +when they’ve got the sick like I have! Dinner!”</p> + +<p>They had reached Piccadilly Circus by now, and Michael wondered if he +might not put them into a cab and send them back to Guilford Street. He +found it embarrassing when the people slowly turned away from Swan and +Edgar’s window to stare instead at him and his companions.</p> + +<p>Daisy pressed him to come back with them, but he promised he would call +upon her very soon. Then he slipped into her hand the change from the +second five-pound note into which the law had broken.</p> + +<p>“Is this for us?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“You are a sport. Mind you come and see us. Come to tea. Doll’s going to +live with me a bit now, aren’t you, Doll?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so,” said Doll.</p> + +<p>Michael really admired the hospitality which was willing<a name="page_424" id="page_424"></a> to shelter +this lugubrious girl, and as he contemplated her, looking in the +sunlight like a moist handkerchief, he had a fleeting sympathy with +Hungarian Dave.</p> + +<p>When the girls had driven off, Michael recovered his ordinary appearance +by visiting a barber and a hosier. The effect of the shampoo was almost +to make him incredulous of the night’s event, and he could not help +paying a visit to the Café d’Orange, to verify the alcove in which he +had sat. The entrance of the beerhall was closed, however, and he stood +for a moment like a person who passes a theater which the night before +he has seen glittering. As Michael was going out of the bar, he thought +he recognized a figure leaning over the counter. Yes, it was certainly +Meats. He went up and tapped him on the shoulder, addressing him by +name. Meats turned round with a start.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember me?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“Of course I do,” said Meats nervously. “But for the love of Jerusalem +drop calling me by that name. Here, let’s go outside.”</p> + +<p>In the street Michael asked him why he had given up being Meats.</p> + +<p>“Oh, a bit of trouble, a bit of trouble,” said Meats.</p> + +<p>“You are a strange chap,” said Michael. “When I first met you it was +Brother Aloysius. Then it was Meats. Now——”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said Meats, “give over, will you? I’ve told you once. If +you call me that again I shall leave you. Barnes is what I am now. Now +don’t forget.”</p> + +<p>“Come and have a drink, and tell me what you’ve been doing in the four +years since we met,” Michael suggested.</p> + +<p>“B-a-r-n-e-s. Have you got it?”</p> + +<p>Michael assured him that everything but Barnes as applicable to him had +vanished from his mind.<a name="page_425" id="page_425"></a></p> + +<p>“Come on, then,” said Barnes. “We’ll go into the Afrique, upstairs.”</p> + +<p>Michael fancied he had met Barnes this time in a reincarnation that was +causing him a good deal of uneasiness. He had lost the knowingness which +had belonged to Meats and the sheer lasciviousness which had seemed the +predominant quality of Brother Aloysius. Instead, sitting at the round +marble table opposite Michael saw an individual who resembled an actor +out of work in the lowest grades of his profession. There was the cheesy +complexion, and the over-fashioned suit of another season too much worn +and faded now to flaunt itself objectionably, but with its dismoded +exaggerations still conveying an air of rococo smartness; perhaps, +thought Michael, these signs had always been obvious and it had merely +been his own youth which had supposed a type to be an exception. +Certainly Barnes could not arouse now anything but a compassionate +amusement. How this figure with its grotesque indignity as of a puppet +temporarily put out of action testified to his own morbid heightening of +common things in the past. How incredible it seemed now that this Barnes +had once been able to work upon his soul with influential doctrine.</p> + +<p>“What have you been doing with yourself?” Michael asked again.</p> + +<p>“Oh, hopping and popping about. I’ve got the rats at present.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you living?”</p> + +<p>Barnes looked at Michael in suspicious astonishment. “What do you want +to know for?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Mere inquisitiveness,” Michael assured him. “You really needn’t treat +me like a detective, you know.”</p> + +<p>“My mistake,” said Barnes. “But really, Fane. Let’s see, that is your +name? Thought it was. I don’t often forget a name. No, without swank, +Fane, I’ve been hounded<a name="page_426" id="page_426"></a> off my legs lately. I’m living in Leppard +Street. Pimlico way.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to come and see you some time,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Here, straight, what <i>is</i> your game?” Barnes could not conceal his +suspicion.</p> + +<p>“Inquisitiveness,” Michael declared again. “Also I rather want a Sancho +Panza.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course, any little thing I can do to oblige,” said Barnes very +sarcastically.</p> + +<p>It took Michael a long time to convince him that no plot was looming, +but at last he persuaded him to come to 173 Cheyne Walk, and after that +he knew that Barnes could not refuse to show him Leppard Street.<a name="page_427" id="page_427"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV-a" id="CHAPTER_IV-a"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>LEPPARD STREET</h4> + +<p>While they were driving to Cheyne Walk, Michael extracted from Barnes an +outline of his adventures since last they had met. The present narrative +was probably not less cynical than the account of his life related to +Michael on various occasions in the past; but perhaps because his +imagination had already to some extent been fed by reality, he could no +longer be shocked. He received the most sordid avowals calmly, neither +blaming Barnes nor indulging himself with mental goose-flesh. Yet amid +all the frankness accorded to him he could not find out why Barnes had +changed his name. He was curious about this, because he could not +conceive any shamelessness too outrageous for Barnes to reveal. It would +be interesting to find out what could really make even him pause; no +doubt ultimately, with the contrariness of the underworld, it would turn +out to be something that Michael himself would consider trivial in +comparison with so much of what Barnes had boasted. Anyway, whether he +discovered the secret or not, it would certainly be interesting to study +Barnes, since in him good and evil might at any moment display +themselves as clearly as a hidden substance to a reagent flung into a +seething alembic. It might perhaps be assuming too much to say that +there was any good in him; and yet Michael was unwilling to suppose that +all his conversions were merely the base drugs of a disordered morality. +Apart from his philosophic<a name="page_428" id="page_428"></a> value, Barnes might very actually be of +service in the machinery of finding Lily.</p> + +<p>At 173 Cheyne Walk Barnes looked about him rather bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Easy enough to behave yourself in a house like this,” he commented.</p> + +<p>Here spoke the child who imagines that grown-up people have no excuse to +be anything but very good. There might be something worth pursuing in +that thought. A child might consider itself chained more inseverably +than one who apparently possesses the perfectiveness of free-will. Had +civilization complicated too unreasonably the problem of evil? It was a +commonplace to suppose that the sense of moral responsibility increased +with the opportunity of development, and yet after all was not the +reverse true?</p> + +<p>“Why should it be easier to behave here than in Leppard Street?” Michael +asked. “I do wish you could understand it’s really so much more +difficult. I can’t distinguish what is wrong from what is right nearly +so well as you can.”</p> + +<p>“Well, in my experience, and my experience has done its bit I can tell +you,” said Barnes in self-satisfied parenthesis. “In my experience most +of the difficulties in this world come from wanting something we haven’t +got. I don’t care what it is—a woman or a drink or a new suit of +clothes. Money’ll buy any of them. Give me ten pounds a week, and I +could be a bloody angel.”</p> + +<p>“Supposing I offered you half as much for three months,” suggested +Michael. “Do you think you’d find life any easier while it lasted?”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t be silly,” said Barnes. “Of course I should. If you’d +walked home every night with your eyes on the gutter in case anybody had +dropped a threepenny bit, you’d think it was easier. It’s not a bit of +good your running me down, Fane. If you were me, you’d be just the same. +Those<a name="page_429" id="page_429"></a> monks at the Abbey used to jaw about holy poverty. The man who +first said that ought to be walking about hell with donkey’s ears on his +nob. What’s it done for me? I ask you. Why, it’s made me so that I’d +steal a farthing from one blind man to palm it off as half-a-quid on +another.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me about Leppard Street,” said Michael, laughing. “What’s it +like?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you go and punch a few holes in a cheese rind. That’s what it +looks like. And then go and think yourself a rat who’s lost all his +teeth, and you’ve got what it feels like to be living in it.”</p> + +<p>“Supposing I said I’d like to try?” asked Michael. “What would you +think?”</p> + +<p>“Think? I shouldn’t think two seconds. I should know you were having a +game. What good’s Leppard Street to you, when you can sit here bouncing +up and down all day on cushions?”</p> + +<p>“Experience,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rats! Nothing’s experience that you haven’t had to do.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll give you five pounds a week,” Michael offered, “if you’ll +keep yourself free to do anything I want you to do. I shouldn’t want +anything very dreadful, of course,” he added.</p> + +<p>It was difficult for Michael to persuade Barnes that he was in earnest, +so difficult indeed that, even when he produced five sovereigns and +offered them directly to him, he had to disclose partially his reason +for wishing to go to Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>“You see, I want to find a girl,” he explained.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you go and live in Leppard Street you’ll lose the best girl +you’ve got straight off. That’s all there is to it.”<a name="page_430" id="page_430"></a></p> + +<p>“You don’t understand. This girl I used to know has gone wrong, and I +want to find her and marry her.”</p> + +<p>It seemed to Michael that Barnes’ manner changed in some scarcely +definable way when he made this announcement. He pocketed the five +pounds and invited Michael to come to Leppard Street whenever he liked. +He was evidently no longer suspicious of his sincerity, and a perky, an +almost cunning cordiality had replaced the disheartened cynicism of his +former attitude. It encouraged Michael to see how obviously his resolve +had impressed Barnes. He accepted it as an augury of good hap. +Involuntarily he waited for his praise; and when Barnes made no allusion +to the merit of his action, he ascribed his silence to emotion. This was +proving really a most delightful example of the truth of his theory. And +it was clever of Barnes—it was more than clever, it was truly +imaginative of him—to realize without another question the need to +leave for a while Cheyne Walk.</p> + +<p>“But is there a vacant room?” Michael asked in sudden dread of +disappointment.</p> + +<p>“Look here, you’d better see the place before you decide on leaving +here,” Barnes advised. “It isn’t a cross between Buckingham Palace and +the Carlton, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s the name that attracts me,” said Michael. “It sounds +ferocious.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about the name, but old Ma Cleghorne who keeps the house +is ferocious enough. Never mind.” He jingled the five sovereigns.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go up and pack,” said Michael. “By the way, I haven’t told you yet +that I was run in last night.”</p> + +<p>“In quod you mean?” asked Barnes. “Whatever for?”</p> + +<p>“Drunk and disorderly in Leicester Square.”</p> + +<p>“These coppers are the limit,” said Barnes emphatically. “The absolute +limit. Really. They’ll pinch the Archbishop<a name="page_431" id="page_431"></a> of Canterbury for looking +into Stagg and Mantle’s window before we know where we are.”</p> + +<p>Michael left Barnes in the drawing-room, and as he turned in the doorway +to see if he was at his ease, he thought the visitor and the macaw on +its perch were about equally exotic.</p> + +<p>They started immediately after lunch and, as always, the drive along the +river inspired Michael with a jolly conception of the adventurousness of +London. It was impossible to hear the gurgle of the high spring-tide +without exulting in the movement of the stream that was washing out with +its flood all the listlessness of the hot August afternoon. When Chelsea +Bridge was left behind, the mystery of the banks of a great river +sweeping through a great city began to be more evident. The whole +character of the Embankment changed at every hundred yards. First there +was that somber canal which, flowing under the road straight from the +Thames, reappeared between a cañon of gloomy houses and vanished again +underground not very unlike the Styx. Then came what was apparently a +large private house which had been gutted of the tokens of humanity and +filled with monstrous wheels and cylinders and pistons, all moving +perpetually and slowly with a curious absence of noise. Under Grosvenor +Road Bridge they went, the horse clattering forward and a train crashing +overhead. Out again from slimy bricks and girders dripping with the +excrement of railway-engines, they came into Grosvenor Road. They passed +the first habitations of Pimlico, two or three terraces and isolated +houses all different in character. There could scarcely be another road +in London so varied as this. Maurice had been wise to have his studio in +Grosvenor Road. From the Houses of Parliament to Chelsea Bridge was an +epitome of London.</p> + +<p>The hansom turned to the left up Clapperton Street, a very wide +thoroughfare of houses with heavy porticoes, a<a name="page_432" id="page_432"></a> very wide and very gray +street, of a gray that almost achieved the effect of positive color, so +insistent was it. Michael remembered that there had been a Clapperton +Street murder, and he wondered behind which of those muslin curtains the +poison had been mixed. It was a street of quite extraordinarily sinister +respectableness. It brooded with a mediocre prosperity, very wide and +very gray and very silent. The columns of the porticoes were checked off +by the window of the cab with dull regularity, and the noise of the +horse’s hoofs echoed hollowly down the empty street, to which every +evening men with black shiny bags would come hurrying home. It was +impossible to imagine a nursemaid lolling over a perambulator in +Clapperton Street. It was impossible to imagine that anyone lived here +but dried-up little men with greenish-white complexions and +hatchet-shaped whiskers and gnawed mustaches, dried-up little men whose +wives kept arsenic in small triangular cupboards by the bed.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t mind having lodgings here,” said Barnes. He had caught sight +of a square of cardboard at the farther end of the street. This was the +outpost of an array of apartment cards, for the next street was full of +them. The next street was evidently a little nearer to the period of +final dilapidation; but Michael fancied that, in comparison with the +middle-aged respectableness of Clapperton Street, this older and now +very swiftly decaying warren of second-rate apartments was almost +attractive. Street followed street, each one, as they drew nearer to +Victoria Station, being a little more raffish than its predecessor, each +one being a little less able to resist the corrosion of a persistently +inquinating migration. Sometimes, and with a sharp effect of contrast, +occurred prosperous squares; but even these, with their houses so +uniformly tall and ocherous, delivered a presage of irremediable +decadency.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the long ranks of houses, which were beginning<a name="page_433" id="page_433"></a> to seem +endless, vanished upon the margin of a lake of railway lines. Just +before the hansom would have mounted the slope of an arcuated bridge, it +swung to the right into Leppard Street, S.W. The beginning of the street +ran between two high brown walls crowned with a ruching of broken glass: +these guarded on one side the escarp of the railway, on the other a coal +yard. At the farther end the street swept round to an exit between two +rows of squalid dwellings called Greenarbor Court, an exit, however, +that was barred to vehicles by a row of blistered posts. Some fifty +yards before this the wall deviated to form a recess in which five very +tall houses rose gauntly against the sky from the very edge of the +embankment. Standing as they did upon a sort of bluff and flanked on +either side by blind walls, these habitations gave an impression of +quite exceptional height. This was emphasized by the narrow oblong +windows of which there may have been nearly fifty. The houses were built +of the same brick as the walls, and they had deepened from yellow to the +same fuscous hue. This promontory seemed to serve as an appendix for the +draff of the neighborhood’s rubbish. The ribs of an umbrella; a child’s +boot; a broken sieve; rags of faded color, lay here in the gutter +undisturbed, the jetsam of a deserted beach.</p> + +<p>“Here we are,” said Barnes. “Here’s Leppard Street that you’ve been so +anxious to see.”</p> + +<p>“It looks rather exciting,” Michael commented.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s the last act of a Drury Lane melodrama I don’t think. +Exciting?” Barnes repeated. “You know, Fane, there’s something wrong +with you. If you think this is exciting, you’d go raving mad when I +showed you some of the places where I’ve lived. Well, here we are, +anyhow. Number One—the corner house.”</p> + +<p>They walked up the steps which were gradually scaling<a name="page_434" id="page_434"></a> in widening +ulcers of decay: the handle of the bell-pull hung limply forward like a +parched tongue: and the iron railings of a basement strewn with potato +parings were flaked with rust, and here and there decapitated.</p> + +<p>Barnes opened the door.</p> + +<p>“We’ll take your bag up to my room first, and then we’ll go downstairs +and talk to Ma Cleghorne about your room, that is if you don’t change +your mind when you’ve seen the inside.”</p> + +<p>Michael had no time to notice Barnes’ room very much. But vaguely he saw +a rickety bed with a patchwork counterpane and frowzy recesses masked by +cheap cretonnes in a pattern of disemboweled black and crimson fruits. +After that glimpse they went down again over the grayish staircarpet +that was worn to the very filaments. Barnes shouted to the landlady in +the basement.</p> + +<p>“She’ll have a fit if she hears me calling down to her,” he said to +Michael. “You see, just lately I’ve been very anxious to avoid meeting +her.”</p> + +<p>He jingled with satisfaction the sovereigns in his pocket.</p> + +<p>They descended into the gloom that smelt of damp cloths and the stale +soapiness of a sink. They peeped into the front room, as they went by: +here a man in shirt-sleeves was lying under the scattered sheets of a +Sunday paper upon a bed that gave an effect of almost oriental luxury, +so much was it overloaded with mattresses and coverlets. Indeed; the +whole room seemed clogged with woolly stuffs, and the partial twilight +of its subterranean position added to the impression of airlessness. It +was as if these quilted chairs and heavy hairy curtains had suffocated +everything else.</p> + +<p>“That’s Cleghorne,” said Barnes. “I reckon he’d sleep Rip van Winkle +barmy.”</p> + +<p>“What’s he do?” whispered Michael, as they turned down the passage.<a name="page_435" id="page_435"></a></p> + +<p>“He snores for a living, he does,” said Barnes.</p> + +<p>They entered the kitchen, and through the dim light Michael saw the +landlady with her arms plunged into a steaming cauldron. Outside, two +trains roared past in contrary directions; the utensils shivered and +chinked; the ceiling was obscured by pendulous garments which exhaled a +moist odorousness; on the table a chine of bacon striated by the +carving-knife was black with heavy-winged flies.</p> + +<p>“I’ve brought a new lodger, Mrs. Cleghorne,” said Barnes.</p> + +<p>“Have you brought your five weeks’ rent owing?” she asked sourly.</p> + +<p>He laid two pounds on the table, and Mrs. Cleghorne immediately cheered +up, if so positive an expression could be applied to a woman whose +angularities seemed to forbid any display of good-will. Michael thought +she looked rather like one of the withered nettles that overhung the +wall of the sunken yard outside the kitchen window.</p> + +<p>“Well, he can have the top-floor back, or he can have the double rooms +on the ground floor which of course is unfurnished. Do you want me to +come up and show you?”</p> + +<p>She inquired grudgingly and rubbed the palm of her hand slowly along her +sharp nose as if to express a doubtful willingness.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps Mr. Cleghorne ...” Michael began.</p> + +<p>“Mis-ter Cleghorne!” she interrupted scornfully, and immediately she +began to dry her arms vigorously on a roller-towel which creaked +continuously.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t want to disturb him,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Disturb him!” she sneered. “Why, half Bedlam could drive through his +brains in a omnibus before he’d move a little finger to trouble hisself. +Yes,” she shouted, “Yes!” Her voice mingling with the creak of the +roller seemed to be grating the air itself, and with every word it grew +more strident. “Why, the blessed house might burn before<a name="page_436" id="page_436"></a> he’d even put +on his boots, let alone go and show anyone upstairs, though his wife can +work herself to the bone for him. Disturb him! Good job if anyone could +disturb him. If I found a regiment of soldiers in the larder, he’d only +grunt. Asthmatic! Yes, some people ’ud be very pleased to be asthmatic, +if they could lie snorting on a bed from morning to night.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne’s hands were dry now, and she led the way along the +passage upstairs, sniffing as she passed her crapulous husband. She +unlocked the door of the ground-floor rooms, and they entered. It was +not an inspiring lodging as seen thus in its emptiness, with drifts of +fluff along the bare dusty boards. The unblacked grate contained some +dried-up bits of orange peel; with the last summons of the late tenant +the bellrope had broken, and it now lay invertebrate; by the window, +catching a shaft of sunlight, stood a drain pipe painted with a +landscape in cobalt-blue and probably once used as an umbrella stand.</p> + +<p>“That’s all I got for two months’ rent,” said Mrs. Cleghorne bitterly, +surveying it. “And it’s just about fit for my old man to go and bury his +good-for-nothing lazy head in, and that’s all. The bedroom’s in here, of +course.” She opened the folding doors whose blebs of paint had been +picked off up to a certain height above the floor, possibly as far as +some child had been able to reach.</p> + +<p>The bedroom was rather dustier than the sitting-room, and it was much +darker owing to a number of ferns which had been glued upon the +window-panes. Through this mesh could be seen the nettle-haunted square +of back garden; and beyond, over a stucco wall pocked with small +pebbles, a column of smoke was belching into the sky from a stationary +engine on the invisible lake of railway lines.</p> + +<p>“Do you want to see the top-floor back?” Mrs. Cleghorne asked.<a name="page_437" id="page_437"></a></p> + +<p>“Well, if you wouldn’t mind.” Michael felt bound to apologize to her, +whatever was suggested.</p> + +<p>She sighed her way upstairs, and at last flung open a door for them to +enter the vacant room.</p> + +<p>The view from here was certainly more spacious, and a great deal of the +permeating depression was lightened by looking out as it were over +another city across the railway, a city with streamers of smoke, and +even here and there a flag flying. At the same time the room itself was +less potentially endurable than the ground-floor; there was no fireplace +and the few scraps of furniture were more discouraging than the positive +emptiness downstairs. Michael shuddered as he looked at the gimcrack +washstand through whose scanty paint the original wood was visible in +long fibrous sores. He shuddered, too, at the bedstead with its pleated +iron laths furred by dust and rust, and at the red mattress exuding +flock like clustered maggots.</p> + +<p>“This is furnished, of course,” said Mrs. Cleghorne, complacently +sucking a tooth. “Well, which will you have?”</p> + +<p>“I think perhaps I’ll take the ground-floor rooms. I’ll have them done +up.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’re quite clean. The last people was a bit dirty. So I gave +them an extra-special clear-out.”</p> + +<p>“But you wouldn’t object to my doing them up?” persisted Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I shouldn’t <i>object,”</i> said Mrs. Cleghorne, and in her accent +was the suggestion that equally she would not be likely to derive very +much pleasure from the fruition of Michael’s proposal.</p> + +<p>They were going downstairs again now, and Mrs. Cleghorne was evidently +beginning to acquire a conviction of her own importance, because +somebody had contemplated with a certain amount of interest those two +empty rooms on the ground floor; in the gratification of her pride she +was endowing<a name="page_438" id="page_438"></a> them with a value and a character they did not possess.</p> + +<p>“I’ve always said that, properly cared for, those two rooms are worth +any other two rooms in the house. And of course that’s the reason I’m +really compelled to charge a bit more for them. I always say to everyone +right out—if you want the two best rooms in the house, why, you must +pay according. They’re only empty now because I’ve always been +particular about letting them. I won’t have anybody, and that’s a fact. +Mr. Barnes here knows I’m really fond of those rooms.”</p> + +<p>They had reentered them, and Mrs. Cleghorne stood with arms admiringly +akimbo.</p> + +<p>“They really are a beautiful lodging,” she declared. “When would you +want them from?”</p> + +<p>“Well, as soon as I can get them done up,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I see. Perhaps you could explain a little more clearly just what you +was thinking of doing?”</p> + +<p>Michael gave some of his theories of decoration, while Mrs. Cleghorne +waited in critical audience; as it were, feeling the pulse of the +apartments under the stimulus of Michael’s sketch of their potentiality.</p> + +<p>“All white?” the landlady echoed pessimistically. “That sounds very +gloomy, doesn’t it? More like a outhouse or a coal-cellar than a nice +couple of rooms.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they couldn’t look rottener than what they do at present,” Barnes +put in. “So if you take my advice, you’ll say ‘yes’ and be very +thankful. They’ll look clean, anyway.”</p> + +<p>The landlady threw back her head and surveyed Barnes like a snake about +to strike.</p> + +<p>“Rotten?” she sniffed. “I’m sure this gentleman here isn’t likely to +find a nicer and cheaper pair of rooms or a more convenient and a +quieter pair of rooms anywhere in<a name="page_439" id="page_439"></a> Pimlico. A lot of people is very +anxious to be in this neighborhood.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne was much offended by Barnes’ criticism, and there was a +long period of dubiety before it was settled that Michael should be +accepted as a tenant.</p> + +<p>“I’ve never cared for white,” she said, in final protest. “Not since I +was married.”</p> + +<p>Reminded of Mr. Cleghorne’s existence in the basement, she hurried +forthwith to rout him out. As she disappeared, Michael saw that she was +searching in the musty folds of her skirt in order to deposit in her +purse the month’s rent he had paid in advance.</p> + +<p>A couple of weeks passed while the decorators worked hard; and Michael +returned from an unwilling visit to Scotland to find them ready for him. +He got together a certain amount of furniture, and toward the end of +August he moved into Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>Barnes on account of the prosperity which had come to him through +Michael’s money had managed to dress himself in a series of outrageously +new and fashionable suits, and on the afternoon of his patron’s arrival +he strutted about the apartments.</p> + +<p>“Very nice,” he said. “Very nice, indeed. I reckon old Ma Cleghorne +ought to be very pleased with herself. Some of these pictures are a bit +too religious for me just at present, but everyone to their own taste, +that’s what I always say. To their own taste,” he repeated. “Otherwise, +what’s the good in being given an opinion of your own?”</p> + +<p>Michael felt it was time to explain to Barnes more particularly his +quest of Lily.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know a girl called Lily Haden?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Lily Haden,” said Barnes thoughtfully. “Lily Hopkins. A great fat girl +with red....”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” Michael interrupted. “Lily Haden. Tall.<a name="page_440" id="page_440"></a> Slim. Very fair hair. +Of course she may have another name now.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it, you see,” said Barnes wisely.</p> + +<p>“Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, I must find her,” Michael went +on.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you go about it in that spirit, you’ll soon find her,” Barnes +prophesied.</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him sharply. He thought he noticed in Barnes’ manner a +suggestion of humoring him. He rather resented the way in which Barnes +seemed to encourage him as one might encourage a child.</p> + +<p>“You understand I want to marry her?” Michael asked fiercely.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, old chap. I’m not trying to stop you, am I?”</p> + +<p>“But why are you talking as if I weren’t in earnest?” Michael demanded. +“When I first told you about it you were evidently very pleased, and now +you’ve got a sneer which frankly I tell you I find extraordinarily +objectionable.”</p> + +<p>Barnes looked much alarmed by Michael’s sudden attack, and explained +that he meant nothing by his remarks beyond a bit of fun.</p> + +<p>“Is it funny to marry somebody?” Michael demanded.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes it’s very funny to marry a tart,” said Barnes.</p> + +<p>Michael flushed. This was a directness of speech for which he was not +prepared.</p> + +<p>“But when I first told you,” Michael said, “you seemed very pleased.”</p> + +<p>“I was very pleased to find I’d evidently struck a nice-mannered +lunatic,” said Barnes. “You offered me five quid a week, didn’t you? +Well, you didn’t offer me that to give you good advice, now did you?”</p> + +<p>Michael tried to conceal the mortification that was being<a name="page_441" id="page_441"></a> inflicted +upon him. He had been very near to making a fool of himself by supposing +that his announcement had aroused admiration. Instead of admiring him, +Barnes evidently regarded him as an idiot whom it were politic to +encourage on account of the money this idiot could provide. It was an +humiliating discovery. The chivalry on which he congratulated himself +had not touched a single chord in Barnes. Was it likely that in Lily +herself he would find someone more responsive to what he still +obstinately maintained to himself was really rather a fine impulse? +Michael began to feel half sorry for Barnes because he could not +appreciate nobility of motive. It began to seem worth while trying to +impose upon him the appreciation which he felt he owed. Michael was +sorry for his uncultivated ideals, and he took a certain amount of +pleasure in the thought of how much Barnes might benefit from a close +association with himself. He did not regret the whim which had brought +them to Leppard Street. Whatever else might happen, it would always be +consoling to think that he would be helping Barnes. In half a dream +Michael began to build up the vision of a newer and a finer Barnes, a +Barnes with sensitiveness and decent instincts, a Barnes who would +forsake very willingly the sordid existence he had hitherto led in order +to rise under Michael’s guidance and help to a wider and better life. +Michael suddenly experienced a sense of affection for Barnes, the +affection of the missionary for the prospective convert. He forgave him +his cynical acceptance of the five pounds a week, and he made up his +mind not to refer to Lily again until Barnes should be able to esteem at +its true value the step he proposed to take.</p> + +<p>Michael looked round at the new rooms he had succeeded in creating out +of the ground floor of 1 Leppard Street. These novel surroundings would +surely be strong enough to make the first impression upon Barnes. He +could not fail<a name="page_442" id="page_442"></a> to be influenced by this whiteness and cleanliness, so +much more white and clean where everything else was dingy and vile. It +was all so spare and simple that it surely must produce an effect. +Barnes would see him living every day in perfect contentment with a few +books and a few pictures. He must admire those cherry-red curtains and +those green shelves. He must respect the cloistral air Michael had +managed to import even into this warren of queer inhabitants whom as yet +he had scarcely seen. It was romantic to come like this into a small +secluded world which did not know him; to bring like this a fresh +atmosphere into a melancholy street of human beings who lived +perpetually in a social twilight. Michael’s missionary affection began +to extend beyond Barnes and to embrace all the people in this house. He +felt a great fondness for them, a great desire to identify himself with +their aspirations, so that they would be glad to think he was living in +their midst. He began to feel very poignantly that his own existence +hitherto had been disgracefully unprofitable both to himself and +everybody else. He was grateful that destiny had brought him here to +fulfill what was plainly a purpose. But what did fate intend should be +his effect upon these people? To what was he to lead them? Michael had +an impulse to kneel down and pray for knowledge. He wished that Barnes +were not in this white room. Otherwise he would surely have knelt down, +and in the peace of the afternoon sunlight he might have resigned +himself to a condition of spirit he had coveted in vain for a very long +time.</p> + +<p>Just then there was a tap at the door, and a middle-aged man with +blinking watery eyes and a green plush smoking-cap peeped round the +corner.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” Michael cheerfully invited him.</p> + +<p>The stranger entered in a slipshod hesitant manner. He looked as if all +his clothes were on the verge of coming off,<a name="page_443" id="page_443"></a> so much like a frayed +accordion did his trousers rest upon the carpet slippers; so wide a +space of shirt was visible between the top of the trousers and the +bottom of the waistcoat; so utterly amorphous was his gray alpaca coat.</p> + +<p>“What I really came down for was a match,” the stranger explained.</p> + +<p>Michael offered him a box, and with fumbling hands he stored it away in +one of his pockets.</p> + +<p>“You don’t go in for puzzles, I suppose?” he asked tentatively. “But any +time I can help. I’m the Solutionist, you know. Don’t let me keep you. +Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes. I’m worrying out this week’s lot in The +Golden Penny very slowly. I’ve really had a sort of a headache the last +few days—a very nasty headache. Do you know anything about cricketers?” +he asked, turning to Michael. “Famous cricketers, of course, that is? +For instance, I cannot think what this one can be.”</p> + +<p>He produced after much uncertainty a torn and dirty sheet of some penny +weekly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got all the others,” he said to Michael. “But one picture will +often stump you like this. No joke intended.” He smiled feebly and +pointed to a woman holding in one hand the letter S, in the other the +letter T.</p> + +<p>“What about Hirst?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Hirst,” repeated the Solutionist. “Her S T. That’s it. That’s it.” In +his excitement he began to dribble. “I’m very much obliged to you, sir. +Her S. T. Yes, that’s it.”</p> + +<p>He began to shuffle toward the door.</p> + +<p>“Anything you want solved at any time,” he said to Michael. “I’m only +just upstairs, you know, in the room next to Mr. Barnes. I shall be most +delighted to solve anything—anything!”</p> + +<p>He vanished, and Michael smiled to think how completely some of his +problems would puzzle the Solutionist.<a name="page_444" id="page_444"></a></p> + +<p>“What’s his name?” he inquired of Barnes.</p> + +<p>“Who? Barmy Sid? Sydney Carvel, as he calls himself. Yet he makes a +living at it.”</p> + +<p>“At what?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Solving those puzzles and sending solutions at so much a time. He took +fifteen-and-six last week, or so he told me. You can see his +advertisement in Reynolds. Barmy Sid I call him. He says he used to be a +conjurer and take his ten pounds a week easily. But he looks to me more +like one of these here soft fellows who ought to be shut up. You should +see his room. All stuck over with bits of paper. Regular dust-hole, +that’s what it is. Did you hear what he said? Solve anything—anything! +He hasn’t solved how to earn more than ten bob a week, year in year out. +Silly——! That’s what he is, barmy.”</p> + +<p>Michael’s hope of entering into a close relation with all the lodgers of +1 Leppard Street was falsified. None of them except Barmy Sid once +visited his rooms; nor did he find it at all easy to strike up even a +staircase acquaintance. Vaguely he became aware of the various +personalities that lurked behind the four stories of long narrow +windows. Yet so fleeting was the population that the almost weekly +arrivals and departures perpetually disorganized his attempts to observe +them as individuals or to theorize upon them in the mass. No doubt +Barnes himself would have left by now, had he not been sustained by +Michael’s subsidy; and it was always a great perplexity to Michael how +Mrs. Cleghorne managed to pay the rent, since apparently half the +inquilines of a night and even some of the less transient lodgers +ultimately escaped owing her money.</p> + +<p>It was a silent and a dreary house, and although children would +doubtless have been a nuisance, Michael sometimes wished that the +landlady’s strict regulation no longer to take them in could be relaxed. +All the five houses of Leppard<a name="page_445" id="page_445"></a> Street seemed to be untenanted by +children, which certainly added a touch to their decrepitude. In +Greenarbor Court close at hand the pavements writhed with children, and +occasionally small predatory bands advanced as far as Leppard Street to +play in a half-hearted manner with some of the less unpromising rubbish +that was moldering there. On the steps of Number Three, two pale little +girls in stammel petticoats used to sit for hours over a grocer’s shop +of grit and waste paper and refined mud. They apparently belonged to the +basement of Number Three, for Michael often saw them disappear below at +twilight. Michael thought of the children who swarmed above the walls of +the embankment before Paddington Station, and he wondered what sort of a +desolate appearance these five houses must present for voyagers to and +from Victoria. They must surely stand up very forbidding in abandonment +to those who were traveling back to their cherished dolls-houses in +Dulwich. From his bedroom window he could not actually see the trains, +but always he could hear their shrieking and their clangor, and he +looked almost with apprehension at St. Ursula in her high serene +four-poster reposing tranquilly upon the white wall. Nothing except the +trains could vex her sleep; for in this house was a perpetual silence. +Even when Mrs. Cleghorne was vociferously arguing with her husband, the +noise of her rage down in the basement among the quilts and coverlets +never penetrated beyond the door at the head of the inclosing staircase, +save in sounds of fury greatly minified. So silent was the house that +had it not been for the variety of the smells, Michael might easily have +supposed that it really was empty and that life here was indeed an +illusion. The smells, however, of onions or hot blankets or machine-oil +or tom-cats or dirty bicycles proclaimed emphatically that a community +shared these ascending mustard-colored walls, that human beings passed<a name="page_446" id="page_446"></a> +along the stale landings to frowst behind those finger-stained doors of +salmon-pink. Sometimes, too, Michael emerging into the passage from his +room would hear from dingy altitudes descend the noise of a door +hurriedly slammed; and sometimes he would see go down the ulcerous steps +in front of the house depressing women in black, or unshaven men with +the debtor’s wary and furtive eye. The only lodgers who seemed to be +permanent were Barnes and Carvel the Solutionist. Barnes on the strength +of Michael’s allowance used to go up West, as he described it, every +night. He used to assure Michael, when toward two o’clock of the next +afternoon he extracted himself from bed, that he devoted himself with +the greatest pertinacity to obtaining definite news of Lily Haden. The +Solutionist occasionally visited Michael with a draggled piece of +newspaper, and often he was visible in the garden attending to a couple +of Belgian hares who lived in a packing-case marked Fragile among the +nettles of the back-yard.</p> + +<p>After he had spent a week or so in absorbing the atmosphere of Leppard +Street, Michael felt it was time for him to move forth again at any rate +into that underworld whose gaiety, however tawdry and feverish, would be +welcome after this turbid backwater. There was here the danger of being +drugged by the miasma that rose from this unreflecting surface. He felt +inclined to renew his acquaintance with Daisy Palmer, and to hear from +her the sequel to the affair of Dolly Wearne and Hungarian Dave. He +found her card with the Guilford Street address and went over to +Bloomsbury, hoping to find her in to tea. The landlady looked surprised +when he inquired for Miss Palmer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, she’s been gone this fortnight,” the woman informed him. Michael +asked where she was living now.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said the landlady, and as she was already +slowly and very unpleasantly closing the door,<a name="page_447" id="page_447"></a> Michael came away a +little disconsolate. These abrupt dematerializations of the underworld +were really very difficult to grapple with. It gave him a sense of the +futility of his search for Lily (though lately he had prosecuted it +somewhat lazily) when girls, who a month ago offered what was presumably +a permanent address, could have vanished completely a fortnight later. +Perhaps Daisy would be at the Orange. He would take Barnes with him this +evening and ask his opinion of her and Dolly and Hungarian Dave.</p> + +<p>The beerhall downstairs looked exactly the same as when he had visited +it a month ago. Michael could sympathize with the affection such places +roused in the hearts of their frequenters. There was a great deal to be +said for an institution that could present, day in, day out, a steady +aspect to a society whose life was spent in such extremes of elation and +despair, of prosperity and wretchedness, and whose actual lodging was +liable to be changed at any moment for better or worse.</p> + +<p>“Not a bad place, is it?” said Barnes, looking round in critical +approval at the prostitutes and bullies hoarded round the tables puddly +with the overflow of mineral waters and froth of beer.</p> + +<p>“You really like it?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s cheerful,” said Barnes. “And that’s something nowadays.”</p> + +<p>Michael perceived Daisy before they were halfway across the room. He +greeted her with particular friendliness as an individual among these +hard-eyed constellations.</p> + +<p>“Hulloa!” she cried. “Wherever have you been all this time?”</p> + +<p>“I called at Guilford Street, but you were gone.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. I left there. I couldn’t stand the woman there any longer. Sit +down. Who’s your friend?”</p> + +<p>Michael brought Barnes into the conversation, and suggested<a name="page_448" id="page_448"></a> moving into +one of the alcoves where it was easier to talk.</p> + +<p>“No, come on, sit down here. Fritz won’t like it, if we move.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked round for the protector, and she laughed.</p> + +<p>“You silly thing! Fritz is the waiter.”</p> + +<p>Michael presently grew accustomed to being jogged in the back by +everyone who passed, and so powerful was the personality of the Orange +that very soon he, like the rest of the crowd, was able to discuss +private affairs without paying any heed to the solitary smoking +listeners around.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Dolly?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I had to get rid of her very sharp,” said Daisy. “She served me a +very nasty trick after I’d been so good to her. Besides, I’ve taken up +with a fellow. Bert Saunders. He does the boxing for Crime Illustrated.”</p> + +<p>“You told me I was like him,” Michael reminded her.</p> + +<p>“That’s right. I remember now. I’m living down off Judd Street in a +flat. Why don’t you come round and see me there?”</p> + +<p>“I will,” Michael promised.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t Bert Saunders the fellow who was keeping Kitty Metcalfe?” asked +Barnes.</p> + +<p>“That’s right. Only he gave her the push after she hit Maudie Clive over +the head with a port-wine glass in the Half Moon upstairs.”</p> + +<p>“I knew Kitty,” said Barnes, shaking his head to imply that acquaintance +with Kitty had involved a wider experience than fell to most men. +“What’s happened to her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Gard, don’t ask me,” said Daisy. “She’s got in with a fellow who +kept a fried-fish place in the Caledonian Road, and I’ve never even seen +her since.”</p> + +<p>“And what’s happened to Dolly?” asked Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, good job if that love-boy of hers does punch into<a name="page_449" id="page_449"></a> her. Silly cow! +She ought to know better. Fancy going off as soft as you like with that +big-mouthed five-to-two, and after I’d just given her six of my new +handkerchiefs.”</p> + +<p>Michael wished he could have an opportunity of explaining to Barnes that +on account of Daisy’s friendship for Dolly, he and she and the cast-off +had spent a night in the police-cells. He thought it would have amused +him.</p> + +<p>“Where’s the Half Moon?” he asked instead.</p> + +<p>Daisy said it was a place in Glasshouse Street for which she had no very +great affection. However, Michael was anxious to see it; and soon they +left the Orange to visit the Half Moon.</p> + +<p>It was a public-house with nothing that was demirep in its exterior; but +upstairs there was a room frequented after eleven o’clock by ladies of +the town. They walked up a narrow twisting staircase carpeted with +bright red felt and lit by a red-shaded lamp, and found themselves in a +room even more densely fumed with tobacco smoke than downstairs at the +Orange. In a corner was an electric organ which was fed with a stream of +pennies and blared forth its repertory of ten tunes with maddening +persistence. One of these tunes was gay enough to make the girls wish to +dance, and always with its recurrence there was a certain amount of +cake-walking which was immediately stopped by a commissionaire who stood +in the doorway and shouted “Order, please! Quiet, please! No dancing, +ladies!” To the nearest couple he always whispered that the police were +outside.</p> + +<p>Daisy, having stigmatized the Half Moon as the rottenest hole within a +mile of the Dilly, proceeded to become more cheerful with every penny +dropped into the slot; and finally she invited Michael to come back with +her to Judd Street, as her boy had gone down to Margate to see Young +Sancy, a prospective lightweight champion, who was training there.</p> + +<p>“Anyway, you can see me home,” she said. “Even if you<a name="page_450" id="page_450"></a> don’t come in. +Besides, my flat’s all right. It is, really. You know. Comfortable. He’s +very good to me, is Bert, though he’s a bit soppified. He dresses very +nice, and he earns good money. Well, three pound a week. That’s not so +bad, is it?”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Barnes. “With what you earn as well.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a nerve,” said Daisy. “Well, I can’t stay moping indoors all +the evening, can I? But he’s most shocking jealous is Bert. And he calls +me his pussy-cat. Puss, puss! There’s a scream. He’s really a bit soft, +and his eyes is awful. But it’s nice, so here’s luck.” She drained her +glass. “‘Do you love me, puss?’ he says. Silly thing! But they think a +lot of him at the office. His governor came down to see him the other +morning about something he’s been writing. I don’t know what it was. I +hate the sight of his writing. I carry on at him something dreadful, and +then he says, ‘My pussy-cat mustn’t disturb me.’”</p> + +<p>Daisy shrieked with laughter at the recollection, and Michael who was +beginning to be rather fearful for her sobriety suggested home as a good +move.</p> + +<p>“I shan’t go if you don’t come back with me,” she declared.</p> + +<p>Since their incarceration Michael had a tender feeling for Daisy, and he +promised to accompany her. She would not go in a hansom, however; nor +would she allow Barnes to make a third; and in the end she and Michael +went wandering off down Shaftesbury Avenue through the warm September +night.</p> + +<p>Michael enjoyed walking with her, for she rambled on with long tales of +her past that seemed the inconsequent threads of a legendary Odyssey. He +flattered himself with her companionship, and told himself that here at +last was a demonstration of the possibility of a true friendship with a<a name="page_451" id="page_451"></a> +woman of that class with whom mere friendship would be more improbable +than with any woman. It was really delightful to stroll with her +homeward under this starlit sky of London; to wander on and on while she +chattered forth her history. There had been no hint of any other +relation between them; she was accepting him as a friend. He was proud +as they walked through Russell Square, overshadowed by the benign trees +that hung down with truculent green sprays in the lamplight; he felt a +thrill in her companionship, as they dawdled along the railings of +Brunswick Square in the acrid scent of the privet. It was curious to +think that from the glitter and jangle of the Half Moon could rise this +friendship that was giving to all the houses they passed a strange +peacefulness. He fancied that here and there the windows were blinking +at them in drowsy content, when the gas was extinguished by the unknown +bedfarer within. Judd Street shone before them in a lane of lamps, and +beyond, against the night, the gothic cliff of St. Pancras Station was +indistinctly present. They turned down into Little Quondam Street, and +presently came to a red brick house with a pretentious portico.</p> + +<p>“Our flat’s in here. Agnes House, it’s called. Come in and have one +before you go home,” she invited.</p> + +<p>Michael entered willingly. He was glad to show so quickly his confidence +in their new friendship.</p> + +<p>Agnes House was only entitled to the distinction of a name rather than a +number, because the rest of the houses in Quondam Street were shabby, +small, and old. It was a new building three stories high, and it was +already falling to pieces, owing to work which must have been +exceptionally dishonest to give so swiftly the effect of caducity. This +collapse was more obvious because it was not dignified by the charm of +age; and Agnes House in its premature dissolution was not much more +admirable than a cardboard box<a name="page_452" id="page_452"></a> which has been left out in the rain. +Upon Michael it made an impression as of something positively corrupt in +itself apart from any association with depravity: it was like a young +person with a vile disease whose condition nauseated without arousing +pity.</p> + +<p>“Rather nice, eh?” said Daisy, as she lit the gas in the kitchen of the +flat. “Sit down. I’ll get some whisky. There’s a bathroom, you know. And +it’s grand being on the ground floor. I should get the hump, if we was +upstairs. I always swore I’d never live in a flat. Well, I don’t really +call them safe, do you? Anything might happen and nothing ever be found +out.”</p> + +<p>Michael as he saw the crude pink sheets of Crime Illustrated strewn +about the room was not surprised that Daisy should often get nervous +when left alone. These horrors in which fashion-plates with mangled +throats lay weltering in pools of blood could scarcely conduce to a +placid loneliness, and Michael knew that she probably spent a great deal +of every day in solitude. Her life with Crime Illustrated to fright her +fancy must always be haunted by presentiments of dread at the sound of a +key in the latch. It was curious, this half childlike existence of the +underworld always upon the boundaries of fear. Michael could see the +villainous paper used for every kind of domestic service—to wrap up a +piece of raw meat, to contain the scraps for the cat’s dinner, and +spread half over the kitchen table as a cloth whereon the disks of +grease lay like great thunder-drops. It would be very natural, when the +eyes never rested from these views of sordid violence, to expect evil +everywhere. Himself, as he sat here, was already half inclined to accept +the underworld’s preoccupation with crime as a truer judgment of human +nature than was held by a sentimental civilization, and he began to +wonder whether a good deal of his own privacy had not been spent in a +fool’s paradise of security.<a name="page_453" id="page_453"></a> The moated grange and the dark tower were +harmless rococo terrors beside the maleficent commonplace of Agnes +House.</p> + +<p>“The kitchen’s in a rare old mess, isn’t it?” said Daisy looking round +her. “It gives Bert the rats to see it like this.”</p> + +<p>“Are you fond of him?” Michael asked. He was anxious to display his +friendly interest.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s all right. But I wouldn’t ever get fond of <i>any</i>body. It +doesn’t pay with men. The more you give them, the more they think they +can do as they like with you.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand why you live with him, if he’s nothing better than +all right,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m used to him, and he’s not always in the way like some fellows +are.”</p> + +<p>Michael would have liked to ask her about the beginning of her life as +it was now conducted. Daisy was so essentially of the streets that it +was impossible to suppose she had ever known a period of innocency. Her +ancestry seemed to go back to the doxies of the eighteenth century, and +beyond them to Alsatian queens, and yet farther to the tavern wenches of +François Villon and the Chronique Scandaleuse. There was nothing +pathetic about her; he could not imagine her ever in a position to be +wronged by a man. She was in very fact the gay woman who was bred first +from some primordial heedlessness unchronicled. She would be a hard +subject for chivalrous treatment, so deeply would she inevitably despise +it. Nevertheless, he wanted to try to bring home to her the quality of +the feeling she had inspired in him. He was anxious to prove to her the +reality of a friendliness untainted by any thought of the relation in +which she might justifiably think he would prefer to stand.</p> + +<p>“There’s something extraordinarily attractive about being friends,” he +began. “Isn’t it a great relief for you to<a name="page_454" id="page_454"></a> meet someone who wishes to +be nothing more than a friend?”</p> + +<p>“Friends,” Daisy repeated. “I don’t know that I think much of friends. +You don’t get much out of <i>them</i>, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Is that all anybody is for,” Michael asked in disappointment. “To get +something out of?”</p> + +<p>“Well, naturally. Anyone can’t live on nothing, can they?”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t see why a friend shouldn’t be as profitable as an ephemeral +... as a lover ... well, what I mean is, as a man you meet at eleven and +say good-bye to next morning. A friend could be quite as generous.”</p> + +<p>“I never knew anyone in this world give anything unless they wanted +twice as much back in return,” said Daisy.</p> + +<p>“Why do you suppose I gave you money the other day and paid your fine in +the police court?” he asked, for, though he did not like it, he was so +anxious to persuade her of the feasibleness of friendship, that he could +not help making the allusion.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you wanted to,” she said.</p> + +<p>“As a friend,” he persisted.</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right,” she agreed with him lazily. “Have it your own way. I’m +too sleepy to argue.”</p> + +<p>“Then we are friends?” Michael asked gravely.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A couple of old talk-you-deads joring over a +clothes-line. Get on with it, Roy—or what’s your name? Michael, eh? +That’s right.”</p> + +<p>“Good! Now, supposing I ask your advice, will you give it to me?”</p> + +<p>“Advice is very cheap,” said Daisy.</p> + +<p>“I used to know a girl,” Michael began.</p> + +<p>“A straight-cut?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. Certainly. Oh, rather. At least in those days she was.”<a name="page_455" id="page_455"></a></p> + +<p>“I see. And now she’s got a naughty little twinkle in her eye.”</p> + +<p>“Look here. Do listen seriously,” Michael begged. “She isn’t a +straight-cut any longer.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what did I tell you? That’s what I said. She’s gone gay.”</p> + +<p>“I want to get her away from this life,” Michael announced, with such +solemnity that Daisy was insulted.</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s the matter with it? You’re as bad as a German ponce I knew +who joined the Salvation Army. Don’t you try taking me home to-night to +our loving heavenly father. It gives me the sick.”</p> + +<p>“But this girl was brought up differently. She was what is called a +‘lady.’”</p> + +<p>“More shame for her then,” said Daisy indignantly. “She ought to have +known better.”</p> + +<p>It was curious this sense of intrusion which Lily’s fall gave to one so +deeply plunged. There was in Daisy’s attitude something of the +unionist’s toward foreign blackleg labor.</p> + +<p>“Well, you see,” Michael pointed out. “As even you have no pity for her, +wouldn’t it be right for me to try to get her out of the life +altogether?”</p> + +<p>“How are you going to do it? If she was walking about with a sunshade +all day, before you sprang it on her....”</p> + +<p>“I had nothing to do with it,” Michael interrupted. “At least not +directly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what are you pulling your hair out over?” she demanded in +surprise.</p> + +<p>“I feel a certain responsibility,” he explained. “Go on with what you +were saying.”</p> + +<p>“If she left a nice home,” Daisy continued, “to live gay, she isn’t +going to be whistled back to Virginia the same as you would a dog. Now, +is she?”<a name="page_456" id="page_456"></a></p> + +<p>“But I want to marry her,” said Michael simply.</p> + +<p>Daisy stared at him in commiseration for his folly.</p> + +<p>“You must be worse than potty over her,” she gasped.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Why? Why, because it doesn’t pay to marry that sort of girl. She’ll +only do you down with some fancy fellow, and then you’ll wish you hadn’t +been such a grass-eyes.”</p> + +<p>A blackbeetle ran quickly across the gaudy oilcloth, and Michael sitting +in this scrofulous kitchen had a presentiment that Daisy was right. +Sitting here, he was susceptible to the rottenness that was coeval with +all creation. It called forth in him a sense of futility, so that he +felt inclined to surrender his resolve to an universal pessimism. Yet in +the same instant he was aware of the need for him to do something, even +if his action were to carry within itself the potential destruction of +more than he was setting out to accomplish.</p> + +<p>“When do you see her?” asked Daisy. “And what does <i>she</i> say about being +married?”</p> + +<p>“Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t seen her for nearly five years,” +Michael explained rather apologetically. “I’m searching for her now. +I’ve got to find her.”</p> + +<p>“Strike me, if you aren’t the funniest —— I ever met,” Daisy exclaimed.</p> + +<p>She leaned back in her chair and began to laugh. Her mockery was for +Michael intensified by the surroundings through which it was echoing. +The kitchen was crowded with untidy accumulations, with half-washed +plates and dishes, with odds and ends of attire; but the laughter seemed +to be ringing through a desert. Perhaps the illusion of emptiness was +due to the pictures nailed without frames to the walls of the room, +whose eyes watched him with unnatural fixity; and yet so homely was the +behavior of the people in the pictures that by contrast suddenly they +made the<a name="page_457" id="page_457"></a> kitchen seem unreal. Indeed, the whole house, no more +substantial than a house in a puppet-show, betrayed its hollowness. It +became an interior very much like those glimpses of interiors in Crime +Illustrated. The slightest effort of fancy would have shown Daisy Palmer +cloven by a hatchet, yet coquettish enough even in sanguinary death to +display lisle-thread stockings and the scalloped edge of a white +petticoat. There was nothing like this of which to dream in Leppard +Street. Death would come as slowly and wearily thither as here he would +enter sensationally.</p> + +<p>Daisy ceased to rock herself with mirth.</p> + +<p>“No, really,” she said. “It’s a shame to laugh, but you are the limit. +Only you did ask my advice, and I tell you straight you’ll be sorry if +you do marry her. What’s she like, Wandering Willie? Have some cocoa if +I make it? Go on, do. I’ll boil it on the gas-ring.”</p> + +<p>Michael was touched by her attention, and he accepted the offer of +cocoa. Then he began to describe Lily’s appearance. He could not, +however much she might laugh, keep off the object of his quest. Lily +was, after all, the only rational explanation of his present mode of +life.</p> + +<p>“She sounds a bit washed out according to your description of her,” +Daisy commented. “Still, everyone to their own fancy, and if you like +blue-eyed bottles of peroxide, that’s your look-out.”</p> + +<p>They were drinking the cocoa she had made, and the flame of the gas-ring +gave just the barren comfort that the kitchen seemed to demand. Another +blackbeetle hurried over the oilcloth. A belated fly buzzed angrily +against the shade of the electric light. Daisy yawned and looked up at +the metal clock with its husky tick.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was the sound of a latchkey in the outer door. She leaped +up.</p> + +<p>“Gard, supposing that’s Bert come back from Margate!”<a name="page_458" id="page_458"></a></p> + +<p>She pushed Michael hurriedly across the passage into the front room, +commanding him to keep quiet and stay in an empty curtained recess. Then +she hurried back to the kitchen, leaving him in a very unpleasant frame +of mind. He heard through the closed door Daisy’s voice in colloquy with +a deeper voice. Evidently Bert had come back; but his return had been so +abrupt that he had had no time to prevent himself being placed in this +ridiculous position. Would he have to stay in this recess all night? He +peered out into the room, which was in a filigree of bleak shadows made +by the street lamp shining through the muslin curtains of the window. +Through a desolation of undrawn blinds the houses of Little Quondam +Street were visible across the road. The unused room smelt moldy, and if +Michael had ever pictured himself in the complexity of a clandestine +affair, this was not at all the romantic environment he would have +chosen for his drama. This was really damned annoying, and he made a +step in the direction of the kitchen to put an end to the +misunderstanding. Surely Saunders would have realized that his visit to +Daisy was harmless: and yet would he? How stupid she had been to hustle +him out of the way like this. Naturally the fellow would be suspicious +now. Would that hum of conversation never stop? It reminded him of the +fly which had been buzzing round the lamp. Supposing Saunders came in +here to fetch something? Was he to hide ignominiously behind this +confounded curtain, and what on earth would happen if he were +discovered? Michael boiled with rage at the prospect of such an +indignity. Saunders would probably want to fight him. A man who spent +his life helping to produce Crime Illustrated was no doubt deep-dyed +himself in the vulgar crudity of his material.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes passed. Still that maddening hum of talk rose and fell. Ten +more minutes passed; and Michael began<a name="page_459" id="page_459"></a> to estimate the difficulty of +climbing out of the window into the street. It had been delightful, this +experience, until he had entered this cursed flat. He should have parted +from Daisy on the doorstep, and then he would have carried home with him +the memory of a friendship that belonged to the London starlight. The +whole relation had been ruined by entering this scabrous building.</p> + +<p>He must have been here for more than an hour. It was insufferable. He +would go boldly into the kitchen and brave Saunders’ violence. Yet he +could not do that because Daisy would be involved by such a step. What +could they be talking about? It was really unreasonable for people who +lived together to sit up chatting half the night. At last he heard the +sound of an opening door; there were footsteps in the passage; another +door-opened; after a minute or two somebody walked out into the street. +Michael had just sighed with relief, when he heard footsteps coming +back; and the buzz of conversation began again in a lighter timbre. This +was simply intolerable. He was evidently going to stay here until the +filigree of shadows faded in the dawn. Saunders must have brought in a +friend with him. Another half hour passed and Michael had reached a +stage of cynicism which disclaimed any belief in friendship. Not again +would he so easily let himself be made ridiculous. Then he became +conscious of a keen desire to see this Saunders whom, by the way, he was +supposed to resemble. It was tantalizing to miss the opportunity of +comparison.</p> + +<p>The hum of conversation stopped. Soon afterward Daisy came into the room +and whispered that he could creep out now, but that he must not slam the +front door. She would see him at the Orange to-morrow.</p> + +<p>When they reached the passage, she called back through the kitchen:</p> + +<p>“Bert, do you know you left the front door open?”<a name="page_460" id="page_460"></a></p> + +<p>Idiotically and uxoriously floated from the inner bedroom: “Did I, pussy +cat? Puss must shut it then.”</p> + +<p>Daisy dug Michael violently in the ribs to express her inward hilarity; +then suddenly she pulled him to her and kissed him roughly. In another +second he was in the lamplight of Little Quondam Street. As in a +nightmare it converged before him: a lean dog was routing in some +garbage: a drunken man, reeling along the pavement opposite, abused him +in queer disjointed obscenities without significance.</p> + +<p>Barnes was sitting in Michael’s room, when he got back to Leppard +Street.</p> + +<p>“What ho,” he said sleepily. “You’ve been enjoying yourself with that +piece, then?”</p> + +<p>Michael regarded him angrily.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, chuck it, Fane. You needn’t look so solemn; she’s not a bad bit of +goods, either. I’ve heard of her before.”</p> + +<p>Michael turned away from him. He knew it would be useless to try to +convince Barnes that there was nothing between him and Daisy. Moreover, +if he told the true tale of the evening, he would only make himself out +utterly absurd. It was a pity that an evening which had promised such a +reward for his theories should now be tainted. But when Barnes had +slouched upstairs to bed, Michael realized how little his insinuations +had mattered. The adventure had been primarily a comic experience; it +had displayed him once more grotesquely reflected in the underworld’s +distorting mirror.</p> + +<p>On the following night Michael went to the Café d’Orange, and heard +Daisy’s account of the wonderful way in which she had fooled Bert +Saunders.</p> + +<p>“But really, you know,” she said. “It did give me a turn. Fancy him +coming back all of a sudden like that, and bringing in that fighting +fellow. What a terrible thing, if Bert<a name="page_461" id="page_461"></a> had found out you was in there +and put him up to bashing your face. Oh, but Bert’s all right with his +pussy-cat.”</p> + +<p>“But why didn’t you let me stay where I was?” Michael asked. “And +introduce me quite calmly. He couldn’t have said anything.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t he?” Daisy cried. “I reckon he could then. I reckon he could +have said a lot. If he hadn’t, I’d have given him the chuck right away. +I don’t want no fellow hanging around me that hasn’t got the pluck to go +for anyone he finds messing about with his girl. <i>Couldn’t</i> he have said +anything?”</p> + +<p>Michael was again face to face with topsyturvydom. It really was time to +meditate on the absurdity of trying to control these people of the +underworld with laws and regulations and penalties which had been +devised to control individuals who represented moral declension from the +standards of a genteel civilization. Mrs. Murdoch, Poppy, Barnes, +Daisy—they all inverted the very fabric of society. They were moral +antipodeans to the magistrate or the legislator or the social reformer. +They were pursuing and acting up to their own ideals of conduct: they +were not fleeing or falling away from a political morality. Was it +possible, then, to say that evil was something more than a mere failure +to conform to goodness? Was it possible to declare confidently the +absolutism of evil? In this topsyturvydom might there not be perceived a +great constructive force?</p> + +<p>Michael pondered these questions a good deal. He had not enough evidence +as yet to provide him with a synthesis; but as he sat through the rapid +darkening of the September dusks, it seemed to him that very often he +was trembling upon the verge of a discovery. Leppard Street came to +stand as a dark antechamber with massive curtains drawn against the +light, the light which in the past he had only perceived through the +chinks of impenetrable walls. Leppard Street<a name="page_462" id="page_462"></a> was Dante’s obscure wood +of the soul; it rustled with a thousand intimations of spiritual events. +Leppard Street was dark, but Michael did not fear the gloom, because he +knew that he was winning here with each new experience a small advance; +at Oxford he had merely contemplated the result of the former +pilgrimages of other people. With a quickening of his ambition he told +himself that the light would be visible when he married Lily, that +through her salvation he would save himself.</p> + +<p>Michael did not reënter his own world, whose confusion of minor problems +would have destroyed completely his hope to stand unperplexed before the +problems of the underworld, the solution of which might help to solve +the universe or at any rate his own share in the universe. He did not +tell his mother or Stella where he was living, and their letters came to +him at his club. They did not worry him, although Stella threatened a +terrible punishment if he did not appear in their midst in time to give +her away in November. This he promised to do in spite of everything. He +was faithful to his search for Lily, and he even went so far as to call +upon Drake to ask if he had ever seen her since that night at the +Orient. But he had not. Michael did not vex himself over the failure to +discover Lily’s whereabauts. Having placed himself at the nod of +destiny, he was content to believe that if he never found her he must be +content to look elsewhere for the expression of himself. September +became October. It would be six years this month since first they met, +and she was twenty-two now. Could seventeen be captured anew?</p> + +<p>One afternoon from his window Michael was pondering the etiolated season +whose ghostliness was more apparent in Leppard Street, because no fall +of leaves marked material decline. Hurrying along the brindled walls +from the direction of Greenarbor Court was a parson whose walk was<a name="page_463" id="page_463"></a> +perfectly familiar, though he could not affix it to any person he knew. +Yes, he could. It was Chator’s, the dear, the pious and the bubbling +Chator’s; and how absurdly the same as it used to be along the corridors +of St. James’. Michael rushed out to meet him, and had seized and shaken +his hand before Chator recognized him. When he did, however, he was +twice as much excited as Michael, and spluttered forth a fountain of +questions about his progress during these years with a great deal of +information about his own. He came in eagerly at Michael’s invitation, +and so much had he still to ask and tell that it was a long time before +he wanted to know what had brought Michael to Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>“How extraordinary to find you here, my dear fellow! This isn’t my +district, you know. But the Senior Curate is ill. Greenarbor Court! I +say, what a dreadful slum!” Chator looked very intensely at Michael, as +if he expected he would offer to raze it to the ground immediately. “I +never realized we had anything quite so bad in the parish. But what +really is extraordinary about running across you like this is that a man +who’s just come to us from Ely was talking about you only yesterday. My +goodness, how ...”</p> + +<p>“It’s no larger than a grain of sand,” Michael interrupted quickly.</p> + +<p>“What is?” asked Chator, with his familiar expression of perplexity at +Michael.</p> + +<p>“You were going to comment on the size of the world, weren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ll rag me just as much as ever, you old brute.” Chator +was beaming with delight at the prospect. “But seriously, this man +Stewart—Nigel Stewart. I think he was at Trinity, Oxford. You do know +him?”</p> + +<p>“Nigel isn’t here, too?” Michael exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“He’s our deacon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, how priceless you’ll both be in the pulpit,” said<a name="page_464" id="page_464"></a> Michael. “And +to-morrow’s Sunday. Which of you will be preaching at Mass?”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, the Vicar always preaches at Mass. I shall be preaching +at Evening Prayer. Why don’t you come to supper in the Clergy House +afterward?”</p> + +<p>“How do you like your Vicar?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very sound, very sound,” said Chator, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>“Does he take the ablutions at the right moment?” asked Michael, +twinkling.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. Oh, yes. He’s very sound. Quite all right. I was afraid at +first he was going to be a leetle High Church. But he’s not. Not a bit. +We had a procession this June on Corpus Christi. The people liked it. +And of course we’ve got the children.”</p> + +<p>They talked for an hour of old friends, of Viner, of Dom Cuthbert and +Clere Abbey and schooldays, until at last Chator had to be going.</p> + +<p>“You will come on Sunday?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. But what’s the name of your church?”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, that shows you haven’t heard your parochial Mass,” said +Chator, with mock seriousness. “St. Chad’s is our church.”</p> + +<p>“It sounds as if you had a saintly fish for Patron,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“I say, steady. Steady. St. Chad, you know, of Lichfield.”</p> + +<p>Michael laughed loudly.</p> + +<p>“My dear old Chator, you are just as inimitable as ever. You haven’t +changed a bit. Well, Saint Chad’s—Sunday.”</p> + +<p>From the window he watched Chator hurrying along beside the brindled +walls. He thought how every excited step he took showed him to be +bubbling over with the joy<a name="page_465" id="page_465"></a> of telling Nigel Stewart of such a +coincidence in the district of the Senior Curate.</p> + +<p>Michael suggested to Barnes that he should come with him to church on +Sunday, and Barnes, who evidently thought his salary demanded deference +to Michael’s wishes, made no objection. It was an October evening +through which a wintry rawness had already penetrated, and the interior +of St. Chad’s with its smell of people and warm wax and stale incense +was significant of comfort and shelter. The church, a dreary Byzantine +edifice, was nevertheless a very essential piece of London, being built +of the yellow bricks whose texture and color more than that of any other +material adapt themselves to the grime of the city. Nothing deliberately +beautiful would have had power here. These people who sat thawing in a +stupor of waiting felt at home. They were submerged in London streets, +and their church was as deeply engulfed as themselves. The Stations of +the Cross did not seem much more strange here than the lithographs in +their own kitchens, and the raucous drone of Gregorians was familiar +music.</p> + +<p>As the Office proceeded, Michael glanced from time to time toward his +companion. At first Barnes had kept an expression of injured boredom, +but with each chant he seemed less able to resist the habits of the +past. Michael felt bound to ascribe to habit his compliance with the +forms and ceremonies, for it was scarcely conceivable that he could any +longer be moved by the appeal of a sensuous worship, still less by the +craving of his soul for God.</p> + +<p>Chator’s discourse was a simple one delivered with all the spluttering +simplicity he could bring to it. Michael was not sure of the effect upon +the congregation, but himself found it moving in a gently pathetic way. +The sermon had the naïve obviousness and the sweet seriousness of a +child telling a long tale of imaginary adventure. It was easy to see +that<a name="page_466" id="page_466"></a> Chator had never known from the moment of his Ordination, or +indeed from the moment he began to suppose he was thinking for himself, +a single doubt of the absolute truth of his religion, still less of its +expediency. Michael wondered again what effect the sermon was having +upon the congregation, which was sitting all round him woodenly in a +sort of browse. Did one sentence reach it, or was the whole business of +the sermon merely an excuse to sit here basking in the stuffiness of the +homely church? Michael turned a sidelong look at Barnes. Tears were in +his eyes, and he was staring into the gloom of the dingy apse with its +tesselations of dull gold. This was disconcerting to Michael’s opinion +of the sermon, for Chator could not be shaking Barnes by his eloquence: +these splutterings of dogma were surely not able to rouse one so deep in +the quagmire of his own corruption. Must he confess that a positive +sanctity abode in this church? He would be glad to believe it did; he +would be glad to imagine that an imperishable temple of truth was +posited among these perishable streets.</p> + +<p>The sermon was over, and as the congregation rose to sing the hymn, +Michael was aware, he could not have said how, that these people pouring +forth this sacred jingle were all very weary. They had come here to rest +from the fatigue of dullness, and in a moment now the chill vapors of +the autumn night would wreathe themselves round their journey home. +Sunday was a day of pause when the people of the city had leisure to +sigh out their weariness: it was no shutting of theaters or shops that +made it sad. This congregation was composed of weaklings fit for neither +good nor evil, and every Sunday night they were gathered together for a +little while in the smell of warm wax and incense. Now already they were +trooping out into the frore evening; their footsteps would shuffle for a +space over the dark pavements; a few would have pickled cabbage and +cheese for supper,<a name="page_467" id="page_467"></a> a few would not; such was life in this limbo between +Hell and Heaven. Barnes, however, was not to be judged with the bulk of +the congregation: another reason must be found for the influence of +Evening Prayer or of Chator’s words upon him.</p> + +<p>“Did you like the sermon?” Michael asked in the porch.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t listen to a word of it,” said Barnes emphatically.</p> + +<p>“Oh, really? I thought you were interested. You seemed interested,” said +Michael.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking what a mug I’d been not to back The Clown for the +Cesarewitch. I had the tip. You know, Fane, I’ll tell you what it is. +I’m not used to money, and that’s a fact. I don’t know how to spend it. +I’m afraid of it. So bang it all goes on drinks.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you enjoyed the service,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m used to services. You know. On and off I’ve done a lot of +churchifying, I have. It would take something more than that fellow +preaching to curdle me up. I’ve gone through it. Religion, love, and +measles; they’re all about the same. I don’t reckon anybody gets them +more than once properly.”</p> + +<p>Michael told Barnes he was going on to supper at the Clergy House, and +though he had intended to invite him to come as well, he was so much +irritated by his unconscious deception that he let him go off, and went +back into the empty church to wait for Chator and Nigel Stewart. What +puzzled Michael most about Barnes was how himself had ever managed to be +impressed by his unusual wickedness. As he beheld him nowadays, a mean +and common little squirt of exceptional beastliness really, he was +amazed to think that once he had endowed him with almost diabolical +powers. He remembered to this day the gleam in Brother Aloysius’ blue +eyes when he was gathering the blackberries by that hazel-coppice. +Perhaps it had been the monkish habit, which by<a name="page_468" id="page_468"></a> contrast with his +expression had made him seem almost supernaturally evil; and yet when he +met him again at Earl’s Court he had been kindled by those blue eyes. +Henry Meats had been very much like Henry Barnes; but where was now that +lambent flame in the eyes? He had looked at them many times lately, but +they had always been cold and unintelligent as a doll’s.</p> + +<p>“I really must have been mad when I was young,” Michael said to himself. +“And yet other people have preserved the influence they used to have +over me. Other people haven’t changed. Why should he? I wonder whether +it was always myself I saw in him: my own evil genius?”</p> + +<p>Chator came to fetch him while he was worrying over Barnes’ lapse into +unimportance, and together they passed through the sacristy into the +Clergy House.</p> + +<p>Nigel Stewart’s room, which they visited in the minutes before supper, +had changed very little from his digs in the High. Ely had added a +picture or two; that was all. Nor had Nigel changed, except that his +clerical attire made him more seraphic than ever. While he and Michael +chattered of Oxford friends, Chator stood with his back to the fire +beaming at the reunion which he felt he had brought about: his biretta +at a military angle gave him a look of knowing benevolence.</p> + +<p>The bell sounded for supper, and they went along corridors hung with +Arundel prints and faded photographs of cathedrals, until they came to a +brightly lit room where it seemed that quite twenty people were going to +sit down at the trestle-table. Michael was introduced to the Vicar and +two more curates, and also to a dozen church workers who made the same +sort of jokes about whatever dish they were helping. Also he met that +walrus-like man who, whether as organist or ceremonarius or treasurer of +club accounts or vicar’s churchwarden, is always to be found attached to +the<a name="page_469" id="page_469"></a> clergy. Michael sat next to him, as it happened, and found he had a +deep voice and was unable to get nearer to “th” than “v.”</p> + +<p>“We’re raver finking,” he confided to Michael over a high-heaped plate, +“of starting Benediction, vis year.”</p> + +<p>“That will be wonderful,” said Michael politely.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it ought to annoy ver poor old Bishop raver.”</p> + +<p>The walrus-like man chuckled and bent over his food with a relish +stimulated by such a prospect. After supper the two curates carried off +their favorites upstairs to their own rooms; and as Chator, Stewart, and +Michael were determined to spend the evening together, the Vicar was +left with rather more people than usual to smoke his cigarettes.</p> + +<p>“I envy you people,” said Michael, as the three of them sank down into +deep wicker chairs. “I envy this power you have to bring Oxford—or +Cambridge—into London. For it is the same spirit in terms of action, +isn’t it? And you’re free from the thought which must often worry dons +that perhaps they are having a very good time without doing very much to +deserve it.”</p> + +<p>“We work hard in this parish,” spluttered Chator. “Oh, rather. Very +hard.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I say. You have the true peace that thrives on activity,” +said Michael. “But at the same time, what I’m rather anxious to know is +how nearly you touch the real sinners.”</p> + +<p>Stewart and Chator looked at one another across his chair.</p> + +<p>“How much do we, brother?” asked Stewart.</p> + +<p>“No, really,” protested Michael. “My dear Nigel, I can’t have you being +so affected. Brother! You must give up being archaic now that you’re a +pale young curate.”</p> + +<p>“What do you call the real sinners?” asked Chator. “You saw our +congregation to-night. All poor, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I say frankly what I think?” Michael asked.<a name="page_470" id="page_470"></a></p> + +<p>The other two nodded.</p> + +<p>“I’m not sure if that congregation is worth a very great deal. I’m not +trying to be offensive, so listen to me patiently. That congregation +would come whatever you did. They came not because they wanted to +worship God or because they desired the forgiveness of their sins, nor +even because they think that going to church is a good habit. No, they +came in a sort of sad drift of aimlessness; they came in out of the +dreariness of their lives to sit for a little while in the glow that a +church like yours can always provide. They went out again with a vague +memory of comfort, material comfort, I mean; but they took away with +them nothing that would kindle a flame to light up the gray week-days. +Do you know, I fancy that when these picture-theaters become more +common, as they will, most of your people will get from them just the +same sensation of warmth and material comfort. Obviously if this is a +true observation on my part, your people regard church from a merely +negative attitude. That isn’t enough, as you’ll admit.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s not fair to judge by the evening congregation,” Chator burst +out. “You must remember that we get quite a different crowd at Mass.”</p> + +<p>“But do you get the real sinners?” Michael repeated.</p> + +<p>“My dear Michael, what does this inquisition forebode?” said Stewart. +“You’re becoming wrapped in mystery. You’re found in Leppard Street for +no reason that I’ve yet heard. And now you attack us in this unkind +way.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not attacking you,” Michael said. “I’m trying to extract from you a +point of view. Lately it happens that I’ve found myself in the company +of a certain class, well—the company of bullies and prostitutes. You +must have lots of them in this parish. Do you get hold of them? I don’t +believe you do, because the chief thing which has struck me is the utter +remoteness of the Church or indeed of any kind<a name="page_471" id="page_471"></a> of religion from the +life of that class. And their standards are upside-down—actually +upside-down. They’re handed over entirely to the powers of darkness. +Now, as far as I can see, the Devil—or whatever you choose to call +him—only cares about people who are worth his while. He hands the +others over to anybody that likes to deal with them. Equally I would say +that God is a little contemptuous of the poor intermediates. The Church, +however, in these hard times for religion is glad to get hold even of +them, and this miserable spirit of mediocrity runs through the whole +organization. The bishops are moderate; the successful parsons are +moderate; and the flock is moderate. To come back to the sinners. You +know, they <i>would</i> be worth getting. You’ve no idea what a force they +would raise. And now, all their industry, all their ingenuity, all their +vitality is devoted to the service of evil.”</p> + +<p>Chator could contain himself no longer.</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, you don’t understand how impossible it is to get in +touch with the people you’re talking about. They elude one. Of course, +we should rejoice to get them. But they’re impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Christ moved among sinners,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“It’s not because we don’t long to move among them,” Chator spluttered +in exasperation. “We would give anything to move among them. But we +can’t. I don’t know why. But they won’t relax any of their barriers. +They’re notoriously difficult.”</p> + +<p>“Then it all comes down to a ‘no’ in answer to my question,” said +Michael. “You don’t get the real sinners. That’s what’s the matter with +St. Chad’s—until you can compel the sinner to come in, you’ll stay in a +spiritual backwater.”</p> + +<p>“If you were a priest,” said Chator, “you’d realize our handicap +better.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” Michael agreed. “But don’t forget that<a name="page_472" id="page_472"></a> the Salvation Army +gets hold of sinners. In fact, I’ll wager that nine out of ten of the +people with whom I’ve been in contact lately would only understand by +religion the Salvation Army. Personally I loathe the Salvation Army. I +think it is almost a more disruptive organization than anything else in +the world. But at least it is alive; it’s not suet like most of the +Dissenting Sects or a rather rich and heavy plum-pudding like the +greater part of the Church of England. It’s a maddening and atrociously +bad and cheap alcohol, but it does enflame. I tell you, my dear old +Chator and my dear old Nigel, you have the greatest opportunity +imaginable for energy, for living and bringing life to others, if only +you’ll not sit down and be content because you’ve got the children and +can fill the church for Evening Prayer with that colorless, dreary, +dreadfully sorrowful crowd I saw to-night.”</p> + +<p>Michael leaned back in his chair; the fire crackled above the silence; +and, outside, the disheartened quiet of the Sabbath was brooding. Chator +was the first to speak.</p> + +<p>“Some of what you say may be true, but the rest of it is a mere muddle +of heresies and misconceptions and misstatements. It’s absolute +blasphemy to say that God is contemptuous of what you called the +intermediates, and you apparently believe that evil is only misdirected +good. You apparently think that your harlots and bullies are better for +being more actively harmful.”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” Michael corrected. “You didn’t follow my argument. As a matter +of fact, I believe in the absolutism of evil the more, the more I see of +evil men and women. What I meant was that in proportion to the harm they +have power to effect would be the inspiration and advantage of turning +their abilities toward good. But cut out all theological questions and +confess that the Church has failed with the class I speak of.”<a name="page_473" id="page_473"></a></p> + +<p>The argument swayed backward and forward for a long time, without +reaching a conclusion.</p> + +<p>“You can’t have friars nowadays,” said Chator in response to Michael’s +last expression of ambition. “Conditions have changed.”</p> + +<p>“Conditions had changed when St. Francis of Assisi tried to revive an +absolute Christianity,” Michael pointed out. “Conditions had changed +when the Incarnation took place. Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas, and a +host of contemporaries must have tried to point that out. Materialists +are always peculiarly sensitive to the change of external conditions. Do +you believe in Christ?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t try to be objectionable, my dear fellow,” said Chator, getting +very red.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you do,” persisted Michael, “if you accept the Gospels, it is +utterly absurd for you as a Christian priest to make ‘change of +conditions’ an excuse for having failed to rescue the sinners of your +parish.”</p> + +<p>“Michael,” said Stewart, intervening on account of Chator’s obviously +rising anger. “Why are you living in Leppard Street? What fiery mission +are you upon? I believe you’re getting too much wrapped up in private +fads and fancies. Why don’t you come and work for us at St. Chad’s?”</p> + +<p>“He’s one of those clever people who can always criticize with intense +fervor,” said Chator bitterly. He was still very red and ruffled, and +Michael felt rather penitent.</p> + +<p>“I wish I <i>could</i> work here. Chator, do forgive me for being so +offensive. I really have no right to criticize, because my own vice is +inability to do anything in company with other people. The very sight of +workers in coöperation freezes me into apathy. If I were a priest, I +should probably feel like you that the children were the most important. +Have neither of you ever heard of anybody whose faith was<a name="page_474" id="page_474"></a> confirmed by +the realization of evil? Usually, it’s the other way about, isn’t it? +I’ve met many unbelievers who first began to doubt, because the problem +of evil upset their notions of divine efficiency. Chator, you have +forgiven me, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I ought to have realized that you didn’t mean half you were saying,” +said Chator.</p> + +<p>Michael smiled. Should he start the argument again by insisting that he +had meant even twice as much as he had said? In the end, however, he let +Chator believe in his exaggeration, and they parted good friends.</p> + +<p>Nigel Stewart came often to see him during the next fortnight, and he +was very anxious to find out why Michael was living in Leppard Street. +Michael would not tell him, however, but instead he introduced him to +Barnes who with money in his pocket was very independent and gave up +sign of his boasted ability to circumvent parsons financially. No doubt, +however, when he was thrown back on his own resources, he would benefit +greatly by this acquaintance. Stewart had a theory that Michael had shut +himself in Leppard Street to test the personality of Satan, and he used +to insist that Michael performed all kinds of magical experiments in his +solitude there. Having himself been a Satanist on several occasions at +Oxford, he felt less than Chator would have done the daring of +discussing Baudelaire and Huysmans. Deacon though he was, Nigel was +still an undergraduate, nor did it seem probable that he would ever +cease to be one. He tried to thrill Michael with some of his own +diabolic experiences, but Michael was a little contemptuous and told him +that his devil was merely a figure of academic naughtiness.</p> + +<p>“All that kind of subjective wickedness is nothing at all,” said +Michael. “At the worst, it can only unbalance your judgment. I passed +through it at the age of sixteen.”<a name="page_475" id="page_475"></a></p> + +<p>“You must have been horribly precocious,” said Nigel disapprovingly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, not more so than anyone who has freedom to develop. I should give +up subjective encounters with evil, if I were you. You’ll be telling me +soon that you’ve been pinched by demons like an Egyptian eremite.”</p> + +<p>Nigel gave the impression of rather deploring the lack of such an +experience, and Michael laughed:</p> + +<p>“Go and see Maurice Avery in Grosvenor Road. He’s just the person you +ought to convert. Nothing could be easier than to turn Mossy into an +æsthetic Christian. Would that satisfy your zeal?”</p> + +<p>“I really think you <i>are</i> growing very offensive,” said Nigel.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not. I’m illustrating a point. Your encounters with evil and +Maurice’s encounters with religion would match each other. Both would +have a very wide, but also a very superficial area.”</p> + +<p>November had arrived, and Michael reappeared in Cheyne Walk to assist at +Stella’s wedding. He paid no attention to the scorn she flung at his +affected mode of life, and he successfully resisted her most carefully +planned sallies of curiosity:</p> + +<p>“What you have to do at present is to keep your own head, not mine. +Think of the responsibilities of marriage and let me alone. I’ll tell +you quite enough when the moment comes for telling.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, you’re getting dreadfully obstinate,” Stella declared. “I +remember when I could get a secret out of you in no time.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not I who am obstinate,” said Michael. “It’s you who are utterly +spoiled by the lovelorn Alan.”</p> + +<p>Michael and Alan went for a long walk in Richmond Park on the day before +the wedding. It was a limpid day at the shutting-in of St. Martin’s +summer, and to Michael it seemed<a name="page_476" id="page_476"></a> like the ghost of one of those June +Saturdays of eight years ago. Time had faded that warmer blue to a +wintry turquoise, but there was enough of summer’s image in this wraith +of a day to render very poignantly to him the past. He wondered if Alan +were thinking of the afternoons when they had sent the sun down from +Richmond Hill. That evening before the examinations of a summer term +recurred to him now more insistently than any of those dead days.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In Vallombrosa.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Now the leaves were lying brown and dewy in the Richmond thickets. Then +it was a summer evening of foliage in the prime. He wished he could +remember the lines of Virgil which had matched the Milton. He used to +know them so well:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptæque puellæ.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There were two complex hexameters, but all that remained in his memory +of the rest were two or three disjointed phrases:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Lapsa cadunt folia ... ubi frigidus annus ... et</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> ... terris apricis.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Even at fourteen he had been able to respond to the melancholy of these +lines; really, he had been rather an extraordinary boy. The sensation of +other times which was evoked by walking like this in Richmond Park would +soon be too strong for him any longer not to speak of it. Yet because +those dead summer days seemed now to belong to the mystery<a name="page_477" id="page_477"></a> of youth, to +the still unexpressed and inviolate heart of a period that was forever +overpast, Michael could not bring himself to destroy their sanctity with +sentimental reminiscence. However, there had been comedy and absurdity +also, perhaps rather more fit for exhumation now than those deeper +moments.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember the wedding of Mrs. Ross?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Rather,” said Alan, and they both smiled.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember when you first called her Aunt Maud, and we both burst +out laughing and had to rush out of the room?”</p> + +<p>“Rather,” said Alan. “Boys <i>are</i> ridiculous, aren’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Supposing we both laugh like that when Stella is first called Mrs. +Merivale?” Michael queried.</p> + +<p>“I shall be in much too much of a self-conscious funk to laugh at +anything,” said Alan.</p> + +<p>“And yet do you realize that we’re only talking of eight years ago? +Nothing at all really. Six years less than we had already lived at the +time when that wedding took place.”</p> + +<p>To Alan upon the verge of the most important action of his life +Michael’s calculation seemed very profound indeed, and they both walked +on in silence, meditating upon the revelation it afforded of a fugitive +mortality.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be writing epitaphs next,” said Alan, in rather an aggrieved +voice. He had evidently traversed the swift years of the future during +the silence.</p> + +<p>“At any rate,” Michael said. “You can congratulate yourself upon not +having wasted time.”</p> + +<p>“My god,” cried Alan, stopping suddenly. “I believe I’m the luckiest man +alive.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d found a sovereign,” said Michael. He had never heard +Alan come so near to emotional expression and, knowing that a moment +later Alan would be blushing at<a name="page_478" id="page_478"></a> his want of reserve, he loyally covered +up with a joke the confusion that must ensue.</p> + +<p>Very few people came to the wedding, for Stella had insisted that as +none of her girl friends were reputable enough to be bridesmaids, she +must do without them. Mrs. Ross came, however, and she brought with her +Kenneth to be a solemn and freckled and carroty page. She was very +anxious that Michael should come back after the wedding to Cobble Place, +but he said he would rather wait until after Christmas. Nancy came, and +Michael tried to remember if he had once seriously contemplated marrying +her. How well he remembered her in short skirts, and here she was a +woman of thirty with a brusque jolly manner and gold pince-nez.</p> + +<p>“You <i>are</i> a brute always to avoid my visits at Cobble Place,” grumbled +Nancy. “Do you realize we haven’t met for years?”</p> + +<p>“You’re such a woman of affairs,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, do let’s try to meet next time. I say, don’t you think Maud looks +terribly ill since she became a Romanist?”</p> + +<p>Michael looked across to where Mrs. Ross was standing.</p> + +<p>“I think she’s looking rather well.”</p> + +<p>“Absolute destruction of individuality, you know,” said Nancy, shaking +her head. “I was awfully sick about that business. However, I must admit +that she hasn’t forced her religion down our throats.”</p> + +<p>“Did you expect an auto-da-fé in the middle of the lawn?” he asked. She +thumped him on the shoulder:</p> + +<p>“Silly ass! Don’t you try to rag me.”</p> + +<p>They had a jolly talk, but Michael was glad he had not married her at +eight years old. He decided that by now he would probably have regretted +the step.</p> + +<p>Michael managed to get two or three minutes alone with Stella after the +ceremony.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. Prescott-Merivale?”<a name="page_479" id="page_479"></a></p> + +<p>“You’ve admitted I’m a married woman,” she exclaimed. “Now surely you +can tell me what you’ve been doing since August and where you’ve been.”</p> + +<p>“I thought very fondly that you were without the curiosity of every +woman,” said Michael. “Alas, you are not!”</p> + +<p>“Michael, you’re perfectly horrid to me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be too much the young wife,” he advised, with mocking +earnestness.</p> + +<p>“I won’t listen to anything you say, until I know where you’ve been. Of +course, if I hadn’t been so busy, I could easily have found you out.”</p> + +<p>“Not even can you sting me into the revelation of my hiding-place,” +Michael laughed.</p> + +<p>“You shan’t stay with us at Hardingham unless you tell me.”</p> + +<p>“By the time you come back from your honeymoon, I may have wonderful +news,” said Michael. “Oh, and by the way, where are you going for your +honeymoon? It sounds absurd to ask such a question at this hour, but +I’ve never heard.”</p> + +<p>“We’re going to Compiègne,” said Stella. “I wrote to little +Castéra-Verduzan, and he’s lent us the cottage where you and I stayed.”</p> + +<p>That choice of Stella’s seemed to mark more decisively than anything she +had said or done his own second place in her thoughts nowadays.</p> + +<p>When the bride and bridegroom were gone, Michael sat with his mother, +talking.</p> + +<p>“I had arranged to go to the South of France with Mrs. Carruthers,” she +told him. “But if you’re going to be here, I could put her off.”</p> + +<p>Michael felt rather guilty. He had not considered his mother’s +loneliness, and he had meant to return at once to Leppard Street.<a name="page_480" id="page_480"></a></p> + +<p>“No, no, I’m going away again,” he told her.</p> + +<p>“Just as you like, dearest boy.”</p> + +<p>“You’re glad about Stella?”</p> + +<p>“Very glad.”</p> + +<p>“And you like Alan?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. Charming—charming.”</p> + +<p>The firelight danced in opals on the window-panes, and the macaw who had +been brought up to Mrs. Fane’s sitting-room out of the way of the +wedding guests sharpened his beak on the perch.</p> + +<p>“It’s really quite chilly this afternoon,” said Mrs. Fane.</p> + +<p>“Yes, there’s a good deal of mist along the river,” said Michael. “A +pity that the fine weather should have broken up. It may be rather +dreary in the forest.”</p> + +<p>“Why did they go to a forest?” she asked. “So like Stella to choose a +forest in November. Most unpractical. Still, when one is young and in +love, one doesn’t notice the mud.”</p> + +<p>Next day Mrs. Fane went off to the South of France, and Michael went +back to Leppard Street.<a name="page_481" id="page_481"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V-a" id="CHAPTER_V-a"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>THE INNERMOST CIRCLE</h4> + +<p>November fogs began soon after Michael returned to Leppard Street, and +these fuliginous days could cast their own peculiar spell. To enter the +house at dusk was to stand for a moment choking in blackness; and even +when the gas flared and whistled through a sickly nebula, it only made +more vast the lightless vapors above, so that the interior seemed at +first not a place of shelter, but a mirage of the streets that would +presently dissolve in the drifting fog. These nights made Pimlico +magical for walking. Distance was obliterated; time was abolished; life +was disembodied. He never tired of wandering up and down the Vauxhall +Bridge Road where the trams came trafficking like strange ships, so +unfamiliar did they seem here beside the dumpy horse omnibuses.</p> + +<p>One evening when the fog was not very dense Michael went up to +Piccadilly. Here the lamps were strong enough to shine through the murk +with a golden softness that made the Circus like a landscape seen in a +dying fire. Michael could not bear to withdraw from this glow in which +every human countenance was idealized as by amber limes in a theater. At +the O.U.D.S. performance of The Merchant of Venice they had been given a +sunset like this on the Rialto. It would be jolly to meet somebody from +Oxford to-night—Lonsdale, for instance. He looked round half-expectant +of recognition; but there was only the shifting crowd about him.<a name="page_482" id="page_482"></a> How +were Stella and Alan getting on at Compiègne? Probably they were having +clear blue days there, and in the forest would be a smell of woodfires. +With such unrelated thoughts Michael strolled round Piccadilly, +sometimes in a wider revolution turning up the darker side streets, but +always ultimately returning to the Island in the middle. Here he would +stand in a dream, watching the omnibuses go east and west and south and +north. The crowd grew stronger, for the people were coming out of the +theaters. Should he go to the Orange and talk to Daisy? Should he call a +hansom and drive home? Bewitched as by the spinning of a polychromatic +top, he could not leave the Island.</p> + +<p>They were coming out of the Orient now, and he watched the women emerge +one by one. Their ankles all looked so white and frail under the +opera-cloaks puffed out with swans-down; and they all of them walked to +their carriages with the same knock-kneed little steps. Soon he must +begin to frequent the Orient again.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Michael felt himself seized with the powerless excitement of a +nightmare. There in black, strolling nonchalantly across the pavement to +a hansom, was Lily! She was with another girl. Then Drake’s story had +been true. Michael realized that gradually all this time he had been +slowly beginning to doubt whether Drake had ever seen her. Lily had +become like a princess in a fairy tale. Now she was here! He threw off +the stupefaction that was paralyzing him, and started to cross the road. +A wave of traffic swept up and he was driven back. When the stream had +passed, Lily was gone. In a rage with his silly indecision he set out to +walk back to Pimlico. The fog had lifted entirely, and there was frost +in the air.</p> + +<p>Michael walked very quickly because it seemed the only way to wear out +his chagrin. How idiotic it had been to let himself be caught like that. +Supposing she did not visit<a name="page_483" id="page_483"></a> the Orient again for a long time? It would +serve him right. Oh, why had he not managed to get in front of those +vehicles in time? He and she might have been driving together now; +instead of which he was stamping his way along this dull dark pavement. +How tall she had seemed, how beautiful in her black frock. At last he +knew why all this time women had left him cold. He loved her still. What +nonsense it had been for him to think he wanted to marry her in order to +rescue her. What priggish insolence! He loved her still: he loved her +now: he loved her: he loved her! The railings of Green Park rattled to +his stick. He loved her more passionately because the ghost of her whom +he had thought of with romantic embellishment all these years was but a +caricature of her reality. That image of gossamer which had floated +through his dreams was become nothing, now that again he had seen +herself with her tall neck and the aureole of her hair and the delicate +poise of her as she waited among those knock-kneed women on the +pavement. He brought his stick crashing down upon a bin of gravel by the +curb that it might clang forth his rage. In what direction had she +driven away? Even that he did not know. She might have driven past this +very lamp-post a few minutes back.</p> + +<p>Here was Hyde Park Corner. In London it was overwhelming to speculate +upon a hansom’s progress. Here already were main roads branching, and +these in their turn would branch, and others after them until the +imagination was baffled. Waste of time. Waste of time. He would not +picture her in any quarter of London. But never one night should escape +without his waiting for her at the Orient. Where was she now? He would +put her from his mind until they met. Supposing that round the corner of +that wall she were waiting, because the cab horse had slipped. How she +would turn toward him in her black dress. “I saw you outside the +Orient,” he would say. She should know immediately<a name="page_484" id="page_484"></a> that he was not +deceived about her life. So vividly had he conjured the scene that when +he rounded the wall on his way down Buckingham Palace Road, he was +disappointed to see no cab, no Lily standing perplexed; merely a tabid +woman clothed in a cobweb of crape, asleep over her tray of matches and +huddled against the wall of the King’s garden. He put a sixpence among +her match-boxes, and wondered of what were her dark dreams. The stars +were blue as steel in the moonless sky above the arc-lamps; and a cold +parching wind had sprung up. Michael deviated from the nearest way to +Leppard Street, and walked on quickly into the heart of Pimlico. This +kind of clear-cut air suited the architecture of the ashen streets. One +after another they stretched before him with their dim checkers of doors +and windows. Sometimes, where they were intersected by wider +thoroughfares, an arc-lamp fizzed above the shape of a solitary +policeman, and the corner-houses stood out sharper and more cadaverous. +And always in contrast with these necropolitan streets, these masks of +human dwellings, were Michael’s own thoughts thronged with fancies of +himself and Lily.</p> + +<p>It was nearly one o’clock when he walked over the arcuated bridge across +the lake of railway lines and turned the corner into Leppard Street. +From the opposite pavement a woman’s figure stepped quickly toward him +out of a circle of lamplight. The sudden shadow lanced across the road +made him start. Perhaps she noticed him jump, for she stopped at once +and stared at him owlishly. He felt sick for a moment, and yet he could +not, from an absurd compassion for her, do as he would have liked and +run.</p> + +<p>“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he heard her say.</p> + +<p>It was too late to avoid her now. He only had two sovereigns in his +pocket. It would be ridiculous and cowardly to escape by offering her +one of them. He had given his<a name="page_485" id="page_485"></a> last silver coin to the match-seller. Yet +it would have been just as cowardly to have offered her that. He pitied +the degradation that prompted her so casual question; the diffidence in +her tones marked the fear of answering brutality which must always haunt +her. Now that she was close to him, he no longer dreaded her. She was +not an ancient drab, a dreadful old woman with black cotton gloves, as +at first he had shuddered to suppose her. If those raddled smears and +that deathly blanch of coarse powder were cleared from her cheeks, there +would be nothing to attract or repel: she would scarcely become even an +individual in the multitude of weary London women.</p> + +<p>“Where are you off to, dearie, in such a hurry?” she repeated.</p> + +<p>“Home. I’m going home,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Let’s walk a bit of the way together.”</p> + +<p>He could say nothing to her, and if he hurried on, he would hear her +voice whining after him like a cat in a yard. He did not wish to let her +know where he was living; for every evening he would expect to see her +materialize from a quivering circle of lamplight so close to Leppard +Street.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you come back with me? I live quite near here,” she murmured. +“Go on. You look as if you wanted someone to make a fuss of you.”</p> + +<p>Already they were beside the five houses that rose jet-black against the +star-incrusted sky.</p> + +<p>“Come on, dear. I live in the corner house.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at her in astonishment, and she mistaking his scrutiny +smiled in pitiable allurement. He felt as if a marionette were +blandishing him. The woman evidently thought he was considering the +question of money, and she sidled close up to him.</p> + +<p>“Go on, dear, you’ve got some money with you?”<a name="page_486" id="page_486"></a></p> + +<p>“It’s not that,” said Michael. “I don’t want to come in with you.”</p> + +<p>Yet he knew that he must enter Number One with her in order to find in +what secret room she lived. And to-morrow morning he would leave the +house forever, since it would be unimaginable to stay there longer with +the consciousness that perhaps they were creatures like this, who +slammed the doors in passages far upstairs. He would not sleep +comfortably again with the sense that women like this were creeping +about the stairs like spiders. He must probe her existence, and he put +his foot on the steps of the front door.</p> + +<p>“Not that door,” she said. “Down here.”</p> + +<p>She pushed back the gate of the area-steps, and led the way down into +the basement. It was incredible that she could live on the same floor as +the Cleghornes. Yet obviously she did.</p> + +<p>“Don’t make a noise,” she whispered. “Because the woman who keeps the +house sleeps down here.”</p> + +<p>She opened the back door, and he followed her into the frowsty passage. +When the door was dosed behind them, the blackness was absolute.</p> + +<p>“Got a vesta with you?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>Michael felt her hands pawing him, and he shrank back against the greasy +wall.</p> + +<p>“Here you are. Here you are.”</p> + +<p>The match flamed, but went out before he could light the nodulous candle +she proffered. In the darkness he felt her spongy lips upon his cheek, +but disengaging himself from her assiduousness, he managed to light the +candle. They went along the corridor past the front room where Cleghorne +snored the day away; past the kitchen whose open door exhaled an odorous +breath of habitation; and through a stone pantry. Then she led him down +three steps<a name="page_487" id="page_487"></a> and up another, unlocked a rickety door, and welcomed him.</p> + +<p>“I’m quite on my own, you see,” she said, in a voice of tentative +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Michael looked round at the room which was small and smelt very damp. +The ceiling sloped to a window closely curtained with the cretonne of +black and crimson fruits which Michael recognized as the same stuff he +had seen in Barnes’ room above. He tried to recall how much of this room +he could see from his bedroom window, and he connected it in his mind +with a projecting roof of cracked slates which he had often noticed. The +action of the rain on the plaster had made it look like a map of the +moon in relief. The furniture consisted of a bed, a washstand and a +light blue chest. There was also a narrow shelf on which was a lamp with +a reflector of corrugated tin, a bald powder-puff, and two boot-buttons. +The woman lit the lamp, and as she stooped to look at the jagged flame, +Michael saw that her hair was as iridescent as oil on a canal with what +remained of henna and peroxide.</p> + +<p>“That’s more cheerful. Though I must say it’s a pity they haven’t put +the gas in here. Oh, don’t sit on that old box. It makes you look such a +stranger.”</p> + +<p>Michael said he had a great fondness for sitting on something that was +hard; but he thought how absurd he must appear sitting like this on a +pale blue chest next to a washstand.</p> + +<p>“Are you looking at my cat?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“What cat?”</p> + +<p>“He’s under the bed, I’ll be bound.”</p> + +<p>She called, and a small black cat came out.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he lovely? But, fancy, he’s afraid of me. He always gets under +the bed like that.”</p> + +<p>Michael felt he ought to make up to the cat what his<a name="page_488" id="page_488"></a> cordiality had +lacked toward the mistress, and he paid so much attention to it that +finally the animal lost all fear and jumped on his knee.</p> + +<p>“Well, there!” the woman exclaimed. “Did you ever? I’ve never seen him +do that before. He knows you’re a gentleman. Oh, yes, they know. His +mother ran away. But she comes to see me sometimes and always looks very +well, so she’s got a good home. But <i>he</i> isn’t stinted. Oh, no. He gets +his milk every day. What I say is, if you’re going to have animals, look +after them.”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded agreement.</p> + +<p>“Because to my mind,” she went on, “a great many animals are better than +human beings.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I think they probably are,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Poor Peter!” she crooned. “I wouldn’t starve you, would I?”</p> + +<p>The cat left Michael and went and sat beside her on the bed.</p> + +<p>“Why do you call it Peter?” he asked. The name savored rather of the +deliberate novelist.</p> + +<p>“After my boy.”</p> + +<p>“Your boy?” he echoed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s a fine boy, and a good boy.” The mention of her son stiffened +the woman into a fleeting dignity.</p> + +<p>“I suppose he’s about twelve?” Michael asked. Her age had puzzled him.</p> + +<p>“Well, thirteen really. Of course, you see, I’m a little older than what +I look.” As she looked about forty-five, Michael thought that the +converse was more probable.</p> + +<p>“He’s not living with you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, certainly not. Why, I wouldn’t have him here for anything—not +ever. Oh, no, he’s at school with the Jesuits. He’s to go in the Civil +Service. I lived with his father for many years—in fact, from the time +I was sixteen.<a name="page_489" id="page_489"></a> His father was a Frenchman. A silk-merchant he was. He’s +been dead about six years now.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose he left money to provide for the boy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no! No, he left nothing. Well, you see, silk merchants weren’t what +they used to be, when he died; and before that his business was always +falling off bit by bit. No, the Jesuits took him. Of course I’m a +Catholic myself.”</p> + +<p>As she made her profession of faith, he saw hanging from the knob of the +bed a rosary. With whatever repulsion, with whatever curiosity he had +entered, Michael now sat here on the pale blue chest in perfect humility +of spirit.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you don’t care for this life?” he asked after a short +silence.</p> + +<p>“Well, no, I do not. It’s not at all what I should call a refined way of +living, and often it’s really very unpleasant.”</p> + +<p>Somehow their relation had entirely changed, and Michael found himself +discussing her career as if he were talking to an old maid about her +health.</p> + +<p>“For one thing,” she continued, “the police are very rough with one, and +if anyone doesn’t behave just as they’d like for them to behave, they +make it very awkward. They really take it out of anyone. That isn’t +right, is it? It’s really not as it should be, I don’t think.”</p> + +<p>Michael thought of the police in Leicester Square.</p> + +<p>“It’s damnable!” he growled. “And I suppose you have to put up with a +good deal from some of the men?”</p> + +<p>“Undoubtedly,” she said, shaking her head, and becoming every moment +more and more like a spinster who kept a stationer’s shop in a +provincial town. “Undoubtedly. Well, for one thing, I’m at anyone’s +mercy in here. Of course, if I called out, I might be heard and I might +not. Really, if it wasn’t for the woman who keeps the house being always +so anxious for her rent, I might be murdered any time and stay in here +for days without anyone knowing about it. Last<a name="page_490" id="page_490"></a> Wednesday—or was it +Thursday?—time goes by so fast, it seems hardly worth while to count +the days, does it? One day last week I did what I’ve never done before: +I accepted six shillings. Well, it was late and what with one thing and +another I wanted the money. Will you believe it, I very carefully, as I +thought, hid it safe away in my bag, and this man—a very rough sort of +a man he was, I’m not surprised poor Peter runs away from them—I heard +him walking about the room when I woke up in the middle of the night. +And will you believe it, he’d gone to my bag and taken out his six +shillings, as well as fourpence-halfpenny of my own which was all I had +at the moment. He was really out of the house and gone in a flash, as +they say. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes a regular trade of it with +women like myself. Well now, you can’t say a man like that is any better +than my cat. I was very angry about it, but anyone soon forgets. Though +I will say it was a warning.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’d be glad to give up the life,” said Michael, and as he +asked the question, it seemed to him in this room and in the presence of +this woman a very futile one.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I should be glad to give it up. Yes. You see, as I say, I’m really +at anyone’s mercy in here. But really what else could I do? You see, in +one way, the harm’s done.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at her tarnished hair; at her baggy cheeks raddled and +powdered; at the clumsy black upon her lashes that made so much the more +obvious the pleated lids beneath; at her neck already flaccid, and at +her dress plumped out like an ill-stuffed pillow to conceal the arid +flesh beneath. It certainly seemed as if the harm had been done.</p> + +<p>“You see,” she went on, “though I have to put up with a great deal, it’s +only to be expected, after all. Now I was very severely brought up by my +father, and my mother being—well, it’s no use to mince matters as they +say—my mother really was a saint. Then of course after this occurred +with<a name="page_491" id="page_491"></a> the Frenchman I told you about—that really was a downward step, +though at the time I was happy and though he was always very good to me +from the beginning to the end. Still, I’m used to refinement, and I have +a great deal to put up with here in this house. Not that I dislike the +woman who keeps it. But having paid my rent regular—eight-and-six, that +is....”</p> + +<p>“Quite enough, too,” said Michael, looking up at the ceiling that was so +like the scarred surface of the moon.</p> + +<p>“You’re right. It is enough. It is quite enough. But still I’m my own +mistress. No one interferes with me. At the same time I don’t interfere +with anybody else. I have the right to use the kitchen for my cooking, +but really Mrs. Cleghorne—that is the woman who keeps the house—really +she is not a clean cook, and very often my stomach is so turned that I +go all day with only a cup of tea.”</p> + +<p>Michael was grateful to the impulse which had led him to cook his own +breakfast on a chafing dish.</p> + +<p>“I interrupted you,” he said. “You were going to tell me something about +Mrs. Cleghorne.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you must know, I had a friend who was very good to me, and this +seemed to annoy her. Perhaps she disliked the independence it gave me. +Well, she really caused a row between us by telling me she’d seen him +going round drinking with another woman. Now that isn’t a nice thing to +do, is it? One doesn’t want to go round drinking in public-houses. It +looks so bad. I spoke to him about it a bit sharp, and we’ve fallen out +over it. In fact, I haven’t seen him for some months. Still I shouldn’t +complain, but just lately what with one thing and another I had some +extras to get for my boy which was highly necessary you’ll +understand—well, as I was saying—what with one thing and another my +rent has been a little bit behind. Still, after you’ve paid<a name="page_492" id="page_492"></a> regular for +close on two years, you expect a little consideration.”</p> + +<p>“Have you lived in this burrow for two years?” Michael asked in +amazement.</p> + +<p>“In the week before Christmas it’ll be two years. Yes. Not that Mrs. +Cleghorne herself has been so nasty, but she lets her mother come round +here and abuse me. Her mother’s an old woman, you’ll understand, and her +language—well, really it has sometimes made me feel sick.” She put her +hand up to her face with a gesture of disgust. “She stands in that +doorway and bullies me until I’m ashamed to sit on this bed and stand +it. I really am. You’d hardly believe there was such things to say to +anyone. I think I have a right to feel aggravated, and I’ve made up my +mind she isn’t going to do it again. I’m not going to <i>have</i> it.” She +was nodding at Michael with such energetic affirmation that the springs +of the bed creaked.</p> + +<p>“The mother doesn’t live here?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; she simply comes here for the purpose of bullying me. But I’m +not going to let it occur again. I don’t consider I’ve been well +treated. If I’d spent the money on gin, I shouldn’t so much object to +what the old woman calls me, for I don’t say my life isn’t a bit of a +struggle. But there’s so many things to use up the money, when I’ve got +what’s wanted for my boy, and paid the policeman on this beat his +half-crown which he expects, and tried to keep myself looking a little +bit smart—really I have to buy something occasionally, or where should +I be?—and I never waste money on clothes for clothes’ sake, as they +say—well, after that it’s none so easy to find eight-and-six for the +week’s rent and buy myself a bit of food and the cat’s milk.”</p> + +<p>Michael had nothing to say in commentary. It seemed to him that even by +living above this woman he shared in the responsibility for her +wretchedness.<a name="page_493" id="page_493"></a></p> + +<p>“I hope your boy will turn out well,” he ventured at last.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s a good boy, he really is. And I have had hopes that perhaps +the Fathers will make him a Brother. I should really prefer that to his +being in the Civil Service.”</p> + +<p>“Or even a priest,” Michael suggested.</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, he wasn’t born in wedlock. Would that make a +difference?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so,” said Michael gently. “Oh, no, I hope that wouldn’t +make a difference.”</p> + +<p>He was finding the imagination of this woman’s life too poignant, and he +rose from the light blue chest to bid her good-bye. He begged inwardly +that she would not attempt to remind him of the relation in which she +had expected to stand to him. He feared to wound her, but he would have +to repulse her or go mad if she came near him. He plunged down into his +pocket for the two sovereigns. Half of this money he had thought an +exaggerated and cowardly bribe to buy off her importunity when she had +stood in the circle of lamplight, owlishly staring. Now he wished he had +five times as much. His pocket was empty! He felt quickly and hopelessly +in his other pockets. He could not find the gold. She must have robbed +him. He looked at her reproachfully. Was that the thief’s and liar’s +film glazing her eyes as they stared straight into his own? Was it +impossible to believe that he had pulled the sovereigns out of his +pocket, when nervously he had first seen her. But she had pawed him with +her hands in the black passage, and if the money had fallen on the road, +he must have heard it. He ought to tax her with the unjust theft; he +ought to tell her that what she had taken he had meant to give her. And +yet supposing she had not taken the money? She had said the cat +recognized him as a gentleman. Supposing she had not taken the +sovereigns, he would add by his accusation another stone to the weight +she bore. And if she had taken them, why not?<a name="page_494" id="page_494"></a> The cat was not at hand +to warn her that he was to be trusted. She had not wanted the money for +herself. She had been preyed upon, and had learned to prey upon others +in self-defense.</p> + +<p>“I find I haven’t any money with me,” said Michael, looking at her.</p> + +<p>“That doesn’t matter. I’ve really quite enjoyed our little talk.”</p> + +<p>“But I’ll send you some more,” he promised.</p> + +<p>“No, it doesn’t matter. I haven’t done anything to have you send your +money for. I expect when you saw me in the light, you didn’t think I was +really quite your style. Of course, I’ve really come down. It’s no use +denying it. I’m <i>not</i> what I was.”</p> + +<p>If she had robbed him, she wanted nothing more from him. If she had +robbed him, it was because in the humility of her degradation she had +feared to see him shrink from her in disgust.</p> + +<p>“I shall send you some money for your boy,” he said, in the darkness by +the door.</p> + +<p>“No, it doesn’t matter.”</p> + +<p>“What’s your name?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m known here as Mrs. Smith.” Doubtfully she whispered as the +cold air came in through the open door: “I don’t expect you’d care about +giving me a kiss.”</p> + +<p>Michael had never known anything in his life so difficult to do, but he +kissed her cold and flaccid cheek and hurried up the area steps.</p> + +<p>When he stood again upon the pavement in the menace of the five black +houses of Leppard Street, Michael felt that he never again could endure +to return to them at night, nor ever again in the day perceive their +fifty windows inscrutable as water. Yet he must walk for a while in the +stinging northerly air before he went back to his rooms; he must try<a name="page_495" id="page_495"></a> to +rid himself of the oppression which now lay so heavily upon him; he must +be braced even by this lugubrious night of Pimlico before he could +encounter again the permeating fug of Leppard Street. He walked as far +as the corner, and saw in silhouette upon the bridge a solitary +policeman thudding his chest for warmth. In this abominable desert of +lamps he should have seemed a symbol of comfort, but Michael with the +knowledge of the power he wielded over the unfortunates beheld him now +as the brutish servant of a dominating class. He was, after all, very +much like a dressed-up gorilla, as he stood there thudding his chest in +the haggard lamplight.</p> + +<p>Michael turned and went back to his rooms.</p> + +<p>He stared at the picture of St. Ursula on the white wall, and suddenly +in a fit of rage he plucked it from the hook and ground it face downward +upon his writing-table. It seemed to him almost monstrous that anything +so serene should be allowed any longer to exist. Immediately afterward +he thought that his action had been melodramatic, and shamefacedly he +put away the broken picture in a drawer.</p> + +<p>Lily was in London: and Mrs. Smith was beneath him in this house. In +twenty years Lily might be sunk in such a pit, unless he were quick to +save her now. All through the night he kept waking up with the fancy +that he could hear the rosary rattling in that den beneath; and every +time he knew it was only the sound of the broken hasp on his window +rattling in the wind.<a name="page_496" id="page_496"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI-a" id="CHAPTER_VI-a"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>TINDERBOX LANE</h4> + +<p>Next morning, when he woke, Michael made up his mind to leave Leppard +Street finally in the course of this day. He could not bear the thought +that he would only have to lean out of his window to see the actual roof +which covered that unforgettable den beneath him. He wondered what would +be the best thing to do with the furniture. It might be worth while to +install Barnes in these rooms and pay his rent for some months instead +of the salary which, now that Lily had been seen, was no longer a +justifiable expenditure. He certainly would prefer that Barnes should +never meet Lily now, and he regretted he had revealed her name. Still he +had a sort of affection for Barnes which precluded the notion of +deserting him altogether. These rooms with their simple and unmuffled +furniture, the green shelves and narrow white bed, would be good for his +character. He would also leave a few chosen books behind, and he would +write and ask Nigel Stewart to visit here from time to time. Michael +dressed himself and went upstairs to interview Barnes where he lay +beneath a heap of bedclothes.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I daresay I could make the rooms look all right,” said Barnes. “But +what about coal?”</p> + +<p>“I shall pay for coal and light as well as the rent.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d find it a bit dismal here,” said Barnes<a name="page_497" id="page_497"></a> knowingly. “I +wonder you’ve stuck it out as long as you have.”</p> + +<p>“After February,” Michael said, “I may want to come to some other +arrangement; but you can count on being here till then. Of course, you +understand that when the three months are up, I shan’t be able to allow +you five pounds a week any longer.”</p> + +<p>“No, I never supposed you would,” said Barnes, in a tone of resignation.</p> + +<p>Michael hesitated whether to speak to him about Mrs. Smith or not: +however, probably he was aware of her existence already, and it could do +no harm to mention it.</p> + +<p>“Did you know that there was a woman living down in the basement here?” +he asked.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know there was one here; but it’s not a very rare occurrence +in this part of London, nor any other part of London, if it comes to +that.”</p> + +<p>“If you hear any row going on down there,” said Michael, “you had better +interfere at once.”</p> + +<p>“Who with?” Barnes inquired indignantly.</p> + +<p>“With the row,” said Michael. “If the woman is being badly treated on +account of money she owes, you must let me know immediately.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not in the old tear’s secret, am I?” asked Barnes, in an +injured tone. “You can’t expect me to go routing about after every old +fly-by-night stuck in a basement.”</p> + +<p>“I’m particularly anxious to know that she is all right,” Michael +insisted.</p> + +<p>“Oh well, of course, if she’s a friend of yours, Fane, that’s another +matter. If it’s any little thing to oblige you, why certainly I’ll do +it.”</p> + +<p>Michael said good-bye and left him in bed. Then he called in to see the +Solutionist, who was also in bed.<a name="page_498" id="page_498"></a></p> + +<p>“I’ve got a commission for you,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>The Solutionist’s watery eyes brightened faintly.</p> + +<p>“You’re fond of animals, aren’t you?” Michael went on. “I see you +feeding your Belgian hares. Well, I’m interested in a cat who +appreciated my point of view. I want you to see that this cat has a +quart of milk left for her outside Mrs. Smith’s door every morning. Mrs. +Smith lives in the basement. You must explain to her that you are fond +of animals; but you mustn’t mention me. Here’s a check for five pounds. +Spend half this on the cat and the other half on your rabbits.”</p> + +<p>The Solutionist held the check between his tremulous fingers.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t cash this nowadays,” he said helplessly. “And get a quart of +milk for a cat? Why, the thing would burst.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’ll send you postal orders,” said Michael. “Now I’m going +away for a bit. Never mind if a quart is too much. I want that amount +left every day. You’ll do what I ask? And you’ll promise not to say a +word about me?”</p> + +<p>The Solutionist promised, and Michael left him looking more completely +puzzled than he had ever seen him.</p> + +<p>Michael could not bring himself to the point either of going down into +the basement or of calling to Mrs. Cleghorne from the entrance to her +cave; and as the bell-pull in his room had never been mended, he did not +know how to reach her. The existence of Mrs. Smith had dreadfully +complicated the mechanism of Number One. He ought to have made Barnes +get out of bed and fetch her. By good luck Michael saw from his window +the landlady standing at the top of the area steps. He ran out and asked +her to come and speak to him.</p> + +<p>“I see,” she said. “Mr. Barnes is to have your rooms,<a name="page_499" id="page_499"></a> and you’re paying +in advance up to February. Oh, and his coal and his gas as well? I see. +Well, that you can settle month by month. Through me? Oh, yes.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne was in a very good temper this morning. Michael could not +help wondering if Mrs. Smith had paid some arrears of her rent.</p> + +<p>“Do you think Mr. Cleghorne would go and fetch me a hansom?” Michael +asked.</p> + +<p>“He’s still in his bed, but I’ll go myself.”</p> + +<p>This cheerfulness was really extraordinary; and Michael was flattered. +Already he was beginning to feel some of the deference mixed with hate +which throughout the underworld was felt toward landladies. Her +condescension struck him with the sense of a peculiar favor, as if it +were being bestowed from a superior height.</p> + +<p>Michael packed up his kitbags and turned for a last look at the white +rooms in Leppard Street. Suddenly it struck him that he would take with +him one or two of the pictures and present them to Maurice’s studio in +Grosvenor Road. Mona Lisa should go there, and the Prince of Orange whom +himself was supposed to resemble slightly, and Don Baltazar on his big +horse. They should be the contribution which he had been intending for +some time to pay to that household. The cab was at the door, and +presently Michael drove away from Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was in the hansom he felt he could begin to think of Lily +again, and though he knew that probably he was going to suffer a good +deal when they met, he nevertheless thought of her now with elation. It +had not seemed to be so sparkling a morning in Leppard Street; but +driving toward Maurice’s studio along the banks of the river, Michael +thought it was the most crystalline morning he had ever known.</p> + +<p>“I’ve brought you these pictures,” he explained to<a name="page_500" id="page_500"></a> Maurice, and let the +gift account for his own long disappearance from communion with his +friends. “They’re pretty hackneyed, but I think it’s rather good for you +to have a few hackneyed things amid the riot of originality here. What +are you doing, Mossy?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m rather hoping to get a job as dramatic critic on The Point of +View.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t met your lady-love yet?”</p> + +<p>“No, rather not, worse luck. Still, there’s plenty of time. What about +you?” Maurice asked the question indifferently. He regarded his friend +as a stone where women were concerned.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen her,” said Michael. He simply had to give himself the +pleasure of announcing so much.</p> + +<p>“By Jove, have you really? You’ve actually found your fate?” Maurice was +evidently very much excited by Michael’s lapse into humanity; he had +been snubbed so often when he had rhapsodized over girls. “What’s she +like?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t spoken to her yet. I’ve only seen her in the distance.”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve really fallen in love? I say, do stay and have lunch with me +here. Castleton isn’t coming back from the Temple until after tea.”</p> + +<p>Michael would have liked to sit at the window and talk of Lily, while he +stared out over the sea of roofs under one of which at this very moment +herself might be looking in his direction. However, he thought if he +once began to talk about Lily to Maurice, he would tell him too much, +and he might regret that afterward. Yet he could not resist saying that +she was tall and fair and slim. Such epithets might be applied to many +girls, and it was only for himself that in this case they had all the +thrilling significance they did.</p> + +<p>“I like fair girls best,” Maurice agreed. “But most fair<a name="page_501" id="page_501"></a> girls are +dolls. If I met one who wasn’t, I should be hopelessly in love with +her.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you will,” Michael said. Since he had seen Lily he felt very +generous, and even more than generosity he felt that he actually had the +power to offer to Maurice dozens of fair girls from whom he could choose +his own ideal. Really he must not stay a moment longer in the studio, or +he would be blurting out the whole tale of Lily; and were she to be his, +he must hold secrets about her that could never be unfolded.</p> + +<p>“I really must bolt off,” he declared. “I’ve got a cab waiting.”</p> + +<p>Michael drove along to Cheyne Walk, and when he reached home, it caused +the parlormaid not a flicker to receive him and to take his luggage and +inquire what should be obtained for his lunch.</p> + +<p>“Life’s really too easy in this house,” he thought. “It’s so impossible +to surprise the servants here that one would give up trying ultimately. +I suppose that will be the beginning of settling down. At this rate, I +shall settle down much too soon. Yes, life is too easy here.”</p> + +<p>Michael went to the Orient that night certain that he would meet Lily at +once, so much since he left Leppard Street had the imagination of her +raced backward and forward in his brain. Everything that would have made +their meeting painful in such surroundings was forgotten in the joyful +prospect at hand. The amount they would have to talk about was really +tremendous. Love had destroyed time so completely that Lily was to be +exactly the same as when first he had met her in Kensington Gardens. +However, her appearance on the pavement outside the theater had made +such a vivid new impression that Michael did pay as much attention to +lapsing time as to visualize her now in that black dress. Otherwise he +was himself again of six years<a name="page_502" id="page_502"></a> ago, with only the delightful difference +that he was now independent and could carry her forthwith into marriage. +The knowledge that from a material point of view he could do this filled +him with a magnificent consciousness of life’s plenitude. So far, all +his experiments in living had been bounded by ignorance or credulity on +his own side, and on the side of other people by their unsuitableness +for experiments. Certainly he had made discoveries, but they might +better be called disillusionments. Now here was Lily who would give him +herself to discover, who would open for him, not a looking-glass world +in which human nature reflected itself in endless reduplications of +perversity, but a world such as lovers only know, wherein the greatest +deeps are themselves. Michael scarcely bothered to worry himself with +the thought that Lily had embarked upon her own discoveries apart from +him; she had been bewitched again by his romantic spells into the +innocent girl of seventeen. All his hopes, all his quixotry, all his +capacity for idealization, all his prejudice and impulsiveness converged +upon her. Whatever had lately happened to spoil his theory of behavior +was discounted; and even the very theory fell to pieces in this +intoxication of happiness.</p> + +<p>With so much therefore to make him buoyant, it was depressing to visit +the Orient that evening without a glimpse of Lily. The disappointment +threw Michael very unpleasantly back into those evenings when he had +come here regularly and had always been haunted by the dread that, when +he did see her, his resolve would collapse in the presence of a new Lily +wrought upon by man and not made more lovable thereby. The vision of her +last night (it was only last night) had swept him aloft; the queer +adventure with the woman in the basement had exalted him still higher +upon his determination; his flight from Leppard Street and his return to +Cheyne Walk had helped to<a name="page_503" id="page_503"></a> strengthen his hopefulness. Now he had +returned to this circumambient crowd, looking round as each newcomer +came up the steps, and all the while horribly aware that this evening +Lily was not coming to the Orient. He had never been upset like this +since his resolve was taken. The glimpse of her last night had made him +very impatient, and he reviled himself again for having been such a fool +as to let her escape. He fell in a rage with his immobility here in +London. He demanded why it was not possible to swirl in widening circles +round the city until he found her. He was no longer content to remain in +this aquarium, stuck like a mollusc to the side of the tank. He wanted +to see her again. He was fretful for her slow contemptuous walk and her +debonair smile. He wanted to see her again. Already this quest was +becoming the true torment of love. Every single other person in sight +was a dreary automaton in whom he took no trace of interest. Every +movement, every laugh, every shadow made him repine at its uselessness +to him. All those years at Oxford of dreams and hesitations had let him +store up within himself a very fury of love. He had been living falsely +all this time: there had never been one dull hour which could not have +been enchanted by her to the most glorious hour imaginable. He had +realized that when he saw her last night; he had realized all the waste, +all the deadness, all the idiotic philosophy and impotence of these +years without her. How the fancy of her vexed him now; how easily could +he in his frustration knock down the individuals of this senseless +restless crowd, one after another, like the dummies of humanity they +were.</p> + +<p>The last tableau of the ballet had dissolved behind the falling curtain. +Lily was not here to-night, and he hurried out into Piccadilly. She must +be somewhere close at hand. It was impossible for her to come casually +like that to the Orient and afterward to disappear for weeks. Or was she +a<a name="page_504" id="page_504"></a> man’s mistress, the mistress of a man of forty? He could picture him. +He would be a stockbroker, the sort of man whom one saw in first-class +railway carriages traveling up to town in the morning and reading The +Financial Times. He would wear a hideous orchid in his buttonhole and +take her to Brighton for week-ends. He knew just the shade of bluish +pink that his cheeks were; and the way his neck looked against his +collar; the shape of his mustache, the smell of his cigar, and his +handicap at golf.</p> + +<p>It was impossible that Lily could be the mistress of a man like that. +Last night she had come out of the Orient with a girl. Obviously they +must at this moment be somewhere near Piccadilly. Michael rushed along +as wildly as a cat running after its tail. He entered restaurant after +restaurant, café after café, standing in the doorways and staring at the +tables one after another. The swinging doors would often hit him, as +people came in; the drinkers or the diners would often laugh at his +frown and his pale, eager gaze; often the manager would hurry up and ask +what he could do for him, evidently suspecting the irruption of a +lunatic.</p> + +<p>Michael’s behavior in the street was even more noticeable. He often +ricocheted from the inside to the outside of the pavement to get a +nearer view of a passing hansom whose occupant had faintly resembled +Lily. He mounted omnibuses going in all sorts of strange directions, +because he fancied for an instant that he had caught a glimpse of Lily +among the passengers. It was closing-time before he thought he had been +searching for five minutes; and when the lights were dimmed, he walked +up and down Regent Street, up and down Piccadilly, up and down Coventry +Street, hurrying time after time to pursue a walk that might have been +hers.</p> + +<p>By one o’clock Piccadilly was nearly empty, and it was an insult to +suppose that Lily would be found among these<a name="page_505" id="page_505"></a> furtive women with their +waylaying eyes in the gloom. Michael went back tired out to Cheyne Walk. +On the following night he visited the Orient again and afterward +searched every likely and unlikely place in the neighborhood of the +heart of pleasure. He went also to the Empire and to the Alhambra; +sometimes hurrying from one to the other twice in the evening, when +panics that he was missing Lily overtook him. He met Lonsdale one night +at the Empire, and Lonsdale took him to several night-clubs which gave a +great zest to Michael’s search; for he became a member of them himself, +and so possessed every night another hour or more before he had to give +up hope of finding her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fane wrote to him from Cannes to say she thought that, as she was +greatly enjoying herself on the Riviera, she would not come home for +Christmas. Michael was relieved by her letter, because he had felt +qualms about deserting her, and he would have found it difficult, +impossible really, to go away so far from London and Lily.</p> + +<p>Guy wrote to him several times, urging him to come and stay at Plashers +Mead. Finally he went there for a week-end; and Guy spent the whole time +rushing in and out of the house on the chance of meeting Pauline Grey, +the girl whom Michael had seen with him in the canoe last summer. Guy +explained the complications of his engagement to Pauline; how it seemed +he would soon have to choose between love and art; how restrictions were +continually being put upon their meeting each other; and how violently +difficult life was becoming here at Plashers Mead, where Michael had +prophesied such abundant ease. Michael was very sympathetic, and when he +met Pauline on a soft December morning, he did think she was beautiful +and very much like the wild rose that Guy had taken as the symbol of +her. She seemed such a fairy child that he could not imagine problems of +conduct in which she could be involved.<a name="page_506" id="page_506"></a> Nevertheless, it was impossible +not to feel that over Plashers Mead brooded a sense of tragedy: and yet +it seemed ridiculous to compare Guy’s difficulties with his own.</p> + +<p>For Christmas Michael went down to Hardingham, where Stella and Alan had +by this time settled down in their fat country. He was delighted to see +how much the squire Alan was already become; and there was certainly +something very attractive in these two young people moving about that +grave Georgian house. The house itself was of red brick and stood at the +end of an avenue of oaks in a park of about two hundred acres. That it +could ever have not been there; that ever those lawns had been defaced +by builder’s rubbish was now inconceivable. So too within, Michael could +not realize that anybody else but Stella and Alan had ever stood in this +drawing-room, looking out of the tall windows whose sills scarcely rose +above the level of the grass outside; that anyone else but Stella and +Alan had ever laughed in this solemn library with its pilasters and +calf-bound volumes and terrestrial globe; that anyone else but Stella +and Alan had ever sat at dinner under the eyes of those bag-wigged +squires, that long-nosed Light Dragoon, or that girl in her chip hat, +holding a bunch of cherries.</p> + +<p>“No doubt you’ve got a keen scent for tradition,” said Michael to +Stella. “But really you have been able to get into the manner +surprisingly fast. These cocker-spaniels, for instance, who follow you +both round, and the deerhound on the steps of the terrace—Stella, I’m +afraid the concert platform has taught you the value of effect; and +where do hounds meet to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>“We’re simply loving it here,” Stella said. “But I think the piano is +feeling a little bit out of his element. He’s stiff with being on his +best behavior.”</p> + +<p>“I’m hoping to get rather a good pitch in Six Ash field,” said Alan. +“I’ll show it to you to-morrow morning.”<a name="page_507" id="page_507"></a></p> + +<p>The butler came in with news of callers:</p> + +<p>“The Countess of Stilton and Lady Anne Varley.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, damn!” Stella exclaimed, when the butler had retired. “I really +don’t think people ought to call just before Christmas. However, you’ve +both got to come in and be polite.”</p> + +<p>Michael managed to squeeze himself into a corner of the drawing-room, +whence he could watch Lady Stilton and her daughter talking to Mr. and +Mrs. Prescott-Merivale.</p> + +<p>“We ought not to have bothered you in this busy week before Christmas, +but my husband has been so ill in Marienbad, ever since the summer +really, that we only got home a fortnight ago. So very trying. And I’ve +been longing to meet you. Poor Dick Prescott was a great friends of +ours.”</p> + +<p>Michael had a sudden intuition that Prescott had bequeathed Stella’s +interests to Lady Stilton, who probably knew all about her. He wondered +if Stella had guessed this.</p> + +<p>“And Anne heard you play at King’s Hall. Didn’t you, Anne dear?”</p> + +<p>Lady Anne nodded and blushed.</p> + +<p>“That child is going to worship Stella,” Michael thought.</p> + +<p>“We’re hoping you will all be able to come and dine with us for Twelfth +Night. My husband is so fond of keeping up old English festivals. Mr. +Fane, you’ll still be at Hardingham, I hope, so that we may have the +pleasure of seeing you as well?”</p> + +<p>Michael said he was afraid he would have to be back in town.</p> + +<p>“What absolute rot!” Stella cried. “Of course you’ll be here.”</p> + +<p>But Michael insisted that he would be gone.</p> + +<p>“They tell us you’ve been buying Herefords, Mr. Merivale. My husband was +so much interested and is so much<a name="page_508" id="page_508"></a> looking forward to seeing your stock; +but at present he must not drive far. I’ve also heard of you from my +youngest boy who went up to Christ Church last October year. He is very +much excited to think that Hardingham is going to have such a +famous—what is it called, Anne?—some kind of a bowler.”</p> + +<p>“A googlie bowler, I expect you mean, mother,” said Lady Anne.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t he in the Eton eleven?” asked Alan.</p> + +<p>“Well, no. Something happened to oust him at the last moment,” said Lady +Stilton. “Possibly a superior player.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, mother!” Lady Anne indignantly declared. “He would have played +for certain against Harrow, if he hadn’t sprained his ankle at the nets +the week before.”</p> + +<p>“I do hope you’ll let him come and see you this vacation,” Lady Stilton +said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather. I shall be awfully keen to talk about the cricket round +here,” Alan replied. “I’m just planning out a new pitch now.”</p> + +<p>“How delightful all this is,” thought Michael, with visions of summer +evenings.</p> + +<p>Soon Lady Stilton and her daughter went away, having plainly been a +great success with Mr. and Mrs. Prescott-Merivale.</p> + +<p>“Of course, <i>you’ve</i> got to marry Anne,” said Stella to Michael, as soon +as they were comfortably round the great fire in the library.</p> + +<p>“Alan,” Michael appealed. “Is it impossible for you to nip now forever +this bud of matchmaking?”</p> + +<p>“I think it’s rather a good idea,” said Alan. “I knew young Varley by +sight. He’s a very sound bat.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t come here again,” Michael threatened, “until you’ve dissolved +this alliance of mutual admiration. Instead of agreeing with Stella to +marry me to every girl you meet,<a name="page_509" id="page_509"></a> why don’t you devote yourself to the +task of making Huntingdon a first-class county in cricket? Stella might +captain the team.”</p> + +<p>Time passed very pleasantly with long walks and rides and drives, with +long evenings of cut-throat bridge and Schumann; but on New Year’s +morning Michael said he must go back to London. Nor would he let himself +be deterred by Stella’s gibes.</p> + +<p>“I admit you’re as happy as you can be,” he said. “Now surely you, after +so much generosity on my side, will admit that I may know almost as well +as yourselves how to make myself happy, though not yet married.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, you’re having an affair with some girl,” Stella said +accusingly.</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Swear?”</p> + +<p>“By everything I believe in, I vow I’m not having an affair with any +girl. I wish I were.”</p> + +<p>His luggage was in the hall, and the dogcart was waiting. At King’s +Cross he found a taxi, which was so difficult to do in those days that +it made him hail the achievement as a good omen for the New Year.</p> + +<p>Near South Kensington Station he caught sight of a poster advertising a +carnival in the neighborhood: he thought it looked rather attractive +with the bright colors glowing into the gray January day. Later on in +the afternoon, when he went to his tobacconist’s in the King’s Road, he +saw the poster again and read that to-night at Redcliffe Hall, Fulham +Road, would take place a Grand Carnival and Masked Ball for the benefit +of some orphanage connected with licensed victualing. Tickets were on +sale in various public-houses of the neighborhood, at seven and sixpence +for gentlemen and five shillings for ladies.</p> + +<p>“Ought to be very good,” commented the tobacconist.<a name="page_510" id="page_510"></a> “Well, we want a +bit of brightening up nowadays down this way, and that’s a fact. Why, I +can remember Cremorne Gardens. Tut-tut! Bless my soul. Yes, and the old +World’s End. That’s going back into the seventies, that is. And it seems +only yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“I rather wish I’d got a ticket,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Why not let me get you one, sir, and send it round to Cheyne Walk? I +suppose you’d like one for a lady as well?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’ll have two men’s tickets.”</p> + +<p>Michael had a vague notion of getting Maurice or Lonsdale to accompany +him, and he went off immediately to 422 Grosvenor Road; but the studio +was deserted. Nor was he successful in finding Lonsdale. Nobody seemed +to have finished his holidays yet. It would be rather boring to go +alone, he thought; but when he found the tickets waiting for him, they +seemed to promise a jolly evening, even if he did no more than watch +other people enjoying themselves. No doubt there would be plenty of +spectators without masks, like himself, and in ordinary evening dress. +So about half-past nine Michael set off alone to the carnival.</p> + +<p>Redcliffe Hall, viewed from the outside in the January fog which was +deepening over the city, seemed the last place in the world likely to +contain a carnival. It was one of those dismal gothic edifices which, +having passed through ecclesiastical and municipal hands with equal loss +to both, awaits a suitable moment for destruction before it rises again +in a phoenix of new flats. However, the awning hung with Japanese +lanterns that ran from the edge of the curb up to the entrance made it +now not positively forbidding.</p> + +<p>Michael went up to the gallery and watched the crowd of dancers. Many of +the fancy dresses had a very homely look, but there were also +professional equipments from costumiers and a very few really beautiful +inventions. The medley of<a name="page_511" id="page_511"></a> colors, the motion of the dance, the sound of +the music, the streamers of bunting and the ribbons fluttering round the +Maypole in the middle of the room, all combined to give Michael an +illusion of a very jocund assemblage. There were plenty of men dancing +without masks, which was rather a pity, as their dull, ordinary faces +halted abruptly the play of fancy. On second thoughts he was glad such +revelers were allowed upon the floor, since as the scene gradually began +to affect him he felt it might be amusing for himself to dance once or +twice before the evening ended. With this notion in view, he began to +follow more particularly the progress of different girls, balancing +their charms one against another, and always deriving a good deal of +pleasure from the reflection that, while at this moment they did not +know of his existence, in an hour’s time he might have entered their +lives. This thought did give a romantic zest to an entertainment which +would otherwise have been quite cut off from his appreciation.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Michael’s heart began to quicken: the blood came in rushes and +swift recessions that made him feel cold and sick. Two girls walking +away from him along the side of the hall—those two pierrettes in +black—that one with the pale blue pompons was Lily! Why didn’t she turn +round? It must be Lily. The figure, the walk, the hair were hers. The +pierrettes turned, but as they were masked Michael could still not be +sure if one were Lily. They were dancing together now. It must be Lily. +He leaned over the rail of the gallery to watch them sweep round below +him, so that he might listen if by chance above the noise Lily’s +languorous voice could reach him. Michael became almost positive that it +was she. There could not be another girl to seem so like her. He hurried +down from the gallery and stood in the entrance to the ball-room. Where +were they now? They were coming toward him: the other pierrette<a name="page_512" id="page_512"></a> with +the rose pompons said something as they passed. It could only be Lily +who bowed her head like that in lazy assent. It was Lily! Should he call +out to her, when next they passed him? If it were not Lily, what a fool +he would look. If it were not Lily, it would not matter what he looked, +for the disappointment would outweigh everything else. They were going +up the room again. They were turning the corner again. They were +sweeping toward him again. They were passing him again. He called “Lily! +Lily!” in a voice sharp with eagerness. Neither girl gave a sign of +attention. It was not she, after all. Yet his voice might have been +drowned in the noise of the dance. He would call again; but again they +passed him by unheeding. The dance was over. They had stopped at the +other end of the room. He pressed forward against the egress of the +dancers. He pressed forward roughly, and once or twice he heard +grumbling murmurs because he had deranged a difficult piece of +costumery. He was conscious of angry masks regarding him; and then he +was free of the crowd, and before him, talking together under a canopy +of holly were the two pierrettes. The musicians sat among the palms +looking at him as they rested upon their instruments. Michael felt that +his voice was going to refuse to utter her name:</p> + +<p>“Lily! Lily!”</p> + +<p>The pierrette with the pale blue pompons turned at the sound of his +voice. Why did she not step forward to greet him, if indeed she were +Lily? She was, she was Lily: the other pierrette had turned to see what +she was going to do.</p> + +<p>“I say, how on earth did you recognize me?” Lily murmured, raising her +mask and looking at Michael with her smile that was so debonair and +tender, so scornful and so passionate.</p> + +<p>“I saw you in November coming out of the Orient. I tried to get across +the road to speak to you, but you’d gone<a name="page_513" id="page_513"></a> before I could manage it. +Where have you been all these years? Once I went to Trelawny Road, but +the house was empty.” He could not tell her that Drake had been the +first to bring him news of her.</p> + +<p>“It’s years since I was there,” said Lily. “Years and years.” She turned +to call her friend, and the pierrette with the rose pompons came closer +to be introduced.</p> + +<p>“Miss Sylvia Scarlett: Mr. Michael Fane. Aren’t I good to remember your +name quite correctly?” Michael thought that her mouth for a moment was +utterly scornful. “What made you come here? Have you got a friend with +you?”</p> + +<p>Michael explained that he was alone, and that his visit here was an +accident.</p> + +<p>“Why did <i>you</i> come?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, something to do,” said Lily. “We live near here.”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” said Michael hastily.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” Her eyebrows went up in what he imagined was an expression of +rather cruel interrogation. “This is a silly sort of a show. Still, even +Covent Garden is dull now.”</p> + +<p>Michael thought what a fool he had been not to include Covent Garden in +his search. How well he might have known she would go there.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Doris?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Lily shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I never see anything of her nowadays. She married an actor. I don’t +often get letters from home, do I, Sylvia?”</p> + +<p>The pierrette with rose pompons, who ever since her introduction had +still been standing outside the conversation, now raised her mask. +Michael liked her face. She had merry eyes, and a wide nose rather +Slavonic. Next to Lily she seemed almost dumpy.</p> + +<p>“Letters, my dear,” she exclaimed, in a very deep voice, “Who wants +letters?”<a name="page_514" id="page_514"></a></p> + +<p>The music of a waltz was beginning, and Michael asked Lily if she would +dance with him. She looked at Sylvia.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what rot, Lily! Of course you can dance.”</p> + +<p>Michael gave her a grateful smile.</p> + +<p>In a moment Lily had lowered her mask, and they were waltzing together.</p> + +<p>“My gad, how gloriously you waltz!” he whispered. “Did we ever dance +together five years ago?”</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and he felt the faint movement tremble +through the imponderable form he held.</p> + +<p>“Lily, I’ve been looking for you since June,” he sighed.</p> + +<p>“You’re breaking step,” she said. Though her mask was down, Michael was +sure that she was frowning at him.</p> + +<p>“Lily, why are you so cold with me? Have you forgotten?”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Why, everything!” Michael gasped.</p> + +<p>“You’re absolutely out of time now,” she said sternly.</p> + +<p>They waltzed for a while in silence, and Michael felt like a midge +spinning upon a dazzle.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember when we met in Kensington Gardens?” he ventured. “I +remember you had black pompons on your shoes then, and now you have pale +blue pompons on your dress.”</p> + +<p>She was not answering him.</p> + +<p>“It’s funny you should still be living near me,” he went on. “I suppose +you’re angry with me because I suddenly never saw you again. That was +partly your mother’s fault.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him in faint perplexity, swaying to the melody of the +waltz. Michael thought he had blundered in betraying himself as so +obviously lovestruck now. He must be seeming to her like that absurd and +sentimental<a name="page_515" id="page_515"></a> boy of five years ago. Perhaps she was despising him, for +she could compare him with other men. Ejaculations of wonder at her +beauty would no longer serve, with all the experience she might bring to +mock them. She was smiling at him now, and the mask she wore made the +smile seem a sneer. He grew so angry with her suddenly that almost he +stopped in the swing of the dance to shake her.</p> + +<p>“But it was much more your fault,” he said savagely. “Do you remember +Drake?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head; then she corrected herself.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. Arthur Drake who lived next door to us.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I saw you in the garden from his window. You were being kissed by +some terrible bounder. That was jolly for me. Why did you do that? +Couldn’t you say ‘no’? Were you too lazy?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought she moved closer to him as they danced.</p> + +<p>“Answer me, will you; answer me, I say. Were you too lazy to resist, or +did you enjoy being cheapened by that insufferable brute you were +flirting with?”</p> + +<p>Michael in his rage of remembrance twisted her hand. But she made no +gesture, nor uttered any sound of pain. Instead she sank closer to his +arms, and as the dance rolled on, he told himself triumphantly that, +while she was with him, she was his again.</p> + +<p>What did the past matter?</p> + +<p>“Ah, Lily, you love me still! I’ll ask no more questions. Am I out of +step?”</p> + +<p>“No, not now,” she whispered, and he saw that her face was pale with the +swoon of their dancing.</p> + +<p>“Take off that silly mask,” he commanded. “Take it off and give it to +me. I can hold you with one arm.”</p> + +<p>She obeyed him, and with a tremendous exultation he swung her round, as +if indeed he were carrying her to the edge of the world. The mask no +longer veiled her face;<a name="page_516" id="page_516"></a> her eyelids drooped, clouding her eyes; her +lips were parted: she was now dead white. Michael crooked her left arm +until he could touch her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Look at me. Look at me. The dance will soon be over.”</p> + +<p>She opened her eyes, and into their depths of dusky blue he danced and +danced until, waking with the end of the music, he found himself and +Lily close to Sylvia Scarlett, who was laughing at them where she stood +in the corner of the room under a canopy of holly.</p> + +<p>Lily was for the rest of the evening herself as Michael had always known +her. She had always been superficially indifferent to anything that was +happening round her, and she behaved at this carnival as if it were a +street full of dull people among whom by chance she was walking. Nor +with her companions was she much more alert, though when she danced with +Michael her indifference became a passionate languor. Soon after +midnight both the girls declared they were tired of the Redcliffe Hall, +and they asked Michael to escort them home. He was going to fetch a cab, +but they stopped him, saying that Tinderbox Lane, where they lived, was +only a little way along on the other side of the Fulham Road. The fog +was very dense when they came out, and Michael took the girls’ arms with +a delicious sense of intimacy, with a feeling, too, of extraordinary +freedom from the world, as if they were all three embarked upon an +adventure in this eclipse of fog. He had packed their shoes deep down in +the pockets of his overcoat, and with the possession of their shoes he +had a sensation of possessing the wearers of them. The fog was denser +and denser: they paused upon the edge of the curb, listening for +oncoming traffic. A distant omnibus was lumbering far down the Fulham +Road. Michael caught their arms close, and the three of them seemed to +sail across to the opposite pavement.<a name="page_517" id="page_517"></a> He had nothing to say because he +was so happy, and Lily had nothing to say because she talked now no more +than she used to talk. So it was Sylvia who had to carry on the +conversation, and since most of this consisted of questions to Lily and +Michael about their former friendship, which neither Lily nor Michael +answered, even Sylvia was discouraged at last; and they walked on +silently through the fog, Michael clasping the girls close to him and +watching all the time Lily’s hand holding up her big black cloak.</p> + +<p>“Here we are, you two dreamers,” said Sylvia, pulling them to a stop by +a narrow turning which led straight from the pavement unexpectedly, +without any dip down into a road.</p> + +<p>“Through here? How fascinating!” said Michael.</p> + +<p>They passed between two posts, and in another three minutes stopped in +front of a door set in a wall.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got the key,” said Sylvia, and she unlocked the door.</p> + +<p>“But this is extraordinary,” Michael exclaimed. “Aren’t we walking +through a garden?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s quite a long garden,” Sylvia informed him. There was a smell +of damp earth here that sweetened the harshness of the fog, and Michael +thought that he had never imagined anything so romantic as following +Lily in single file along the narrow gravel path of a mysterious garden +like this. There must have been thirty yards of path, before they walked +up the steps of what seemed to be a sort of balcony.</p> + +<p>“She’s downstairs,” said Sylvia, tapping upon a glass door with the key. +A woman’s figure appeared with an orange-shaded lamp in the passage.</p> + +<p>“Open quickly, Mrs. Gainsborough. We’re frozen,” Sylvia called. As the +woman opened the door, Sylvia went on in her deep voice:</p> + +<p>“We’ve brought an old friend of Lily’s back from the<a name="page_518" id="page_518"></a> dance. It wasn’t +really worth going to. Oh, I oughtn’t to have said that, ought I?” she +laughed, turning round to Michael. “Come in and get warm. This is Mrs. +Gainsborough, who’s the queen of cards.”</p> + +<p>“Get along with you, you great saucy thing,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, +laughing.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of enormous size with a triplication of chins. Her +crimson cheeks shone with the same glister as her black dress; and her +black hair, so black that it must have been dyed, was parted in the +middle and lay in a chignon upon her neck. She seemed all the larger, +sitting in this small room full of Victorian finery, and Michael was +amused to hear her address Sylvia as “great.”</p> + +<p>“We want something to eat and something to drink, you lovely old +mountain,” Sylvia said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough doubled herself up and smacked her knees in a tempest +of wheezy laughter.</p> + +<p>“Sit here, you terrors, while I get the cloth on the dining-room table,” +and out she went, her laughter dying in sibilations along the diminutive +corridor. Lily had flung herself down in an armchair near the fire. +Behind her stood a small mahogany table on which was a glass case of +humming-birds; by her elbow on the wall was a white china bell coronated +with a filigree of gilt, and by chance the antimacassar on the chair was +of Berlin wool checkered black and blue. She in her pierrette’s dress of +black with light blue pompons looked strangely remote from present time +in that setting. Michael could not connect this secluded house with +anything which had made an impression upon him during his experience of +the underworld. Here was nothing that was not cozy and old-fashioned; +here was no sign of decay, whether in the fabric of the house or in the +attitude of the people living there. This small square room with the +heavy furniture that occupied so much of the space<a name="page_519" id="page_519"></a> had no demirep +demeanor. That horsehair sofa with lyre-shaped sides and back of +floriated wood; that brass birdcage hanging in the window against the +curtains of maroon serge; those cabinets in miniature, some lacquered, +some of plain wood with tiny drop-handles of brass; those black chairs +with seats of gilded cane; those trays with marquetery in +mother-of-pearl of wreaths and rivulets and parrots; that table-cloth +like a dish of black Sèvres; those simpering steel engravings—there was +nothing that did not bespeak the sobriety of the Victorian prime here +miraculously preserved. Lily and Sylvia in such dresses belonged to a +period of fantasy; Mrs. Gainsborough was in keeping with her furniture; +and Michael, as he looked at himself in the glass overmantel, did not +think that he was seeming very intrusive.</p> + +<p>“Whose are these rooms?” he asked. Lily was adorable, but he did not +believe they were her creation or discovery.</p> + +<p>“I found them,” said Sylvia. “The old girl who owns the house is bad, +but beautiful. Aren’t you, you most astonishing but attractive mammoth?” +This was addressed to Mrs. Gainsborough, who was at the moment panting +into the room for some accessory to the dining-table.</p> + +<p>“Get along with you,” the landlady chuckled. “Now don’t go to sleep, +Lily. Your supper is just on ready.” She went puffing from the room in +busy mirthfulness.</p> + +<p>“She’s one of the best,” said Sylvia. “This house was given to her by an +old General who died about two years ago. You can see the painting of +him up in her bedroom as a dare-devil hussar with drooping whiskers. She +was a gay contemporary of the Albert Memorial. You know. Argyle Rooms +and Cremorne. With the Haymarket as the center of naughtiness.”</p> + +<p>It was funny, Michael thought, that his tobacconist should have +mentioned Cremorne only this afternoon. That he had done so affected him +more sharply now with a sense<a name="page_520" id="page_520"></a> of the appropriateness of this house in +Tinderbox Lane. Appropriateness to what? Perhaps merely to the mood of +this foggy night.</p> + +<p>“Supper! Supper!” Mrs. Gainsborough was crying.</p> + +<p>It was dismaying for Michael to think that he had not kissed Lily yet, +and he wished that Sylvia would hurry ahead into the other room and give +him an opportunity. He wanted to pull her gently from that chair, up +from that chair into his arms. But Sylvia was the one who did so, and +she kissed Lily half fiercely, leaving Michael disconsolately to follow +them across the passage.</p> + +<p>It was jolly to see Mrs. Gainsborough sitting at the head of the table +with the orange-shaded lamp throwing warm rays upon her countenance. +That it was near the chilly hour of one, with a cold thick fog outside, +was inconceivable when he looked at that cheery great porpoise of a +woman unscrewing bottles of India Pale Ale.</p> + +<p>Michael did not want the questions about him and Lily to begin again. So +he turned the conversation upon a more remote past.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my eye, my eye!” laughed Sylvia. “To think that Aunt Enormous was +once in the ballet at the Opera.”</p> + +<p>“How dare you laugh at me? Whoof!” Mrs. Gainsborough gave a sort of +muffled bark as her arm pounced out to grab Sylvia. The two of them +frisked with each other absurdly, while Lily sat with wide-open blue +eyes, so graceful even in that stiff chair close up to the table, that +Michael was in an ecstasy of admiration, and marveled gratefully at the +New Year’s Day which could so change his fortune.</p> + +<p>“Were you in the ballet?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Certainly I was, though this great teazing thing beside me would like +to make out that when I was eighteen I looked just as I do now.”<a name="page_521" id="page_521"></a></p> + +<p>“Show the kind gentleman your picture,” said Sylvia. “She wears it round +her neck in a locket, the vain old mountebank.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough opened a gold locket, and Michael looked at a rosy +young woman in a pork-pie hat.</p> + +<p>“That’s myself,” said Mrs. Gainsborough sentimentally. “Well, and I +always loved being young better than anything or anybody, so why +shouldn’t I wear next my own heart myself as I used to be?”</p> + +<p>“But show him the others,” Sylvia demanded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough fetched from a desk two daguerreotypes in stained +morocco cases lined with faded piece velvet. By tilting their surfaces +against the light could be seen the shadow of a portrait’s wraith: a +girl appearing in pantalettes and tartan frock; a ballerina glimmering, +with points of faint celeste for eyes, and for cheeks the evanescence of +a ghostly bloom.</p> + +<p>“Oh, look at her,” cried Sylvia. “In her beautiful pantalettes!”</p> + +<p>“Hold your tongue, you!”</p> + +<p>They started again with their sparring and mock encounters, which lasted +on and off until supper was over. Then they all went back to the other +room and sat round the fire.</p> + +<p>“Tell us about the General,” said Sylvia.</p> + +<p>“Go on, as if you hadn’t heard a score of times all I’ve got to tell +about the General—though you know I hate him to be called that. He’ll +always be the Captain to me.”</p> + +<p>Soon afterward, notwithstanding her first refusal, Mrs. Gainsborough +embarked upon tales of gay days in the ’sixties and ’seventies. It was +astonishing to think that this room in which they were sitting could +scarcely have changed since then.</p> + +<p>“The dear Captain! He bought this house for me in<a name="page_522" id="page_522"></a> eighteen-sixty-nine +before I was twenty, and I’ve lived in it ever since. Ah, dear! many’s +the summer daybreak we’ve walked back here after dancing all night at +Cremorne. Such lovely lights and fireworks. Earl’s Court is nothing to +Cremorne. Fancy their pulling it down as they did. But perhaps it’s as +well it went, as all the old faces have gone. It would have given me the +dismals to be going there now without my Captain.”</p> + +<p>She went on with old tales of London, tales that had in them the very +smoke and grime of the city.</p> + +<p>“Who knows what’s going to happen when the clock strikes twelve?” she +said, shaking her head. “So enjoy yourselves while you can. That’s my +motto. And if there’s a hereafter, which good God forbid, I should be +very aggravated to find myself waltzing around as fat and funny as I am +now.”</p> + +<p>The old pagan, who had mellowed slowly with her house for company, +seemed to sit here hugging the old friend; and as she told her tales it +was difficult not to think she was playing hostess to the spirits of her +youths to ghostly Dundrearies and spectral belles with oval faces. +Michael could have listened all night to her reminiscences of dead +singers and dead dancers, of gay women become dust and of rakes +reformed, of beauties that were now hags, and of handsome young +subalterns grown parched and liverish. Sylvia egged her on from story to +story, and Lily lay languidly back in her chair. It must be after two +o’clock, and Michael rose to go.</p> + +<p>“We’ll have one song,” cried Sylvia, and she pulled Mrs. Gainsborough to +the piano. The top of the instrument was hidden by stacked-up albums, +and the front of it was of fretted walnut-wood across a pleating of +claret-colored silk.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough, pounding with her fat fingers the keys that seemed in +comparison so frail and old, sang in a<a name="page_523" id="page_523"></a> wheezy pipe of a voice: <i>The +Captain with his Whiskers took a Sly Glance at Me.</i></p> + +<p>“But you only get me to do it, so as you can have a good laugh at me +behind my back,” she declared, swinging round upon the stool to face +Sylvia when she had finished.</p> + +<p>“Nothing of the sort, you fat old darling. We do it because we like it.”</p> + +<p>“Bless your heart, my dearie.” She laid a hand on Sylvia’s for an +instant. Michael thanked Mrs. Gainsborough for the entertainment, and +asked Sylvia if she thought he might come round to-morrow and take Lily +and her out to lunch.</p> + +<p>“We can lunch to-morrow, can’t we?” Sylvia asked, tugging at Lily’s arm, +for she was now fast asleep.</p> + +<p>“Is Michael going? Yes, we can lunch with him to-morrow,” Lily yawned.</p> + +<p>He promised to call for them about midday. It seemed ridiculous to shake +hands so formally with Lily, and he hoped she would suggest that the +outside door was difficult to open. Alas, it was Sylvia who came to +speed his departure.</p> + +<p>The fog was welcome to Michael for his going home. At this hour of the +night there was not a sound of anything, and he could walk on, dreaming +undisturbed. He supposed he would arrive ultimately at Cheyne Walk. But +he did not care. He would have been content to fill the long winter +night with his fancies. Plunging his hands down into the pockets of his +overcoat, he discovered that he had forgotten to take out the girls’ +shoes, and what company they were through the gloom! It was a most +fascinating experience, to wander along holding these silky slippers +which had twinkled through the evening of this night. Not a cab-horse +blew a frosty breath by the curb; not a policeman loomed; nor passer-by +nor cat offended his isolation.<a name="page_524" id="page_524"></a> The London night belonged to him; his +only were the footsteps echoing back from the invisible houses on either +side; and the golden room in Tinderbox Lane was never more than a few +yards in front.</p> + +<p>He had found Lily at last, and he held her shoes for a token of his good +luck. Let no one tell him again that destiny was a fable. Nothing was +ever more deliberately foredoomed than the meeting at that carnival. +Michael was so grateful to his tobacconist that he determined to buy all +sorts of extravagant pipes and cigarette holders he had fingered vaguely +from time to time in the shop. For a while Lily’s discovery was colored +with such a glamour that Michael did not analyze the situation in which +he had found her. Walking back to Chelsea through the fog, he was +bemused by the romantic memory of her which was traveling along with his +thoughts. He could hold very tightly her shoes: he could almost embrace +the phantom of her beauty that curled upon the vapors round each lamp: +he was intoxicated merely by the sound of the street where she lived.</p> + +<p>“Tinderbox Lane! Tinderbox Lane! Tinderbox Lane!”</p> + +<p>He sang it in triumph, remembering how only this morning he had sighed +to himself, as he chased the telegraph-wires up and down the window of +the railway-carriage: “Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?”</p> + +<p>“Tinderbox Lane! Tinderbox Lane! Tinderbox Lane!” he chanted at the fog, +and, throwing a slipper into the air, he caught it and ran on +ridiculously until he bumped into a policeman standing by the corner.</p> + +<p>“I’m awfully sorry, constable.”</p> + +<p>“Feeling a bit happy, sir, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Frightfully happy. I say, by the by, happy new year, constable. Drink +my health when you’re off duty.”</p> + +<p>He pressed half-a-crown into the policeman’s hand, and<a name="page_525" id="page_525"></a> as he left the +stolid form behind him in the fog, he remembered that half-a-crown was +the weekly blackmail paid by Mrs. Smith of Leppard Street. He was on the +Embankment now, and the fog had lifted so that he saw the black river +flowing sullenly through the night. The plane-trees dripped with +monotonous beads of dankness. The fog was become a mist here, a frore +whitish mist that saturated him with a malignant chill. Michael was glad +to find himself looking at the dolphin-headed knocker of 173 Cheyne +Walk. The effect of being in his own bedroom again, even though the +girls’ shoes lay fantastically upon the floor, was at first to make him +believe that Tinderbox Lane might have been a dream, and after that, +because he knew it was not a dream, to wonder about it.</p> + +<p>Yet not even now in this austere and icy bedroom of his own could +Michael feel that there was anything really wrong about that small +house. It still preserved for him an illusion of sobriety and stability, +almost of primness, yet of being rich with a demure gaiety. Mrs. +Gainsborough, however, was scarcely a chaperone. Nor was she very +demure. And who was Sylvia? And what was Lily doing there? It would have +been mysterious, that household, in any case, but was it necessary to +assume that there was anything wrong? Sylvia was obviously a girl of +high spirits. He had asked her no questions about herself. She might be +on the stage. For fun, or perhaps because of their landlady’s kindling +stories, Sylvia might have persuaded Lily to come once or twice to the +Orient. It did not follow that there was anything wrong. There had been +nothing wrong in that carnival. Michael’s heart leaped with the fancy +that he was not too late. That would indeed crown this romantic night; +and, picking up Lily’s shoe, he held it for a while, wondering about its +secrets.</p> + +<p>In the morning the fog had turned to a drench of dull<a name="page_526" id="page_526"></a> January rain; but +Michael greeted the outlook as cheerfully as if it had been perfect May +weather. He went first to a post office to send off the money he had +promised to Mrs. Smith and the Solutionist. After this discharge of +business, he felt more cheerful than ever, and, as if to capture the +final touch of fantasy necessary to bewitch yesterday night, he suddenly +realized, when he was hurrying along Fulham Road in the rain, that he +had no idea of the number of Mrs. Gainsborough’s house. He also began to +wonder if there really could be such a place as Tinderbox Lane, and as +he walked on without discovering any indication of its existence, he +wondered if Sylvia had invented the name, so that he might never find +her and Lily again. It was an uneasy thought, for without a number and +without a name—but just as he was planning an elaborate way to discover +the real name of the street, he saw in front of him Tinderbox Lane +enameled in the ordinary characters of municipal direction. Here were +the two posts: here was the narrow entrance. The rumble of the traffic +grew fainter. On one side was a high blank wall; on the other a row of +two-storied houses. They were naturally dwellings of the poorer classes, +but at intervals a painter had acquired one, and had painted it white or +affixed green shutters with heart-shaped openings. The width of the +pavement varied continually, but generally at the beginning it was very +narrow. Later on, however, it became wide enough to allow trees to be +planted down the middle. Beyond this part was a block of new flats round +which Tinderbox Lane narrowed again to a mere alley looking now rather +dank and gloomy in the rain. Michael could not remember from last night +in the fog either the trees or the flats. The door of Lily’s lodging had +been set in a wall: here on one side was certainly a wall, but never a +door to relieve the grimy blankness. He began to feel discouraged, and +he walked round<a name="page_527" id="page_527"></a> into the narrow alley behind the flats. Here were doors +in the wall at last, and Michael examined each of them in turn. Two were +dark blue: one was green: one was brown. 74: 75: 76: 77. He chose 77 +because it was farthest away from the flats. After a very long wait, an +old woman holding over herself a very large umbrella opened it.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Gainsborough ...?” Michael began.</p> + +<p>But the old woman had slammed the door before he could finish his +inquiry.</p> + +<p>Michael rang the bell of 76, and again he waited a long time. At last +the door was opened, and to his relief he saw Mrs. Gainsborough herself +under a green and much larger umbrella than the old woman’s next door.</p> + +<p>“I’ve come to take the girls out to lunch.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a good boy,” she wheezed. “The dearies will be glad to get out +and enjoy themselves a bit. Here’s a day. This would have suited Noah, +wouldn’t it?”</p> + +<p>She was leading the way up the gravel path, and Michael saw that in the +garden-beds there were actually Christmas roses in bloom. The house +itself was covered with a mat of Virginia creeper and jasmine, and the +astonishing rusticity of it was not at all diminished by the pretentious +gray houses of the next road which towered above it behind, nor even in +front by the flats with their eruption of windows. These houses with +doors in their garden-walls probably all belonged to individuals, and +for that reason they had escaped being overwhelmed by the development of +the neighborhood twenty years ago. Their four long gardens in a row must +be a bower of greenery in summer, and it was sad to think that the flats +opposite were no doubt due to the death of someone who had owned a +similar house and garden.</p> + +<p>Michael remembered the balcony in front with steps on either side. +Underneath this he now saw that there was another entrance, evidently to +the kitchen. Two fairly<a name="page_528" id="page_528"></a> large trees were planted in the grass that ran +up to the house on either side of the balcony.</p> + +<p>“Those are my mulberries,” said Mrs. Gainsborough. “This is called +Mulberry Cottage. I’ve been meaning to have the name painted on the +outside door for nearly forty years, but I always forget. There’s a +character to give myself. Ah, dear me! The Captain loved his mulberries. +But you ought to see this in the springtime. Well, my flowers are really +remarkable. But there, it’s not to be wondered at. M’ father was a +nursery gardener.”</p> + +<p>She looked round at Michael and winked broadly. He could not think why. +Possibly it was a comic association in her mind with the behavior of the +Captain in carrying her off from such a home.</p> + +<p>“The Duke of Fulham to see you, girls,” she wheezed at the door of the +sitting-room, and, giving Michael a push, retreated with volleys of +bronchial laughter. The girls were sitting in front of the fire. Lily +was pretending to trim a hat: Sylvia was reading, but she flung her book +down as Michael entered. He had the curiosity to look at the title, and +found it was the Contes Drôlatiques of Balzac. An unusual girl, he +thought: but his eyes were all for Lily, and because he could not kiss +her, he felt shy and stupid. However, the shoes, which he now restored, +supplied an immediate topic, and he was soon perfectly at ease again. +Presently the girls left him to get ready to go out, and he sat thinking +of Lily, while the canary chirped in the brass cage. The silence here +was very like the country. London was a thousand miles away, and he +could hear Lily and Sylvia moving about overhead. Less and less did he +think there could be anything wrong with Mulberry Cottage. Yet the +apparent security was going to make it rather difficult to take Lily +away. Certainly he could ask her to marry him at once; but she might not +want to marry him at once.<a name="page_529" id="page_529"></a> The discovery of her in this pleasant house +with a jolly friend was spoiling the grand swoop of rescue which he had +planned. She would not presumably be escaping from a situation she +abhorred. It was difficult to approach Lily here. Was it Sylvia who was +making it difficult? He must talk to Sylvia and explain that he had no +predatory intentions. She would surely be glad that he wanted to marry +Lily. Or would she not? Michael jumped up and tinkled the lusters on the +mantelshelf. “Sweet,” said the canary in the brass cage: the rain +sizzled without. Faintly pervading this small square room was the +malaise of someone’s jealousy. The tentative solution that was +propounding itself did not come from his own impression of Sylvia, but +it seemed positively to be an emanation from the four walls of the room +which in the stillness was able to force its reality upon him. “Sweet,” +said the canary: the lusters stopped their tinkling: the rain sizzled +steadily outside.</p> + +<p>Lunch at Kettner’s was a great success. At least Michael thought it was +a great success, because Lily looked exquisite against the bronzy walls, +and her hair on this dull day seemed not to lack sunlight, but rather to +give to the atmosphere a thought of the sun, the rare and wintry sun. +Sylvia talked a great deal in her deep voice, and he was conscious that +the other people in the restaurant were turning round to envy their +table.</p> + +<p>The longer that Michael was in the company of Lily and Sylvia, the less +he was able to ask the direct questions that would have been +comparatively easy at the beginning. Sylvia, by the capacity she +displayed of appreciating worldliness without ever appearing worldly +herself, made it impossible for him to risk her contempt by a stupid +question. She was not on the stage; so much he had discovered. She and +Lily had apparently a number of men friends. That fact would have been +disquieting, but that Sylvia talked<a name="page_530" id="page_530"></a> of them with such a really +tomboyish zest as made it impossible to suppose they represented more +than what they were superficially, the companions of jolly days on the +river and at race-meetings, of jolly evenings at theaters and balls. +Quite definitely Michael was able to assure himself that out of the host +of allusions there was not one which pointed to any man favored above +the rest. He was able to be positive that Lily and Sylvia were +independent. Yet Lily had no private allowance or means. It must be +Sylvia who was helping her. Perhaps Sylvia was always strict, and +perhaps all these friends were by her held at arm’s length from Lily, as +he felt himself being held now. Her attitude might have nothing to do +with jealousy. But Sylvia was not strict in her conversation; she was, +indeed, exceptionally free. That might be a good sign. A girl who read +the Contes Drôlatiques might easily read Rabelais himself, and a girl +who read Rabelais would be inviolable. Michael, when Sylvia had said +something particularly broad, used to look away from Lily; and yet he +knew he need not have bothered, for Lily was always outside the +conversation; always under a spell of silence and remoteness. Of what +was she forever thinking? There were looking-glasses upon the bronzy +walls.</p> + +<p>For a fortnight Michael came every day to Tinderbox Lane and took the +girls out; but for the whole of that fortnight he never managed to be +alone with Lily. Then one day Sylvia was not there when he called. To +find Lily like this after a tantalizing fortnight was like being in a +room heavily perfumed with flowers. It seemed to stifle his initiative, +so that for a few minutes he sat coldly and awkwardly by the window.</p> + +<p>“We’re alone,” he managed to say at last.</p> + +<p>“Sylvia’s gone to Brighton. She didn’t want to go a bit.”<a name="page_531" id="page_531"></a></p> + +<p>“Bother Sylvia! Lily, we haven’t kissed for five years.”</p> + +<p>He stumbled across to take her in his arms; and as he held her to him, +it was a rose falling to pieces, so did she melt upon his passion. He +heard her sigh; a coal slipped in the grate; the canary hopped from +perch to perch. These small sounds but wrapped him more closely in the +trance of silence.</p> + +<p>“Lily, you will marry me, won’t you? Very soon? At once?”</p> + +<p>Michael was kneeling beside her chair, and she was looking down at him +from clouded eyes still passionate. Marriage was an intrusion upon the +remoteness where they brooded; and he, ravished by their flamy blue +relucency, could not care whether she answered him or not. This was such +a contentment of desire that the future with the visible shapes of +action it tried to display was unheeded, while now she stirred in his +arms. She was his, and so for an hour she stayed, immortal, and yet most +poignantly the prisoner of time. Michael, with all that he had dreaded +at the back of his mind he would have to face in her condition, scarcely +knew how to celebrate this reward of his tenacity. This tranquillity of +caresses, this slow fondling of her wrist were a lullaby to his fears. +It was the very rhapsody of his intention to kneel beside her, murmuring +huskily the little words of love. He would have married her wherever and +whatever he found her, but the relief was overwhelming. He had thought +of a beautiful thing ruined; he had foreshadowed glooms and tragic +colloquies; he had desperately hoped his devotion might be granted at +least the virtue of a balm. Instead, he found this ivory girl, this +loveliness of rose and coral within his arms. So many times she had +eluded him in dreams upon the midway of the night, and so often in +dreams he had held her for kisses that were robbed from him by the +sunlight of the morning, that he<a name="page_532" id="page_532"></a> scarcely could believe he held her +now, now when her hair was thistledown upon his cheeks, when her mouth +was a butterfly. He shuddered to think how soon this airy beauty must +have perished; and even now what was she? A shred of goldleaf on his +open hand, pliant, but fugitive at a breath, and destructible in a +moment of adversity.</p> + +<p>Always in their youth, when they had sat imparadised, Michael had been +aware of the vulgar Haden household in the background. Now, here she was +placed in exactly the room where he would have wished to find her, +though he would scarcely desire to maintain her in such a setting. He +could picture her at not so distant a time in wonderful rooms, about +whose slim furniture she would move in delicate and languorous +promenades. This room pleased him, because it was the one from which he +would have wished to take her into the misty grandeurs he imagined for +her lodging. It was a room he would always regard with affection, +thinking of the canary in the brass cage and the Christmas roses blowing +in the garden and the low sounds of Mrs. Gainsborough busy in her +kitchen underneath. Tinderbox Lane! It was an epithalamium in itself; +and as for Mulberry Cottage, it had been carried here by the fat pink +loves painted on the ceiling of that Cremorne arbor in which the Captain +had first imagined his gift.</p> + +<p>So with fantastic thoughts and perfect kisses, perfect but yet ineffably +vain because they expressed so little of what Michael would have had +them express, the hour passed.</p> + +<p>“We must talk of practical things,” he declared, rising from his knees.</p> + +<p>“You always want to talk,” Lily pouted.</p> + +<p>“I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; but it’s so difficult to do things quickly.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll be married in a month. We’ll be married on Saint Valentine’s +Day,” Michael announced.<a name="page_533" id="page_533"></a></p> + +<p>“It’s so wet now to think of weddings.” She looked peevishly out of the +window.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t got to think about it. You’ve got to do it.”</p> + +<p>“And it’s so dull,” she objected. “Sylvia says it’s appallingly dull. +And she’s been married.”</p> + +<p>“What has Sylvia got to do with it?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, she’s been awfully sweet to me. And after all, when mother +died, what was I to do? I couldn’t bear Doris any more. She always gets +on my nerves. Anyway, don’t let’s talk about marriage now. In the summer +I shall feel more cheerful. I hate this weather.”</p> + +<p>“But look here,” he persisted. “Are you in love with me?”</p> + +<p>She nodded, yet too doubtfully to please him.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you’re not in love with me....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I am, I am! Don’t shout so, Michael. If I wasn’t awfully fond of +you, I shouldn’t have made Sylvia ask you to come back. She hates men +coming here.”</p> + +<p>“Are you Sylvia’s servant?” said Michael, in exasperation.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be stupid. Of course not.”</p> + +<p>“It’s ridiculous,” he grumbled, “to quote her with every sentence.”</p> + +<p>“Why you couldn’t have stayed where you were,” said Lily fretfully, “I +don’t know. It was lovely sitting by the fire and being kissed. If +you’re so much in love with me, I wonder you wanted to get up.”</p> + +<p>“So, we’re not to talk any more about marriage?”</p> + +<p>After all, he told himself, it was unreasonable of him to suppose that +Lily was likely to be as impulsive as himself. Her temperament was not +the same. She did not mean to discourage him.<a name="page_534" id="page_534"></a></p> + +<p>“Don’t let’s talk about anything,” said Lily. He could not stand aloof +from the arms she held wide open.</p> + +<p>Sylvia would not be coming back for at least three days, and Michael +spent all his time with Lily. He thought that Mrs. Gainsborough looked +approvingly upon their love; at any rate, she never worried them. The +weather was steadily unpleasant, and though he took Lily out to lunch, +it never seemed worth while to stay away from Tinderbox Lane very long. +One night, however, they went to the Palace, and afterward, when he +asked her where she would like to go, she suggested Verrey’s. Michael +had never been there before, and he was rather jealous that Lily should +seem to know it so well. However, he liked to see her sitting in what he +told himself was the only café in London which had escaped the +cheapening of popularity and had kept its old air of the Third Empire.</p> + +<p>As Lily was stirring her lemon-squash, her languid forearm looked very +white swaying from the somber mufflings of her cloak. Something in her +self-possession, a momentary hardness and disdain, made Michael suddenly +suspicious.</p> + +<p>“Do you enjoy Covent Garden balls?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“It depends who we go with. Often I don’t care for them much. And the +girls you see there are frightfully common.”</p> + +<p>He could not bring himself to ask her straight out what he feared. If it +were so, let it rest unrevealed. The knowledge would make no difference +to his resolution. People began to come into the café, shaking the wet +from their shoulders; and the noise of the rain was audible above the +conversation.</p> + +<p>“I wish we could have had one fine day together,” said Michael +regretfully. “Do you remember when we used to go for long walks in the +winter?”<a name="page_535" id="page_535"></a></p> + +<p>“I must have been very fond of you,” Lily laughed. “I don’t think you +could make me walk like that now.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you so fond of me now?” he asked reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“You ought to know,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>All the way home the raindrops were flashing in the road like bayonets, +and her cheeks were dabbled with the wet.</p> + +<p>“Shall I come in?” Michael asked, as he waited by the door in the wall.</p> + +<p>“Yes, come in and have something to drink, of course.”</p> + +<p>He was stabbed by the ease of her invitation.</p> + +<p>“Do you ask all these friends of yours to come in and have a drink after +midnight?”</p> + +<p>“I told you that Sylvia doesn’t like me to,” she said.</p> + +<p>“But you would, if she didn’t mind?” Michael went on, torturing himself.</p> + +<p>“How fond you are of ‘ifs,’” she answered. “I can’t bother to think +about ‘ifs’ myself.”</p> + +<p>If only he had the pluck to avoid allusions and come at once to grips +with truth. Sharply he advised himself to let the truth alone. Already +he was feeling the influence of Lily’s attitude. He wondered if, when he +married her, all his activity would swoon upon Calypso like this. It was +as easy to dream life away in the contemplation of a beautiful woman as +in the meditation of the Oxford landscape.</p> + +<p>“Happiness makes me inactive,” said Michael to himself. “So of course I +shall never really be happy. What a paradox.”</p> + +<p>He would not take off his overcoat. He was feeling afraid of a surrender +to-night.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad I didn’t suggest staying late,” he thought, as he walked away +down the dripping garden path. “I should have been mad with unreasonable +suspicions, if she had said ‘yes.’”<a name="page_536" id="page_536"></a></p> + +<p>Sylvia came back next day, and though Michael still liked her very much, +he was certain now of her hostility to him. He was conscious of malice +in the air, when she said to Lily that Jack wanted them to have dinner +with him to-night and go afterward to some dance at Richmond. Michael +was furious that Lily should be invited to Richmond, and yet until she +had promised to marry him how could he combat Sylvia’s influence? And +who was Jack? And with whom had Sylvia been to Brighton?</p> + +<p>The day after the dance, Michael came round about twelve o’clock as +usual, but when he reached the sitting-room only Sylvia was before the +fire.</p> + +<p>“Lily isn’t down yet,” she told him.</p> + +<p>He was aware of a breathlessness in the atmosphere, and he knew that he +and Sylvia were shortly going to clash.</p> + +<p>“Jolly dance?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and there was a long pause.</p> + +<p>“Will Lily be dressed soon? I rather want to take her out.” Michael +flung down his challenge.</p> + +<p>“She’s been talking to me about what you said yesterday,” Sylvia began.</p> + +<p>Michael could not help liking her more and more, although her +countenance was set against him. He could not help admiring that +out-thrust underlip and those wide-set, deep and bitter brown eyes.</p> + +<p>“When do you propose to marry her?” Sylvia went on.</p> + +<p>“As soon as possible,” he said coolly.</p> + +<p>“Which of us do you think has the greater influence over her?” she +demanded.</p> + +<p>“I really don’t know. You have rather an advantage over me in that +respect.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you admit that,” interrupted Sylvia, with sarcastic chill.</p> + +<p>“You have personality. You’ve probably been very kind<a name="page_537" id="page_537"></a> to Lily. You’re +cleverer than she is. You’re with her all the time. I’ve only quite +suddenly come into her life again.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you think you’ve managed to do that,” she said, glowering.</p> + +<p>More and more, Michael thought, with her wide-set eyes was she like a +cat crouching by the fire.</p> + +<p>“Just because I had to go away for three days and you had an opportunity +to be alone with Lily, you now think you’ve come into her life. My god, +you’re like some damned fool in a novel!”</p> + +<p>“A novel by whom?” Michael asked. Partly he was trying to score off +Sylvia, but at the same time he was sincerely curious to know, for he +never could resist the amplification of a comparison.</p> + +<p>“Oh, any ink-slinger with a brain of pulp,” she answered savagely.</p> + +<p>He bowed.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re suffering from the virus of sentimental redemption?” +she sneered.</p> + +<p>Michael was rather startled by her divination.</p> + +<p>“What should I redeem her from?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you boasted of knowing Lily six years ago?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that I boasted of it,” he replied, in rather an injured +tone. “But I did know her—very well.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you foresee what she was bound to become? Personally I should +have said that Lily’s future must have been obvious from the time she +was five years old. Certainly at seventeen it must have been. You got +out of her life then: what the hell’s your object in coming into it +again now, as you call it, unless you’re a sentimentalist? People don’t +let passion lapse for six years and pick up the broken thread without +the help of sentiment.”</p> + +<p>Michael in the middle of the increasing tension of the<a name="page_538" id="page_538"></a> conversation was +able to stop for a moment and ask himself if this by chance were true. +He was standing by the mantelpiece and tinkling the lusters. Sylvia +looked up at him irritably, and he silenced them at once.</p> + +<p>“Sentiment about what?” he asked, taking the chair opposite hers.</p> + +<p>“You think Lily’s a tart, don’t you? And you think I am, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>He frowned at the brutality of the expression.</p> + +<p>“I did think so,” he said. “But of course I’ve changed my mind since +I’ve seen something of you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course you’ve changed your mind, have you?” she laughed +contemptuously. “And what made you do that? My visit to Brighton?”</p> + +<p>“Even if <i>you</i> are,” said Michael hotly, “I needn’t believe that Lily +is. And even if she is, it makes no difference to my wanting to marry +her.”</p> + +<p>“Sentimentalist,” she jeered. “Damned sugar-and-water sentimentalist.”</p> + +<p>“Your sneers don’t particularly affect me, you know,” he said politely.</p> + +<p>“Oh, for god’s sake, be less the well-brought-up little gentleman. Cut +out the undergraduate. You fool, I was married to an Oxford man. And I’m +sitting here now with the glorious knowledge that I’m a perpetual +bugbear to his good form.”</p> + +<p>“Because you made a hash of marriage,” Michael pointed out, “it doesn’t +follow that I’m not to marry Lily. I can’t understand your objections.”</p> + +<p>“Listen. You couldn’t make her happy. You couldn’t make her any happier +than the dozens of men who want to be fond of her for a short time +without accepting the responsibility of marriage. Do you think I let any +one of those dozens touch her? Not one, if I can get the money<a name="page_539" id="page_539"></a> myself. +And I usually can. Well, why should I stand aside now and let you carry +her off, even though you do want to marry her? I could argue against it +on your side by telling you that you have no chance of keeping Lily +faithful to you? Can’t you see that she has no moral energy? Can’t you +see that she’s vain and empty-headed? Can’t you see that? But why should +I argue with you for your benefit? I don’t care a damn about your side +in the matter.”</p> + +<p>“What exactly do you care about?” Michael asked. “If Lily is what you +say, I should have thought you’d be glad to be rid of her. After all, +I’m not proposing to do her any wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, to the devil with your right and wrong!” Sylvia cried. “Man can +only wrong woman, when he owns her, and if this marriage is going to be +a success, you’ll have to own Lily. That’s what I rebel against—the +ownership of women. It makes me mad.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it seems to,” Michael put in. He was beginning to be in a rage +with Sylvia’s unreasonableness. “If it comes to ownership,” he went on +angrily, “I should have thought that handing her over to the highest +bidder time after time would be the real way to make her the pitiable +slave of man.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” challenged Sylvia. “You sentimental ass, can’t you understand +that she treats them as I treat them, like the swine they are. She’s +free. I’m free.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not at all free,” Michael indignantly contradicted. “You’re +bound hand and foot by the lust of wealthy brutes. If you read a few +less elaborately clever books, and thought a few simpler thoughts, you’d +be a good deal happier.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to be happier.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I think you’re merely hysterical,” he said disdainfully. “But, +after all, your opinions about yourself don’t<a name="page_540" id="page_540"></a> matter to me. Only I +can’t see what right you have to apply them to Lily; and even if you +have the right, I don’t grasp your reason for wanting to.”</p> + +<p>“When I met Lily first,” said Sylvia, “she had joined the chorus of a +touring company in which I was. Her mother had just died, and I’d just +run away from my husband. I thought her the most beautiful thing I’d +ever seen. That’s three years ago. Is she beautiful still?”</p> + +<p>“Of course she is,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s I who have kept her beautiful. I’ve kept her free also. If +sometimes I’ve let her have affairs with men, I’ve taken care that they +were with men who could do her no harm, for whom she had no sort of....”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Michael burst in. “I’m sick of this conversation. You’re +talking like a criminal lunatic. I tell you I’m going to marry her, +whatever you think.”</p> + +<p>“I say you won’t, and you shan’t,” Sylvia declared.</p> + +<p>The deadlock had been reached, and they sat there on either side of the +fire, glaring at each other.</p> + +<p>“The extraordinary thing is,” said Michael at last, “I thought you had a +sense of humor when I first met you. And another extraordinary thing is +that I still like you very much. Which probably rather annoys you. But I +can’t help saying it.”</p> + +<p>“The opinions of sentimentalists don’t interest me one way or the +other,” Sylvia snapped.</p> + +<p>“Will you answer one question? Will you tell me why you were so pleasant +on the evening we met?”</p> + +<p>“I really can’t bother to go back as far as that.”</p> + +<p>“You weren’t jealous <i>then</i>,” Michael persisted.</p> + +<p>“Who says I’m jealous now?” she cried.</p> + +<p>“I do. What do you think you are, unless you’re jealous? When is Lily +coming down?”</p> + +<p>“She isn’t coming down until you’ve gone.”<a name="page_541" id="page_541"></a></p> + +<p>“Then I shall go and call her.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not in London.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe you.”</p> + +<p>A second deadlock was reached. Finally Michael decided to give Sylvia +the pleasure of supposing that he was beaten for the moment. He +congratulated himself upon the cunning of such a move. She was obviously +going to be rather difficult to circumvent.</p> + +<p>On the steps of the balcony he turned to her:</p> + +<p>“You hate me because I love Lily, and you hate me twice as much because +Lily loves me.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not true,” Sylvia declared. “It’s not true. She doesn’t love you, +and what right have you to love her?”</p> + +<p>She tossed back her mane of brown hair, biting her nails.</p> + +<p>“What college was your husband at?” Michael suddenly inquired.</p> + +<p>“Balliol.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if I knew him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. He was older than you.”</p> + +<p>It was satisfactory, Michael thought as he walked down Tinderbox Lane, +that the conversation had ended normally. At least, he had effected so +much. She had really been rather wonderful, that strange Sylvia. He +would very much like to pit her against Stella. It was satisfactory to +have his doubts allayed: notwithstanding her present opposition, he felt +that he did owe Sylvia a good deal. But it would be absurd to let Lily +continue in such a life: women always quarreled ultimately, and if +Sylvia were to leave her, her fall would be rapid and probably +irredeemable. Besides, he wanted her for himself. She was to him no less +than to Sylvia the most beautiful thing in the world. He did not want to +marry a clever woman: he would be much more content with Lily, from whom +there could be no reaction upon his nerves. Somehow all his theories of +behavior were<a name="page_542" id="page_542"></a> being referred back to his own desires. It was useless to +pretend any longer that his pursuit had been quixotry. Even if it had +seemed so on that night when he first heard the news of Lily from Drake, +the impulse at the back of his resolve had been his passion for her. +When he looked back at his behavior lately, a good deal of it seemed to +have been dictated by self-gratification. He remembered how deeply hurt +he had felt by Poppy’s treatment of what he had supposed his chivalry. +In retrospect his chivalry was seeming uncommonly like +self-satisfaction. His friendship for Daisy; for Barnes; for the +underworld; it had been nothing but self-satisfaction. Very well, then. +If self was to be the touchstone in future, he could face that standard +as easily as any other. By the time he had reached the end of Tinderbox +Lane Michael was convinced of his profound cynicism. He felt truly +obliged to Sylvia for curing him of sentiment. He had so often inveighed +against sentiment as the spring of human action, that he was most +sincerely grateful for the proof of his own sentimental bias. He would +go to Sylvia to-morrow and say frankly that he did not care a bit what +Lily had been, was now, or would be; he wanted her. She was something +beautiful which he coveted. For the possession of her he was ready to +struggle. He would declare war upon Sylvia as upon a rival. She should +be rather surprised to-morrow morning, Michael thought, congratulating +himself upon this new and ruthless policy.</p> + +<p>On the next morning, however, all Michael’s plans for his future +behavior were knocked askew by being unable to get into Mulberry +Cottage. His brutal frankness; his cynical egotism; his cold resolution, +were ignominiously repulsed by a fast-closed door. Ringing a bell at +intervals of a minute was a very undignified substitute for the position +he had imagined himself taking up in that small square room. This +errand-boy who stood at his elbow, gazing with such rapt<a name="page_543" id="page_543"></a> interest at +his ringing of the bell, was by no means the audience he had pictured.</p> + +<p>“Does it amuse you to watch a bell being rung?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>The errand-boy shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, why do you do it?”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t,” said the errand-boy.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing, then?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p>Michael could not grapple with the errand-boy, and he retired from +Tinderbox Lane until after lunch. He rang again, but he could get no +answer to his ringing. At intervals until midnight he came back, but +there was never an answer all the time. He went home and wrote to +Sylvia:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">173 C<small>HEYNE</small> W<small>ALK</small>,</span><br /> +S.W.</p> + +<p class="nind"><i>Dear Sylvia,</i></p> + +<p><i>If you aren’t afraid of being beaten, why are you afraid to let me +see Lily?</i></p> + +<p><i>I dare you to let me see her. Be sporting.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;"><i>Yours,</i></span><br /> +<i>M. F.</i></p></div> + +<p>To Lily he wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><i>Darling,</i></p> + +<p><i>Meet me outside South Kensington Station any time from twelve to +three.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Michael.</i></p> + +<p>Alone, of course.</p></div> + +<p>Next day he waited three hours and a half for Lily, but she did not +come. All the time he spent in a second-hand<a name="page_544" id="page_544"></a> bookshop with one eye on +the street. When he got home, he found a note from Sylvia:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Come to-morrow at twelve.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><i>S. S.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael crumpled up the note and flung it triumphantly into the +waste-paper basket.</p> + +<p>“I thought I should sting you into giving way,” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough opened the door to him, when he arrived.</p> + +<p>“They’ve gone away, the demons!” was what she said.</p> + +<p>Michael was conscious of the garden rimmed with hoar-frost stretching +behind her in a vista; and as he stared at this silver sparkling desert +he realized that Sylvia had inflicted upon him a crushing humiliation.</p> + +<p>“Where have they gone?” he asked blankly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they never tell me where they get to. But they took their luggage. +There’s a note for you from Sylvia. Come in, and I’ll give it to you.”</p> + +<p>Michael followed her drearily along the gravel path.</p> + +<p>“We shall be having the snowdrops before we know where we are,” Mrs. +Gainsborough said.</p> + +<p>“Very soon,” he agreed. He would have assented if she had foretold +begonias to-morrow morning.</p> + +<p>In the sitting-room Michael saw Sylvia’s note, a bleak little envelope +waiting for him on that table-cloth. Mrs. Gainsborough left him to read +it alone. The old silence of the room haunted him again now, the silence +that was so much intensified by the canary hopping about his cage. +Almost he decided to throw the letter unread into the fire.</p> + +<p>From every corner of the room the message of Sylvia’s<a name="page_545" id="page_545"></a> hostility was +stretching out toward him. “Sweet,” said the canary. Michael tore open +the envelope and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Perhaps you’ll admit that my influence is as strong as yours. You’d +much better give her up. In a way, I’m rather sorry for you, but +not enough to make me hand over Lily to you. Do realize, my dear +young thing, that you aren’t even beginning to understand women. I +admit that there’s precious little to understand in Lily. And for +that very reason, when even you begin to see through her beauty, +you’ll hate her. Now</i> I <i>hate to think of this happening. She’s a +thousand times better off with me than she ever could be with you. +Perhaps my maternal instinct has gone off the lines a bit and fixed +itself on Lily. And yet I don’t think it’s anything so sickly as +sentimental mothering. No, I believe I just like to sit and look at +her. Lily’s rather cross with me for taking her away from “such a +nice boy.” Does that please you? And doesn’t it exactly describe +you? However, I won’t crow. Don’t break the lusters, when you read +this. They belong to Fatty. What I suggest for you is a walk in +Kensington Gardens to the refrain of “Blast the whole bloody +world!” Now look shocked, my little Vandyck.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><i>S. S.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael tore the letter up. He did not want to read and re-read it for +the rest of the day. His eyelids were pricking unpleasantly, and he went +out to find Mrs. Gainsborough. He was really sensitive that even a room +should witness such a discomfiture. The landlady was downstairs in the +kitchen, where he had not yet been. In this room of copper pots and +pans, with only the garden in view, she might have been a farmer’s wife.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” she said. “And make yourself at home.”<a name="page_546" id="page_546"></a></p> + +<p>“Will you sit down?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, yes, if it’s any pleasure to you.” She took off her apron and +seated herself, smoothing the bombasine skirt over her knees.</p> + +<p>A tabby cat purred between them; a kettle was singing; and there was a +smell of allspice.</p> + +<p>“You really don’t know where the girls have gone?” Michael began.</p> + +<p>“No more than you do,” she assured him. “But that Sylvia is really a +Turk.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose Lily didn’t tell you that I used to know her six years ago?” +he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, she talked about you a lot. A good deal more than Miss Sylvia +liked, that’s a sure thing.”</p> + +<p>“Well, do you think it’s fair for Sylvia to carry her off like this? I +want to marry Lily, Mrs. Gainsborough.”</p> + +<p>“There, only fancy what a daring that Sylvia has. She’s a nice girl, and +very high-spirited, but she <i>is</i> a Miss Dictatorial.”</p> + +<p>Michael felt encouraged by Mrs. Gainsborough’s attitude, and he made up +his mind to throw himself upon her mercy. Sentiment would be his only +weapon, and he found some irony in the reflection that he had set out +this morning to be a brutal cynic in his treatment of the situation.</p> + +<p>“Do you think it’s fair to try to prevent Lily from marrying me? You +know as well as I do that the life she’s leading now isn’t going to be +the best life possible for her. You’re a woman of the world, Mrs. +Gainsborough——”</p> + +<p>“I was once,” she corrected. “And a very naughty world it was, too.”</p> + +<p>“You were glad, weren’t you, when the Captain brought you to this house? +You were glad to feel secure? You would have married him?”</p> + +<p>“No, I wouldn’t marry him. I preferred to be as I am.<a name="page_547" id="page_547"></a> Still that’s +nothing for Lily to go by. She’s more suited for marriage than what I +was.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think,” Michael went on eagerly, “that if after six years I’m +longing to marry her, I ought to marry her? I know that she might be +much worse off than she is, but equally she might be much better off. +Look here, Mrs. Gainsborough, it’s up to you. You’ve got to make it +possible for me to see her. You’ve got to.”</p> + +<p>“But if I do anything like that,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, “it means I +have an unpleasantness with Sylvia. That girl’s a regular heathen when +she turns nasty. I should be left all alone in my little house. And what +with Spring coming on and all, and the flowers looking so nice in the +garden, I should feel very much the square peg in the round hole.”</p> + +<p>“Lily and I would come and see you,” he promised. “And I don’t think +Sylvia would leave you. She’d never find another house like Mulberry +Cottage or another landlady like you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I daresay; but you can’t tell these things. Once she’s in her +tantrums, there’s no saying what will happen. And, besides, I don’t know +what you want me to do.”</p> + +<p>“I want you to send me word the first moment that Lily’s alone for an +hour; and when I ring, do answer the bell.”</p> + +<p>“Now that wasn’t my fault yesterday,” said Mrs. Gainsborough. “Really I +thought we should have the fire-escape in. The way you nagged at that +poor bell! It was really chronic. But would she let me so much as speak +to you, even with the door only on the jar? Certainly not! And all the +time she was snapping round the house like a young crocodile. And yet +I’m really fond of that girl. Well, when the Captain died, she was a +daughter to me. Oh, she was, she was really a daughter to me. Well, you +see, his sister invited me to the funeral, which I thought was very<a name="page_548" id="page_548"></a> +nice, her being an old maid and very strict. Now, I hardly liked to put +on a widow’s cap and yet I hardly didn’t like to. But Sylvia, she said +not on any account, and I was very glad I didn’t, because there was a +lot of persons there very stand-offish, and I should have been at my +wits to know whatever I was going to say.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said Michael. “When the Captain gave you this house, he +loved you. You were young, weren’t you? You were young and beautiful? +Well, would you like to think your house was going to be used to +separate two people very much in love with each other? You can say I +climbed over the wall. You can make any excuse you like to Sylvia. But, +Mrs. Gainsborough, do, do let me know when Lily is going to be alone. If +she doesn’t want to come away with me, it will be my fault, and that +will be the end of it. If only you’ll help me at the beginning. Will +you? Will you promise to help me?”</p> + +<p>“I never could resist a man,” sighed Mrs. Gainsborough, with +resignation. “There’s a character! Oh, well, it’s my own and no one +else’s, that’s one good job.”</p> + +<p>Michael had to wait until February was nearly over before he heard from +her. It had been very difficult to remain quietly at Cheyne Walk, but he +knew that if he were to show any sign of activity, Sylvia would carry +Lily off again.</p> + +<p>“A person to see you, sir,” said the tortoise-mouthed parlormaid.</p> + +<p>Michael found Mrs. Gainsborough sitting in the hall. She was wearing a +bonnet tied with very bright cerise ribbons.</p> + +<p>“They’ve had a rumpus, the pair of them, this afternoon. And Sylvia’s +gone off in the sulks. I really was quite aggravated with her. Oh, she’s +a willful spitfire, that girl, sometimes. She really is.”<a name="page_549" id="page_549"></a></p> + +<p>Michael was coming away without a coat or hat, and Mrs. Gainsborough +stopped him.</p> + +<p>“Now don’t behave like a silly. Dress yourself properly and don’t make +me run. I’m getting stout, you know,” she protested.</p> + +<p>“We’ll get a hansom.”</p> + +<p>“What, ride in a hansom? Never! A four-wheeler if you <i>like</i>.”</p> + +<p>It was difficult to find a four-wheeler, and Michael was nearly mad with +impatience.</p> + +<p>“Now don’t upset yourself. Sylvia won’t be back to-night, and there’s no +need to tug at me as if I was a cork in a bottle. People will think +we’re a walking poppy-show, if you don’t act more quiet. They’re all +turning round to stare at us.”</p> + +<p>A four-wheeler appeared presently, and very soon they were walking down +Tinderbox Lane. Michael felt rather like a little boy out with his +nurse, as he kept turning back to exhort Mrs. Gainsborough to come more +quickly. She grew more and more red in the face, and so wheezy that he +was afraid something would happen to her, and for a few yards made no +attempt to hurry her along. At last they reached Mulberry Cottage.</p> + +<p>“Supposing Sylvia has come back!” he said.</p> + +<p>“I keep on telling you she’s gone away for the night. Now get on indoors +with you. You’ve nearly been my death.”</p> + +<p>“I say, you don’t know how grateful I am to you!” Michael exclaimed, +turning round and grasping her fat hands.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough shouted upstairs to Lily as loudly as her +breathlessness would permit:</p> + +<p>“I’ve brought you back that surprise packet I promised.”</p> + +<p>Then she vanished, and Michael waited for Lily at the<a name="page_550" id="page_550"></a> foot of the +stairs. She came down very soon, looking very straight and slim in her +philamot frock of Chinese crêpe that so well became her. Soon she was in +his arms and glad enough to be petted after Sylvia’s rages.</p> + +<p>“Lily, how can you bear to let Sylvia manage you like this? It’s +absolutely intolerable.”</p> + +<p>“She’s been horrid to me to-day,” said Lily resentfully.</p> + +<p>“Well, why do you put up with it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. I hate always squabbling. It’s much easier to give +way to her, and usually I don’t much mind.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t much mind whether we’re married!” Michael exclaimed. “How can +you let Sylvia persuade you against marriage? Darling girl, if you marry +me you shall do just as you like. I simply want you to look beautiful. +You’d be happy married to me—you really would.”</p> + +<p>“Sylvia says marriage is appallingly dull, and my mother and father +didn’t get on, and Doris doesn’t get on with the man she’s married to. +In fact, everybody seems to hate it.”</p> + +<p>“Do you hate me?” Michael demanded.</p> + +<p>“No, I think you’re awfully sweet.”</p> + +<p>“Well, why don’t you marry me? You’ll have plenty of money and nothing +to bother about. I think you’d thoroughly enjoy being married.”</p> + +<p>For an instant, as he argued with her, Michael wavered in his resolve. +For an instant it seemed, after all, impossible to marry this girl. A +chill came over him, but he shook it off, and he saw only her +loveliness, the eyes sullen with thoughts of Sylvia, the lips pouting at +the remembrance of a tyranny. And again as he watched her beauty, the +bitter thought crossed his mind that it would be easier to possess her +without marriage. Then he thought of her at seventeen. “<i>Michael, why do +you make me love you so?</i>” Was that the last protest she ever made +against the thralldom of<a name="page_551" id="page_551"></a> passion? If it was, the blame must primarily +be his, since he had not heeded her reproach.</p> + +<p>“Lily,” he cried, catching her to him. “You’re coming away with me now.”</p> + +<p>He kissed her a hundred times.</p> + +<p>“Now! Now! Do you hear me?”</p> + +<p>She surrendered to his will, and as he held her Michael thought grimly +what an absurd paradox it was, that in order to make her consent to +marry him, he like the others must play upon the baser side of her +yielding nature. There were difficulties of packing and of choosing +frocks and hats, but Michael had his way through them all.</p> + +<p>“Quite an elopement,” Mrs. Gainsborough proclaimed.</p> + +<p>“A very virtuous elopement,” said Michael, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>“Oh, but shan’t I catch it when that Hottentot comes back!”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s Sylvia’s fault,” said Lily fretfully. “She shouldn’t worry +me all the time to know whether I like her better than anyone else in +the world.”</p> + +<p>The man arrived with a truck for the luggage.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” Mrs. Gainsborough asked. “I declare, you’re like +two babes in the wood.”</p> + +<p>“To my sister’s in Huntingdonshire,” said Michael, and he wrote out the +address.</p> + +<p>“Oh, in the country! Well, Summer’ll be on us before we know where we +are. I declare, my snowdrops are quite finished.”</p> + +<p>“Is your sister pretty?” Lily asked, as they were driving to King’s +Cross.</p> + +<p>“She’s handsome,” said Michael. “You’ll like her, I think. And her +husband was a great friend of mine. By the way, I must send a wire to +say we’re coming.”<a name="page_552" id="page_552"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII-a" id="CHAPTER_VII-a"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>THE GATE OF IVORY</h4> + +<p>It was only when he was sitting opposite to Lily in a first class +compartment that Michael began to wonder if their sudden arrival would +create a kind of consternation at Hardingham. He managed to reassure +himself when he looked at her. The telegram might have puzzled Stella, +but in meeting Lily she would understand his action. Nevertheless, he +felt a little anxious when he saw the Hardingham brougham waiting +outside the little station. The cold drive of four miles through the +still, misty evening gave him too long to meditate the consequences of +his action. Impulse was very visibly on trial, and he began to fear a +little Stella’s judgment of it. The carriage-lamps splashed the +hedgerows monotonously, and the horses’ breath curled round the rigid +form of the coachman. Trees, hedges, gates, signposts went past in the +blackness and chill. Michael drew Lily close, and asked in a whisper if +she were happy.</p> + +<p>“It makes me sleepy driving like this,” she murmured. Her head was on +his shoulder; the astrakan collar was silky to his chin. So she traveled +until they reached the gates of the park: then Michael woke her up.</p> + +<p>There was not time to do much but dress quickly for dinner when they +arrived, though Michael watched Stella’s glances rather anxiously.</p> + +<p>Lily put on a chiffon frock, of aquamarine, and, though she looked +beautiful in it, he wished she had worn black:<a name="page_553" id="page_553"></a> this frock made her seem +a little theatrical, he fancied; or was it the effect of her against the +stern dining-room, and nothing whatever to do with the frock? Stella, +too, whom he had always considered a personality of some extravagance, +seemed to have grown suddenly very stiff and conventional. It used +always to be himself who criticized people: Stella had always been +rather too lenient. Perhaps it was being married to Alan; or was Lily +the reason? Yet superficially everything seemed to be going all right, +especially when he consoled himself by remembering the abruptness of +Lily’s introduction. After dinner Stella took Lily away with her into +the drawing-room and left Michael with Alan. Michael tried to feel that +this was what he had expected would happen; but he could not drive away +the consciousness of a new formality brooding over Hardingham. It was +annoying, too, the way in which Alan seemed deliberately to avoid any +reference to Lily. He would not even remind Michael of the evening at +the Drury Lane pantomime, when he had met her five or six years ago. +Perhaps he had forgotten driving home in a cab with her sister on that +occasion. Michael grew exasperated by his talk about cricket pitches; +and yet he could not bring himself to ask right out what Alan thought of +her, because it would have impinged upon his pride to do so. In about +ten minutes they heard the sound of the piano, and tacitly they agreed +to forego the intimacy of drinking port together any longer.</p> + +<p>Stella closed the piano with a slam when they came into the +drawing-room, and asked Lily if she would like some bridge.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. I hate playing cards. But you play.”</p> + +<p>It was for Michael a nervous evening. He was perpetually on guard for +hostile criticism; he was terribly anxious that Lily should make a good +impression. Everything seemed<a name="page_554" id="page_554"></a> to go wrong. Games were begun and ended +almost in the same breath. Finally he managed to find a song that Lily +thought she remembered, and Stella played her accompaniment very +aggressively, Michael fancied; for by this time he regarded the +slightest movement on her part or Alan’s as an implication of +disapproval. Lily was tired, luckily, and was ready to go to bed early.</p> + +<p>When Stella came down again, Michael felt he ought to supplement the few +details of his telegram, and it began to seem almost impossible to +explain reasonably his arrival here with Lily. An account of Tinderbox +Lane would sound fantastic: a hint of Lily’s life would be fatal. He +found himself enmeshed in a vague tale of having found her very hard up +and of wishing to get her away from the influence of a rather depressing +home. It sounded very unconvincing as he told it, but he hoped that the +declaration of his intention to marry her at once would smother +everything else in a great surprise.</p> + +<p>“Of course, that’s what I imagined you were thinking of doing,” said +Stella. “So you’ve made up your quarrel of five years ago?”</p> + +<p>“When are you going to get married?” Alan asked.</p> + +<p>“Well, I hoped you’d be able to have us here for a week or so, or at any +rate Lily, while I go up to town and find a place for us to live.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course she can stay here,” said Stella.</p> + +<p>“Oh, rather, of course,” Alan echoed.</p> + +<p>Next morning it rained hard, and Michael thought he saw Stella making +signs of dissent when at breakfast Alan proposed taking him over to a +farm a couple of miles away. He was furious to think that Stella was +objecting to being left alone with Lily, and he retired to the +billiard-room, where he spent half an hour playing a game with himself +between spot and plain, a game which produced long breaks<a name="page_555" id="page_555"></a> that seemed +quite unremarkable, so profound was the trance of vexation in which he +was plunged.</p> + +<p>A fortnight passed, through the whole of which Alan never once referred +to Lily; and, as Michael was always too proud to make the first advance +toward the topic, he felt that his friendship with Alan was being slowly +chipped away. He knew that Stella, on the other hand, was rather anxious +to talk to him, but perversely he avoided giving her any opportunity. As +for Lily, she seemed perfectly happy doing nothing and saying very +little. Obviously, however, this sort of existence under the shadow of +disapproval could not continue much longer, and Michael determined to +come to grips with the situation. Therefore, one morning of strong +easterly wind when Lily wanted to stay indoors, he proposed a walk to +Stella.</p> + +<p>They crossed three or four fields in complete silence, the dogs +scampering to right and left, the gale crimsoning their cheeks.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I care much for this country of yours,” said Michael at +last. “It’s flat and cold and damp. Why on earth you ever thought I +should care to live here, I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a wood about a quarter of a mile farther on. We can get out of +the wind there.”</p> + +<p>Michael resented Stella’s pleasantness. He wanted her to be angry and so +launch him easily upon the grievances he had been storing up for a +fortnight.</p> + +<p>“I hate badly trained dogs,” he grumbled when Stella turned round to +whistle vainly for one of the spaniels.</p> + +<p>“So do I,” she agreed.</p> + +<p>It was really unfair of her to effect a deadlock by being perpetually +and unexpectedly polite. He would try being gracious himself: it was +easier in the shelter of the wood.<a name="page_556" id="page_556"></a></p> + +<p>“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for having us to stay down +here,” he began.</p> + +<p>Stella stopped dead in the middle of the glade:</p> + +<p>“Look here, do you want me to talk about this business?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>Her use of the word “business” annoyed him: it crystallized all the +offensiveness, as he was now calling it to himself, of her sisterly +attitude these two weeks.</p> + +<p>“I shall be delighted to talk about this ‘business.’ Though why you +should refer to my engagement as if a hot-water pipe had burst, I don’t +quite know.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want me to speak out frankly—to say exactly what I think of you +and Lily and of your marrying her? You won’t like it, and I won’t do it +unless you ask me.”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” said Michael gloomily. Stella had gathered the dogs round her +again, and in this glade she appeared to Michael as a severe Artemis +with her short tweed skirt and her golf-coat swinging from her shoulders +like a chlamys. These oaks were hers: the starry moss was hers: the +anemones flushing and silvering to the ground wind, they were all hers. +It suddenly struck him as monstrously unfair that Stella should be able +to criticize Lily. Here she stood on her own land forever secure against +the smallest ills that could come to the other girl; and, with this +consciousness of a strength behind her, already she was conveying that +rustic haughtiness of England. Michael loved her, this cool and +indomitable mistress of Hardingham; but while he loved her, almost he +hated her for the power she had to look down on Lily. Michael wished he +had Sylvia with him. That would have been a royal battle in this wood. +Stella with her dogs and trees behind her, with her green acres all +round her and the very wind fighting for her, might yet have found it +difficult to discomfit Sylvia.</p> + +<p>“Go on, I’m waiting for you to begin,” Michael repeated.<a name="page_557" id="page_557"></a></p> + +<p>“Straight off, then,” she said, “I may as well tell you that this +marriage is impossible. I don’t know where you found her again, and I +don’t care. It wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me what she had +been, if I thought she had a chance of ever being anything else. But, +Michael, she’s flabby. You’ll hate me for saying so, but she is, she +really is! In a year you’ll admit that; you’ll see her growing older and +flabbier, more and more vain; emptier and emptier, if that’s possible. +Even her beauty won’t last. These very fair girls fall to pieces like +moth-eaten dolls. I’ve tried to find something in her during this +fortnight. I’ve tried and tried; but there’s nothing. You may be in love +with her now, though I don’t believe you are. I think it’s all a piece +of sentimentalism. I’ve often teased you about getting married, but +please don’t suppose that I haven’t realized how almost impossible it +would be, ever to find a woman that would stand the wear and tear of +your idealism. I’m prepared to bet that behind your determination to +marry this girl there’s a reason, a lovely, unpractical, idealistic +reason. Isn’t there? You’ve been away with her for a week-end, and have +tortured yourself into a theory of reparation. Is that it? Or you’ve +fallen in love with the notion of yourself in love at eighteen. Oh, you +can’t marry her, you foolish old darling.”</p> + +<p>“Your oratory would be more effective if you wouldn’t keep whistling to +that infernal dog,” said Michael. “If this marriage is so terrible, I +should have thought you’d have forgotten there were such animals as +cocker-spaniels. It’s rubbish for you to say you’ve tried to find +something in Lily. You haven’t made the slightest attempt. You’ve +criticized her from the moment she entered the house. You’re sunk deep +already in the horrible selfishness of being happy. A happy marriage is +the most devastating joint egotism in the world. Damn it, Stella, when +you were<a name="page_558" id="page_558"></a> making a fool of yourself with half the men in Europe, I +didn’t talk as you’ve been talking to me.”</p> + +<p>“No, you were always very cautiously fraternal,” said Stella. “Ah, no, I +won’t say bitter things, for, Michael, I adore you; and you’ll break my +heart if you marry this girl.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t do anything of the kind,” he contradicted. “You’ll be +whistling to spaniels all the time.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, it’s really unkind of you to try and make me laugh, when I’m +feeling so wretched about you.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all fine for you to sneer at Lily,” said Michael. “But I can +remember your coming back from Vienna and crying all day in your room +over some man who’d made a fool of you. <i>You</i> looked pretty flabby +then.”</p> + +<p>“How dare you remind me of that?” Stella cried, in a fury. “How dare +you? How dare you?”</p> + +<p>“You brought it on yourself,” said Michael coldly.</p> + +<p>“You’re going to pieces already under the influence of that girl. Marry +her, then! But don’t come to me for sympathy, when she’s forced you to +drag yourself through the divorce court.”</p> + +<p>“No, I shall take care not to come to you for anything ever again,” said +Michael bitterly. “Unless it’s for advice when I want to buy a spaniel.”</p> + +<p>They had turned again in the direction of the Hall, and over the windy +fields they walked silently. Michael was angry with himself for having +referred to that Vienna time. After all, it had been the only occasion +on which he had seen Stella betray a hint of weakness; besides, she had +always treated him generously in the matter of confidences. He looked +sidelong at her, but she walked on steadily, and he wondered if she +would tell Alan that they had been nearer to quarreling than so far they +had ever been. Perhaps this sort of thing was inevitable with marriage. +Chains of sympathy and affection forged to last eternally were smashed<a name="page_559" id="page_559"></a> +by marriage in a moment. He had heard nothing said about Stella’s music +lately. Was that also to vanish on account of marriage? The sooner he +and Lily left Hardingham, the better. He supposed he ought to suggest +going immediately. But Lily would be a problem until he could find a +place for her to live, and someone to chaperone her. They would be +married next month, and he would take her abroad. He would be able to +see her at last in some of the places where in days gone by he had +dreamed of seeing her.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you wouldn’t object to keeping Lily here two or three days +more, while I find a place in town?” said Michael. It only struck him +when the request was out how much it sounded like asking for a favor. +Stella would despise him more than ever.</p> + +<p>“Michael,” Stella exclaimed, turning round and stopping in his path. +“Once more I beg you to give up this idea of marriage. Surely you can +realize how deeply I feel about it, when even after what you said I’m +willing actually to plead with you. It’s intolerable to think of you +tied to her!”</p> + +<p>“It’s too late,” said Michael. “I must marry her. Not for any reasons +that the world would consider reasons,” he went on. “But because I want +to marry her. The least you can do for me is to pretend to support me +before the world.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! It’s all wrong. She’s all wrong. Her people +are all wrong. Why, even Alan remembers them as dreadful, and you know +how casual he is about people he doesn’t like. He usually flings them +out of his mind at once.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Alan’s amazing in every way,” said Michael. He longed to say that +he and Lily would go by the first train possible, but he dreaded so much +the effect of bringing her back to London without any definite place to +which she could go, that he was willing to leave her here for a few<a name="page_560" id="page_560"></a> +days, if she would stay. He hated himself for doing this, but the +problems of marriage and Lily were growing unwieldy. He wished now that +he had asked his mother to come back, so that he could have taken Lily +to Cheyne Walk. It was stupid to let himself be caught unprepared like +this. After all, perhaps it would be a good thing to leave Lily and +Stella together for a bit. As he was going to marry her and as he could +not face the possibility of quarreling with Stella finally, it would be +better to pocket his pride.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Stella caught hold of his arm.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” she said. “You absurd old Quixote, listen. I’m going to do +all in my power to stop your marrying Lily. But meanwhile go up to town +and leave her here. I promise to declare a truce of a fortnight, if +you’ll promise me not to marry her until the middle of April. By a truce +I mean that I’ll be charming to her and take no steps to influence her +to give you up. But after the fortnight it must be war, even if you win +in the end and marry her.”</p> + +<p>“Does that mean we should cease to be on speaking terms?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, of course; as a matter of fact, if you marry her, I suppose we +shall all settle down together and be great friends, until she lands you +in the divorce court with half a dozen co-respondents. Then you’ll come +and live with us at Hardingham, a confirmed cynic and the despair of all +the eligible young women in the neighborhood.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that about Lily,” said Michael, frowning.</p> + +<p>“The truce has begun,” Stella declared. “For a fortnight I’ll be an +angel.”</p> + +<p>Just before dusk was falling, the gale died away, and Michael persuaded +Lily to come for a walk with him. Almost unconsciously he took her to +the wood where he<a name="page_561" id="page_561"></a> and Stella had talked so angrily in the morning. +Chaffinches flashed their silver wings about them in the fading light.</p> + +<p>“Lily, you look adorable in this glade,” he told her. “I believe, if you +were a little way off from me, I should think you were a birch tree.”</p> + +<p>The wood was rosy brown and purple. Every object had taken on rich deeps +of quality and color reflected from the March twilight. The body of the +missel-thrush flinging his song from the bare oak-bough into the ragged +sky, flickered with a magical sublucency. Michael found some primroses +and brought them to Lily.</p> + +<p>“These are for you, you tall tall primrose of a girl. Listen, will you +let me leave you for a very few days so that I can find the house you’re +going to live in? Will you not be lonely?”</p> + +<p>“I like to have you with me always,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>He was intoxicated by so close an avowal of love from lips that were +usually mute.</p> + +<p>“We shall be married in a month,” he cried. “Can you smell violets?”</p> + +<p>“Something sweet I smell.”</p> + +<p>But it was getting too dusky in the coppice to find these violets +themselves twilight-hued, and they turned homeward across the open +fields. Birds were flying to the coverts, linnets mostly, in twittering +companies.</p> + +<p>“These eves of early Spring are like swords,” Michael exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Like what?” Lily asked, smiling at his exaggeration.</p> + +<p>“Like swords. They seem to cut one through and through with their +sharpness and sweetness.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you mean it’s cold,” she said. “Take my arm.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I meant rather more than that, really,” Michael laughed. But +because she had offered him her arm he forgot<a name="page_562" id="page_562"></a> at once how far she had +been from following his thoughts.</p> + +<p>Michael went up to London after dinner. He left Lily curled up before +the fire presumably quite content to stay at Hardingham.</p> + +<p>“Not more than a fortnight, mind,” were Stella’s last words.</p> + +<p>He went to see Maurice next morning to get the benefit of his advice +about possible places in which to live. Maurice was in his element.</p> + +<p>“Of course there really are very few good places. Cheyne Walk and +Grosvenor Road, the Albany, parts of Hampstead and Campden Hill, +Kensington Square, one or two streets near the Regent’s Canal, Adelphi +Terrace, the Inns of Court and Westminster. Otherwise, London is +impossible. But you’re living in Cheyne Walk now. Why do you want to +move from there?”</p> + +<p>Michael made up his mind to take Maurice into his confidence. He +supposed that of all his friends he would be as likely as any to be +sympathetic. Maurice was delighted by his description of Lily, so much +delighted, that he accepted her as a fact without wanting to know who +she was or where Michael had met her.</p> + +<p>“By Jove, I must hurry up and find my girl. But I don’t think I’m +desperately keen to get married yet. I vote for a house near the Canal, +if we can find the right one.”</p> + +<p>That afternoon they set out.</p> + +<p>They changed their minds and went to Hampstead first, where Maurice was +very anxious to take a large Georgian house with a garden of about +fifteen acres. He offered to move himself and Castleton from Grosvenor +Road in order to occupy one of the floors, and he was convinced that the +stable would be very useful if they wanted to start a printing press.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but we don’t want to start a printing press,”<a name="page_563" id="page_563"></a> Michael objected. +“And really, Mossy, I think twenty-three bedrooms more than one servant +can manage.”</p> + +<p>It was with great reluctance that Maurice gave up the idea of this +house, and he was so much depressed by the prospect of considering +anything less huge that he declared Hampstead was impossible, and they +went off to Regent’s Park.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you’re likely to find anything so good as that house,” +Maurice said gloomily. “In fact, I know you won’t. I wish I could afford +to take it myself. I should, like a shot. Castleton could be at the +Temple just as soon from there.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why he should bother about the Temple,” said Michael. “That +house was rather bigger.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never find another house like it,” Maurice prophesied. “Look at +this neighborhood we’re driving through now. Impossible to live here!”</p> + +<p>They were in the Hampstead Road.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t any intention of doing so,” Michael laughed. “But there +remains the neighborhood of the canal, the neighborhood you originally +suggested. Hampstead was an afterthought.”</p> + +<p>“Wonderful house!” Maurice sighed. “I shall always regret you didn’t +take it.”</p> + +<p>However, when they had paid off the cab, he became interested by the new +prospect; and they wandered for a while, peering through fantastic +railings at houses upon the steep banks of the canal, houses that seemed +to have been stained to a sad green by the laurels planted close around +them. Nothing feasible for a lodging was discovered near Regent’s Park; +and they crossed St. John’s Wood and Maida Vale, walking on until they +reached a point where at the confluence of two branches the canal became +a large triangular sheet of water. Occupying the whole length of<a name="page_564" id="page_564"></a> the +base of this triangle and almost level with the water, stood the garden +of a very large square house.</p> + +<p>“There’s a curious place,” said Michael. “How on earth does one get at +it?”</p> + +<p>They followed the road, which was considerably higher than the level of +the canal, and found that the front door was reached by an entrance down +a flight of steps.</p> + +<p>“Ararat House,” Michael read.</p> + +<p>“Flat to let,” Maurice read.</p> + +<p>“I think this looks rather promising,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>It was an extraordinary pile, built in some Palladian nightmare. A +portico of dull crimson columns ran round three sides of the house, +under a frieze of bearded masks. The windows were all very large, and so +irregularly placed as completely to destroy the classic illusion. The +stucco had been painted a color that was neither pink nor cream nor +buff, but a mixture of all three; and every bit of space left by the +windows was filled with banderoles of illegible inscriptions and with +plaster garlands, horns, lyres, urns, and Grecian helmets. There must +have been half an acre of garden round it, a wilderness of shrubs and +rank grass with here and there a dislustered conservatory. The house +would have seemed uninhabitable save for the announcement of the flat to +be let, which was painted on a board roped to one of the columns.</p> + +<p>They descended the steps and pressed a bell marked Housekeeper. Yes, +there was a flat to let on the ground floor; in fact, the whole of the +ground floor with the exception of this part of the hall and the rooms +on either side. The housekeeper threw her apron over her shoulder like a +plaid and unlocked a door in a wooden partition that divided the flat +called Number One from the rest of Ararat House.</p> + +<p>They passed through and examined the two gaunt bedrooms:<a name="page_565" id="page_565"></a> one of them +had an alcove, which pleased Michael very much. He decided that without +much difficulty it could be made to resemble a Carpaccio interior. The +dining-room was decorated with Spanish leather and must have been very +brilliantly lit by the late tenants, for everywhere from the ceiling and +walls electric wires protruded like asps. There was also a murky +kitchen; and finally the housekeeper led the way through double doors +into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>As soon as he had stepped inside, Michael was sure that he and Lily must +live here.</p> + +<p>It was a room that recalled at the first glance one of those gigantic +saloons in ancient Venetian palaces; but as he looked about him he +decided that any assignment in known topography was absurd. It was a +room at once for Werther, for Taglioni, for the nocturnes of Chopin and +the cameos of Théophile Gautier. Beckford might have filled it with +orient gewgaws; Barbey d’Aurevilly could have strutted here; and in a +corner Villiers de l’Isle Adam might have sat fiercely. The room was a +tatterdemalion rococo barbarized more completely by gothic +embellishments that nevertheless gave it the atmosphere of the fantasts +with whom Michael had identified it.</p> + +<p>“But this is like a scene in a pantomime,” Maurice exclaimed.</p> + +<p>It was indeed like a scene in a pantomime, and a proscenium was wanted +to frame suitably the effect of those fluted pillars that supported the +ceiling with their groined arches. The traceries of the latter were +gilded, and the spaces between were painted with florid groups of nymphs +and cornucopias. At either end of the room were large fireplaces +fructuated with marble pears and melons, and the floor was a parquet of +black and yellow lozenges.</p> + +<p>“It’s hideous,” Maurice exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The housekeeper stood aside, watching impersonally.<a name="page_566" id="page_566"></a></p> + +<p>“Hideous but rather fascinating,” Michael said. “Look at the queer +melancholy light, and look at the view.”</p> + +<p>It was, after all, the view which gave the character of romance to the +room. Eight French windows, whose shutters one by one the housekeeper +had opened while they were talking, admitted a light that was much +subdued by the sprays of glossy evergreen outside. Seen through their +leaves, the garden appeared to be a green twilight in which the statues +and baskets of chipped and discolored stone had an air of overthrown +magnificence. The housekeeper opened one of the windows, and they walked +out into the wilderness, where ferns were growing on rockeries of slag +and old tree-stumps; where the paths were smeared with bright green +slime, with moss and sodden vegetation. They came to a wider path +running by the bank of the canal, and, pausing here, they pondered the +sheet of dead water where two swans were gliding slowly round an islet +and where the reflections of the house beyond lay still and deep +everywhere along the edge. The distant cries of London floated sharply +down the air; smuts were falling perpetually; the bitter March air +diffused in a dull sparkle tasted of the city’s breath: the circling of +the swans round their islet made everything else the more immotionable.</p> + +<p>“In summer this will be wonderful,” Michael predicted.</p> + +<p>“On summer nights those swans will be swimming about among the stars,” +Maurice said.</p> + +<p>“Except that they’ll probably have retired to bed,” Michael pointed out.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if they build their nests on chimney-tops like storks,” +Maurice laughed.</p> + +<p>“Let’s ask the housekeeper,” Michael said solemnly.</p> + +<p>They went back into the drawing-room, and more than ever did it seem +exactly the room one would expect to enter after pondering that dead +water without.<a name="page_567" id="page_567"></a></p> + +<p>“Who lives in the other flats?” Michael inquired of the housekeeper.</p> + +<p>“There’s four others,” she began. “Up above there’s Colonel and Mrs....”</p> + +<p>“I see,” Michael interrupted. “Just ordinary people. Do they ever go +out? Or do they sit and peer at the water all day from behind strange +curtains?”</p> + +<p>The housekeeper stared at him.</p> + +<p>“They play tennis and croquet a good deal in the summer, sir. The courts +is on the other side of the house. Mr. Gartside is the gentleman to see +about the flat.”</p> + +<p>She gave Michael the address, and that afternoon he settled to take +Number One, Ararat House.</p> + +<p>“It absolutely was made to set her off,” he told Maurice. “You wait till +I’ve furnished it as it ought to be furnished.”</p> + +<p>“And we’ll have amazing fêtes aqueuses in the summer,” Maurice declared. +“We’ll buy a barge and—why, of course—the canal flows into the Thames +at Grosvenor Road.”</p> + +<p>“Underground—like the Styx,” said Michael, nodding.</p> + +<p>“Of course, it’s going to be wonderful. We must never visit each other +except by water.”</p> + +<p>“Like splendid dead Venetians,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>The fortnight of Lily’s stay at Hardingham was spent by him and Maurice +in a fever of decoration. Michael bought oval mirrors of Venetian glass; +oblong mirrors crowned with gilt griffins and scallops; small round +mirrors in frames of porcelain garlanded with flowerbuds; so many +mirrors that the room became even more mysteriously vast. The walls were +hung with brocades of gold and philamot and pomona green. There were +slim settees the color of ivory, with cushions of primrose and lemon +satin, of cinnamon and canary citron and worn russet silks. Over the +parquet was a great gray Aubusson carpet with a design of monstrous<a name="page_568" id="page_568"></a> +roses as deep as damsons or burgundy; and from the ceiling hung two +chandeliers of cut glass.</p> + +<p>“You know,” said Maurice seriously, “she’ll have to be very beautiful to +carry this off.”</p> + +<p>“She is very beautiful,” said Michael. “And there’s room for her to walk +about here. She’ll move about this room as wonderfully as those swans +upon the canal.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, what’s happened to you? You’re becoming as eccentric as me.” +Maurice looked at him rather jealously. “And, I say, do you really want +me to come with you to King’s Cross to-morrow afternoon?”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“After you’ve helped to gather together this room, you deserve to see +the person we’ve done it for.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but look here. Who’s going to stay in the flat with her? You can’t +leave her alone until you’re married. As you told me the story, it +sounded very romantic; but if she’s going to be your wife, you’ve got to +guard her reputation.”</p> + +<p>Michael had never given Maurice more than a slight elaboration of the +tale which had served for Stella; and he thought how much more romantic +Maurice would consider the affair if he knew the whole truth. He felt +inclined to tell him, but he doubted his ability to keep it to himself.</p> + +<p>“I thought of getting hold of some elderly woman,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well, but you ought to have been doing it all this +time.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know anybody?”</p> + +<p>“I? Great scott, no!”</p> + +<p>They were walking toward Chelsea, and presently Maurice had to leave him +for an appointment.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow afternoon then at King’s Cross,” he said, and jumped on an +omnibus.</p> + +<p>Michael walked along in a quandary. Whom on earth<a name="page_569" id="page_569"></a> could he get to stay +with Lily? Would it not be better to marry at once? But that would +involve breaking his promise to Stella. If he asked Mrs. Gainsborough, +it would mean Sylvia knowing where Lily was. If, on the other hand, he +should employ a strange woman, Lily might dislike her. Could he ask Mrs. +Ross to come up to town? No, of course, that was absurd. It looked as if +he would have to ask Mrs. Gainsborough. Or why not ask Sylvia herself? +In that case, why establish Lily at Ararat House before they were +married? This marriage had seemed so very easy an achievement; but +slowly it was turning into an insoluble complex. He might sound Sylvia +upon her attitude. It would enormously simplify everything if she would +consent; and if she consented she would, he believed, play fair with +him. The longer Michael thought about it, the more it seemed the safest +course to call in Sylvia’s aid. He was almost hailing a hansom to go to +Tinderbox Lane, when he realized how foolish it would be not to try to +sever Lily completely from the life she had been leading in Sylvia’s +company. Not even ought he to expose her to the beaming laxity of Mrs. +Gainsborough.</p> + +<p>Michael had reached Notting Hill Gate, and, still pondering the problem +which had destroyed half the pleasure of the enterprise, he caught sight +of a Registry for servants. Why not employ two servants, two of the +automatons who simplified life as it was simplified in Cheyne Walk? Then +he remembered that he had forgotten to make any attempt to equip the +kitchen. Surely Lily would be able to help with that. He entered the +Registry and interviewed a severe woman wearing glasses, who read in a +sing-song the virtues of a procession of various automatons seeking +situations as cooks and housemaids.</p> + +<p>“What wages do you wish to give?”<a name="page_570" id="page_570"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, the usual wages,” Michael said. “But I rather want these servants +to-day.”</p> + +<p>He made an appointment to interview half a dozen after lunch. He chose +the first two that presented themselves, and told them to come round to +Ararat House. Here he threw himself on their mercy and begged them to +make a list of what was wanted in the kitchen. They gave notice on the +spot, and Michael rushed off to the Registry again. To the severe woman +in glasses he explained the outlines of the situation and made her +promise to suit him by to-morrow at midday. She suggested a capable +housekeeper; and next morning a hard-featured, handsome woman very well +dressed in the fashion of about 1892 arrived at Ararat House. She +undertook to find someone to help, and also to procure at once the +absolute necessities for the kitchen. Miss Harper was a great relief to +Michael, though he did not think he liked her very much; and he made up +his mind to get rid of her, as soon as some sort of domestic comfort was +perceptible. Lily would arrive about four o’clock, and he drove off to +King’s Cross to meet her. He felt greatly excited by the prospect of +introducing her to Maurice, who for a wonder was punctually waiting for +him on the platform.</p> + +<p>Lily evidently liked Maurice, and Michael was rather disappointed when +he said he could not come back with them to assist at the first entry +into Ararat House. Maurice had certainly given him to understand that he +was free this afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Look in at Grosvenor Road on your way home to-night,” said Maurice. “Or +will you be very late?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I shan’t be late,” Michael answering, flushing. He had a notion +that Maurice was implying a suspicion of him by his invitation. It +seemed as if he were testing his behavior.</p> + +<p>Lily liked the rooms; and, although she thought the Carpaccio<a name="page_571" id="page_571"></a> bedroom +was a little bare, it was soon strewn with her clothes, and made thereby +inhabitable.</p> + +<p>“And of course,” said Michael, “you’ve got to buy lots and lots of +clothes this fortnight. How much do you want to spend? Two +hundred—three hundred pounds?”</p> + +<p>The idea of buying clothes on such a scale of extravagance seemed to +delight her, and she kissed him, he thought almost for the first time, +in mere affection without a trace of passion. Michael felt happy that he +had so much money for her to spend, and he was glad that no one had been +given authority to interfere with his capital. There flashed through his +mind a comparison of himself with the Chevalier des Grieux, and, +remembering how soon that money had come to an end, he was glad that +Lily would not be exposed to the temptation which had ruined Manon.</p> + +<p>“And do you like Miss Harper?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she seems all right.”</p> + +<p>They went out to dine in town, and came back about eleven to find the +flat looking wonderfully settled. Michael confessed how much he had +forgotten to order, but Lily talked of her dresses and took no interest +in household affairs.</p> + +<p>“I think I ought to go now,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, stay a little longer.”</p> + +<p>But he would not, feeling the violent necessity to impress upon her as +much as possible, during this fortnight before they were married, how +important were the conventions of life, even when it was going to be +lived in so strange a place as Ararat House.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’re going now?” said Miss Harper, looking at him rather +curiously.</p> + +<p>“I shall be round in the morning. You’ll finish making the lists of what +you still want?”<a name="page_572" id="page_572"></a></p> + +<p>Michael felt very deeply plunged into domestic arrangements, as he drove +to Grosvenor Road.</p> + +<p>Maurice was sitting up for him, but Castleton had gone to bed.</p> + +<p>“Look here, old chap,” Maurice began at once, “you can’t possibly marry +that girl.”</p> + +<p>Michael frowned.</p> + +<p>“You too?”</p> + +<p>“I know all about her,” Maurice went on. “I’ve never actually met her, +but I recognized her at once. Even if you did know her people five years +ago, you ought to have taken care to find out what had happened in +between. As a matter of fact, I happen to know a man who’s had an affair +with her—a painter called Walker. Ronnie Walker. He’s often up here. +You’re bound to meet him some time.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, if I never come here again,” said Michael, in a cold rage.</p> + +<p>“It’s no use for you to be angry with me,” said Maurice. “I should be a +rotten friend, if I didn’t warn you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, go to hell!” said Michael, and he marched out of the studio.</p> + +<p>“I’ll die first,” retorted Maurice, grinning.</p> + +<p>Maurice came on the landing and called, begging him to come up and not +to be so hasty, but Michael paid no attention.</p> + +<p>“So much for 422 Grosvenor Road,” he said, slamming the big front door +behind him. He heard Maurice calling to him from the window, but he +walked on without turning his head.</p> + +<p>It was a miserable coincidence that one of his friends should know about +her. It was a disappointment, but it could not be helped. If Maurice +chattered about a disastrous marriage, why, other friends would have to +be dropped in the same way. After all, he had been aware from the<a name="page_573" id="page_573"></a> first +moment of his resolve that this sort of thing was bound to happen. It +left him curiously indifferent.</p> + +<p>A week passed. There were hundreds of daffodils blooming in the garden +round Ararat House; and April bringing an unexpected halcyon was the +very April of the poets whose verses haunted that great rococo room. +Every day Michael went with Lily to dressmakers and worshiped her taste. +Every day he bought her old pieces of jewelry, old fans, or old silver, +or pots of purple hyacinths. He was just conscious that it was London +and the prime of the Spring; but mostly he lived in the enchantment of +her presence. Often they walked up and down the still deserted garden, +by the edge of the canal. The swans used to glide nearer to them, +waiting for bread to be thrown; and Lily would stand with her hair in a +stream of sunlight and her arms moving languidly like the necks of the +birds she was feeding. Nor was she less graceful in the long luminous +dusks under the young moon and the yellow evening star that were shining +upon them as they walked by the edge of the water.</p> + +<p>For a week Michael lived in a city that was become a mere background to +the swoons and fevers of love. He knew that round him houses blinked in +the night and that chimney-smoke curled upward in the morning; that +people paced the streets; that there was a thunder of far-off traffic; +that London was possessed by April. But the heart of life was in this +room, when the candles were lit in the chandeliers and he could see a +hundred Lilies in the mirrors. It seemed wrong to leave her at midnight, +to leave that room so perilously golden with the golden stuffs and +candle-flames. It seemed unfair to surprise Miss Harper by going away at +midnight, when so easily he could have stayed. Yet every night he went +away, however hard it was to leave Lily in her black dress, to leave in +the mirrors those hundred Lilies that drowsily were not forbidding<a name="page_574" id="page_574"></a> him +to stay. Or when she stood under the portico sleepily resting in his +arms, it was difficult to let her turn back alone. How close were their +kisses wrapped in that velvet moonlessness! This was no London that he +knew, this scented city of Spring, this tropic gloom, this mad +innominate cavern that engorged them. The very stars were melting in the +water of the canal: the earth bedewed with fevers of the Spring was warm +as blood: why should he forsake her each night of this week? Yet every +midnight when the heavy clocks buzzed and clamored, Michael left her, +saying that May would come, and June, and another April, when she would +have been his a year.</p> + +<p>The weather veered back in the second week of the fortnight to rawness +and wet. Yet it made no difference to Michael; for he was finding these +days spent with Lily so full of romance that weather was forgotten. They +could not walk in the garden and watch the swans: of nothing else did +the weather deprive him.</p> + +<p>Two days before the marriage was to take place, Mrs. Fane arrived back +from the South of France. Michael was glad to see her, for he was so +deeply infatuated with Lily that his first emotion was of pleasure in +the thought of being able now to bring her to see his mother, and of +taking his mother to see her in Ararat House among those chandeliers and +mirrors.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you wire me to say you were coming?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I came because Stella wrote to me.”</p> + +<p>Michael frowned, and his mother went on:</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t very thoughtful of you to let me know about your marriage +through her. I think you might have managed to write to me about it +yourself.”</p> + +<p>Michael had been so much wrapped up in his arrangements, and apart from +them so utterly engrossed in his secluded<a name="page_575" id="page_575"></a> life with Lily during the +past ten days, that it came upon him with a shock to realize that his +mother might be justified in thinking that he had treated her very +inconsiderately.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me,” he admitted. “But life has been such a +whirl lately that I’ve somehow taken for granted the obvious courtesies. +Besides, Stella was so very unfair to Lily that it rather choked me off +taking anybody else into my confidence. And, mother, why do you begin on +the subject at once, before you’ve even taken your things off?”</p> + +<p>She flung back her furs and regarded him tragically.</p> + +<p>“Michael, how can you dare to think of such trivialities when you are +standing at the edge of this terrible step?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I think I’m perfectly level-headed,” he said, “even on the brink of +disaster.”</p> + +<p>“Such a dreadful journey from Cannes! I wish I’d come back in March as I +meant to. But Mrs. Carruthers was ill, and I couldn’t very well leave +her. She’s always nervous in lifts, and hates the central-heating. I did +not sleep a moment, and a most objectionable couple of Germans in the +next compartment of the wagons-lits used all the water in the +washing-place. So very annoying, for one never expects foreigners to +think about washing. Oh, yes, a dreadful night and all because of you, +and now you ask most cruelly why I don’t take my things off.”</p> + +<p>“There wasn’t any need for you to worry yourself,” he said hotly. +“Stella had no business to scare you with her prejudices.”</p> + +<p>“Prejudices!” his mother repeated. “Prejudice is a very mild word for +what she feels about this dreadful girl you want to marry.”</p> + +<p>“But it is prejudice,” Michael insisted. “She knows nothing against +her.”<a name="page_576" id="page_576"></a></p> + +<p>“She knows a great deal.”</p> + +<p>“How?” he demanded incredulously.</p> + +<p>“You’d better read her letter to me. And I really must go and take off +these furs. It’s stifling in London. So very much hotter than the +Riviera.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fane left him with Stella’s letter.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;">L<small>ONG’S</small> H<small>OTEL</small>,</span><br /> +<i>April 9.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><i>Darling Mother,</i></p> + +<p><i>When you get this you must come</i> at once <i>to London. You are the +only person who can save Michael from marrying the most impossible +creature imaginable. He had a stupid love-affair with her, when he +was eighteen, and I think she treated him badly even then—I +remember his being very upset about it in the summer before my +first concert. Apparently he rediscovered her this winter, and for +some reason or other wants to</i> marry <i>her now. He brought her down +to Hardingham, and I saw then that she was a minx. Alan remembers +her mother as a dreadful woman who tried to make love to him. +Imagine Alan at eighteen being pursued!</i></p> + +<p><i>Of course, I tackled Michael about her, and we had rather a row +about it. We kept her at Hardingham for a month (a fortnight by +herself), and we were bored to death by her. She had nothing to +say, and nothing to do except look at herself in the glass. I had +declared war on the marriage from the moment she left, but I had +only a fortnight to stop it. I was rather in a difficulty because I +knew nothing definite against her, though I was sure that if she +wasn’t a bad lot already, she would be later on. I wrote first of +all to Maurice Avery, who told me that she’d had a not at all +reputable affair with a painter friend of his. It seems, however, +that he had already spoken to Michael about this<a name="page_577" id="page_577"></a> and that Michael +walked out of the house in a rage. Then I came up to town with Alan +and saw Wedderburn, who knew nothing about her and hadn’t seen +Michael for months. Then we got hold of Lonsdale. He has apparently +met her at Covent Garden, and</i> I’m perfectly sure <i>that he has +actually been away with her himself. Though, of course, he was much +too polite to tell me so. He was absolutely horrified when he heard +about her and Michael. I asked him to tell Michael anything he knew +against her, but he didn’t see how he could. He said he wouldn’t +have the heart. I told him it was his duty, but he said he wouldn’t +be able to bear the sight of Michael’s face when he told him. Of +course, the poor darling knows nothing about her. You must come at +once to London and talk to him yourself. You’ve no time to lose. +I’ll meet you if you send me a wire. I’ve no influence over Michael +any more. You’re the only person who can stop it. He’s so sweet +about her. She’s rather lovely to look at, I must say. Lots of love +from Alan and from me.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>Your loving</i></span><br /> +<i>Stella.</i></p></div> + +<p>Michael was touched by Lonsdale’s attitude. It showed, he thought, an +exquisite sensitiveness, and he was grateful for it. Stella had +certainly been very active: but he had foreseen all of this. Nothing was +going to alter his determination. He waited gloomily for his mother to +come down. Of all antagonists she would be the hardest to combat in +argument, because he was debarred from referring to so much that had +weighed heavily with him in his decision. His mother was upstairs such a +very short time that Michael realized with a smile how deeply she must +have been moved. Nothing but this marriage of his had ever brought her +downstairs so rapidly from taking off her things.<a name="page_578" id="page_578"></a></p> + +<p>“Have you read Stella’s letter?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, of course you see that the whole business must be stopped at +once. It’s dreadful for you to hear all these things, and I know you +must be suffering, dearest boy; but you ought to be obliged to Stella +and not resent her interference.”</p> + +<p>“I see that you feel bound to apologize for her,” Michael observed.</p> + +<p>“Now, that is so bitter.”</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I feel rather bitter that she should come charging up to town to find +out things I know already.”</p> + +<p>“Michael! You knew about Lonsdale?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know about him in particular, but I knew that there had been +people. That’s one of the reasons I’m going to marry her.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ll lose all your friends. It would be impossible for you to go +on knowing Lonsdale, for instance.”</p> + +<p>“Marriage seems to destroy friendships in any case,” Michael said. “You +couldn’t have a better example of that than Stella and Alan. I daresay I +shall be able to make new friends.”</p> + +<p>“But, darling boy,” she said pleadingly, “your position will be so +terribly ambiguous. Here you are with everything that you can possibly +want, with any career you choose open to you. And you let yourself be +dragged down by this horrible creature!”</p> + +<p>“Mother, believe me, you’re getting a very distorted idea of Lily. She’s +beautiful, you know; and if she’s not so clever as Stella, I’m rather +glad of it. I don’t think I want a clever wife. At any rate, she hasn’t +committed the sin of being common. She won’t disgrace you outwardly, and +if Stella hadn’t gone round raking up all this abominable<a name="page_579" id="page_579"></a> information +about her you would have liked her very much.”</p> + +<p>“My dearest boy, you are very young, but you surely aren’t too young to +know that it’s impossible to marry a woman whose past is not without +reproach.”</p> + +<p>“But, mother, you ...” he stopped himself abruptly, and looked out of +the window in embarrassment. Yet his mother seemed quite unconscious +that she was using a weapon which could be turned against herself.</p> + +<p>“Will nothing persuade you? Oh, why did Dick Prescott kill himself? I +knew at the time that something like this would happen. You won’t marry +her, you won’t, will you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, mother. I’m going to,” he said coldly.</p> + +<p>“But why so impetuously?” she asked. “Why won’t you wait a little time?”</p> + +<p>“There’s no object in waiting while Stella rakes up a few more facts.”</p> + +<p>“If only your father were alive!” she exclaimed. “It would have shocked +him so inexpressibly.”</p> + +<p>“He felt so strongly the unwisdom of marriage, didn’t he?” Michael said, +and wished he could have bitten his tongue out.</p> + +<p>She had risen from her chair, and seemed to tower above him in tragical +and heroic dignity of reproach:</p> + +<p>“I could never have believed you would say such a thing to me.”</p> + +<p>“I’m awfully sorry,” he murmured. “It was inexcusable.”</p> + +<p>“Michael,” she pleaded, coming to him sorrowfully, “won’t you give up +this marriage?”</p> + +<p>He was touched by her manner so gently despairing after his sneer.</p> + +<p>“Mother, I must keep faith with myself.”<a name="page_580" id="page_580"></a></p> + +<p>“Only with yourself? Then she doesn’t care for you? And you’re not +thinking of <i>her?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Of course she cares for me.”</p> + +<p>“But she’d get over it almost at once?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” he admitted.</p> + +<p>“Do you trust her? Do you believe she will be able to be a good woman?”</p> + +<p>“That will be my look-out,” he said impatiently. “If she fails, it will +be my fault. It’s always the man’s fault. Always.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said his mother resignedly. “I can say no more, can I? You +must do as you like.”</p> + +<p>The sudden withdrawal of her opposition softened him as nothing else +would have done. He compared the sweetness of her resignation with his +own sneer of a minute ago. He felt anxious to do something that would +show his penitence.</p> + +<p>“Mother, I hate to wound you. But I must be true to what I have worked +out for myself. I must marry Lily. Apart from a mad love I have for her, +there is a deeper cause, a reason that’s bound up with my whole theory +of behavior, my whole attitude toward existence. I could not back out of +this marriage.”</p> + +<p>“Is all your chivalry to be devoted to the service of Lily?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He felt grateful to her for the name. When his mother no longer called +her “this girl,” half his resentment fled. The situation concerned the +happiness of human beings again; there were no longer prejudices or +abstractions of morality to obscure it.</p> + +<p>“Not at all, mother. I would do anything for you.”</p> + +<p>“Except not marry her.”</p> + +<p>“That wouldn’t be a sacrifice worth making,” he argued. “Because if I +did that I should destroy myself to myself,<a name="page_581" id="page_581"></a> and what was left of me +wouldn’t be a complete Michael. It wouldn’t be your son.”</p> + +<p>“Will you postpone your marriage, say for three months?”</p> + +<p>He hesitated. How could he refuse her this?</p> + +<p>“Not merely for your own sake,” she urged; “but for all our sakes. We +shall all see things more clearly and pleasantly, perhaps, in three +months’ time.”</p> + +<p>He was conquered by the implication of justice for Lily.</p> + +<p>“I won’t marry her for three months,” he promised.</p> + +<p>“And you know, darling boy, the dreadful thing is that I very nearly +missed the train owing to the idiocy of the head porter at the hotel.”</p> + +<p>She was smiling through her tears, and very soon she became her stately +self again.</p> + +<p>Michael went at once to Ararat House, and told Lily that he had promised +his mother to put off their marriage for three months. She pouted over +her frocks.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d settled that before. What good will all these dresses be +now?”</p> + +<p>“You shall have as many more as you want. But will you be happy here +without me?”</p> + +<p>“Without you? Why are you going away?”</p> + +<p>“Because I must, Lily. Because ... oh, dearest girl, can’t you see that +I’m too passionately in love with you to be able to see you every day +and every night as I have been all this fortnight?”</p> + +<p>“If you want to go away, of course you must; but I shall be rather dull, +shan’t I?”</p> + +<p>“And shan’t I?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She looked at him.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“I shall write every day to you, and you must write to me.”</p> + +<p>He held her close and kissed her. Then he hurried away.<a name="page_582" id="page_582"></a></p> + +<p>Now that he had made the sacrifice to please his mother, he was angry +with himself for having done so. He felt that during this coming time of +trial he could not bear to see either his mother or Stella. He must be +married and fulfill his destiny, and, after that, all would be well. He +was enraged with his weakness, wondering where he could go to avoid the +people who had brought it about.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Michael thought he would like to see Clere Abbey again, and he +turned into Paddington Station to find out if there were a train that +would take him down into Berkshire at once.<a name="page_583" id="page_583"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII-a" id="CHAPTER_VIII-a"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>SEEDS OF POMEGRANATE</h4> + +<p>It was almost dark when Michael reached the little station at the foot +of the Downs. He was half inclined to put up at the village inn and +arrive at the Abbey in the morning; but he was feeling depressed by the +alteration of his plans, and longed to withdraw immediately into the +monastic peace. He had bought what he needed for the couple of nights +before any luggage could reach him, and he thought that with so little +to carry he might as well walk the six miles to the Abbey. He asked when +the moon would be up.</p> + +<p>“Oh, not much before half-past nine, sir,” the porter said.</p> + +<p>Michael suddenly remembered that to-morrow was Easter Sunday, and, +thinking it would be as well not to arrive too late, in case there +should be a number of guests, he managed to get hold of a cart. The wind +blew very freshly as they slowly climbed the Downs, and the man who was +driving him was very voluble on the subject of the large additions which +had been made to the Abbey buildings during the last few years.</p> + +<p>“They’ve put up a grand sort of a lodge—Gatehouse, so some do call it. +A bit after the style of the Tower of London, I’ve heard some say.”</p> + +<p>Michael was glad to think that Dom Cuthbert’s plans seemed to be coming +to perfection in their course. How<a name="page_584" id="page_584"></a> long was it since he and Chator were +here? Eight or nine years; now Chator was a priest, and himself had done +nothing.</p> + +<p>The Abbey Gatehouse was majestic in the darkness, and the driver pealed +the great bell with a portentous clangor. Michael recognized the +pock-marked brother who opened the door; but he could not remember his +name. He felt it would be rather absurd to ask the monk if he recognized +him by this wavering lanthorn-light.</p> + +<p>“Is the Reverend—is Dom Cuthbert at the Abbey now?” he asked. “You +don’t remember me, I expect? Michael Fane. I stayed here one Autumn +eight or nine years ago.”</p> + +<p>The monk held up the lanthorn and stared at him.</p> + +<p>“The Reverend Father is in the Guest Room now,” said Brother Ambrose. +Michael had suddenly recalled his name.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I shall be able to stay here to-night? Or have you a lot +of guests for Easter?”</p> + +<p>“We can always find room,” said Brother Ambrose. Michael dismissed his +driver and followed the monk along the drive.</p> + +<p>Dom Cuthbert knew him at once, and seemed very glad that he had come to +the Abbey.</p> + +<p>“You can have a cell in the Gatehouse. Our new Gatehouse. It’s copied +from the one at Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire. Very beautiful. Very +beautiful.”</p> + +<p>Michael was introduced to the three or four guests, all types of +ecclesiastical laymen, who had been talking with the Abbot. The Compline +bell rang almost at once, and the Office was still held in the little +chapel of mud and laths built by the hands of the monks.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Keep me as the apple of an eye.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Hide me in the shadow of thy wing.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Here was worship unhampered by problems of social behavior: here was +peace.</p> + +<p>Lying awake that night in his cell; watching the lattices very luminous +in the moonlight; hearing the April wind in the hazel coppice, Michael +tried to reach a perspective of his life these nine months since Oxford, +but sleep came to him and pacified all confusions. He went to Mass next +morning, but did not make his Communion, because he had a feeling that +he could only have done so under false pretenses. There was no reason +why he should have felt thus, he assured himself; but this morning there +had fallen upon him at the moment a dismaying chill. He went for a walk +on the Downs, over the great green spaces that marked no season save in +the change of the small flowers blowing in their turf. He wondered if he +would be able to find the stones he had erected that July day when he +first came here with Chator. He found what, as far as he could remember, +was the place; and he also found a group of stones that might have been +the ruins of his little monument. More remarkable than old stones now +seemed to him a Pasque anemone colored a sharp cold violet. It curiously +reminded him of the evening in March when he had walked with Lily in the +wood at Hardingham.</p> + +<p>The peace of last night vanished in a dread of the future: Michael’s +partial surrender to his mother cut at his destiny with ominous stroke. +He was in a turmoil of uncertainty, and afraid to find himself out here +on these Downs with so little achieved behind him in the city. He +hurried back to the Abbey and wrote a wild letter to Lily, declaring his +sorrow for leaving her, urging her to be patient, protesting a feverish +adoration. He wrote also to Miss Harper a hundred directions for Lily’s +entertainment while he was away. He wrote to Nigel Stewart, begging him +to look after Barnes. All the time he had a sense of being pursued and<a name="page_586" id="page_586"></a> +haunted; an intolerable idea that he was the quarry of an evil chase. He +could not stay at the Abbey any longer: he was being rejected by the +spirit of the place.</p> + +<p>Dom Cuthbert was disappointed when he said he must go.</p> + +<p>“Stay at least to-night,” he urged, and Michael gave way.</p> + +<p>He did not sleep at all that night. The alabaster image of the Blessed +Virgin kept turning to a paper thing, kept nodding at him like a zany. +He seemed to hear the Gatehouse bell clanging hour after hour. He felt +more deeply sunk in darkness than ever in Leppard Street. At daybreak he +dressed and fled through the woods, trampling under foot the primroses +limp with dew. He hurried faster and faster across the Downs; and when +the sun was up, he was standing on the platform of the railway station. +To-day he ought to have married Lily.</p> + +<p>At Paddington, notwithstanding all that he had suffered in the parting, +unaccountably to himself he did not want to turn in the direction of +Ararat House. It puzzled him that he should drive so calmly to Cheyne +Walk.</p> + +<p>“I think my temperature must have been a point or two up last night,” +was the explanation he gave himself of what already seemed mere +sleeplessness.</p> + +<p>Michael found his mother very much worried by his disappearance; she had +assumed that he had broken his promise. He consoled her, but excused +himself from staying with her in town.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t ask too much of me,” he said.</p> + +<p>“No, no, dearest boy; I’m glad for you to go away, but where will you +go?”</p> + +<p>He thought he would pay an overdue visit to Cobble Place.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Carthew were delighted to see him, and he felt as he +always felt at Cobble Place the persistent tranquillity which not the +greatest inquietude of spirit could<a name="page_587" id="page_587"></a> long withstand. It was now nearly +three years since he had been there, and he was surprised to see how +very old Mrs. Carthew had grown in that time. This and the active +presence of Kenneth, now a jolly boy of nine, were the only changes in +the aspect of the household. Michael enjoyed himself in firing Kenneth +with a passion for birds’ eggs and butterflies, and they went long walks +together and made expeditions in the canoe.</p> + +<p>Yet every day when Michael sat down to write to Lily, he almost wrote to +say he was coming to London as soon as his letter. Her letters to him, +written in a sprawling girlish hand, were always very much alike.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">1 A<small>RARAT</small> H<small>OUSE</small>,</span><br /> +I<small>SLAND</small> R<small>OAD</small>, W.</p> + +<p class="nind"><i>My dear,</i></p> + +<p><i>Come back soon. I’m getting bored. Miss Harper isn’t bad. Can’t +write a long letter because this nib is awful. Kisses.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;"><i>Your loving</i></span><br /> +<i>Lily.</i></p></div> + +<p>This would stand for any of them.</p> + +<p>May month had come in: Michael and Kenneth were finding whitethroats’ +nests in the nettle-beds of the paddock, before a word to Mrs. Ross was +said about the marriage.</p> + +<p>“Stella has written to me about it,” she told him.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the straggling wind-frayed orchard beyond the +stream: lamps were leaping: apple-blossom stippled the grass: Kenneth +was chasing Orange Tips up the slope toward Grogg’s Folly.</p> + +<p>“Stella has been very busy all round,” said Michael. “I suppose +according to her I’m going to marry an impossible creature. Creature is +as far as she usually gets in particular description of Lily.”<a name="page_588" id="page_588"></a></p> + +<p>“She certainly wasn’t very complimentary about your choice,” Mrs. Ross +admitted.</p> + +<p>“I wish somebody could understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean that +I’m mad because I’m going to marry a beautiful girl who isn’t very +clever.”</p> + +<p>“But I gathered from Stella,” Mrs. Ross said, “that her past ... +Michael, you must be very tolerant of me if I upset you, because we +happen to be sitting just where I was stupid and unsympathetic once +before. You see what an impression that made on me. I actually remember +the very place.”</p> + +<p>“She probably has done things in the past,” said Michael. “But she’s +scarcely twenty-three yet, and I love her. Her past becomes a trifle. +Besides, I was in love with her six years ago, and I—well, six years +ago I was rather thoughtless very often. I don’t want you to think that +I’m going to marry her now from any sense of duty. I love her. At the +same time when people argue that she’s not the correct young Miss they +apparently expect me to marry, I’m left unmoved. Pasts belong to men as +well as to women.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ross nodded slowly. Kenneth came rushing up, shouting that he had +caught a frightfully rare butterfly. Michael looked at it.</p> + +<p>“A female Orange Tip,” was the verdict.</p> + +<p>“But isn’t that frightfully rare?”</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>“No rarer than the males; but you don’t notice them, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Kenneth retired to find some more.</p> + +<p>“And you’re sure you’ll be happy with her?” Mrs. Ross asked.</p> + +<p>“As sure as I am that I shall be happy with anybody. I ought to be +married to her by now. This delay that I’ve so weakly allowed isn’t +going to effect much.”<a name="page_589" id="page_589"></a></p> + +<p>Michael sighed. He had meant to be in Provence this month of May.</p> + +<p>“But the delay can’t do any harm,” Mrs. Ross pointed out. “At any rate, +it will enable you to feel more sure of yourself, and more sure of her, +too.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Michael doubtfully. “My theory has always been that +if a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing at once.”</p> + +<p>“And after you’re married,” she asked, “what are you going to do? Just +lead a lazy life?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; I suppose I shall find some occupation that will keep me out of +mischief.”</p> + +<p>“That sounds a little cynical. Ah, well, I suppose it is a +disappointment to me.”</p> + +<p>“What’s a disappointment?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve hoped and prayed so much lately that you would have a +vocation....”</p> + +<p>“A priest,” he interrupted quickly, “It’s no good, Mrs. Ross. I have +thought of being one, but I’m always put off by the professional side of +it. And there are ways of doing what a priest does without being one.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, I can’t agree with you there,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well, apart from the sacraments, I mean. Lately I’ve seen something of +the underworld, and I shall think of some way of being useful down +there. Already I believe I’ve done a bit.”</p> + +<p>They talked of the problems of the underworld and Michael was encouraged +by what he fancied was a much greater breadth in her point of view +nowadays to speak of things that formerly would have made her gray eyes +harden in fastidious disapproval.</p> + +<p>“I feel happier about you since this talk,” she said. “As long as you +won’t be content to let your great gift of humanity be wasted, as long +as you won’t be content to think<a name="page_590" id="page_590"></a> that in marrying your Lily you have +done with all your obligations.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I shan’t feel that. In fact, I shall be all the more anxious to +justify myself.”</p> + +<p>Kenneth came back to importune Michael for a walk as far as Grogg’s +Folly.</p> + +<p>“It’s such fun for Kenneth to have you here!” Mrs. Ross exclaimed. “I’ve +never seen him so boisterously happy.”</p> + +<p>“I used to enjoy myself here just as much as he does,” said Michael. +“Though perhaps I didn’t show it. I always think of myself as rather a +dreary little beast when I was a kid.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, you were a most attractive boy; such a wide-eyed +little boy,” said Mrs. Ross softly, looking back into time. “I’ve seldom +seen you so happy as just before I blew out your candle the first night +of your first stay here.”</p> + +<p>“I say, do come up the hill,” interrupted Kenneth despairingly.</p> + +<p>“A thousand apologies, my lord,” said Michael. “We’ll go now.”</p> + +<p>They did not stop until they reached the tower on the summit.</p> + +<p>“When I was your age,” Michael told him, “I used to think that I could +see the whole of England from here.”</p> + +<p>“Could you really?” said Kenneth, in admiration. “Could you see any of +France, too?”</p> + +<p>“I expect so,” Michael answered. “I expect really I thought I could see +the whole world. Kenneth, what are you going to be when you grow up? A +soldier?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if I can—or what is a philosopher?”</p> + +<p>“A philosopher philosophizes.”</p> + +<p>“Does he really? Is that a difficult thing to do, to philosopherize?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; it’s almost harder to do than to pronounce.”<a name="page_591" id="page_591"></a></p> + +<p>Soon they were tearing down the hill, frightening the larks to right and +left of their progress.</p> + +<p>The weather grew warmer every day, and at last Mrs. Carthew came out in +a wheel-chair to see the long-spurred columbines, claret and gold, +watchet, rose and white.</p> + +<p>“Really quite a display,” she said to Michael. “And so you’re to get +married?”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“What for?” the old lady demanded, looking at him over her spectacles.</p> + +<p>“Well, principally because I want to,” Michael answered, after a short +pause.</p> + +<p>“The best reason,” she agreed. “But in your case insufficient, and I’ll +tell you why—you aren’t old enough yet to know what you do want.”</p> + +<p>“Twenty-three,” Michael reminded her.</p> + +<p>“Twenty-fiddlesticks!” she snapped. “And isn’t there a good deal of +opposition?”</p> + +<p>“A good deal.”</p> + +<p>“And no doubt you feel a fine romantical heroical young fellow?”</p> + +<p>“Not particularly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not going to argue against your marrying her,” said Mrs. +Carthew. “Because I know quite well that the more I proved you to be +wrong, the more you’d be determined to prove <i>I</i> was. But I can give you +advice about marriage, because I’ve been married and you haven’t. Is she +dark? If she’s dark, be very cold for a year, and if she doesn’t leave +you in that time, she’ll adore you for the rest of her life.”</p> + +<p>“But she’s fair,” said Michael. “Very fair indeed.”</p> + +<p>“Then beat her. Not actually, of course; but beat her figuratively for a +year. If you don’t, she’ll either be a shrew or a whiner. Both +impossible to live with.”<a name="page_592" id="page_592"></a></p> + +<p>“Which did Captain Carthew do to you?” asked Michael, twinkling.</p> + +<p>“Neither; I ruled him with a rod of iron.”</p> + +<p>“But do you think I’m wise to wait like this before marrying her?” +Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“There’s no wisdom in waiting to do an unwise thing.”</p> + +<p>“You’re so sure it is unwise?”</p> + +<p>“All marriages are unwise,” said Mrs. Carthew sharply. “That’s why +everybody gets married. For most people it is the only imprudence they +have an opportunity of committing. After that, they’re permanently cured +of rashness, and settle down. There are exceptions, of course: they take +to drink. I must say I’m greatly pleased with these long-spurred +columbines.”</p> + +<p>Michael thought she had finished the discussion of his marriage, but +suddenly she said:</p> + +<p>“I thought I told you to come and see me when you went down from +Oxford.”</p> + +<p>“I ought to have come,” Michael agreed rather humbly. He always felt +inclined to propitiate the old lady.</p> + +<p>“Here we have the lamentable result. Marriage at twenty-three.”</p> + +<p>“Alan married at twenty-three,” he pointed out.</p> + +<p>“Two fools don’t make a wise-man,” said Mrs. Carthew.</p> + +<p>“He’s very happy.”</p> + +<p>“He would be satisfied with much less than you, and he has married a +delightful girl.”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to marry a delightful girl.”</p> + +<p>The old lady made no reply. Nor did she comment again upon his prospect +of happiness.</p> + +<p>In mid-May, after a visit of nearly a month, Michael left Cobble Place +and went to stay at Plashers Mead. Guy Hazlewood was the only friend he +still had who could not possibly have come into contact with Lily or her +former<a name="page_593" id="page_593"></a> surroundings. Moreover, Guy was deep in love himself, and he had +been very sympathetic when he wrote to Michael about his engagement.</p> + +<p>“Do I intrude upon your May idyll?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, don’t be so absurd. But why aren’t you married? You’re as +bad as me.”</p> + +<p>“Why aren’t <i>you</i> married?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” Guy sighed. “Everybody seems to be conspiring to put +it off.”</p> + +<p>They were sitting in Guy’s green library. The windows wide open let in +across the sound of the burbling stream the warm air of the lucid May +night, where bats and owls and evejars flew across the face of the +decrescent moon.</p> + +<p>“It’s this dreamy country in which you live,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“What about you? You’ve let people put off your marriage.”</p> + +<p>“Only for another two months,” Michael explained.</p> + +<p>“You see I’m down to one hundred and fifty pounds a year now,” Guy +muttered. “I can’t marry on that, and I can’t leave this place, and her +people can’t afford to make her an allowance. They think I ought to go +away and work at journalism. However, I’m not going to worry you with my +troubles.”</p> + +<p>Guy was a good deal with Pauline every day: Michael wrote long letters +to Lily and read poetry.</p> + +<p>“Browning?” asked Guy one afternoon, looking over Michael’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Yes; The Statue and The Bust.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t remind me of that poem. It haunts me,” Guy declared.</p> + +<p>A week passed. There was no moon now, and the nights grew warmer. It was +weather to make lovers happy, but Guy seemed worried. He would not come +for walks with<a name="page_594" id="page_594"></a> Michael through the dark and scented water-meadows, and +Michael used to think that often at night he was meeting Pauline. It +made him jealous to imagine them lost in this amaranthine profundity. +They were happy now, if through all their lives they should never be +happy again. Yet Guy was obviously fretted: he was getting spoiled by +good fortune. “And I have had about a fortnight of incomplete +happiness,” Michael said to himself. Supposing that a calamity fell upon +him during this delay. He would never cease to regret his weakness in +granting his mother’s request: he would hate Stella for having +interfered: his life would be miserable forever. Yet what calamity did +he fear? In a sudden apprehension, he struck a match and read her last +letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 1em;">1 A<small>RARAT</small> H<small>OUSE</small>,</span><br /> +I<small>SLAND</small> R<small>OAD</small>, W.</p> + +<p class="nind"><i>My dear,</i></p> + +<p><i>It’s getting awfully dull in London. Miss Harper asked me to call +her “Mabel.” Rather cheek, I thought, don’t you think so? But she’s +really awfully decent. I can’t write a long letter because we’re +going to the Palace. I say, do buck up and come back to London, I’m +getting bored. Love and kisses.</i></p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Lily.</i></p> + +<p>What’s the good of <i>writing</i> “kisses”?</p></div> + +<p>What indeed was the good of writing “kisses”? Michael thought, as the +match fizzed out in the dewy grass at his feet. It was not fair to treat +Lily like this. He had captured her from life with Sylvia, because he +had meant to marry her at once. Now he had left her alone in that flat +with a woman he did not know at all. Whatever people might say against +Lily, she was very patient and trustful.<a name="page_595" id="page_595"></a> “She must love me a good +deal,” Michael said. “Or she wouldn’t stand this casual treatment.”</p> + +<p>Pauline came to tea next day with her sisters Margaret and Monica. +Michael had an idea that she did not like him very much. She talked +shyly and breathlessly to him; and he, embarrassed by her shyness, +answered in monosyllables.</p> + +<p>“Pauline is rather jealous of you,” said Guy that evening, as they sat +in the library.</p> + +<p>“Jealous of me?” Michael was amazed.</p> + +<p>“She has some fantastic idea that you don’t approve of our engagement. +Of course, I told her what nonsense she was thinking; but she vowed that +this afternoon you showed quite plainly your disapproval of her. She +insists that you are very cold and severe.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I was very dull,” Michael confessed apologetically. “But I +was really envying you and her for being together in May.”</p> + +<p>“Together!” Guy repeated. “It’s the object of everyone in Wychford to +keep us apart!”</p> + +<p>“Do tell her I’m not cold,” Michael begged. “And say how lovely I think +her; for really, Guy, she is very lovely and strange. She is a fairy’s +child.”</p> + +<p>“She is, she is,” Guy said. “Sometimes I’m nearly off my head with the +sense of responsibility I have for her happiness. I wonder and wonder +until I’m nearly crazed.”</p> + +<p>“I’m feeling responsible just now about Lily. I’ve never told you, Guy, +but you may hear from other people that I’ve made what is called a +mésalliance. Of course, Lily has been....” He stumbled. He could find no +words that would not humiliate himself and her. “Guy, come up with me +to-morrow and meet her. It’s not fair to leave her like this,” he +suddenly proclaimed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I can come away.”<a name="page_596" id="page_596"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you can. Of course. You must,” Michael urged.</p> + +<p>“Pauline will be more jealous of you than ever, if I do.”</p> + +<p>“For one night,” Michael pleaded. “I must see her. And you must meet +her. Everyone has been so rotten about her, and, Guy, you’ll appreciate +her. I won’t bore you by describing her. You must meet her to-morrow. +And the rooms in Ararat House. By Jove, you’ll think them wonderful. You +should see her in candlelight among the mirrors. Pauline won’t mind your +coming away with me for a night. We’ll stay at Cheyne Walk.”</p> + +<p>“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m rather hard up just now....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what rot! This is my expedition. And when you’ve seen her, you must +talk to my mother about her. She’s so prejudiced against Lily. You will +come, won’t you?”</p> + +<p>Guy nodded a promise, and Michael went off to bed on the excitement of +to-morrow’s joy.</p> + +<p>Guy would not start before the afternoon, and Michael spent the morning +under a willow beside the river. It was good to lie staring up at the +boughs, and know that every fleecy cloud going by was a cloud nearer to +his seeing Lily again.</p> + +<p>Michael and Guy arrived at Paddington about five o’clock.</p> + +<p>“We’ll go straight round from here and surprise her,” Michael said, +laughing with excitement, as they got into a taxi. “She’ll have had a +letter from me this morning, in which I was lamenting not seeing her for +six weeks. My gad, supposing she isn’t in! Oh, well, we can wait. You’ll +love the room, and we’ll all three sit out in the garden to-night, and +you’ll tell me as we walk home to Chelsea what you think of her. Guy +<a name="page_597" id="page_597"></a>you’ve absolutely got to like her. And if you don’t ... oh, but you +will. It isn’t everybody who can appreciate beauty like hers. And +there’s an extraordinary subtlety about her. Of course, she isn’t at all +subtle. She’s simple. In fact, that’s one of the things Stella has got +against her. What I call simplicity and absence of training for effect +Stella calls stupidity. My own belief is that you’ll be quite content to +look at her and not care whether she talks or not. I tell you, she’s +like a Piero della Francesca angel. Cheer up, Guy. Why are you looking +so depressed?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Guy. “I’m thinking what a lucky chap you are. +What’s a little family opposition when you know you’re going to be able +to do what you want? Who can stop you? You’re independent, and you’re in +love.”</p> + +<p>“Of course they can’t stop me!” Michael cried, jumping up and down on +the cushions of the taxi in his excitement. “Guy, you’re great! You +really are. You’re the only person who’s seen the advantage of going +right ahead. But don’t look so sad yourself. You’ll marry your Pauline.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, in about four years,” Guy sighed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, no; in about four months. Will Pauline like Lily? She won’t be +jealous of me when I’m married will she?”</p> + +<p>“No, but I think I shall be,” Guy laughed.</p> + +<p>“Laugh, you old devil, laugh!” Michael shouted. “Here we are. Did you +ever see such a house? It hasn’t quite the austerity of Plashers Mead, +has it?”</p> + +<p>“It looks rather fun,” Guy commented.</p> + +<p>“You know,” Michael said solemnly, pausing for a moment at the head of +the steps going down to the front door. “You know, Guy, I believe that +you’ll be able to persuade my mother to withdraw all her opposition +to-night. I believe<a name="page_598" id="page_598"></a> I’m going to marry Lily this week. And I shall be +so glad—Guy, you don’t know how glad I shall be.”</p> + +<p>He ran hurriedly down the steps and had pressed the bell of Number One +before Guy had entered the main door.</p> + +<p>“I say, you know, it will be really terrible if she’s out after all my +boasting,” said Michael. “And Miss Harper, too—that’s the +housekeeper—my housekeeper, you know. If they’re both out, we’ll have +to go round and wait in the garden until they come in. Hark, there’s +somebody coming.”</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Michael hurried in.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, good afternoon, Miss Harper. You didn’t expect to see me, eh? +I’ve brought a friend. Is Miss Haden in the big room?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Haden is out, Mr. Fane,” said the housekeeper.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter? You’re looking rather upset.”</p> + +<p>“Am I, Mr. Fane?” she asked blankly. “Am I? Oh, no, I’m very well. Oh, +yes, very well. It’s the funny light, I expect, Mr. Fane.”</p> + +<p>She seemed to be choking out all her words, and Michael looked at her +sharply.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll wait in the big room.”</p> + +<p>“It’s rather untidy. You see, we—I wasn’t expecting you, Mr. Fane.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Michael. “Hulloa ...I say, Guy, go on into that +room ahead. I’ll be with you in a minute.”</p> + +<p>Guy mistook the direction and turned the handle of Lily’s bedroom door.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” Michael called. “The double doors opposite.”</p> + +<p>“My mistake,” said Guy cheerfully. “But don’t worry: the other door was +locked. So if you’ve got a Bluebeard’s Closet, I’ve done no harm.”<a name="page_599" id="page_599"></a></p> + +<p>He disappeared into the big room, and the moment he was inside Michael +turned fiercely to Miss Harper.</p> + +<p>“Who’s is this hat?” he demanded, snatching it up.</p> + +<p>“Hat? What hat?” she choked out.</p> + +<p>“Why is the door of her bedroom locked? Why is it locked—locked?”</p> + +<p>The stillness of the crepuscular hall seemed to palpitate with the +woman’s breath.</p> + +<p>“Miss Haden must have locked it when she went out,” she stammered.</p> + +<p>“Is that the truth?” Michael demanded. “It’s not the truth. It’s a lie. +You wouldn’t be panting like a fish in a basket, unless there was +something wrong. I’ll break the door in.”</p> + +<p>“No, Mr. Fane, don’t do that!” the woman groaned out, in a cracked +expostulation. “This is the first time since you’ve been away. And it +was an old friend.”</p> + +<p>“How dare you tell me anything about him? Guy! Guy!”</p> + +<p>Michael rushed into the big room and dragged Guy out.</p> + +<p>“Come away, come away, come away! I’ve been sold!”</p> + +<p>“If you’d only listen a moment. I could——” Miss Harper began.</p> + +<p>Michael pushed her out of their path.</p> + +<p>“What on earth is it?” Guy asked.</p> + +<p>“Come on, don’t hang about in this hell of a house. Come on, Guy.”</p> + +<p>Michael had flung the door back to slam into Miss Harper’s face, and, +seizing Guy by the wrist, he dragged him up the steps, and had started +to run down the road, when Guy shouted:</p> + +<p>“Michael, the taxi! The taxi’s waiting with our bags.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well, in a taxi then, a taxi if you like,” Michael chattered, +and he plunged into it.<a name="page_600" id="page_600"></a></p> + +<p>“Where to?” the driver asked.</p> + +<p>“Cheyne Walk. But drive quickly. Don’t hang about up and down this +road.”</p> + +<p>The driver looked round with an expression of injured dignity, shook his +head in exclamation, and drove off.</p> + +<p>“What on earth has happened?” Guy asked. “And why on earth are you +holding a top-hat?”</p> + +<p>Michael burst into laughter.</p> + +<p>“So I am. Look at it. A top-hat. I say, Guy, did you ever hear of anyone +being cut out by a top-hat, cuckolded by a top-hat? We’ll present it to +the driver. Driver! Do you want a top-hat?”</p> + +<p>“Here, who are you having a game with?” demanded the driver, pulling up +the car.</p> + +<p>“I’m not having a game with anybody,” Michael said. “But two people and +this top-hat have just been having a hell of a game with me. You’d much +better take it as a present. I shall only throw it away. He refuses,” +Michael went on. “He refuses a perfectly good top-hat. Who’s the maker? +My god, his dirty greasy head has obliterated the name of the maker. +Good-bye, hat! Drive on, drive on!” he shouted to the driver, and hurled +the hat spinning under an omnibus. Then he turned to Guy.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been sold by the girl I was going to marry,” he said. “I say, Guy, +I’ve got some jolly good advice for you. Don’t you marry a whore. Sorry, +old chap!—I forgot you were engaged already. Besides, people don’t +marry whores, unless they’re fools like me. Didn’t you say just now that +I was very lucky? Do you know—I think I am lucky. I think it was a +great piece of luck bringing you to see that girl to-day. Don’t you? Oh, +Guy, I could go mad with disappointment. Will nothing in all the world +ever be what it seems?”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Michael, are you sure you weren’t too hasty?<a name="page_601" id="page_601"></a> You didn’t +wait to see if there was any explanation, did you?”</p> + +<p>“She was only going back to her old habits,” said Michael bitterly. “I +was a fool to think she wouldn’t. And yet I adored her. Fancy, you’ve +never seen her, after all. Lovely, lovely animal!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you knew what she was?” exclaimed Guy.</p> + +<p>“Knew? Yes, of course I knew; but I thought she loved me. I didn’t care +about anything when I was sure she loved me. She could only have gone +such a little way down, I thought. She seemed so easy to bring out. +Seeds of pomegranate. Seeds of pomegranate! She’s only eaten seeds of +pomegranate, but they were enough to keep her behind. Where are we +going? Oh, yes, Cheyne Walk. My mother will be delighted when she hears +my news, and so will everybody. That’s what’s amusing me. Everybody will +clap their hands, and I’m wretched. But you are sorry for me, Guy? You +don’t think I’m just a fool being shown his folly? And at eighteen I was +nearly off my head only because I saw someone kiss her! There’s one +thing over which I score—the only person who can appreciate all the +humor of this situation is myself.”</p> + +<p>Nearly all the way to Cheyne Walk Michael was laughing very loudly.<a name="page_602" id="page_602"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX-a" id="CHAPTER_IX-a"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>THE GATE OF HORN</h4> + +<p>Guy thought it would be better if he went straight back to Plashers +Mead; but Michael asked him to stay until the next day. He was in no +mood, he said, for a solitary evening, and he could not bear the notion +of visiting friends, or of talking to his mother without the restriction +that somebody else’s presence would produce.</p> + +<p>So Guy agreed to spend the night in London, and they dined with Mrs. +Fane. Michael in the sun-colored Summer room felt smothered by a +complete listlessness; and talking very little, he sat wondering at the +swiftness with which a strong fabric of the imagination had tumbled +down. The quiet of Cheyne Walk became a consciousness of boredom and +futility, and he suggested on a sudden impulse that he and Guy should go +and visit Maurice in the studio. It would be pleasant walking along the +Embankment, he said.</p> + +<p>“But I thought you wanted to keep quiet,” Guy exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“No, I’ve grown restless during dinner; and, besides, I want to make a +few arrangements about the flat, and then be done with that +business—forever.”</p> + +<p>They started off without waiting for coffee. It was a calm Summer +evening of shadows blue and amethyst, of footfalls and murmurs, an +evening plumy as a moth, warm<a name="page_603" id="page_603"></a> and gentle as the throat of a pigeon. +Nobody on any pavement was hurrying; and maidservants loitered in area +gates, looking up and down the roads.</p> + +<p>The big room at the top of 422 Grosvenor Road had never seemed so +romantic. There were half a dozen people sitting at the open windows; +and Cunningham was playing a sonata of Brahms, a sonata with a melody +that was drawing the London night into this big room where the +cigarettes dimmed and brightened like stars. The player sat at the piano +for an hour, and Maurice unexpectedly made no attempt to disturb the +occasion. Michael thought that perhaps he was wondering what had brought +himself and Guy here, and for that reason did not rush to show Guy his +studio by gaslight: Maurice was probably thinking how strange it was for +Michael to revisit him suddenly like this after their quarrel.</p> + +<p>When the room was lighted up, Michael and Guy were introduced to the men +they did not know. Among them was Ronnie Walker, the painter whom +Maurice had mentioned to Michael as an old lover of Lily. Michael knew +now why Maurice had allowed the music to go on so long, and he was +careful to talk as much as possible to Walker in order to embarrass +Maurice, who could scarcely pay any attention to Guy, so nervously was +he watching over his shoulder the progress of the conversation.</p> + +<p>Later on Michael called Maurice aside, and they withdrew to the +window-seat which looked out over the housetops. A cat was yauling on a +distant roof, and in the studio Cunningham had seated himself at the +piano again.</p> + +<p>“I say, I’m awfully sorry that Ronnie Walker should happen to be here +to-night,” Maurice began. “I have been rather cursing myself for telling +you about him and....”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t matter at all,” Michael interrupted. “I’m not going to marry +her.”<a name="page_604" id="page_604"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s splendid!” Maurice exclaimed. “I’ve been tremendously +worried about you.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked at him; he was wondering if it were possible that Maurice +could be “tremendously worried” by anything.</p> + +<p>“I want you to arrange matters,” said Michael. “I can’t go near the +place again. She will probably prefer to go away from Ararat House. The +rent is paid up to the June quarter. The furniture you can do what you +like with. Bring some of it here. Sell the rest, and give her the money. +Get rid of the woman who’s there—Miss Harper her name is.”</p> + +<p>“But I shall feel rather awkward....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t do it. Don’t do it, then!” Michael broke in fretfully. “I’ll +ask Guy.”</p> + +<p>“You’re getting awfully irascible,” Maurice complained. “Of course I’ll +do anything you want, if you won’t always jump down my throat at the +first word I utter. What has happened, though?”</p> + +<p>“What do you expect to happen when you’re engaged to a girl like that?” +Michael asked.</p> + +<p>Maurice shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, of course I should expect to be badly let down. But then, you +see, I’m not a very great believer in women. What are you going to do +yourself?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t settled yet. I’ve got to arrange one or two things in town, +and then I shall go abroad. Would you be able to come with me in about a +week?”</p> + +<p>“I daresay I might,” Maurice answered, looking vaguely round the room. +Already, Michael thought, the subject was floating away from his facile +comprehension.</p> + +<p>The piano had stopped, and conversation became general again.</p> + +<p>“This is where you ought to be, if you want to write,”<a name="page_605" id="page_605"></a> Maurice +proclaimed to Guy. “It’s ridiculous for you to bury yourself in the +country. You’ll expire of stagnation.”</p> + +<p>“Just at present I recommend you to stay where you are,” said Castleton. +“I’m almost expiring from the violence with which I am being +precipitated from one to another of Maurice’s energies.”</p> + +<p>Soon afterward Michael and Guy left the studio and walked home; and next +morning Guy went back to Wychford.</p> + +<p>Michael was astonished at his own calmness. After the first shock of the +betrayal he had gone and talked to a lot of people; he had coldly made +financial arrangements; he had even met and rather liked a man whom only +yesterday morning he could not have regarded without hatred for the part +he had played in Lily’s life. Perhaps he had lost the power to feel +anything deeply for long; perhaps he was become a sort of Maurice; +already Lily seemed a shade of the underworld, merely more clearly +remembered than the others. Yet in the moment that he was calling her a +shade his present emotion proved that she was much more than that, for +the conjured image of her was an icy pang to his heart. Then the +indifference returned, but always underneath it the chill remained.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fane asked if he would care to go to the Opera in the evening: and +they went to Bohême. Michael used to be wrung by the music, but he sat +unmoved to-night. Afterward, at supper, he looked at his mother as if +she were a person in a picture; he was saddened by the uselessness of +all beauty, and by the number of times he would have to undress at night +and dress again in the morning. He had no objection to life itself, but +he felt an overwhelming despair at the thought of any activity in the +conduct of it. He was sorry for the people sitting here at supper and +for their footmen waiting outside. He felt that he was spiritually<a name="page_606" id="page_606"></a> +withered, because he was aware that he was surrendering to the notion of +a debased material comfort as the only condition worth achieving for a +body that remained perfectly well; grossly well, it almost seemed.</p> + +<p>“Michael, have you been bored to-night?” his mother asked, when they had +come home and were sitting by the window in the drawing-room, while +Michael finished a cigar.</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“You seemed to take no interest in the opera, and you usually enjoy +Puccini, don’t you? Or was it Wagner you enjoy so much?”</p> + +<p>“I think summer in London is always tiring,” he said.</p> + +<p>She was in that rosy mist of clothes with which his earliest pictures of +her were vivid. Suddenly he began to cry.</p> + +<p>“Dear child, what is it?” she whispered, with fluttering arms +outstretched to comfort him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve finished with all that! I’ve finished with all that! You’ll be +delighted—you mustn’t be worried because I seem upset for the moment. I +found out that Lily did not care anything about me. I’m not going to +marry her or even see her again.”</p> + +<p>“Michael! My dearest boy! What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Finished! Finished! Finished!” he sobbed.</p> + +<p>“Nothing is finished at twenty-three,” she murmured, leaning over to pet +him.</p> + +<p>“I do hate myself for having hurt your feelings the other day.”</p> + +<p>It was as if he seized upon a justification for grief so manifest. It +seemed to him exquisitely sad that he should have wounded his mother on +account of that broken toy of a girl. Soon he could control himself +again; and he went off to bed.</p> + +<p>Next day Michael’s depression was profound because he<a name="page_607" id="page_607"></a> could perceive no +reaction from himself on Lily. The sense of personal loss was merged in +the reproach of failure; he had simply been unable to influence her. She +was the consummation of many minor failures. And what was to happen to +her now? What was to happen to all the people with whose lives he had +lately been involved? Must he withdraw entirely and confess defeat? No +doubt a cynic would argue that Lily was hopeless, and indeed he knew +that from any point of view where marriage was concerned she was +hopeless. He must leave her where he had found her, in that pretty +paradise of evil which now she well adorned. If her destiny was to whirl +downward through the labyrinths of the underworld, he could do no more. +That himself had issued with the false dreams through the ivory gate was +her fault, and she must pay the penalty of her misdirection. He would +revisit Leppard Street, and from the innermost circle where he had +beheld Mrs. Smith he would seek a way out through the gate of true +dreams. He would be glad to see if the amount of security he had been +able to guarantee to Barnes had helped him at all. He had money and he +could leave money behind in Leppard Street, money that might preserve +the people in the house where he had lived. Was this a quixotic notion, +to leave one set of people free from the necessity to hand themselves +over to evil? Michael’s spirits began to rise as he looked forward to +what he could still effect in Leppard Street. And for Lily what could he +still do? He would visit Sylvia and consult with her. She was strong, +and if she had chosen harlotry, she was still strong. She was not lazy +nor languid. Lazy, laughing, languid Lily! Lily did not laugh much; she +was too lazy even for that. How beautiful she had been! Her beauty +stabbed him with the poignancy of what was past. How beautiful she had +been! When Maurice went to tell her of the final ending of it all, she<a name="page_608" id="page_608"></a> +would pout and shrug her shoulders. That was all she would do; and she +would be faintly resentful at having been disturbed in her lazy life. +Perhaps Maurice would fall in love with her, and it would be ironical +and just that she should fall violently in love with Maurice and be cast +off by him. Maurice would never suffer; as soon as a woman showed a sign +of upsetting his theories about feminine behavior he would be done with +her. He would jilt her as easily as he jilted one Muse for another. Why +was he being so hard on Maurice?</p> + +<p>“I believe that down in my heart I still don’t really like him,” Michael +said to himself. “Right back from the time I met him in Macrae’s form at +Randell’s I’ve never really liked him.”</p> + +<p>It was curious how one could grow more and more intimate with a person, +and all the time never really like him; so intimate with him as to +intrust him with the disposal of a wrecked love-affair, and all the +while never really like him. Why, then, had he invited Maurice to go +abroad? Perhaps he wanted the company of someone he could faintly +despise. Even friendship must pay tribute to human vanity. Life became a +merciless business when one ceased to stand alone. The herding instinct +of man was responsible for the corruption of civilization, and Michael +thought of the bestiality of a crowd. How loathsome humanity was in the +aggregate, but individually how rare, how wonderful.</p> + +<p>Michael walked boldly enough toward Tinderbox Lane; and when he rang the +bell of Mulberry Cottage not a qualm of sentiment assailed him. He was +definitely pleased with himself, as he stood outside the door in the +wall, to think with what a serenity of indifference he was able to visit +a place so much endeared to him a little time ago.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gainsborough answered the door and nearly fell upon Michael’s +neck.<a name="page_609" id="page_609"></a></p> + +<p>“Good Land! Here’s a surprise.”</p> + +<p>“It’s almost more of a surprise for me to see you, Mrs. Gainsborough.”</p> + +<p>“Why, who else should you see?”</p> + +<p>“I was beginning to think you never existed. Can I come in?”</p> + +<p>“Sylvia’s indoors,” she said warningly.</p> + +<p>“I rather wanted to see her.”</p> + +<p>“She’s been carrying on alarming about you ever since you stole her +Lily. And she didn’t take me on her knee and cuddle me, when she found +you were gone off. How do you like me new frock?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought that in her checkered black and green gingham she looked +like an old Summer number of an illustrated magazine, and he told her +so.</p> + +<p>“Well, there! Did you ever? I never did. There’s a bouquet to hand a +lady! Back number! Whatever next? I wonder you hadn’t the liberty to say +I’d rose from the grave.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t I to see Sylvia?” Michael asked, laughing.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t blame me if she packs you off with a flea in your ear, as +they say—well, she is a Miss Temper, and no mistake. How do you like me +garden?”</p> + +<p>Mulberry Cottage was just the bower of greenery that Michael had +supposed he would find in early June.</p> + +<p>“Actually roses,” he exclaimed. “Or at least there will be very soon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. Glory de Die-Johns. That was always Pa’s favorite. That and a +good snooze of a Sunday afternoon was about what he cared most for in +this world. But my Captain he used to like camellias, and gardenias of +course—oh, he had a very soft corner in his heart for a nice gardenia. +Ah dear, what a masher he was to be sure!”</p> + +<p>Sylvia had evidently seen them walking up the garden<a name="page_610" id="page_610"></a> path, for leaning +over the railings of the balcony she was waiting for them.</p> + +<p>“Here’s quite a stranger come to see you,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, with +a propitiatory glance in Sylvia’s direction.</p> + +<p>“I rather want to have a talk with you,” said Michael, and he, too, +found himself rather annoyingly adopting a deprecating manner.</p> + +<p>Sylvia came slowly down the balcony steps.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you want my help,” she said, and her underlip had a warning +out-thrust.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get on with my fal-lals,” Mrs. Gainsborough muttered, and she +bundled herself quickly indoors.</p> + +<p>Sylvia and Michael sat down on the garden-seat under the mulberry tree +whose leaves were scarcely yet uncurling. Michael found a great charm in +sitting close to Sylvia like this: she and Stella both possessed a +capacity for bracing him that he did not find in anyone else. Sylvia was +really worth quarreling with; but it would be very delightful to be +friends with her. He had never liked a person so much whom he had so +little reason to like. He could not help thinking that in her heart +Sylvia must like him. It was a strangely provocative fancy.</p> + +<p>“Lily and I have parted,” he began at once.</p> + +<p>“And why do you suppose that piece of information will interest me?” +Sylvia asked.</p> + +<p>Michael was rather taken aback. When he came to consider it, there did +seem no good reason why Sylvia should any longer be interested after the +way in which Lily had been snatched away from her. He was silent for a +moment.</p> + +<p>“But it would have interested you a short time ago,” he said.</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” Sylvia agreed. “But luckily for me one of<a name="page_611" id="page_611"></a> the benefits +conferred by my temperament is an ability to throw aside things that +have disappointed me, things that have ceased to be useful—and what +applies to things applies even more strongly to people.”</p> + +<p>“You mean to say you’ve put Lily right out of your life?” Michael +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>He was shocked by the notion, for he did not realize until this moment +how much he had been depending upon Sylvia for peace of mind.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you put her out of <i>your</i> life?” she asked, looking round at +him sharply. Until this question she had been staring sullenly down at +the grass.</p> + +<p>“Well, I had to,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“You’re bearing up very well under the sad necessity,” she sneered.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that I am bearing up very well. I don’t think that coming +to you to talk about it is a special sign of fortitude.”</p> + +<p>“What do you want me to do?” Sylvia demanded. “Get her back into your +life again? Isn’t that the phrase you like?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, that’s unimaginable,” said Michael. “You see, it was really the +second time. Once six years ago, and again now, very much more—more +utterly. You said that your temperament enables you to throw off things +and people. Mine makes me bow to what I fancy are irremediable strokes +of fate.”</p> + +<p>“Unimaginable! Irremediable! We’re turning this interview into a +Rossetti sonnet,” Sylvia scoffed.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking about that poem Jenny to-day. It’s funny you should +mention Rossetti.”</p> + +<p>“Impervious youth!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“It’s hopeless for you to try to wound me with words,” Michael assured +her, with grave earnestness. “I was wounded<a name="page_612" id="page_612"></a> the day before yesterday +into complete immunity from small pains.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you found her ...”</p> + +<p>Michael flushed and gripped her by the wrist.</p> + +<p>“No, no, don’t say something brutal and beastly!” he stammered. “You +know what happened. You prophesied it. Well, I thought you were wrong, +and you were right. That’s a victory for you. You couldn’t wish for me +to be more humbled than I am by having to admit that I wasn’t strong +enough to keep her faithful for six weeks. But we did agree, I think, +about one thing.” He smiled sadly. “We did agree that she was beautiful. +You were as proud of that as I was, and of course you had a great deal +more reason to be proud. You did own her. I never owned her, and isn’t +that your great objection to the relation between man and woman?”</p> + +<p>“What are you trying to make me do?” Sylvia asked.</p> + +<p>“I want you to have Lily to live with you again.”</p> + +<p>“To relieve yourself of all responsibility, I suppose,” she said +bitterly.</p> + +<p>“No, no; why will you persist in ascribing the worst motive to +everything I say? Isn’t your jealousy fed full enough even yet?”</p> + +<p>Sylvia made the garden-seat quiver with an irritable movement.</p> + +<p>“You will persist in thinking that jealousy solved all problems,” she +cried.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t let us turn aside into what isn’t very important. You can’t +care whether I think you’re jealous or not.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care in so far as it is your opinion,” Sylvia admitted. “But I +object to inaccurate thinking. If your life was spent in a confusion of +all moral values as mine is,<a name="page_613" id="page_613"></a> you would be anxious for a little +straightforward computation for a change.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you are right,” Michael admitted, “in thinking that I’m asking +you to look after Lily to relieve myself of a responsibility. But it’s +only because I see no chance of doing it in any other way. I mean—it’s +not laziness on my part. It’s a confession of absolute failure.”</p> + +<p>“In fact, you’re throwing yourself on my mercy,” Sylvia said.</p> + +<p>“Yes; and also her,” he added gently.</p> + +<p>“Am I such a moral companion—such an ennobling influence?”</p> + +<p>“I would sooner think of her under your influence than think of her +drifting. What I want you to understand is that I’m not consigning her +to you for sentimental reasons. I would sooner that Lily were dragged +down by you at a gallop than that she should sink slowly and lazily of +her own accord. You have a strong personality. You are well-read. You +are quite out of the common, and in the life you have chosen, so far as +I have had experience, you are unique.”</p> + +<p>Sylvia stared in front of her, and Michael waited anxiously for the +reply.</p> + +<p>“Have you ever read Petronius?” she asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but what an extraordinary girl you are—have you ever read +Petronius?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the only book in which anyone in my position with my brains could +behold herself. Oh, it is such a nightmare. And life is a nightmare, +too. After all, what is life for me? Strange doors in strange houses. +Strange men and strange intimacies. Scenes incredibly grotesque and +incredibly beastly. The secret vileness of human nature flung at me. Man +revealing himself through individual after individual as utterly +contemptible. What can I worship? Not my own body soiled by my traffic +in it. Not any religion I’ve ever<a name="page_614" id="page_614"></a> heard of, for in all religions man is +set up to be respected. I tell you, my dear eager fool, it is beyond my +conception ever, ever, ever to regard a man as higher than a frog, as +less repulsive than—ugh! it makes me shudder—but oh, my son, doesn’t +it make me laugh....” She rocked herself with extravagant mirth for a +moment. Then she began again, staring out in front of her intensely, +fiercely, speaking with the monotonous voice of a visionary. “So I +worship woman, and in this nightmare city, in this nightmare life, Lily +was always beautiful; only beautiful, mind you. I don’t want to worship +anything but beauty. I don’t care about purity or uprightness, but I +must have beauty. And you came blundering along and kidnapped my lovely +girl. You came along, thinking you were going to regenerate her, and you +can’t understand that I’m only able to see you in the shape of a frog. +It does amuse me to hear you talking to me so solemnly and so earnestly +and so nobly ... and all the time I can only see a clumsy frog.”</p> + +<p>“But what has all this to do with Petronius? There’s nothing in that +romance particularly complimentary to women,” Michael argued.</p> + +<p>“It’s the nightmare effect of it that I adore,” Sylvia exclaimed. “It’s +the sensation of being hopelessly plunged into a maze of streets from +which there’s no escape. I was plunged just like that into London. It is +gloriously and sometimes horribly mad, and that’s all I want in my +reading now. I want to be given the sensation of other people having +been mad before me ... years ago in a nightmare. Besides, think of the +truth, the truth of a work of art that seems ignorant of goodness. Not +one moderately decent person all through.”</p> + +<p>“And you will take Lily back?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, of course I will. But not because you ask me, mind. Don’t for +heaven’s sake, puff yourself up with the<a name="page_615" id="page_615"></a> idea that I’m doing anything +except gratify myself in this matter.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want you to do it for any other reason,” he said. “I shall feel +more secure with that pledge than with any you could think of. By the +way, tell me about a man called Walker. Ronald Walker—a painter. He had +an affair with Lily, didn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Ronnie Walker? He painted her; that was all. There was never anything +more.”</p> + +<p>“And Lonsdale? Arthur Lonsdale?”</p> + +<p>“Who? The Honorable Arthur?”</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, we met him first at Covent Garden, and went to Brighton with him +and another boy—Clarehaven—Lord Clarehaven.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I remember him at the House,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Money is necessary sometimes, you know,” Sylvia laughed.</p> + +<p>“Of course it is. Look here. Will you in future, whenever you feel +you’re in a nightmare—will you write to me and let me send money?” he +asked. “I know you despise me and of course ... I understand; but I +can’t bear to think of anyone being haunted as you must be haunted +sometimes. Don’t be proud about this, because <i>I’ve</i> got no pride left. +I’m only terribly anxious to be of service to somebody. There’s really +no reason for you to be proud. You see, I should always be so very much +more anxious to help than you would to be helped. And it really isn’t +only because of Lily that I say this. I’ve got a good many books you’d +enjoy, and I think I’ll send them to you. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” she said, looking at him curiously.</p> + +<p>Michael turned away from her down the gravel-path, and a moment later +slammed the door. He had only gone a few steps away, when he heard +Sylvia calling after him.<a name="page_616" id="page_616"></a></p> + +<p>“You stupid!” she said. “You never told me Lily’s address.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll give you a card.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Michael Fane,” she read, “1 Ararat House, Island Road.” She looked +at him and raised her eyebrows.</p> + +<p>“You see, I expected to live there myself,” Michael explained. “I told a +friend of mine, Maurice Avery, to clear up everything. The furniture can +all be sold. If you want anything for here, take it of course; but I +think most of the things will be too large for Mulberry Cottage.”</p> + +<p>“And what shall I say to Lily?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t think I should say anything about me.”</p> + +<p>“Who was the man?”</p> + +<p>“I never saw him,” said Michael. “I only saw his hat.”</p> + +<p>She pulled him to her and kissed him.</p> + +<p>“How many women have done that suddenly like that?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“One—well, perhaps two.” He was wondering if Mrs. Smith’s kiss ought to +count in the comparison.</p> + +<p>“I never have to any man,” she said, and vanished through the door in +the wall.</p> + +<p>Michael hoped that Sylvia intended to imply by that kiss that his offer +of help was accepted. Fancy her having read Petronius! He could send her +his Adlington’s Apuleius. She would enjoy reading that, and he would +write in it: <i>I’ve eaten rose-leaves and I am no longer a golden ass.</i> +Perhaps he would also send her his Shelton’s Don Quixote.</p> + +<p>When Michael turned out of Tinderbox Lane into the Fulham Road, each +person of humanity he passed upon the pavement seemed to him strange +with unrevealed secrets. The people of London were somehow transfigured, +and he longed to see their souls, if it were only in the lucid flashes +of a nightmare. Yet for nearly a year he had been peering<a name="page_617" id="page_617"></a> into the +souls of people. Had he, indeed. Had he not rather been peering to see +in their souls the reflection of his own? He was moved by the thought of +Sylvia in London, and suddenly he was swept from his feet by the surging +against him of the thoughts of all the passers-by and, struggling in the +trough of these thoughts, he was more and more conscious that unless he +fought for himself he would be lost. The illusion fled on the instant of +its creation; and the people were themselves again—dull, quick, slow, +ordinary, depressed, gay; political busy-bodies, political fools, +political slaves, political animals. How they huddled together, each one +of them afraid to stand for himself. It was political passion that made +them animals, each dependent in turn on the mimicry of his neighbor. +Each was solicitous or jealous or fond or envious of his neighbor’s +opinion. God was meaningless to the political state: this herd cared +only for idols. Michael began to make a catalogue of the Golden Calves +that the Golden Asses of green England worshiped. They were bowing down +and braying to their Golden Calves, these Golden Asses, and they could +not see that there were rose-trees growing everywhere, most prodigally +of all in the gutter, any one petal of which (what did the thorns +matter?) would have given back to them their humanity. Yet even then, +Michael dismally concluded, they would continue to bow down to the +Golden Calves, because they would fancy that it was the Calves who had +planted and cultivated the rose-trees. Then out of all the thronging +thoughts made visible he began to pursue the fancy of Sylvia in London, +and, as he did so, she faded farther and farther from his vision like a +butterfly seen from a train, that keeps pace, it seems for a moment, and +is lost upon the flowery embankment behind.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Michael was feeling sharpened for conflict by that talk under +the mulberry tree: he realized what an<a name="page_618" id="page_618"></a> amount of determination he had +stored up for the persuasion of Sylvia. Now there only remained Leppard +Street, and then he would go away from London. He walked on through the +Chelsea slums.</p> + +<p>Leppard Street was more melancholy in the sunshine than it had ever +seemed in Winter, not so much because the sun made more evident the +corrosion and the foulness as because of the stillness it shed. Not a +breath of air twitched the torn paper-bag on the doorstep of Number One; +and the five tall houses with their fifty windows stared at the blank +wall opposite.</p> + +<p>Michael wondered if Barnes would be out of bed: it was not yet one +o’clock. He rang the front-door bell, or rather he hoped that the +creaking of the broken wire along the basement passage would attract +Mrs. Cleghorne’s attention. When he had tugged many times, she came out +into the area, and peered up to see who it was. The sudden sunlight must +have dazzled her eyes, for she was shading them with her hand. With her +fibrous neck working and with an old cap of her husband’s pinned on a +skimpy bun at the back of her head, she was horrible after Mrs. +Gainsborough in the black and green gingham. Michael looked down at her +over the railings; and she, recognizing him at last, pounced back to +come up and open the door.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t think who it was. We had a man round selling pots of musk +this morning, and I didn’t want to come trapesing upstairs for nothing.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne was receiving him so pleasantly that Michael scarcely +knew what to say. No doubt his regular payment of rent had a good deal +to do with it.</p> + +<p>“Is Mr. Barnes up?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, I’m sure. I never go inside his door now. No.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, really? Why not?”<a name="page_619" id="page_619"></a></p> + +<p>“I’m the last person to make mischief, Mr. Fane, but I don’t consider he +has treated us fair.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, really?”</p> + +<p>“He’s got a woman here living with him. Now of course that’s a thing I +should never allow, but seeing as you weren’t here and was paying the +rent regular I thought to myself that I’ll just shut my eyes until you +came back. It’s really disgusting, and we has to be so particular with +the other lodgers. It’s quite upset me, it has; and <i>Mis</i>-ter Cleghorne +has been intending to speak to him about it. Only his asthma’s been so +bad lately—it really seems to have knocked all the heart out of him.”</p> + +<p>This pity for her husband was very ominous, Michael thought. Evidently +the landlady was defending herself against an abrupt forfeiture of rent +for the ground floor. Michael tapped at the door of his old room: it was +locked.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get on down again to my oven,” said Mrs. Cleghorne with a ratlike +glance at the closed door. “I’m just cooking a bit of fish for my old +man’s dinner.”</p> + +<p>She fixed him with her eyes that were beady like the head of the hatpin +in her cap, and sweeping her hand upward over her nose, she vanished.</p> + +<p>Michael rapped again and, as there was no answer, he went along the +passage and tried the bedroom door. Barnes’ voice called out to know who +was there. Michael shouted his name, and heard Barnes whispering to +somebody inside. Presently he opened the sitting-room door and invited +Michael to come in.</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary to see how with a few additions the character of +the room had changed since Michael left it. The furniture was still +there; but what had seemed ascetic was now mean. Spangled +picture-postcards were standing along the mantelpiece. The autotypes of +St. George and the Knight in Armor were both askew: the shelves had<a name="page_620" id="page_620"></a> +novelettes interspersed among the books; a soiled petticoat of yellow +moirette lay over Michael’s narrow bed, which he was surprised to see in +the sitting-room: a gas-stove had been fixed in the fireplace, and the +old steel grate had been turned into a deposit for dirty plates and +dishes: but what struck Michael most were the heavy curtains over the +folding-doors between the two rooms. He looked at Barnes, waiting for +him to explain the alterations.</p> + +<p>“Looks a bit more homelike than it did, doesn’t it?” said Barnes, +blinking round him.</p> + +<p>A deterioration was visible even in Barnes himself. This was not merely +the result of being without a collar or a shave, Michael decided: it was +as hard to define as the evidence of death in a man’s eyes; but there +clung to him an aura of corruption, and it seemed as if at a touch he +would dissolve into a vile deliquescence.</p> + +<p>“You look pretty pasty,” said Michael severely.</p> + +<p>“Worry, old man, worry,” said Barnes. “Well, to put it straight, I fell +in with a girl who was down on her luck, and I knew you’d be the very +one to encourage a bit of charity. So I brought her here.”</p> + +<p>“Why are you sleeping in this room?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“You’re getting a Mr. Smart, aren’t you?” said Barnes. “Fancy you’re +noticing that. Oh, well, I suppose you’ve come to ask for your rooms +back?”</p> + +<p>Michael with the consciousness of the woman behind those curtained doors +knew that he could discuss nothing at present. He felt that all the time +her ear was at the keyhole, and he went out suddenly, telling Barnes to +meet him at the Orange that night.</p> + +<p>Again the beerhall impressed him with its eternal sameness. It was as if +a cinema film had broken when he last went out of the Café d’Orange, and +had been set in action again at the moment of his return. He looked +round to see<a name="page_621" id="page_621"></a> if Daisy was there, and she was. Her hat which had +formerly been black and trimmed with white daisies was now, to mark the +season, white and trimmed with black daisies.</p> + +<p>“Hulloa, little stranger!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>So exactly the same was the Orange that Michael was almost surprised +that she should have observed a passage of time.</p> + +<p>“You never seem to come here now,” she said reproachfully. “Come on. Sit +down. Don’t stand about like a man selling matches on the curb.”</p> + +<p>“How’s Bert?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Who?”</p> + +<p>“Bert Saunders. The man you were living with in Little Quondam Street.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, him! Oh, I had to get rid of him double quick. What? Yes, when it +came to asking me to go to Paris with a fighting fellow. Only fancy the +cheek of it! It would help him, he said, with his business. Dirty Ecnop! +I soon shoved him down the Apples-and-pears.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t understood a word of that last sentence,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know back-slang and rhyming-slang? Oh, it’s grand! Here, I +forgot, there’s something I wanted to tell you. Do you remember you was +in here with a fellow who you said his name was Burns?”</p> + +<p>“Barnes, you mean, I expect. Yes, he’s supposed to be meeting me here +to-night, as a matter of fact.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you be careful of him. He’ll get you into trouble.”</p> + +<p>Michael looked incredulous.</p> + +<p>“It’s true as I sit here,” said Daisy earnestly. “Come over in the +corner and let’s have our drink there. I can’t <a name="page_622" id="page_622"></a>talk here with that +blue-nosed —— behind me, squinting at us across his lager.” She looked +round indignantly at the man in question.</p> + +<p>They moved across to one of the alcoves, and Daisy leaned over and spoke +quietly and rather tensely, so differently from the usual rollick of her +voice that Michael began to feel a presentiment of dread.</p> + +<p>“I was out on the Dilly one night soon after you’d been round to my +place, and I was with a girl called Janie Filson. ‘Oo-er,’ she said to +me. ‘Did you see who that was passed?’ I looked round and saw this +fellow Burns.”</p> + +<p>“Barnes,” Michael corrected.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, Barnes. His name doesn’t matter, because it isn’t his own, +anyway. ‘That’s Harry Meats,’ she said. And she called out after him. +‘Hulloa, Harry, where’s Cissie?’ He went as white as ... oh, he did go +shocking white. He just turned to see who it was had called out after +him, and then he slid up Swallow Street like a bit of paper. ‘Who’s +Cissie?’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember Cissie Cummings?’ she said. ‘That +fair girl who always wore a big purple hat and used to be in the +Leicester Lounge and always carried a box of chocolates for swank?’ I +did remember the girl when Janie spoke about her. Only I never knew her, +see? ‘He wasn’t very pleased when you mentioned her,’ I said. ‘Didn’t he +look awful?’ said Janie, and just then she got off with a fellow and I +couldn’t ask her any more.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think that’s enough to make me very much afraid of Barnes,” +Michael commented.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute, I haven’t finished yet. Don’t be in such a hurry. The +other day I saw Janie Filson again. She’s been away to Italy—is there a +place called Italy? Of course there is. Well, as I was saying, she’d +been to Italy with her fellow who’s a commercial traveler and that’s why +I hadn’t seen her. And Janie said to me, ‘Do you know<a name="page_623" id="page_623"></a> what they’re +saying?’ I said, ‘No, what?’ And she said, ‘Did you read nearly a year +ago about a woman who was found murdered in the Euston Road? A gay woman +it was,’ she said. So I said, ‘Lots of women is found murdered, my dear. +I can’t remember every one I see the picture of.’ Well, anyone can’t, +can they?” Daisy broke off to ask Michael in an injured voice. Then she +resumed her tale. “When I was with that fellow Bert I used to read +nothing else but murders all the time. Give anyone the rats, it would. +‘Lots of women, my dear,’ I said. And she said, ‘Well, there was one in +particular who the police never found out the name of, because there +wasn’t any clothing or nothing found.’ So I did remember about it, and +she said, ‘Well, they’re saying now it was Cissie Cummings.’ And I said, +‘Well, what of it, if it was?’ And she said, ‘What of it?’ she said. +‘Well, if it was her,’ she said, ‘I know who done it.’ ‘Who done it?’ I +asked—because, you see, I’d forgotten about this fellow Burns. ‘Why, +Harry Meats,’ she said. ‘That fellow I saw on the Dilly the night when I +was along with you.’”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you have enough evidence for the police,” Michael +decided, with half a smile. Yet nevertheless a malaise chilled him, and +he looked over his shoulder at the mob in the beer hall.</p> + +<p>“—— the police!” Daisy exclaimed. “I don’t care about them when I’m +positive certain of something. I tell you, I know that fellow Burns, or +Meats, or whatever his name is, done it.”</p> + +<p>“But what am I to do about it?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ll get into trouble, that’s all,” Daisy prophesied. “You’d +look very funny if he was pinched for murder while you was out walking +with him. Ugh! It gives me the creeps. Order me a gin, there’s a good +boy.”<a name="page_624" id="page_624"></a></p> + +<p>Michael obtained for Daisy her drink, and sat waiting for Barnes to +appear.</p> + +<p>“He won’t come,” Daisy scoffed. “If he’s feeling funny about the neck, +he won’t come down here. He’s never been down since that night he came +down with you. Fancy, to go and do a poor girl in like that! I’d spit in +his face, if I saw him.”</p> + +<p>“Daisy, you really mustn’t assume such horrible things about a man. He’s +as innocent as you or me.”</p> + +<p>“Is he?” Daisy retorted. “I don’t think so then. You never saw how +shocking white his face went when Janie asked him about Cissie.”</p> + +<p>“But if there were any suspicion of him,” Michael pointed out, “the +police would have tackled him long ago.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they aren’t half artful, the police aren’t,” said Daisy. “Nothing +they’d like better than get waiting about and seeing if he didn’t go and +murder another poor girl, so as they could have him for the two, and be +all the more pleased about it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s talking nonsense,” Michael protested. “The police don’t do that +sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” Daisy argued. “One or two poor girls more or less +wouldn’t worry them. After all, that’s what we’re for—to get pinched +when they’ve got nothing better to do. Of course, I know it’s part of +the game, but there it is. If you steal my purse and I follow you round +and tell a copper, what would he do? Why, pinch me for soliciting. No, +my motto is, ‘Keep out of the way of the police.’ And if you take my +advice, you’ll do the same. If this fellow didn’t do the girl in,” Daisy +asked earnestly, leaning forward over the table, “why doesn’t he come +down here and keep his appointment with you to-night? Don’t you worry. +He knows the word has gone round, and he’s going to lie<a name="page_625" id="page_625"></a> very low for a +bit. I wouldn’t say the tecs aren’t watching out for him even now.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Daisy, you’re getting absolutely fanciful,” Michael declared.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, good luck to fanciful,” said Daisy, draining her glass. +“Here, why don’t you come home with me to-night?”</p> + +<p>“What, and spend another three hours hiding in a cupboard?”</p> + +<p>“No, properly, I mean, this time. Only we should have to go to a hotel, +because the woman I’m living with’s got her son come home from being a +soldier and she wouldn’t like for him to know anything. Well, it’s +better not. You’re much more comfortable when you aren’t in gay rooms, +because they haven’t got a hold over you. Are you coming?”</p> + +<p>For a moment Michael was inclined to invite Daisy to go away with him. +For a moment it seemed desirable to bury himself in a corner of the +underworld: to pass his life there for as long as he could stand it. He +could easily make this girl fond of him, and he might be happy with her. +No doubt, it would be ultimately a degrading happiness, but yet not much +more degrading than the prosperity of many of his friends. He had always +escaped so far and hidden himself successfully. Why not again more +completely? What, after all, did he know of this underworld without +having lived of it as well as in it? Hitherto he had been a spectator, +intervening sometimes in the sudden tragedies and comedies, but never +intervening except as very essentially a spectator. He thought, as he +sat opposite to Daisy with her white dress and candid roguery, that it +would be amusing to become a rogue himself. There would be no strain in +living with Daisy. Love in the way that he had loved Lily would be a +joke to her. Why should not he take her for what she was—shrewd, +mirthful, kind, honest, the<a name="page_626" id="page_626"></a> natural light of love? He would do her no +wrong by accepting her as such. She was immemorial in the scheme of the +universe.</p> + +<p>Michael was on the point of offering to Daisy his alliance, when he +remembered what Sylvia had said about men and, though he knew that Daisy +could not possibly think in that way about men, he had no courage to +plunge with her into deeper labyrinths not yet explored. He thought of +the contempt with which Sylvia would hail him, were they in this +nightmare of London to meet in such circumstances. A few weeks +ago—yesterday, indeed—he might have joined himself to Daisy under the +pretext of helping her and improving her. Now he must help himself: he +must aim at perfecting himself. Experiments, when at any moment passion +might enter, were too dangerous.</p> + +<p>“No, I won’t come home with you, dear Daisy,” he said, taking her hand +over the puddly table. “You know, you didn’t kiss me that night in +Quondam Street because you thought I might one day come home with you, +did you?”</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“What’s the good of asking me why I kissed you?” she said, embarrassed +and almost made angry by his reminder. “Perhaps I was twopence on the +can. I can get very loving on a quartern of gin, I can. Oh, well, if you +aren’t coming home, you aren’t, and I must get along. Sitting talking to +you isn’t paying my rent, is it?”</p> + +<p>He longed to offer her money, but he could not, because it was seeming +to him now indissolubly linked with hiring. However genuinely it was a +token of exchange, money was eluding his capacity for idealization, and +he was at a loss to find a symbol service.</p> + +<p>“Is there nothing I can do for you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you can give me two quid in case I don’t get off to-night.”<a name="page_627" id="page_627"></a></p> + +<p>He offered them to her eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Go on, you silly thing,” she said, pushing the money away. “As if I +meant it.”</p> + +<p>“If you didn’t, I did,” said Michael.</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right,” she replied, with a wink, putting the money in her +purse. “Well, chin-chin, Clive, don’t be so long coming down here next +time.”</p> + +<p>“Michael is my name,” he said, for he was rather distressed to think +that she would pass forever from his life supposing him to be called +Clive.</p> + +<p>“As if I didn’t know that,” she said. “I remember, because it’s a Jew +name.”</p> + +<p>“But it isn’t,” Michael contradicted.</p> + +<p>“Jews are called that.”</p> + +<p>“Very likely,” he admitted.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, it’ll be all the same in a hundred years.”</p> + +<p>She picked up her white gloves, and swaggered across the crowded +beerhall. At the foot of the stairs she turned and waved them to him. +Then she disappeared.</p> + +<p>Michael sat on in the Café d’Orange, waiting for Barnes, but he did not +arrive before closing-time; and when Michael was walking home, the tale +of Daisy gathered import, and he had a dreary feeling that her +suspicions were true. He did not feel depressed so much because he was +shocked by the notion of Barnes as a murderer (he thought that probably +murder was by no means the greatest evil he had done), as because he +feared the fancy of him in the hands of the police. It appalled him to +imagine that material hell of the trial. The bandage dropped from the +eyes of justice, and he saw her pig’s-eyes mean, cowardly, revengeful; +and her scales were like a grocer’s. He pitied Barnes in the clutches of +anthropocracy. What a ridiculous word: it probably did not exist. After +all, Daisy’s story was ridiculous, too. Barnes had objected to himself’s +hailing him as Meats:<a name="page_628" id="page_628"></a> and there were plenty of reasons to account for +his dislike of Janie Filson’s salute without supposing murder. +Nevertheless, back again, as softly and coaxingly as the thought used to +come to Michael when he was a small boy lying in bed, the thought of +murder maintained an innuendo of probability. Yet it was absurd to think +of murder on this summer night, with all these jingling hansoms and all +that fountainous sky of stars. Why, then, had Barnes not met him at the +Orange to-night? It was not like him to break an appointment when his +pocket might be hurt. What rumor of Cissie Cummings had traveled even to +Leppard Street?</p> + +<p>Michael had reached Buckingham Palace Road, and he took the direction +for Pimlico; it was not too late to get into the house. He changed his +mind again and drove back to Cheyne Walk. Up in his bedroom, the +curiosity to know why Barnes had not kept the appointment recurred with +double force, and Michael after a search found the key of the house in +Leppard Street and went out again. It was getting on for two o’clock, +and without the lights of vehicles the night was more than ever +brilliant. Under the plane-trees Michael was stabbed with one pang for +Lily, and he repined at the waste of this warm June.</p> + +<p>The clocks had struck two when he reached Leppard Street, and the houses +confronted him, their roofs and chimneys prinked with stars. Several +windows glimmered with a turbid orange light; but these signals of +habitation only emphasized the unconsciousness of the sleepers behind, +and made the desolation of the rest more positive. The windows of his +old rooms were black, and Michael unlocked the front door quietly and +stood listening for a moment in the passage. He could hear a low +snarling in the bedroom, but from where he was standing not a word was +distinct, and he could not bring himself to point of listening close to +the<a name="page_629" id="page_629"></a> keyhole. He shut the front door and waited in the blackness, +fascinated by the rise and fall of the low snarl that was seeming so +sinister in this house. It was incredible that a brief movement would +open the front door again and let in the starlight; for, as he stood +here, Leppard Street was under the earth deep down. He moved a little +farther into the hall, and, putting out his hand to feel for the +balusters, drew back with a start, for he might have clapped it down +upon a cold bald head, so much like that was the newel’s wooden knob. +Still the snarling rose and fell: the darkness grew thicker and every +instant more atramental, beating upon him from the steeps of the house +like the filthy wings of a great bat: and still the snarling rose and +fell. It rose and fell like the bubbling of a kettle, and then without +warning the kettle overflowed with spit and hiss and commotion. Every +word spoken by Barnes and the woman was now audible.</p> + +<p>“I say he gave you thirty shillings. Now then!” Barnes yapped.</p> + +<p>“And I tell you he only gave me a sovereign, which you’ve had.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t I hear through the door what you get?”</p> + +<p>Michael knew why Barnes had not been able to keep his appointment +to-night, and though he was outraged at the use to which his rooms had +been put, he was glad to be relieved of the fear that this snarling was +the prelude to the revelation of Barnes as a murderer. The +recriminations with their details of vileness were not worth hearing +longer, and Michael went quickly and quietly out into the Summer night, +which smelled so sweet after that passage.</p> + +<p>He turned round by the lamp-post at the corner and looked back at the +five stark houses; he could not abandon their contemplation; and he +pored upon them as intensely as he might have pored upon a tomb of black +basalt rising<a name="page_630" id="page_630"></a> out of desert sand. He was immured in the speculation of +their blackness: he pondered hopelessly their meaning and brooded upon +the builders that built them and the sphinx that commanded them to be +built.</p> + +<p>In his present mood Michael would have thought Stonehenge rather +prosaic; and he leaned against the wall in the silence, thinking of +brick upon brick, or brick upon brick slabbed with mortar and chipped +and tapped in the past, of brick upon brick as the houses grew higher +and higher ... a railway engine shrieked suddenly: the door of Number +One slammed: and a woman came hurrying down the steps. She looked for a +moment to right and left of her, and then she moved swiftly with a wild, +irregular walk in Michael’s direction. He had a sensation that she had +known he was standing here against this wall, that she had watched him +all the while and was hurrying now to ask why he had been standing here +against this wall. He could not turn and walk away: he could not advance +to meet her: so he stood still leaning against the wall. Michael saw her +very plainly as she passed him in the lamplight. Her hat was askew, and +a black ostrich plume hung down over her big chalky face: her lips were +glistening as if they had been smeared with jam. She was wearing a black +satin cloak, and she seemed, as her skirts swept past him, like an +overblown grotesque of tragedy being dragged by a wire from the scene.</p> + +<p>Michael shuddered at the monstrousness of her femininity; he seemed to +have been given a glimpse of a mere mass of woman, a soft obscene +primeval thing that demanded blows from a club, nothing else. He +realized how in a moment men could become haters of femininity, could +hate its animalism and wish to stamp upon it. The physical repulsion he +had felt vanished when the sound of her footsteps had died away. In the +reaction Michael pitied her, and he went back quietly to Number One with +the intention of<a name="page_631" id="page_631"></a> turning Barnes into the street. He was rather startled +as he walked up the steps to see Barnes’ face pressed against the +window-pane, for it seemed to him ludicrous that he should wave +reassuringly to a mask like that.</p> + +<p>Barnes hurried to open the front door before Michael had taken the key +from his pocket, and was not at all surprised to see him.</p> + +<p>“Here, I couldn’t get down to the Orange to-night. I’ve had a bit of +trouble with this girl.”</p> + +<p>The gas was flaring in the sitting-room by now, and the night, which +outside had been lightening for dawn, was black as ink upon the panes.</p> + +<p>“Sit on the bed. The chairs are all full of her dirty clothes. I’ll pull +the blinds down. I’m going to leave here to-morrow, Fane. Did you see +her going down the road? She must have passed you by. I tell you +straight, Fane, half an hour back I was in two minds to do her in. I +was, straight. And I would have, if ... Oh, well, I kept my temper and +threw her out instead. Gratitude! It’s my belief gratitude doesn’t exist +in this world. You sit down and have a smoke. He left some cigarettes +behind.”</p> + +<p>“Who did?” Michael asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Who did what?”</p> + +<p>“Left these cigarettes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’re some I bought yesterday,” said Barnes.</p> + +<p>“I think it’s just as well for you that you are going to-morrow morning. +I hope you quite realize that otherwise I should have turned you out.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” Barnes protested. “I’ve +had quite enough to worry me without any nastiness between old friends +to make it worse.”</p> + +<p>“You can’t expect me to be pleased at the way you’ve treated my rooms,” +Michael said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the gas-stove, you mean?”<a name="page_632" id="page_632"></a></p> + +<p>“It’s not a question of gas-stoves. It’s a question of living on a +woman.”</p> + +<p>“Who did?”</p> + +<p>“You.”</p> + +<p>“If I’d had to live on her earnings, I should be very poorly off now,” +grumbled Barnes, in an injured voice.</p> + +<p>Under Michael’s attack he was regaining his old perkiness.</p> + +<p>“At any rate, you must go to-morrow morning,” Michael insisted.</p> + +<p>“Don’t I keep on telling you that I’m going? It’s no good for you to nag +at me, Fane.”</p> + +<p>“And what about the woman?”</p> + +<p>“Her? Let her go to ——,” said Barnes contemptuously. “She can’t do me +any harm. What if she does tell the coppers I’ve been living on her? +They won’t worry me unless they’ve nothing better to do, and I’ll have +hooked it by then.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sure she can’t do you any harm?” Michael asked gravely. “There’s +nothing else she could tell the police?”</p> + +<p>“Here, what are you talking about?” asked Barnes, coming close to +Michael and staring at him fixedly. Michael debated whether he should +mention Cissie Cummings, but he lacked the courage either to frighten +Barnes with the suggestion of his guilt or to preserve a superior +attitude in the face of his enraged innocence.</p> + +<p>“I shall come round to-morrow morning, or rather this morning, at nine,” +said Michael. “And I shall expect to find you ready to clear out of here +for good.”</p> + +<p>“You’re very short with a fellow, aren’t you?” said Barnes. “What do you +want to go away for? Why don’t you stay so as you can see me off the +premises?”</p> + +<p>Michael thought that he could observe underneath all the<a name="page_633" id="page_633"></a> assurance a +sharp anxiety on Barnes’ part not to be left alone.</p> + +<p>“You can lay down and have a sleep in here. I’ll get on into the +bedroom.”</p> + +<p>Michael consented to stay, and Barnes was obviously relieved. He put out +the gas and retired into the bedroom. The dawn was graying the room, and +the sun would be up in less than an hour. Early sparrows were beginning +to chirp. The woman who had burst out of the door and fled up the street +seemed now a chimera of the night. Half-dozing, Michael lay on the bed, +half dozing and faintly oppressed by the odor of patchouli coming from +the clothes heaped upon the chairs. St. George was visible already, and +even the outlines of The Knight in Armor were tremulously apparent. +Michael wondered why he did not feel a greater resentment at the +profanation of these rooms. And why did Barnes keep fidgeting on the +other side of the folding doors? The sparrows were cheeping more loudly: +the trains were more frequent. Michael woke from sleep with a start and +saw that Barnes was throwing the clothes from the chairs on the floor: +stirred up thus in this clear light the scent of patchouli was even more +noticeable. What on earth was Barnes doing? He was turning the whole +room upside-down.</p> + +<p>“What the deuce are you looking for?” Michael yawned.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, old man, you get on with your sleep. I’m just putting +my things together,” Barnes told him.</p> + +<p>Michael turned over and was beginning to doze again when Barnes woke him +by the noise he made in taking the dirty dishes out of the old grate.</p> + +<p>“How on earth can I sleep, when you’re continually fidgeting?” Michael +demanded fretfully. “What’s the time?”</p> + +<p>“Just gone half-past five.”<a name="page_634" id="page_634"></a></p> + +<p>Barnes paid no more attention to Michael’s rest, but began more +feverishly than ever to rummage among all the things in the room.</p> + +<p>Michael could not stand his activity any longer, and dry-mouthed from an +uncomfortable sleep, he sat up.</p> + +<p>“What <i>are</i> you looking for?”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you want to know, I’m looking for a watch-bracelet.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not likely to be under the carpet,” said Michael severely.</p> + +<p>Barnes was wrenching out the tacks to Michael’s annoyance.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it isn’t,” Barnes agreed. “But I’ve got to find this +watch-bracelet. It’s gold. I don’t want to lose it.”</p> + +<p>“Was it a woman’s?”</p> + +<p>Barnes looked round at him like a small animal alarmed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was a woman’s. What makes you ask?”</p> + +<p>“What’s it like?”</p> + +<p>“Gold. Gold, I keep telling you.”</p> + +<p>“When did you have it last?”</p> + +<p>“Last night.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it can’t have gone far.”</p> + +<p>“No, blast it, of course it can’t,” said Barnes, searching with renewed +impatience. He was throwing the clothes about the room again, and the +odor of staleness became nauseating.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to wash,” Michael announced, moving across to the bedroom.</p> + +<p>“You’ll excuse the untidiness,” Barnes called out after him, in a tone +of rather strained jocularity.</p> + +<p>Of Michael’s old room no vestige remained. A very large double-bed took +up almost all the space, and all the furniture was new and tawdry. The +walls were hung with studies of cocottes pretending to be naiads and +dryads, horrible<a name="page_635" id="page_635"></a> women posed in the silvanity of a photographer’s +studio. The room was littered with clothes, and Michael could not move a +step without entangling his feet in a petticoat or treading upon hidden +shoes. He tried to splash his face, but the very washstand was sickly.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ve managed to debauch my bedroom quite successfully,” he said +to Barnes, when he came back to the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right. I’ll get rid of all the new furniture. I can pop the +lot. Well, it’s mine. If I could find this bloody watch-bracelet, I +could begin to make some arrangements.”</p> + +<p>“What about breakfast?” Michael began to look for something to eat. +Every plate and knife was dirty, and there were three or four +half-finished tins of condensed milk which had turned pistachio green +and stank abominably.</p> + +<p>“There’s a couple of herrings somewhere,” said Barnes. “Or there was. +But everything seems upside-down this morning. Where the hell is that +watch? It can’t have walked away on its own. If that mare took it! I’ve +a very particular reason for not wanting to lose that watch. Oh, +—— ——! wherever can it have got to?”</p> + +<p>“Well, anyway shut up using such filthy language. When does the milkman +come round?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know when he comes round. Here, Fane, have you ever heard of +anyone talking in their sleep?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I’ve heard of people talking in their sleep,” Michael +answered. “It’s not very unusual.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, hollering out, yes—but talking in a sensible sort of a way, so +that if you came in and listened to what they said, you’d think it was +the truth? Have you ever heard of that?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose I can give you an instance, but obviously it must often +happen.”<a name="page_636" id="page_636"></a></p> + +<p>“Must it?” said Barnes, in a depressed voice. “You see, I set particular +value by this watch-bracelet; and I thought perhaps I might have talked +about it in my sleep, and that mare just to spite me have gone and taken +it. I wonder where it is now.”</p> + +<p>Michael also began to wonder where it was now, and Barnes’ anxiety was +transferred to him, so that he began to fancy the whole of this fine +morning was tremendously bound up with exactly where the watch-bracelet +now was. Barnes had begun to turn over everything for about the sixth +time.</p> + +<p>“If the watch is here,” said Michael irritably, “it will be found when +you move your things out, and if it’s not here, it’s useless to go on +worrying about it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, it’s all very nice for you to be so calm! But what price it’s being +my watch that’s lost, not yours, old sport?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to talk about it any more,” Michael declared. “I want to +know what you’re going to do when you leave here.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, that’s it! What am I?”</p> + +<p>“Would you like to go to the Colonies?”</p> + +<p>“What, say good-bye to dear old Leicester Square and pop off for good +and all? I wouldn’t mind.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind telling you,” said Michael, “that if I’d discovered you +here a week ago living like this, I should have had nothing more to do +with you. As it is, I’ve a good mind to sling you out to look after +yourself. However, I’m willing to get you a ticket for wherever you +think you’d like to go, and when I hear you’ve arrived, I’ll send you +enough money to keep you going for a time.”</p> + +<p>“Fane, I don’t mind saying it. You’ve been a good pal to me.”</p> + +<p>“Hark, there’s the milkman at last!” Michael exclaimed. He went out into +the sparkling air of the fine Summer<a name="page_637" id="page_637"></a> morning and came back with plenty +of milk for breakfast. After they had made a sort of meal, he suggested +that Barnes ought to come with him and visit some of the Colonial +Agencies. They walked down Victoria Street and across St. James’ Park, +and in the Strand he made Barnes have a shave. The visit to the barber +took away some of his nocturnal raffishness, and Michael found him very +amusing during the various discussions that took place in the Agencies.</p> + +<p>“I think the walk has done you good.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Barnes doubtfully admitted. “I don’t think it has done me much +harm.”</p> + +<p>They had lunch at Romano’s, where Barnes drank a good deal of Chianti +and became full of confidence in his future.</p> + +<p>“That’s where it is, Fane. A fellow like you is lucky. But that’s no +reason why I shouldn’t be lucky in my turn. My life has been a failure +so far. Yes, I’m not going to attempt to deny it. There are lots of +things in my life that might have been different. You’ll understand when +I say different I mean pleasanter for everybody all round, myself +included. But that’s all finished. With this fruit-farm—well, of course +it’s no good grumbling and running down good things—those apples we saw +were big enough to make anybody’s fortune. Cawdashit, Fane, I can see +myself sitting under one of those apple-trees and counting the bloody +fruit falling down at my feet and me popping them into baskets and +selling them—where was it he said we sold them?” Barnes poured out more +Chianti. “Really, it seems a sin on a fine day like this to be hanging +about in London. Well, I’ve had some sprees in old London, and that’s a +fact; so I’m not going to start running it down now. If I hadn’t lost +that watch-bracelet, I wouldn’t give a damn for anybody. Good old +London,” he went on meditatively.<a name="page_638" id="page_638"></a> “Yes, I’ve had some times—good times +and bad times—and here I am.”</p> + +<p>He gradually became incoherent, and Michael thought it would be as well +to escort him back to Leppard Street and impress on him once again that +he must remove all his things immediately.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to be quick with your packing-up. You ought to sail next +week. I shall go and see about your passage to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>They drove back to Leppard Street in a taxi, and as they got out Barnes +said emphatically:</p> + +<p>“You know what it is, Fane? Cawdashit! I feel like a marquis when I’m +out with you, and it I hadn’t have lost that watch-bracelet I’d feel +like the bloody German Emperor. That’s me. All up in the air one minute, +and yet worry myself barmy over a little thing like a watch the next.”</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” he exclaimed, looking up the road as their taxi drove off. +“Somebody else is playing at being a millionaire.”</p> + +<p>Another taxi was driving into Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>Michael had already opened the front door, and he told Barnes not to +hang about on the steps. Barnes turned reluctantly from his inspection +of the new taxi’s approach. It pulled up at Number One, and three men +jumped out.</p> + +<p>“That’s your man,” Michael heard one of them say, and in another moment +he heard, “Henry Meats ... I hold a warrant ... murder of Cissie ... +anything you say ... used against you,” all in the mumbo-jumbo of a +nightmare.</p> + +<p>Michael came down the steps again very quickly; and Barnes, now +handcuffed, turned to him despairingly.</p> + +<p>“Tell ’em my name isn’t Meats, Fane. Tell ’em they’ve made a mistake. +Oh, my God, I never done it! I never done it!”</p> + +<p>The two men were pushing him, dead white, crumpled,<a name="page_639" id="page_639"></a> sobbing, into the +taxi; he seemed very small beside the big men with their square +shoulders and bristly mustaches. Michael heard him still moaning as the +taxi jangled and whirred abruptly forward. The third man watched it +disappear between the two walls; then he strolled up the steps to enter +the house. Mrs. Cleghorne was already in the hall, and over the +balusters of each landing faces could be seen peering down. As if the +word were uttered by the house itself, “murder” floated in a whisper +upon the air. The faces shifted; doors opened and shut far above; +footsteps hurried to and fro; and still of all these sounds “murder” was +the most audible.</p> + +<p>“This is the gentleman who rents the rooms,” Mrs. Cleghorne was saying.</p> + +<p>“But I’ve not been near them till yesterday evening for six months,” +Michael hurriedly explained.</p> + +<p>“That’s quite right,” Mrs. Cleghorne echoed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m afraid we must go through them,” said the officer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see, is this your address?”</p> + +<p>“Well, no—Cheyne Walk—173.”</p> + +<p>“We might want to have a little talk with you about this here Meats.”</p> + +<p>Michael was enraged with himself for not asseverating “Barnes! Barnes! +Barnes!” as he had been begged to do. He despised himself for not trying +to save that white crumpled thing huddled between those big men with +their bristly mustaches; yet all the while he felt violently afraid that +the police officer would think him involved in these disgraceful rooms, +that he would suppose the pictures and the tawdry furniture belonged to +him, that he would imagine the petticoats and underlinen strewn about +the floor had something to do with him.<a name="page_640" id="page_640"></a></p> + +<p>“If you want me,” he found himself saying, “you have my address.”</p> + +<p>Quickly he hurried away from Leppard Street, and traveled in a trance of +shame to Hardingham. Alan was just going in to bat, when Michael walked +across from the Hall to the cricket-field.</p> + +<p>Stella came from her big basket chair to greet him, and for a while he +sat with her in the buttercups, watching Alan at the wicket. Nothing had +ever seemed so easy as the bowling of the opposite side on this fine +June evening, and Michael tried to banish the thought of Barnes in the +spaciousness of these level fields. Stella was evidently being very +careful not to convey the impression that she had lately won a victory +over him. It was really ridiculous, Michael thought, as he plucked idly +the buttercups and made desultory observations to Stella about the merit +of a stroke by Alan, it was more than ridiculous, it was deliberate +folly to enmesh himself with such horrors as he had beheld at Leppard +Street. There were doubtless very unpleasant events continually +happening in this world, but willfully to drag one’s self into misery on +account of them was merely to show an incapacity to appreciate the more +fortunate surroundings of one’s allotted niche. The avoidance of even +the sight of evil was as justifiable as the avoidance of evil itself, +and the moral economy of the world might suffer a dangerous +displacement, if everyone were to involve themselves in such events as +those in which himself had lately been involved. Duty was owing all the +time to people nearer at hand than Barnes. No doubt the world would be +better for being rid of him; diseases of the body must be fought, and +the corruption of human society must be cleansed. Any pity for Barnes +was a base sentimentalism; it was merely a reaction of personal +discomfort at having seen an unpleasant operation. The sentimentalism of +that cry “Don’t hurt<a name="page_641" id="page_641"></a> him!” was really contemptible, and since it seemed +that he was likely to be too weak to bear the sight of the cleansing +knife, he must in future avoid the occasion of its use. Otherwise his +intellectual outlook was going to be sapped, and he would find himself +in the ranks of the faddists.</p> + +<p>“I think I shall stay down here the rest of the summer, if I may,” he +said to Stella.</p> + +<p>“My dear, of course you can. We’ll have a wonderful time. Hullo, Alan is +retiring.”</p> + +<p>Alan came up and sat beside them in the buttercups.</p> + +<p>“I thought I saw you just as I was going in,” he said. “Anything going +on in town?”</p> + +<p>“No, nothing much,” said Michael. “I saw a man arrested for murder this +afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Did you really? How beastly! Our team’s just beginning to get into +shape. I say, Stella. That youth working on old Rundle’s farm is going +to be pret-ty good. Did you see him lift their fast bowlers twice +running over the pond?”</p> + +<p>Michael strolled away to take a solitary walk. It seemed incredible now +to think that he had brought Lily down here, that he had wandered with +her over this field. What an infringement it must have seemed to Stella +and Alan of their already immemorial peace. They had really been very +good about his invasion. And here was the wood where he and Stella had +fought. Michael sat down in the glade and listened to the busy +flutterings of the birds. Why had Stella objected to his marriage with +Lily? All the superficial answers were ready at once; but was not her +real objection only another facet of the diamond of selfishness? +Selfishness was a diamond. Precious, hard, and very often +beautiful—when seen by itself.</p> + +<p>Michael spent a week at Hardingham, during which he managed to put out +of his mind the thought of Barnes in prison awaiting his trial. Then one +day the butler informed<a name="page_642" id="page_642"></a> him of a person wishing to speak to him. In the +library he found the detective who had asked for his address at Leppard +Street.</p> + +<p>“Sorry to have to trouble you, sir, but there was one or two little +questions we wanted to ask.”</p> + +<p>Michael feared he would have to appear at the trial, and asked at once +if that was going to be necessary.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I don’t think so. We’ve got it all marked out fair and square +against Mr. Meats. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting off. How did you +come to be mixed up with him?”</p> + +<p>Michael explained the circumstances which had led up to his knowing +Meats.</p> + +<p>“I see; and you just wanted to give him a bit of a helping hand. Oh, +well, the feeling does you credit, I’m bound to say; but another time, +sir, I should make a few inquiries first. We should probably have had +him before, if he hadn’t been helped by you. Of course, I quite +understand you knew nothing about this murder, but anyone can often do a +lot of harm by helping undeserving people. We mightn’t have nabbed him +even now, if some woman hadn’t brought us a nice little bit of evidence, +and I found some more things myself after a search. Oh, yes, he doesn’t +stand an earthly. We knew for a moral cert who did it, straightaway; but +the police don’t get a fair chance in England. We let all these blooming +Radicals interfere too much. That’s my opinion. Anyone would think the +police was a lot of criminals by the way some people talk about them.”</p> + +<p>“Is anybody defending him?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’ll be awarded a counsel,” said the detective indignantly. “For +which you and me has to pay. That’s a nice thing, isn’t it? But he +doesn’t stand an earthly.”</p> + +<p>“Where will he be hanged?”</p> + +<p>“Pentonville.”<a name="page_643" id="page_643"></a></p> + +<p>Michael thought how Mrs. Murdoch in Neptune Crescent would shudder some +Tuesday morning in the near future.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry you should have had to come all this way to find me,” Michael +said. He hated himself for being polite to the inspector, but he could +not help it. He rang the bell.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Dawkins, will you give Inspector—what is your name, by the bye?”</p> + +<p>“Dawkins,” said the inspector.</p> + +<p>“How curious!” Michael laughed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” the inspector laughed.</p> + +<p>“Lunch in the gun room, Dawkins. You must be hungry.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I could do with a snack, I daresay.” He followed his +namesake from the room, and outside Michael could hear them begin to +chatter of the coincidence.</p> + +<p>“But supposing I’d been in the same state of life as Meats,” Michael +said to himself. “What devil’s web wouldn’t they be trying to spin round +me?”</p> + +<p>He was seized with fury at himself for his cowardice. He had thought of +nothing but his own reputation ever since Meats had been arrested. He +had worried over the opinion of a police inspector; had been ashamed of +the appearance of the rooms; had actually been afraid that he would be +implicated in the disgraceful affair. So long as it had been easy to +flatter himself with the pleasure he was giving or the good he was doing +to Meats, he had kept him with money. Now when Meats had been dragged +away, he was anxious to disclaim the whole acquaintanceship for fear of +the criticism of a big man with a bristly mustache. The despair in +Meats’ last cry to him echoed round this library. He had seen society in +action: not all the devils and fiends imagined by mediæval monks were so +horrible as those big men with bristly mustaches. What did they know<a name="page_644" id="page_644"></a> of +Meats and his life? What did they care, but that they were paid by +society to remove rubbish? Justice had decreed that Meats should be +arrested, and like a dead rat in the gutter he was swept up by these +scavengers. What compact had he broken that men should freeze to stones +and crush him? He had broken the laws of men and the laws of God; he had +committed murder. And were not murders as foul being committed every +moment? Murdered ambition, murdered love, murdered pity, murdered +gratitude, murdered faith, did none of these cry out for vengeance?</p> + +<p>Society had seized the murderer, and it was useless to cry out. Himself +was as impotent as the prisoner. Meats had sinned against the hive: this +infernal hive, herd, pack, swarm, whichever word expressed what he felt +to be the degradation of an interdependent existence. Mankind was become +a great complication of machinery fed by gold and directed by fear. +Something was needed to destroy this gregarious organism. War and +pestilence must come; but in the past these two had come often enough, +and mankind was the same afterward. This ant-hill of a globe had been +ravaged often enough, but the ants were all busy again carrying their +mean little burdens of food hither and thither in affright for the +comfort of their mean little lives.</p> + +<p>“And I’m as bad as any of them,” said Michael to himself. “I know I have +obligations in Leppard Street, and I’ve run away from them because I’m +afraid of what people will think. Of course, I always fail. I’m a +coward.”</p> + +<p>He could not stay any longer at Hardingham. He must go and see about +Mrs. Smith now. Society would be seizing her soon and bringing her +miserable life to an end in whitewashed prison corridors. He must do +something for Meats. Perhaps he would not be able to save him from +death, but he must not sit here ringing bells for butlers called Dawkins +to feed inspectors called Dawkins.<a name="page_645" id="page_645"></a></p> + +<p>Stella came in with the first roses of the year.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t they beauties?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, splendid. I’m going up to town this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“But not for long?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. It depends. Do you know, Stella, it’s an extraordinary +thing, but ever since you’ve practically given up playing, I feel very +much more alive. How do you account for that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I haven’t given up playing for one thing,” Stella contradicted.</p> + +<p>“Stella do you ever feel inspired nowadays?”</p> + +<p>“Not so much as I did,” she admitted.</p> + +<p>“I feel now as if I were on the verge of an inspiration.”</p> + +<p>“Not another Lily,” she said quickly, with half a laugh.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no right to sneer at me about that,” he said fiercely. “You must +be very careful, you know. <i>You’ll</i> become flabby, if you aren’t +careful, here at Hardingham.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Michael!” she laughed. “Don’t look at me as if you were a Major +Prophet. I won’t become flabby. I shall start composing at once.”</p> + +<p>“There you are!” he cried triumphantly. “Never say again that I can’t +wake you up.”</p> + +<p>“You did not wake me up.”</p> + +<p>“I did. I did. And do you know I believe I’ve discovered that I’m an +anarchist?”</p> + +<p>“Is that your inspiration?”</p> + +<p>“Who knows? It may be.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t come and be anarchical down here, because Alan is going to +stand at the next election.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth good would Alan be in Parliament?” Michael asked +derisively. “He’s much too happy.”</p> + +<p>“Michael, why are you so horrid about Alan nowadays?”</p> + +<p>He was penitent in a moment at the suggestion, but when<a name="page_646" id="page_646"></a> he said +good-bye to Stella he had a curious feeling that from henceforth he was +going to be stronger than her.</p> + +<p>On reaching London, Michael went to see Castleton at the Temple, and he +found him in chambers at the top of dusty stairs in King’s Beach Walk.</p> + +<p>“Lucky to get these, wasn’t I?” said Castleton. By craning out of the +window, the river was visible.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ve never had a murder case yet?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Not yet,” said Castleton. “In fact, I’m going in for Chancery work. And +I shall get my first brief in about five years, with luck.”</p> + +<p>Michael inquired how one went to work to retain the greatest criminal +advocate of the day, and Castleton said he would have to be approached +through a solicitor.</p> + +<p>“Well, will you get hold of him for me?”</p> + +<p>Castleton looked rather blank.</p> + +<p>“If you can’t get him, get the next best, and so on. Tell him the man I +want to defend hasn’t a chance, and that’s why I’m particularly anxious +he should get off.”</p> + +<p>They discussed details for some time, and Castleton was astonished at +Michael’s wish to aid Meats.</p> + +<p>“It seems very perverse,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Perverse!” Michael echoed. “And what about your profession? That is +really the most perverse factor in modern life.”</p> + +<p>“But in this case,” Castleton argued, “the victim seems so utterly +worthless.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” said Michael. “But as society never interfered when he was +passively offensive, why, the moment he becomes actively offensive, +should society have the right to put him out of the way? They never +tried to cure him for his own good. Why should they kill him for their +own?”<a name="page_647" id="page_647"></a></p> + +<p>“You want to strike at the foundations of the legal system,” said the +barrister.</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” Michael agreed; and the argument came to an end because there +was obviously nothing more to be said.</p> + +<p>Castleton promises to do all he could for Meats, and also to keep +Michael’s name out of the business. As Michael walked down the stairs, +it gave him a splendid satisfaction to think how already the law was +being set in motion against the law. A blow for Inspector Dawkins. And +what about the murdered girl? “She won’t be helped by Meats’ death,” +said Michael to himself. “Society is not considering her protection now +any more than it did when she was alive.” <i>No slops must be emptied +here</i>: and as Michael read the ascetic command above the tap on the +stairs he wondered for a moment if he were, after all, a sentimentalist.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne was very voluble when he reached Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>“A nice set-out and no mistake!” she declared. “Half of the neighborhood +have been peeping over my area railings as if the murder had been done +in here. Mr. Cleghorne’s quite hoarse with hollering out to them to keep +off. And it never rains but what it pours. There’s a poor woman gone and +died here now. However, a funeral’s a little more lively than the police +nosing round, though her not having a blessed halfpenny and owing me +three weeks on the rent it certainly won’t be anything better than a +pauper’s funeral.”</p> + +<p>“What woman?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, a invalid dressmaker which I’ve been very good to—a Mrs. Smith.”</p> + +<p>“Dead?” he echoed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, dead, and laid out, and got a clergyman sitting with her body. +What clergyman? Roman Catholic, I <i>should</i> say. It quite worried Mr. +Cleghorne. He said it gave him the rats to have a priest hanging around +so close<a name="page_648" id="page_648"></a> at hand. You see, being asthmatic, he’s read a lot about these +Roman Catholics, and he doesn’t hold with them. They’re that underhand, +he says, it makes him nervous.”</p> + +<p>“Can I see this priest?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s hardly the room you’re accustomed to. I’ve really looked at +her more as a charity than an actual lodger. In fact, my poor old mother +has gone on at me something cruel for being so good to her.”</p> + +<p>“I think I should like to see this priest,” Michael persisted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cleghorne was with difficulty persuaded to show him the way, and +she was evidently a little suspicious of the motive of his visit. They +descended into the gloom of the basement, and the landlady pointed out +to him the room that was down three steps and up another. She excused +herself from coming too. The priest, a monkey-faced Irishman, was +sitting on the pale blue chest, and as Michael entered, he did not look +up from his Office.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Sister?” he asked. Then he perceived Michael and waited +for him to explain his business.</p> + +<p>“I wanted to ask about this poor woman.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smith lay under a sheet with candles winking at her head. Nothing +was visible except her face still faintly rouged in the daylight.</p> + +<p>“I was interested in her,” Michael exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” said the priest dryly. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”</p> + +<p>“Is her cat here?”</p> + +<p>“There was some sort of an animal, but the woman of the house took it +off.”</p> + +<p>A silence followed, and Michael was aware of the priest’s hostility.</p> + +<p>“I suppose she didn’t see her son before she died?” Michael went on. +“Her son is with the Jesuits.”<a name="page_649" id="page_649"></a></p> + +<p>“You seem to know a great deal about the poor soul?”</p> + +<p>“I thought I had managed to help her,” said Michael, in a sad voice.</p> + +<p>“Indeed?” commented the priest, even more dryly.</p> + +<p>“And there is nothing I can do now?”</p> + +<p>“Almighty God has taken her,” said the priest. “There is nothing you can +do.”</p> + +<p>“I could have some Masses said for her.”</p> + +<p>“Are you a Catholic?” the priest asked.</p> + +<p>“No; but I fancy I shall be a Catholic,” Michael said; and as he spoke +it was like a rushing wind. He hurried out into the passage where a nun +passed him in the gloom. “She will be praying,” Michael thought, and, +looking back over his shoulder, he said:</p> + +<p>“Pray for me, Sister.”</p> + +<p>The nun was evidently startled by the voice, and went on quickly down +the three steps and up the other into Mrs. Smith’s den.</p> + +<p>Michael climbed upstairs to interview the Solutionist. He found him +lying in bed.</p> + +<p>“Why wasn’t that money paid regularly?” he asked severely.</p> + +<p>“Who is it?” the Solutionist muttered, in fuddled accents. “Wanted the +money myself. Had a glorious time. The cat’s all right, and the poor old +rabbits are dead. Can’t give everybody a good time. Somebody’s got to +suffer in this world.”</p> + +<p>Michael left him, and without entering his old rooms again went away +from Leppard Street.</p> + +<p>The moment had come to visit Rome, and remembering how he had once +dissuaded Maurice from going there, he felt some compunction now in +telling him that he wanted to travel alone. However, it would be +impossible to visit<a name="page_650" id="page_650"></a> Rome for the first time with Maurice. In the studio +he led up to his backing out of the engagement.</p> + +<p>“About this going abroad,” he began.</p> + +<p>“I say, Michael, I don’t think I can come just now. The editor of The +Point of View wants a series of articles on the ballet, and I’m going to +start on them at once.”</p> + +<p>It was a relief to Michael, and he wished Maurice good luck.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think they’re going to be rather good,” he said confidently. +“I’m going to begin with the Opera: then the Empire and the Alhambra: +and in September there will be the new ballet at the Orient. Of course, +I’ve got a theory about English ballet.”</p> + +<p>“Is there anything about which you haven’t got a theory?” Michael asked. +“Hullo, you’ve got the Venetian mirror from Ararat House. I’m so glad!”</p> + +<p>“I’ve arranged all that,” Maurice said. “Lily Haden has gone to live +with a girl called Sylvia Scarlett. Rather a terror, I thought.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I had an idea you’d find her a bit difficult.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but I scored off her in the end,” said Maurice quickly.</p> + +<p>“Congratulations,” said Michael. “Well, I’m going to Rome.”</p> + +<p>“I say, rather hot.”</p> + +<p>“So much the better.”</p> + +<p>“I used to be rather keen on Rome, but I’ve a theory it’s generally a +disappointment. However, I suppose I shall have to go one day.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I don’t think Rome ought to miss your patronage, Maurice.”</p> + +<p>They parted as intimate friends, but while Michael was going downstairs +from the studio he thought that it might very easily be for the last +time.<a name="page_651" id="page_651"></a></p> + +<p>His mother was at home for tea; lots of women and a bishop were having a +committee about something. When they had all rustled away into the +mellow June evening, Michael asked what had been accomplished.</p> + +<p>“It’s this terrible state of the London streets,” said Mrs. Fane. +“Something has got to be done about these miserable women. The Bishop of +Chelsea has promised to bring in some kind of a bill in Parliament. He +feels so strongly about it.”</p> + +<p>“What does he feel?” Michael asked.</p> + +<p>“Why, of course, that they shouldn’t be allowed.”</p> + +<p>“The remedy lies with him,” Michael said. “He must take them the +Sacraments.”</p> + +<p>“My dearest boy, what are you talking about? He does his best. He’s +always picking them up and driving them home in his brougham. He can’t +do more than that. Really he quite thrilled us with some of his +experiences.”</p> + +<p>Michael laughed and took hold of her hand.</p> + +<p>“What would you say if I told you that I was thinking very seriously of +being a priest?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear Michael, and you look so particularly nice in tweeds!”</p> + +<p>Michael laughed and went upstairs to pack. He would leave London +to-morrow morning.<a name="page_652" id="page_652"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X-a" id="CHAPTER_X-a"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>THE OLD WORLD</h4> + +<p>The train crashed southward from Paris through the night; and when dawn +was quivering upon the meadows near Chambéry Michael was sure with an +almost violent elation that he had left behind him the worst hardships +of thought. Waterfalls swayed from the mountains, and the gray torrents +they fed plunged along beside the train. Down through Italy they +traveled all day, past the cypresses, and the olive-trees wise and +graceful in the sunlight. It was already dusk when they reached the +Campagna, and through the ghostly light the ghostly flowers and grasses +shimmered for a while and faded out. It was hot traveling after sunset; +but when the lights of Rome broke in a sudden blaze and the train +reached the station it was cool upon the platform. Michael let a porter +carry his luggage to a hotel close at hand. Then he walked quickly down +the Esquiline Hill. He wandered on past the restaurants and the barber +shops, caring for nothing but the sensation of walking down a wide +street in Rome.</p> + +<p>“There has been nothing like this,” he said, “since I walked down the +High. There will be nothing like this ever again.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly in a deserted square he was looking over a parapet at groups of +ruined columns, and immediately afterward he was gazing up at one mighty +column jet black against the starshine. He saw that it was figured with +innumerable horses and warriors.<a name="page_653" id="page_653"></a></p> + +<p>“We must seek for truth in the past,” he said.</p> + +<p>How this great column affected him with the secrets of the past! It was +only by that made so much mightier than the bars of his cot in +Carlington Road, which had once seemed to hold passions, intrigues, +rumors, ambitions, and revenges. All that he had once dimly perceived as +shadowed forth by them was here set forth absolutely. What was this +column called? He looked round vaguely for an indication of the name. +What did the name matter? There would be time to find a name in the +morning. There would be time in the morning to begin again the conduct +of his life. The old world held the secret; and he would accept this +solitary and perdurable column as the symbol of that secret.</p> + +<p>“All that I have done and experienced so far,” Michael thought, “would +not scratch this stone. I have been concerned for the happiness of other +people without gratitude for the privilege of service. I have been given +knowledge and I fancied I was given disillusion. If now I offer myself +to God very humbly, I give myself to the service of man. Man for man +standing in his own might is a blind and arrogant leader. The reason why +the modern world is so critical of the fruits of Christianity after +nineteen hundred years is because they have expected it from the +beginning to be a social panacea. God has only offered to the individual +the chance to perfect himself, but the individual is much more anxious +about his neighbor. How in a moment our little herds are destroyed, +whether in ships on the sea or in towns by earthquake, or by the great +illusions of political experiment! Soon will come a great war, and +everybody will discover it has come either because people are Christians +or because they are not Christians. Nobody will think it is because each +man wants to interfere with the conduct of his neighbor. That woman in +Leppard Street who died in the<a name="page_654" id="page_654"></a> peace of God, how much more was she a +Christian than me, who, without perceiving the beam in my own eye, have +trotted round operating on the motes of other people. And once I had to +make an effort to kiss her in fellowship. Rome! Rome! How parochial you +make my youth!”</p> + +<p>The last exclamation was uttered aloud.</p> + +<p>“Meditating upon the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?” said a +voice.</p> + +<p>A man in a black cloak was speaking.</p> + +<p>“No; I was thinking of the pettiness of youthful tragedies,” said +Michael.</p> + +<p>“There is only one tragedy for youth.”</p> + +<p>“And that is?”</p> + +<p>“Age,” said the stranger.</p> + +<p>“And what is the tragedy of age?”</p> + +<p>“There is no tragedy of age,” said the stranger.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="c">THE END<a name="page_655" id="page_655"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Epilogical_Letter" id="Epilogical_Letter"></a><small>E<small>PILOGICAL</small> +L<small>ETTER</small><br /> +T<small>O</small></small><br /> +JOHN NICOLAS MAVROGORDATO</h3> + +<p class="nind">M<small>Y DEAR</small> J<small>OHN</small>,</p> + +<p>There is, I am inclined to think, a very obstinate shamelessness in +prolonging this book with a letter to you. For that reason I append it +thus as an epilogue: so that whoever wishes to read it will only have +himself to blame, since he will already, as I hope, have finished the +book.</p> + +<p>You will remember that last year “Youth’s Encounter,” the first part of +Michael Fane’s story, obtained a great advertisement through the action +of certain libraries. Whatever boom was thus effected will certainly be +drowned this year in the roar of cannon, and the doctrine of +compensation is in no danger of being disproved. I fancy, too, that the +realities of war will obtain me a pardon in “Sinister Street,” the +second volume, for anything that might formerly have offended the +sensitive or affronted the simple.</p> + +<p>Much more important than libraries and outraged puritans is the question +of the form of the English novel. There has lately been noticeable in +the press a continuous suggestion that the modern novel is thinly +disguised autobiography; and since the lives of most men are peculiarly +formless this suggestion has been amplified into an attack upon the form +of the novel. In my own case many critics have persisted in regarding +“Youth’s Encounter” merely as an achievement of memory, and I have felt +sometimes that I ought to regard<a name="page_656" id="page_656"></a> myself as a sort of literary Datas, +rather than as a mask veiling the nature of a novelist. You know from +many hours of talk that if I were to set down all I could remember of my +childhood, the book would not by this time have reached much beyond my +fifth year. Obviously in so far as I chose my own public school and my +own college at Oxford there has been autobiography, but I fancy it would +have been merely foolish to send Michael to Cambridge, a place of which +I know absolutely nothing. Yourself assures me that nowadays it is a +much better university than Oxford, and in thinking thus you are the +only Oxford man who has ever held such a heresy. Obviously, too, it was +unavoidable in writing about St. James’ that I should draw certain +characters from the life, and for doing this I have been attacked on +grounds of good taste. I do not recognize the right of schoolmasters to +be exempt from the privilege of public men to be sometimes caricatured. +Therefore, I offer no apology for doing so. With regard to the Oxford +dons I felt it really would be unfair to apply to them what is after all +much more likely to be a true impression of their virtues and follies +than those formed by a schoolboy of his masters. Therefore, in this +second volume, “Sinister Street,” there is not a single portrait of a +don. As a matter of fact, dons are to the undergraduate a much less +important factor than the schoolmaster is to the schoolboy, and the few +shadows of dons which appear in this volume are as vital as most dons in +the flesh seem to the normal undergraduate.</p> + +<p>The theme of these two stories is the youth of a man who presumably will +be a priest. I shall be grateful if my readers will accept it as such +rather than as an idealized or debased presentation of my own existence +up to the age of twenty-three. Whether or not it was worth writing at +such length depends finally, I claim, upon the number of people who can +bear to read about it. A work of art is bounded<a name="page_657" id="page_657"></a> by the capacity of the +spectator to apprehend it as a whole. This on your authority was said by +Aristotle. “Art,” says <i>The Sydney Bulletin</i>, a curious antipodean +paper, “is selection.” “It is time to protest,” says an American paper, +“against these long books.” At this rate, we shall soon be spending all +our time with books. “The enormous length must make it formless,” other +critics have decided. Ultimately I believe Aristotle’s remark to be the +truest guide, and I am tempted to hope that with the publication of the +second volume many irrelevancies have established their relevancy.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that were I to continue the life of Michael Fane to the +end of his seventy-second year, his story would run into twenty volumes +as thick as this book. My intention, however, was not to write a life, +but the prologue of a life. He is growing up on the last page, and for +me his interest begins to fade. He may have before him a thousand new +adventures: he may become a Benedictine monk: he may become a society +preacher. I have given you as fully as I could the various influences +that went to mold him. Your imagination of him as a man will be +determined by your prejudice gathered from the narrative of these +influences. I do not identify myself with his opinions: at the same time +I may believe in all of them. He is to me an objective reality: he is +not myself in a looking-glass.</p> + +<p>I would like to detain you for a moment with a defense of my occasional +use of archaic and obsolete words. This is not due to any +“preciousness,” but to efforts at finding the only word that will say +what I mean. To take two examples: “Reasty” signifies “covered with a +kind of rust and having a rancid taste,” and it seems to me exactly to +describe the London air at certain seasons, and also by several +suggestive assonances to convey a variety of subtler effects. +“Inquiline” sounds a pompous word for lodgers, but it has<a name="page_658" id="page_658"></a> not yet been +sentimentalized like “pilgrim”; it is not an Americanism like +“transients,” and it does give to me the sense of a fleeting stay; +whereas lodgers sound dreadfully permanent since they have been given +votes.</p> + +<p>We have in the English language the richest and noblest in the world, +and perhaps after this war we shall hear less of the advocates of pure +Saxon, an advocacy which personally I find rather like the attitude of +the plain man who wants to assert himself on his first introduction to a +duke.</p> + +<p>There remains for me to apologize for the delay in the appearance of +this volume. You who know how many weeks I have spent ill in bed this +year will forgive me, and through you I make an apology to other readers +who by their expressions of interest in the date of the second volume +have encouraged me so greatly. Finally it strikes me that I have seemed +above to be grumbling at criticism. This is not so. I believe there is +nobody, certainly no young writer who is under such a debt of obligation +as I am to the encouragement and the sympathy of his anonymous critics.</p> + +<p>Accept this dedicatory epilogue, my dear John, as the pledge of our +enduring friendship.</p> + +<p class="rt"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">Yours ever,</span><br /> +C<small>OMPTON</small> M<small>ACKENZIE</small>.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Sinister Street, vol. 2, by Compton Mackenzie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SINISTER STREET, VOL. 2 *** + +***** This file should be named 33798-h.htm or 33798-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/9/33798/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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