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diff --git a/41107-0.txt b/41107-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..238713a --- /dev/null +++ b/41107-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7316 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41107 *** + + THE SECOND FIDDLE + + BY PHYLLIS BOTTOME + + AUTHOR OF "THE DARK TOWER," "THE DERELICT AND OTHER STORIES," ETC. + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + NORMAN PRICE + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1917 + + Copyright, 1917, by + THE CENTURY Co. + + _Published, October, 1917_ + + + TO + MARGUERITE AND LILIAN + TWO SISTERS WHO, ALIKE IN JOY + AND SORROW, ARE A LIGHT + TO THEIR FRIENDS + + + + +[Illustration: "Then have the kindness to inform me ... why Marian has +consented to marry me."] + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PAGE + +"Then have the kindness to inform me ... why Marian has consented to +marry me" _Frontispiece_ + +A proclamation was read by a great person from a bedizened balcony 19 + +"I'm afraid I don't like big feelings much" 91 + +"Women like you can't marry logs of wood" 141 + +"This," Stella thought to herself, "is like a battle" 165 + +Her voice was unfettered music 189 + +She tugged and twisted again 265 + +The most extraordinary figure we had ever seen 295 + +"Not very clever of you," he murmured, "not to guess why I wanted a +taxi" 349 + + + + +THE SECOND FIDDLE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +On the whole, Stella preferred the Cottage Dairy Company to the People's +Restaurant. It was a shade more expensive, but if you ate less and liked +it more, that was your own affair. You were waited on with more +arrogance and less speed, but you made up for that artistically by an +evasion of visible grossness. + +Stella had never gone very much further than a ham sandwich in either +place. You knew where you were with a ham sandwich, and you could +disguise it with mustard. + +On this occasion she took a cup of tea and made her meal an +amalgamation. She hoped to leave work early, and she would have no time +for tea. She was going to hear Chaliapine. + +All London--all the London, that is, which thinks of itself as +London--was raving about Chaliapine; but Stella in general neither knew +nor cared for the ravings of London. They reached her as vaguely as the +sound of breaking surf reaches the denizens of the deeper seas. + +It was her sister Eurydice who had brought Chaliapine home to her. She +had said quite plainly, with that intensity which distinguished both her +utterances and her actions, that if she didn't hear Chaliapine she would +die. He was like an ache in her bones. + +Eurydice had never discovered that you cannot always do what you want or +have what you very ardently wish to have. She believed that +disappointment was a coincidence or a lack of fervency, and she set +herself before each obstacle to her will like the prophets of Baal +before their deaf god. She cut herself with knives till the blood ran. + +Stella hovered anxiously by her side, stanching, whenever she was able, +the flowing of Eurydice's blood. On this occasion she had only to +provide seven shillings and to make, what cost her considerably more, a +request to Mr. Leslie Travers to let her off at five. + +Mr. Leslie Travers had eyed her with the surprise of a man who runs a +perfect machine and feels it pause beneath his fingers. He could not +remember that Stella Waring had ever made such a request before. + +Her hours were from nine to five daily, but automatically, with the +pressure of her work and the increase of her usefulness, they had +stretched to six or seven. + +Mr. Leslie Travers had never intended to have a woman secretary, but +during the illness of a competent clerk he had been obliged to take a +stop-gap. Miss Waring had appeared on a busy morning with excellent +testimonials and a quiet manner. He told her a little shortly that he +did not want a woman in his office. Her fine, humorous eyebrows moved +upward, and her speculative gray eyes rested curiously upon his +irritable brown ones. + +"But I am a worker," she said gently. "If I can do your work, it is my +own business whether I am a man or a woman. You shall not notice it." + +Mr. Travers felt confused for a moment and as if he had been +impertinent. In the course of a strenuous and successful life he had +never felt impertinent; he believed it to be a quality found only in +underlings. He stared, cleared his throat, read her testimonials, and +temporarily engaged her. That was two years ago. + +Miss Waring had kept her promise; she was a worker and not a woman. She +took pleasure in keeping her wits about her, and Mr. Travers used them +as if they were his own. Sometimes he thought they were. + +She had many agreeable points besides her wits, but they were the only +point she gave to Mr. Travers to notice. She deliberately suppressed her +charm. She reduced his work by one half; he never had to say, "You ought +to have asked me this," or, "You needn't have brought me that." Her +initiative matched her judgment. + +It did not occur to Mr. Travers to praise her for this most unusual +quality, but he paid her the finest tribute of an efficient worker: he +gave her more to do. He woke up to that fact when she tentatively asked +him if he could make it convenient for her to leave at five. + +"Five," he said, "is your hour for leaving this office. Of course you +may go then. You ought always to do so." + +A vague smile hovered about Stella's lips; she looked at him +consideringly for a moment, her eyes seemed to say, "It must be nice for +you, then, that I never do what I ought." Then she drew her secretarial +manner like a veil over her face. + +"You will find the drainage papers for Stafford Street in the second +pigeon-hole on your desk," she said sedately, "with the inspector's +report. I have put the plumber's estimate with it, and added a few +marginal notes where I think their charges might be cut down." + +"You had better see them about it yourself," said Mr. Travers; "then +there won't be any unpleasantness." + +He did not mean to be polite to Stella; he merely stated a convenient +fact. When Stella saw people on business there was no unpleasantness. + +Stella bowed, and left him. + +Mr. Travers looked up for a moment after she had gone. "I am not sure," +he said to himself, "that there are not some things women can do better +than men when they do not know that they are doing them better." He did +not like to think that women had any superior mental qualities to those +of men, but he put them down to mother wit, which does not sound +superior. + +Stella went through the outer office on wings. It was full of her +friends; her exits and her entrances were the events the lesser clerks +liked best during the day. + +Her smile soothed their feelings, and in her eyes reigned always that +other Stella who lived behind her wits, a gay, serene, and friendly +Stella, who did not know that she was a lady and never forgot that she +was a human being. + +Theoretically there is nothing but business in a business office, but +practically in every smallest detail there is the pressure of personal +influence. What gets done or, even more noticeably, what is left undone, +is poised upon an inadmissible principle, the desire to please. + +The office watched Stella, tested her, judged her, and once and for all +made up its mind to please her. + +Stella knew nothing at all about this probation. She only knew all about +the office boy's mother, and where the girl typists spent their +holidays, and when, if all went well, Mr. Belk would be able to marry +his young lady. Mistakes and panic, telegrams and telephones, slipped +into her hands, and were unraveled with the rapidity with which silk +yields to expert fingers. She always made the stupidest clerk feel that +mistakes, like the bites of a mosquito, might happen to any one even +while she was making him see how to avoid them in future. She had the +touch which takes the sting from small personal defeats. She always saw +the person first and the defeat afterward. + +Her day's work was a game of patience and skill, and she played it as +she used to play chess with her father. It was a long game and sometimes +it was a tiring one, but hardly a moment of it was not sheer drama; and +the moment the town hall door swung behind her she forgot her municipal +juggling and started the drama of play. + +On Thursday afternoon she stood for a moment considering her course. +There was the Underground, which was always quickest, or there was the +drive above the golden summer dust on the swinging height of a +motor-bus. She decided upon the second alternative, and slipped into +infinity. She was cut off from duty, surrounded by strangers, unmoored +from her niche in the world. + +This was the moment of her day which Stella liked best; in it she could +lose her own identity. She let her hands rest on her lap and her eyes on +the soft green of the new-born leaves. She hung balanced on her wooden +seat between earth and sky, on her way to Russian music. + +The brief and tragic youth of London trees was at its loveliest. +Kensington Gardens poured past her like a golden flame. The grass was as +fresh as the grass of summer fields, swallows flitted over it, and the +broad-shouldered elms were wrapped delicately in a mist of green. + +Hyde Park Corner floated beneath her; the bronze horses of victory, +compact and sturdy, trundled out of a cloudless sky. St George's +Hospital, sun-baked and brown, glowed like an ancient palace of the +Renaissance. The traffic surged down Hamilton Place and along Piccadilly +as close packed as migratory birds. The tower of Westminster Cathedral +dropped its alien height into an Italian blue sky; across the vista of +the green park and all down Piccadilly the clubs flashed past her, vast, +silver spaces of comfort reserved for men, full of men. Stella did not +know very much about men who lived in clubs. Cicely said they were very +wicked and danced the tango and didn't want women to have votes; but +Stella thought they looked as if they had attractions which rivaled +these disabilities. + +Probably she would see some of them less kaleidoscopically at the opera +later. + +Even men who danced the tango went to hear Chaliapine. It wasn't only +his voice; he was a rage, a prairie fire. All other conversation became +burned stubble at his name. + +Piccadilly Circus shot past her like a bed of flowers. + +The City was very hot, and all the world was in the streets, expansive +and genial. It was the hour when work draws to an end and night is still +far off. Pleasure had stretched down the scale and included workers. +People who didn't dance the tango bought strawberries and flowers off +barrows for wonderful prices to take home to their children. + +In the queue extending half-way down Drury Lane, Eurydice, passionate +and heavy-eyed, was waiting for Stella. + +"If you hadn't come soon," she said, drawing Stella's arm through her +own, "something awful would have happened to me. I got a messenger-boy +to stand here for an hour to keep your place. The suspense has been +agony, like waiting for the guillotine." + +"But, O Eurydice dear, I do hope you will enjoy it!" Stella pleaded. + +"I shall enjoy it, yes," said Eurydice, gloomily, "if I can bear it. I +don't suppose you understand, but when you feel things as poignantly as +I do, almost anything is like the guillotine. It is the death of +something, even if it's only suspense. Besides, he may not be what I +think him. I expect the opening of heaven." + +Eurydice usually expected heaven to open, and this is sometimes rather +hard upon the openings of less grandiose places. + +A stout woman in purple raised an efficient elbow like an oar and dug it +sharply into Stella's side. + +"Oh, Stella, wouldn't it be awful if I fainted before the door opens!" +whispered Eurydice. + +"The doors are opening," said Stella. "People have begun to plunge with +umbrellas." + +The purple woman renewed her rowing motion; the patient queue expanded +like a fan. Stella moved forward in the throng. She was pushed and +elbowed, lifted and driven, but she never stopped being aware of +delight. She watched the faces sweeping past her like petals on a +stream; she flung down her half-crowns and seized her metal disks, +dashing on and up the narrow stairs, with Eurydice fiercely struggling +behind her like a creature in danger of drowning. + +They sprang up and over the back ledges of the gallery on into the first +row, breathless, gasping, and victorious. + +"How horrible people are!" gasped Eurydice. "Dozens of brutal men have +stepped on my toe. Your hat's crooked. Is anything worth this dreadful +mingling with a mob?" + +"Does one mingle really?" asked Stella, taking off her hat. "Only one's +shoulders. Besides, I think I rather like mobs if they aren't purple and +don't dig. I've just been thinking how dull it must be to walk into a +box having done nothing but pay for it, and knowing, too, you are going +to get it! The lady beside me has been to every opera this season. She +sits on a camp-stool from two o'clock till eight with milk chocolate, +and knows every one's name and all the motives and most of the scores. +She's going to lend me this one. She says the excitement of not knowing +whether she is going to get a front seat or not has never palled." + +The great opera house filled slowly. There was splendor in it--the +splendor put on for the occasion in the cheaper seats, and every-day +splendor taking its place later and more expensively because it did not +know how to be anything else but splendid. + +Women's dresses that summer were made as much as possible to resemble +underclothes. From the waist upwards filmy specimens of petticoat +bodices appeared; there were wonderful jewels to be seen above them: +immemorial family jewels, collars of rubies and pearls. The older the +woman, the finer the jewels, and the more they looked like ancient +mosaics glimmering archaically in early Roman churches. + +The safety curtain was lowered reassuringly before a bored audience that +was not afraid of danger. + +Some one on the left of Stella remarked that there was a rumor that the +Crown Prince and Princess of Austria had been assassinated in Serbia. It +did not sound very likely. The Russian music began--fiery melancholy +music, drunk with sorrow. Then the real curtain rose. + +Eurydice flung herself forward; she hung over the ledge, poised like an +exultant Fury. She dared life to disappoint her. + +Stella leaned back in her seat with a little thrill of excitement. +Everything felt so safe, and sorrow sounded beautiful, and far away. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The curtain lifted, and civilization swung back. They were in Russia in +the twelfth century--or any other time. It hardly mattered when; the +music was the perpetual music of the Slav, tragic and insecure. The +people were a restless barbaric crowd, beyond or beneath morality; +religious, incalculably led by sensation. They could be unimaginably +cruel or sweep magnificently up the paths of holiness. The steep ascent +to heaven was in their eyes, and they got drunk to attain it. + +The English audience watched them as if they were looking at a +fairy-tale. They were a well-fed, complacent audience. If they got +drunk, it was an accident, and none of them had ever been holy. They had +never been under the heels of tyranny or long without a meal. They took +for granted food, water, light, and fuel. They began to live where the +Russian peasant planted his dreams of heaven. Death was their only +uncertainty, and it was hidden behind the baffling insincerities of +doctors and nurses. It did not take them on the raw. + +The crowd upon the stage became suddenly shaken into movement. Fires +were lighted, bells rang, food was carried about in processions. +Cossacks with long knouts struck back the dazzled, scattering people. A +proclamation was read by a great person from a bedizened balcony. + +[Illustration: A proclamation was read by a great person from a +bedizened balcony] + +Stella knew no Russian; she had no idea that anything worse could happen +to this seriously broken people ruled by knouts. But there was still +something that could happen: this proclamation touched their religion. + +It seemed that they actually had a possession that they weren't prepared +to let go. They could let their daughters and sons go, their houses and +their lives; but there was something they held on to and refused to +renounce. + +This was enough to irritate any tyrant. The bare existence of anything +that is uncontrollable always annoys a tyrant. There was a power in +these people still unsubdued, so the proclamation said that unless they +gave up their religion and became orthodox they would be killed. Then +Chaliapine entered. + +Eurydice gave a long gasp of emotion, and sank silently into her dream; +no more could be expected of her as a companion. Stella endeavored to be +more critical. She felt at once that Chaliapine's power wasn't his +voice. It was a fine, controlled voice, it seemed more resonant and +alive than any other in the company, and vastly easier; but his genius +was behind his voice. It was not merely his acting, though immediately +every one else on the stage appeared to be acting, and Chaliapine alone +was real. + +It consisted in that very uncontrollable something that tyrants cannot +kill, that circumstances do not touch, that surmounts every stroke of +fate, and is the residuum which faces death. There was a little more of +it in Chaliapine than there is in most people. + +She tried to follow the score of "Boris Goudonoff"; it was not easy +music, and the story hardly seemed to matter. + +Chaliapine was the leader of the religious sect that the Czar was going +to stamp out. Everything was against him; was he going to conquer? +The English audience expected him to conquer. It understood conquests. +First, you started all wrong, because you hadn't taken the trouble not +to, because you hadn't measured your antagonist, and because you did not +think that preparation was necessary. + +The audience allowed for things going wrong to begin with, and sat +cheerfully expecting the miracle. + +The opera went on, and it became apparent to Stella that Chaliapine was +not going to get his people out of their difficulties. + +They sank deeper and deeper into them. Tyranny was behind and in front +of them; they were being steadily hemmed in and beaten down. What they +held on to did them no apparent good; it didn't comfort them or relieve +their necessities or hold out a helping hand to them. It did nothing +against their enemies. It simply burned in them like a flame. It didn't +even consume them; it left them to be consumed by the Czar. + +The English audience listened breathlessly and a little surprised, but +not troubled, because they felt quite sure that everything would come +out all right in the last act. + +Religion would triumph, it always did, even when you took no notice of +it. + +You didn't, as a rule, notice the police either, and yet when burglars +broke in to steal your plate, they were caught climbing over the back +fence by a policeman. Religion was there, like the police, to catch your +troubles and restore your spiritual silver plate. + +The melancholy minor Russian music couldn't mean that you weren't going +to get anything out of it. It would wake up soon and be triumphant. + +In the pauses between the acts Eurydice sat in a trance. Stella amused +herself with picking out the kind of people she would have liked to +know. One in particular in a box to the right of them, she found herself +liking. His frosty-blue eyes had the consciousness of strength in them; +the line of his jaw and the ironic, well-chiseled mouth spoke of a will +that had felt and surmounted shocks. He was still a young man in the +early thirties, but he had made his place in the world. He looked as +secure as royalty. With a strange little thrill that was almost +resentment Stella realized that she knew the woman beside him. Marian +sat there very straight and slim in the guarded radiance of her youth, +as intact as some precious ivory in a museum. She was Stella's greatest +friend; that is to say, she gave to her the greatest amount of pleasure +procurable in her life. + +Stella couldn't have told why her heart sprang to meet Marian Young's. +She had nothing in common with her. They had met at a course of lectures +on the Renaissance, and out of a casual meeting had grown a singular, +unequal, relationship. + +Marian saw Stella very rarely, but she told her everything. She hadn't, +however, told her of this new man. His strong, clever face had in it +something different, something unnecessarily different, from Marian's +other young men. + +He lifted his head, and looked up toward the balconies above him. His +eyes did not meet Stella's, but she took from them the strangest +sensation of her life. A pang of sheer pity shot through her. There was +no reason for pity; he looked aggressively strong and perfectly sure of +himself. He even looked sure of Marian, and not without reason. He was +all the things Marian liked best in a man, courageous, successful, +handsome. Providence had thrown in his brains. That was the unnecessary +quality. + +Stella wondered a little wistfully what it must be like to talk to a +really clever man. Her father was very clever, but he was not socially +pliable, and he didn't exactly talk to Stella; he merely expressed in +her presence conclusions at which he had arrived. It clarified his +ideas, but it didn't do anything particular to Stella's. + +Sir Richard Verny was taking trouble to talk to Marian; he bent his +powerful head toward the girl and told her about Siberia. He knew +Siberia well; he had often started from there upon important Arctic +explorations. Marian wondered when he was going to propose. Siberia did +as well as anything else till then. She knew he was going to propose; +she didn't know anything at all about Siberia. She did not see Stella; +it had not occurred to her that any one she knew could be sitting in the +gallery. + +The curtain rose again, and the last act began. + +Chaliapine did not turn defeat into victory; no rabbit rose +triumphantly, to satisfy the British public, out of a top-hat. +Chaliapine led his people into a fire, and they were burned to death. + +Some of them were frightened, and he had to comfort them, to hold them, +and sustain them till the end. He had nothing at all to do it with, but +he did sustain them. They all went into the flames, singing their +disheartening music till the smoke covered them. Chaliapine sang +longest, but there was nothing victorious in his last notes. They were +very beautiful and final; then they weakened and were still. + +The stillness went on for some time afterward. Everybody had been +killed, and life had been so unendurable that they had faced death +without much effort to avoid it. They could have avoided it if they had +given up their faith. Their faith had vanished off the face of the +earth, but they hadn't given it up. + +Stella gave a long sigh of relief; she felt as if she had been saved +from something abominable that might have happened. + +Applause broke out all round them, a little uncertainly at first, +because it was difficult for the audience to realize that the heavens +weren't going to shoot open and do something definitely successful about +it; but finally sustained and prolonged applause. Chaliapine had taken +them all by storm. It was not the kind of storm that they were used to, +but it was a storm. + +"I love Russians," a lady exclaimed to Stella. "Such delightful people, +don't you think, so full of color and what d' you call it?" + +Eurydice shook herself impatiently like a dog after a plunge through +water. + +"Hurry! Let's get out of this," she said to Stella, "or I shall be rude +to somebody. Idiots! Idiots! Don't they see that we've been listening to +the defeat of the soul?" + +"No, no," whispered Stella half to herself; "we've been listening to how +it can't be defeated, how nothing touches it, not even death, not even +despair, not even flames. The end of something that has never given in +is victory." + +They passed behind Marian outside the opera house, but Stella did not +speak to her. She heard Sir Julian saying in a determined, resonant +voice: "Well, of course I'm glad you liked it. Chaliapine is a good +workman, but personally I don't think much of Russian music. It has a +whine in it like a beggar's, sounds too much as if it had knocked under. +My idea, you know, is not to knock under." + +And Stella, slipping into the crowd, was aware again of a sharp pang of +pity for him, as if she knew that, after all, his strength would meet +and be consumed by fire. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Nothing in No. 9 Redcliffe Square ever got done; it happened, as leaves +drop in autumn, or as dust accumulates, percolating softly and +persistently through doors and windows. + +The Warings had reached Redcliffe Square as accidentally as a tramp +takes shelter under a hedge. Professor Waring, whose instinct was to +burrow like a mole, blind and silent, into his researches, failed too +completely to teach what he had discovered; and as he had never made the +discovery that teaching was what he was paid for, his payments gradually +ceased. When he found himself faced with an increasing family and a +decreasing income, he thought of the South Kensington Museum. He thought +of it as an habitual drunkard evicted for not paying his rent, thinks of +the public house. + +He brought his family as near to it as he could, dumped them down in a +silent and slatternly street, and disappeared into the museum regularly +every morning at nine. When he came out he wanted only cocoa, a back +room, and the postage necessary for his researches. A Peruvian mummy +went to his head like gin. + +Mrs. Waring had been a gentle, dreamy girl with a strong religious +tendency. She had married Professor Waring because he had wide blue eyes +and a stoop and did not look at all coarse. + +Professor Waring had married her because he wanted to get married a +little and had noticed her at that time. He was under the impression +that women managed households, meals, and children without bothering +their husbands. Mrs. Waring tried not to bother her husband. She lost +her religion because the professor hadn't any, and she thought at first +he was sure to be right. When she ceased to have this magic certainty, +she sought out fresh religions that told you you had everything you +wanted when you knew you hadn't. + +She got through maternity in a desultory way, with a great deal of ill +health and enormous household bills. She did not manage anything, and +when she was very unhappy she said that she was in tune with the +infinite. + +From their earliest years her children fended for themselves, Eurydice +with storms of anguish and through a drastic series of childish +epidemics; Cicely with a stolid, cold efficiency; and Stella with an +intuitive gentleness so great as to hide a certain inner force. + +About two hundred pounds a year trickled in on them from uncertain +sources. Mrs. Waring never knew quite when to expect it, and when it +came it soaked itself solemnly up on non-essentials. The children never +had proper clothes or a suitable education. They were Egyptologists +before they could spell, and the Koran was an open book to them when +they should have been reading "The Water Babies." + +The professor spent what he considered his share of their income upon +hieroglyphics, and Mrs. Waring, never personally extravagant, bought +quantities of little books to teach people how to live, how to develop +the will, how to create a memory, and power through repose. They had one +servant, who had to have wages and insisted every now and then upon a +joint of meat. + +There was no waste-paper basket in the house, and a great deal of +linoleum. When Mrs. Waring made up her mind that she must be more +economical, she always went out and bought linoleum. She had been told +it was a great saving. She never tidied anything up or put anything +away. What was lost was never seen again, or seen only when you were +hunting for something else. It was like a gambler's system at Monte +Carlo: you looked for a bootjack, and were rewarded by black treacle; or +you played, as it were, for black treacle, and discovered the bootjack. + +Mrs. Waring never finished anything; even her conversations, which began +at breakfast, jogged on throughout the day, and were picked up at much +the same spot in the evening. She had covered a quantity of ground, but +she had invariably escaped her destination. Through long years of +perpetual indecision she had nearly succeeded in outwitting time and +space. + +Nobody minded this attitude except Cicely. She fought against chaos from +her youth up. They all dreaded her tongue and clung persistently to +their habits. The professor fled earlier to the museum, sometimes in +carpet slippers. Immediately after breakfast Mrs. Waring retired with a +little book to an untidied bedroom. + +Eurydice, dropping manuscripts, hair-ribbons, and defiance, escaped to a +locked attic; and Stella remained as a gentle adjutant to her severer +sister. Cicely did get a few things done. She saw that meals were +cooked, windows opened, beds made, and clocks wound; but nothing +continuous rewarded her efforts. The power of the human will is a small +weapon against consolidated inertia. + +For five years Cicely played upon No. 9 Redcliffe Square like an +intermittent searchlight; then she gave it up, and became a student in a +women's hospital. The household breathed a sigh of intense relief at her +departure, and collapsed benevolently into chaos. + +Nobody except Stella regretted it. The professor was openly thankful. + +"She may become a student," he observed coldly when it was explained to +him where Cicely had gone, "but she will never become a scholar. She +has a superficial hunger for the definite. + +"I really do not think it will be necessary for me to take my supper at +a given hour. Stella will know that, whenever I ring my bell, I mean +cocoa." + +"Dear Cicely is a pioneer," murmured Mrs. Waring, with a gentle sigh. "I +can always imagine her doing wonderful things in a desert with a +buffalo." + +"Now I shall be able to have my friends at the house without their being +insulted," cried Eurydice, triumphantly. "Last time when Mr. Bolt was in +the middle of reading his new poem, 'The Whirl,' a most delicate and +difficult poem set to a secret rhythm, Cicely burst in and asked for the +slop-pail. It looked so lovely! I had covered it with autumn leaves and +placed it half-way up the chimney. It might have been a Grecian urn, but +of course she dragged it out. She drags out everything." + +Eurydice had a profession, too. She was a suppressed artist. She felt +that she could have painted like Van Gogh, only perfectly individually. +She saw everything in terms of color and in the shape of cubes. Railway +lines reminded her of a flight of asterisks. Flowers subdivided +themselves before her like a tartan plaid. She saw human beings in +tenuous and disjointed outlines suggestive of a daddy-long-legs. She +could not afford paint and canvas, so she had to leave people to think +that the world looked much as usual. + +Eurydice had always felt that she could write out her thoughts as soon +as she and Stella were alone and able to arrange her room in black and +scarlet. When Cicely left, Stella bought black paper and pasted it over +the walls, and dyed a white-wool mat, which had long lost its original +purity, a sinister scarlet. + +Eurydice did not want very much, either. None of the Warings wanted very +much. What as a family they failed to understand was, that not having +the money to pay for what they wanted, some more personal contribution +of time and effort was necessary in order to attain it. + +Stella grasped this fact when she was about eighteen. She said afterward +that she never would have thought of it if it had not been made plain to +her by Cicely. Still, before Cicely had gone to the hospital Stella was +taking cheap lessons in the City in shorthand and type-writing. None of +the three girls had what is called any "youth." They were as ignorant of +young men as if they had been brought up in a convent. Neither Professor +nor Mrs. Waring had ever supposed that parents ought to provide +occupations or social resources for their children, and the children +themselves had been too busy contributing to the family welfare to +manage any other life. Cicely had read statistics and mastered +physiological facts at fifteen. She was under the impression that she +knew everything and disliked everything except work. Her feeling for men +was singularly like that of a medieval and devout monk toward women. She +had an uncomfortable knowledge of them as a necessary evil, to be evaded +only by truculence or flight. When her work forced her into dealings +with them, she was ferocious and unattractive. She was a pretty girl, +but nobody had ever dared to mention it to her. + +Even Stella, who in an unaggressive, flitting way dared most questions, +had avoided telling Cicely that she herself liked men. Stella often +felt that if she could meet a man who was capable of doing all kinds of +dull things for you, very charmingly, and had a pretty wit, it would add +quite enormously to the gaiety of life to put yourself out a little in +order to make him laugh. + +The men Stella worked with wouldn't have done at all. They wouldn't have +cared for the kind of jokes Stella wanted to make, and of course Stella +hadn't time to meet any other men. Perhaps she wouldn't have believed +there were any if it hadn't been for Marian. Marian knew them; she knew +them literally in dozens, and they were generally in love with her, and +they always wanted to make her laugh and to do dull things for her. +Stella used to be afraid sometimes that Marian, in an embarrassment of +riches, might overlook her destiny. But Marian knew what she wanted and +was perfectly certain that she would sooner or later get it. Stella had +no such knowledge; she had long ago come to the conclusion that the +simplest way of dealing with her life was to like what she had. + +She took a scientific secretaryship at nineteen, and left it only at +twenty-six, when her scientist, who was very stout and nearly sixty, +died inconveniently from curried lobster. He left Stella an interesting +experience, of which she could make no immediate use, and a testimonial +which won her job at the town hall. It was very short. "This young +woman," the learned scientist wrote, "is invaluable. She thinks without +knowing it. I have benefited by this blessed process for seven years." + +It did not seem to Stella that she was invaluable. She always saw +herself in the light of the family failure, overlooking the fact that +she was their main financial support. + +Cicely was the practical and Eurydice the intellectual genius; but she +was content if she could be the padding on which these jewels +occasionally shone. + +Sometimes she met Cicely in a tea-shop and had a real talk, but Eurydice +was her chief companion. Eurydice shared with Stella nearly every +thought that she had. She seized her on the stairs to retail her +inspirations as Stella went up to take her things off. She sat on her +bed late at night, and talked with interminable bitterness about the +sharpness of life. Even while Stella buttoned up her boots and flung +things at the last moment into her despatch-case, Eurydice pelted her +with epigrams. She sometimes quoted Swinburne while Stella was jumping +on the corner bus, till the bus-conductor told her not to let him catch +her at it again. There was only one subject they did not discuss: +neither of them voluntarily mentioned Mr. Bolt. Mr. Bolt was the editor +of a magazine called "Shocks," to which Eurydice with trembling delight +contributed weekly. Mr. Bolt had met her at a meeting of protest against +Reticence, and he had taken to Eurydice at once; and almost at once he +told her that her charm was purely intellectual. Emotionally he was +appealed to only by fair, calm women with ample figures. + +Mr. Bolt knew plenty of fair, calm women with ample figures. Eurydice +only knew Mr. Bolt. She made an idol of him, and he used her like a +door-mat. No early-Victorian woman ever bore from a male tyrant what +poor, passionate twentieth-century Eurydice bore from Mr. Bolt, and +Stella could not help her. Stella abhorred Mr. Bolt. She would not +listen to his Delphic oracle utterances upon style and art and life. She +was outraged at his comments upon sex. She was desperately, fiercely +angry with a secret maternal anger that Eurydice should have to listen +to these utterances. It carried her as far as an abortive appeal to her +mother. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Waring, placidly, "these things are outworn. They +are stultified thought products; they do not really exist. Sex is like +dust upon the house-tops; a cleansing process will shortly remove it. +Mr. Bolt is a misconception, a floating microcosm. I really should not +bother about Mr. Bolt. He is not nearly so tangible as the butcher, and +I have made up my mind never really again to bother about the butcher. +Perhaps you will see him for me if he calls about his bill to-morrow. + +"It seems so strange to me that business men should not understand that +when there is no money bills cannot be paid. Even the minor regions of +fact seem closed to them." + +Stella agreed to dip into the minor regions of fact with the butcher, +but she went on bothering about Mr. Bolt. It seemed to Stella that he +was the only real bother that she had. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + Darling: + + Do come Sunday to tea. Mama is out of town, and I must have some + support. Julian is going to bring his mother to see me for the + first time. I believe she's rather alarming--awfully blue and + booky; just your sort. I haven't had time to tell you anything. + It's so jolly being engaged; but it takes up all one's spare + moments. I didn't mean to marry Julian; he swept me off my feet. I + suppose I must be awfully in love with him. You know what explorers + are. They go away for years and leave you to entertain alone, and + then people say you don't get on; and of course exploring never + pays. He has a little place in the country and about £2000 a year. + It's awfully little, really, but it's wonderful what you can put up + with when you really care for a man; besides, he's sure to get on. + Don't fail me Sunday. I shall really be rather nervous. Old ladies + never have been my forte. Julian is such a dear! You're sure to + like him. He wants to meet you awfully, but he doesn't think women + ought to work. He is full of chivalry, and has charming manners. It + doesn't in the least matter what you wear. Heaps of love. + + MARIAN. + +It was this last reflection that gave Stella courage to ring the bell. +She had never been in the Youngs' house before. She had vaguely known +that it was in a very quiet square, with a garden in the middle, quite +near everything that mattered, and quite far away from everything that +didn't. It was the kind of house that looks as if no one was in it +unless they were giving a party. The interior was high, narrow, and +box-like. A great deal of money had been unpretentiously spent on it, +with a certain amount of good-humored, ordinary taste. + +The drawing-room ran the whole length of the house, and was pink and +gray, because the Youngs knew that pink and gray go well together, just +as blue and gold do, only that blue fades. + +The chairs were very comfortable, the little tables had the right kind +of ornaments, the pictures were a harmless, unenlightening addition to +the gray-satin walls. + +The books that lay about were novels. They were often a little improper, +but never seriously so, and they always ended in people getting what +they wanted legally. + +It was a clean, comfortable, fresh room and nothing was ever out of +place in it. + +Marian was sitting under a high vase of pink canterbury-bells; by some +happy chance her dress was the same pale pink as the bells. She looked, +with her hands in her lap, her throat lifted, and the sun on her hair, +like a flower of the same family. Her manner was a charming mixture of +ease and diffidence. + +Stella was late, and Lady Verny and Julian had arrived before her. + +Lady Verny was like her son. She was very tall and graceful, and carried +herself as if she had never had to stoop. Her eyes had the steady, +frosty blueness of Julian's, with lightly chiseled edges; her lips were +ironic, curved, and a little thin. + +She had piles of white hair drawn back over her forehead. When Marian +introduced her to Stella, she rose and turned away from the tea-table. + +"I hope you will come and talk to me a little," she said in a clear, +musical voice. "We can leave Julian and Marian to themselves." + +Lady Verny leaned back in the chair she had chosen for herself and +regarded Stella with steady, imperturbable eyes. It struck Stella as a +little alarming that they should all know where they wanted to sit, and +with whom they wanted to talk, without any indecision. She thought that +chairs would walk across the room to Lady Verny if she looked at them, +and kettles boil the moment Julian thought that it was time for tea. But +though she was even more frightened at this calm, unconscious competency +than she had expected to be, she saw it didn't matter about her clothes. +She knew they were all wrong, as cheap clothes always are, particularly +cheap clothes that you've been in a hurry over and not clever enough to +match. Her boots and her gloves weren't good, and her hat was horrid and +probably on the back of her head. Her blue-serge coat and skirt had +indefinite edges. But Stella was aware that Lady Verny, beautifully +dressed as she was, was taking no notice whatever of Stella's clothes. +They might make an extra point against her if she didn't like her. +Stella could hear her saying, "Funny that Marian should make friends +with a sloppy little scarecrow." But if she did like her, she would say +nothing about Stella's clothes. As far as the Vernys were concerned, +the appearances of things were always subsidiary. + +"Engagements are such interrupted times," Lady Verny observed, with a +charming smile. "One likes to poke a little opportunity toward the poor +dears when one can." + +"Yes," said Stella, eagerly, with her little, rapid flight of words. +"You're always running away when you're engaged, and never getting +there, aren't you? And then, of course, when you're married, you're +there, and can't run away. It's such a pity they can't be more mixed +up." + +"Perhaps," said Lady Verny, still smiling. "But marriage is like a +delicate clock; it has to be wound up very carefully, and the less you +take its works to pieces afterward the better. Have you known Marian a +long time?" + +"Three years," said Stella; "but when you say 'know,' I am only an +accident. I don't in any real sense belong to Marian's life; I belong +only to Marian. You see, I work." She thought she ought, in common +fairness to Lady Verny, not let her think that she was one of Marian's +real friends. + +Lady Verny overlooked this implication. + +"And what is your work, may I ask?" she inquired, with her grave, solid +politeness, which reminded Stella of nothing so much as a procession in +a cathedral. + +"I was a secretary to Professor Paulson," Stella explained, "the great +naturalist. He was a perfect dear, too,--it wasn't only beetles and +things,--and when he died, I went into a town hall,--I've been there for +two years,--and that's more exciting than you can think. It isn't +theories and experiments, of course, but it's like being a part of the +hub of the universe. Rates and taxes, sanitary inspectors, old-age +pensions, and the health of babies run through my hands like water +through a sieve. You wouldn't believe how entertaining civic laws and +customs are--and such charming people! Of course I miss the other work, +too,--it was like having one's ear against nature,--but this is more +like having one's ear against life." + +"I think you must have very catholic tastes," said Lady Verny, gently. +"My son knew Professor Paulson; it will interest him to know that you +worked for him. And Marian--did she take any interest in your scientific +experiences?" + +Stella moved warily across this question; she had never spoken to Marian +about her work at all. Marian, as she knew, thought it all very +tiresome. + +"You see," she explained, "they weren't my experiences; they were +Professor Paulson's. Marian couldn't very well be thrilled at third +hand; the thrill only got as far as me. Besides, half of what I do as a +secretary is confidential, and the other half sounds dull. Of course it +isn't really. I've been so lucky in that way. I've never had anything +dull to do." + +"I can quite imagine that," said Lady Verny, kindly. "Dullness is in the +eye, not in the object. Does Marian like life better than intellect, +too?" + +"Ah, Marian's life," said Stella, a little doubtfully, "is so +different!" + +They glanced across at the distant tea-table. Julian was leaning toward +Marian with eyes that held her with the closeness of a frame to a +picture. + +He was laughing at her a little, with the indulgent, delighted laughter +of a man very deeply in love. She was explaining something to him, +simply and gravely, without undue emphasis. Stella guessed that it was +one of the things Marian wanted, and she did not think that Julian could +get out of giving it to her by laughter. + +"Marian's life hasn't got divisions in it like mine," she explained. +"She's just a beautiful human creature. She is equable and strong and +delightful and absolutely honest. She's as honest as crystal; but she +hasn't had to bother about choosing." + +"Ah," said Lady Verny, "you think that, do you? But, my dear Miss +Waring, sooner or later we all have to bother about choosing. Beauty and +strength don't save us. Absolute honesty often lets us in, and +sometimes, when the scales weigh against us, we cease to be equable." + +"But they won't, you see," Stella said eagerly. "They can't weigh +against her now, Lady Verny. Don't you see? There's your son--it's why +one's so delighted. An engagement to him is like some thumping +insurance which somehow or other prevents one's house being burned." + +Lady Verny laughed. + +"Let us hope your theory is a correct one," she said, rising from her +seat. "I am going to talk to her now, and you can talk to the insurance +company." + +Stella gasped. She wanted to run away, to catch Lady Verny's graceful +scarf and tell her she couldn't really talk to anybody's son. Agreeable, +massive beings who explored continents and lived in clubs oughtn't to +come her way. But Julian crossed the room to her side with the quickness +of a military order. His manners hid his reluctance. He was at her +service in a moment. His keen eyes, harder than his mother's and more +metallic, met hers once and glanced easily away. They said nothing to +Stella except that he was a watchful human being who couldn't be taken +in, and was sometimes perhaps unduly aware that he couldn't be taken in. + +"I'm very glad indeed," he said cordially, "to meet Marian's greatest +friend. You must tell me all about her. You see, I'm a new-comer; I've +known her only six weeks, and I've been so busy trying to impress her +with my point of view that I quite feel I may have overlooked some of +hers. Women always understand women, don't they?" + +He wasn't going to be difficult to talk to. That unnecessary ingredient +in his composition saved Stella. As long as she had a brain to call to, +and wasn't only to be awed by splendor of appearance and forms as +difficult for her to cross as five-barred gates, she needn't be afraid +of him. It never was people that Stella was afraid of, but the things, +generally the silly things, that separated her from them. + +"We do and we don't understand each other," she said swiftly. "I don't +think women can tell what another woman will do; but granted she's done +it, I dare say most could say why." + +Julian laughed. + +"Then have the kindness to inform me," he said, "why Marian has +consented to marry me. Incidentally, your reply will no doubt throw a +light for me upon her mental processes." + +Stella saw he did not want any light thrown anywhere; he was simply +giving his mother time to get to know Marian. Then he was going back to +her; that was his light. + +She gave a vague little smile at the sublimated concentration of lovers. +She liked to watch them; she would never have to be one. + +It was like seeing some beautiful wild creature of the woods. It +wouldn't be like you at all, and yet it would be exceedingly amusing and +touching to watch, and sometimes it would make you think of what it +would feel like to be wild and in those woods. + +She reminded herself sharply, as her eyes turned back to Julian, that it +wouldn't do to let him think she thought him wild. He was behaving very +well, and the least she could do was to let him think so. She gave +herself up to his question. + +"You're very strong," she said consideringly. "Marian likes strength. +She's strong herself, you know; probably that's one of her reasons." + +"Good," he said cheerfully. "Physically strong, d' you mean, or an iron +will? Iron wills are quite in my line, I assure you. Any other reason?" + +"Strong both ways," said Stella; "and you're secure. I mean, what you've +taken you'll keep. I think some women like a man they can be sure of." + +"Let us hope they all do," said Sir Julian, laughing. "It would imply a +very bad business instinct if they didn't." + +"I do not think I agree with you," said Stella, firmly. "The best +business is often an adventure, a risk. Safe business does not go far; +it goes only as far as safety." + +"Well, I'm not sure that I want women to go particularly far," said Sir +Julian. "I like 'em to be safe; let 'em leave the better business with +the risk in it to men. I shall be content if Marian does that." + +"I think Marian will," said Stella. "But there are other things, of +course, besides you and Marian: there's life. You can only take all the +risk there is if you take all the life. I see what you would like, Sir +Julian: you want a figurehead guaranteed against collisions. +Unfortunately there's no guarantee against collisions even for a +figurehead. Besides, as I told you before, Marian's strong. Iron wills +don't make good figureheads." + +"Ah, you're one of these new women," said Sir Julian, indulgently. "I +don't mind 'em a bit, you know, myself--all steel and ginger,--and quite +on to their jobs. I admit all that. But Marian ain't one of them. Her +strength is the other kind--the kind you get by sitting still, don't you +know; and if I may say so in passing, if I run a ship, I don't collide. +But let's have your third reason. I see you're keeping something back. +She's going to marry me because I'm strong and because I'm sure; I +approve of both of them, sound business reasons. Now, Miss Waring, +what's the third?" + +"Ah, the third isn't a reason at all," said Stella; "but it's the only +one that I thoroughly agree with as a motive: she likes you for +yourself." + +Sir Julian's eyes suddenly softened; they softened so much that they +looked quite different eyes, almost as if they belonged to a very +pleased little boy. + +"Oh," he said, looking back at Marian. "I shouldn't in the least mind +being guaranteed that, you know." + +Lady Verny rose and walked toward them. + +"I have some other calls to make," she said to her son. "You'll stay, of +course." + +Stella joined her as soon as she had given the happiest of her smiles +into Marian's expectant eyes. Lady Verny's face, as they stood together +outside the door, was perfectly expressionless. + +Without a word she descended the stairs side by side with Stella. When +she reached the front door she held out her hand to Stella and smiled. + +"I hope I shall meet you again some day," she said, with gracious +sincerity. "I enjoyed our little talk together very much." + +She said nothing whatever about Marian. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +It was a very hot morning in July, a morning when work begins slowly, +continues irritably, and is likely to incite human paroxysms of +forgetfulness and temper. It took the form with Mr. Leslie Travers of +his being more definite than usual. He was an extremely intelligent man, +and most of his intelligence consisted in knowing where other people +were wrong. The heat lent an almost unbearable edge to these +inspirations; the office boy, the mayor's secretary, and two typists +withdrew from his sanctum as if they had been in direct contact with a +razor. + +Stella wished, as she had often wished before, that the inner office in +which she worked could not be invaded by the manner in which Mr. Travers +conducted his interviews. She respected him as her chief, she even +considered him with a kind of loyal awe augmented by her daily duty. She +pleased him, she catered for him, she never in any circumstances let +him down or confused him by a miscalculation or a mistake. + +It is impossible to do this for any man for two years and, if he has +treated you with fairness and respect, not at the end of that time, to +regard him with a certain proprietary affection. This was how Stella +regarded Mr. Travers. He was a clever man, and he never expected any one +under him to work miracles or to give him trouble. He knew what you were +worth, and sometimes he let you see it. + +He was handsome in a thin, set, rather dry way, and when he put his +finger-tips together and smiled a little ironic smile he had, and leaned +forward with his shoulders hunched and his eyes unusually bright, as if +they'd been polished like a boot-button, he had an air of intellectual +strength which usually brought terror to an opponent. He always knew +when his adversary was in the wrong. It sometimes seemed to Stella as if +he never knew anything else. + +He had reduced life to a kind of game in which you caught the other +fellow out. She got very tired of hearing him say, "You see, Miss +Waring, the weak point of this case is--" or, "I think we may just point +out to him that he renders himself liable to--" + +He was a master hand at an interview. To begin with, he always let the +interviewer state his case completely. He never interrupted; he would +sit there smiling a little with his steady, observant eyes fixed on the +man before him, saying in a suave, mild voice, "Yes, yes; I quite see. +Exactly. Your point is--" and Stella, listening, would feel her heart +sink at the dangerous volubility of his opponent. She would have liked +to spring from behind the screen where she was sorting the +correspondence and say, "For Heaven's sake! keep that back! You're +letting yourself in!" As soon as the usually verbose and chaotic +applicant had drawn his final breath, Mr. Leslie Travers gave him back +his case with the points eliminated, and the defenseless places laid out +before him as invertebrate and unmanageable as a jellyfish. It was +hardly necessary for Mr. Leslie Travers to say, with his dry little +smile, "I think you see, my dear fellow, don't you, that it would really +be advisable in your own interests not to go on any further with the +matter? It will be no trouble to us at all if you decide to push it, but +if you take my advice, you will simply go home and think no more about +it." People usually went home, and if their case had been important to +them, they probably thought about it to the end of their lives; but that +didn't affect Mr. Travers. It was his business to safeguard the +interests of the town hall, and the more cases you could drop, the +better. Of course he never dropped a case that could be used against +him; he held on to these until they couldn't. He had to perfection the +legal mind. He never touched what wasn't a safe proposition. A peculiar +idea seized Stella as she listened to him dismissing a worried +rate-payer who had asked for lowered rates, claiming the decreased value +of his property, "We shall act immediately," Mr. Travers said +benevolently. "We receive proof that your property _has_ decreased in +value, but it doesn't do, you know, to come here and tell me the +neighborhood isn't what it was. No neighborhood ever is. Good morning." + +What, she asked herself, would Mr. Leslie Travers be without his +impeccable tie, his black coat, and definitely creased gray trousers, +the polish on his boots, the office background, and, above all, the law? +Was he really very awe-inspiring. Wasn't he just a funny little man? It +was curious how she felt this morning, as if she would have liked to see +some one large and lawless face Mr. Travers and show him that his +successes were tricks, his interviews mousetraps, his words delusive +little pieces of very stale cheese. He was too careful of his dignity, +too certain of his top-hat. You couldn't imagine him dirty and oily at +the north pole, putting grit into half-frozen, starving men. You +couldn't, that is to say, imagine him at a disadvantage, making the +disadvantage play his game. + +His games were always founded on advantages. He wasn't, in fact, at all +like Julian Verny, nor was there any reason why he should be. But +yesterday Stella had seen Julian Verny, and to-day she saw, and saw as +if for the first time, Mr. Leslie Travers. + +"Now, Miss Waring," Mr. Travers said, looking up from his desk, "the +correspondence, please, if you are ready." He always spoke to her, +unless he was in a hurry, as if he were speaking to a good, rather +bright little girl who knew her place, but mustn't be tempted unduly to +forget it. When he was in a hurry he sometimes said, "Look sharp." + +Stella brought the correspondence, and they went through it together +with their usual celerity and carefulness, and all the time she was +thinking: "We've worked together every day for two years except Sundays, +and he's afraid to look at me unless we're discussing a definite +question, and he won't risk a joke, and he'd be shocked if I sneezed. +He's just a very intelligent, cultivated, knowing clerk, and he'd be +awfully upset if I told him he had a smut on his collar." + +Mr. Leslie Travers put to one side the two or three letters he had +reserved for himself to answer. Stella gathered hers together into an +elastic band; but as she turned to leave him he said: + +"Miss Waring, one moment. You came to me on the understanding that your +work here was to be purely temporary. Circumstances have prolonged your +stay with us until it seems to me that we may fairly consider you, +unless you have other plans, a permanent member of our staff!" + +"I hope so," said Stella, with a sudden flicker in her eyes, "unless you +think women shouldn't be permanent." + +Mr. Leslie Travers permitted himself a very slight smile. + +"That disability in your case," he said, "we are prepared to overlook in +view of your value as a worker. As my permanent secretary I should wish +to raise your salary ten pounds yearly. I have put this before our +committee, and they have seen their way to consent to it." + +Stella's eyebrows went up. Ten pounds were worth so much to that +muddled, penurious household standing behind her on the verge of utmost +poverty! The man whose place she had taken had been paid three hundred a +year; her rise brought up her salary to one third of this amount. + +"It _is_ a disability, Mr. Travers," she said gently, "being a woman. I +see that it is going to cost me two hundred a year." + +Mr. Travers looked at her very hard. He knew that she did her work twice +as well as the man she had replaced. That is why she had replaced him. +He thought of her market value as a worker, and he knew that he was +doing a perfectly correct thing. A hundred a year was a fair wage for a +woman secretary. He said: + +"You see, Miss Waring, you have not got a family to support." + +Stella flushed. She had a family to support, but she did not intend to +admit it to Mr. Travers.. She said: + +"I beg your pardon. I had not understood that wages were paid according +to a worker's needs. I had thought the value of the work settled the +rate of payment." + +Mr. Travers was astonished. He had never dreamed that Miss Waring would +argue with him. He had looked forward to telling her of this unexpected +windfall; he had expected a flushed and docile gratitude. She was a +little flushed, it is true, but she was neither docile nor grateful, and +he did not quite see his way to continuing her line of argument. She +had, however, put herself in the wrong, and he pointed this out to her. + +"I am afraid I cannot see my way to offering you more than the increase +I have suggested," he said; "but as you were apparently satisfied to +accept a permanent post at my original offer, I may hope that an extra +ten pounds will prove no obstacle to our continuing to work together." + +"I do not suppose," said Stella, quietly, "that it will be any obstacle +to you that I do not think it fair." + +"Really, Miss Waring, really," said Mr. Travers, "I do not think you are +quite yourself this morning. The heat, the disquieting news in the +papers--Perhaps you had better go on with the correspondence. These +questions are not personal ones, you know--they--" + +Stella interrupted him. + +"All questions that deal with human beings, Mr. Travers," she said, "are +personal questions, and the heat does not affect them." + +For one awful moment Mr. Travers thought that Miss Waring was laughing +at him; there was that strange glint in her eyes that he had noticed +before. She had extraordinarily pretty eyes, usually so gentle. It was +most upsetting. + +She disappeared with her correspondence before he could think of a +suitable reply. Legally he had been perfectly justified, more than +justified, because he was under no obligation to offer her ten pounds +more. + +This is what comes of generosity to women. If he hadn't offered her that +ten pounds she wouldn't have laughed at him, if she really had laughed +at him. + +It was a most disquieting thought; it haunted him all day long, even +more than the possibility of a European war. He couldn't help the +European war if it did come off, but he wished very much that he had +been able to prevent Miss Waring's enigmatic laughter. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +When anything happened, Julian's first instinct was to happen with it. +He had never been in the rear of a situation in his life. The blow of +the Austrian ultimatum reached him on a yacht in mid-channel. There was +a cabinet minister on board, for whose sake the yacht slewed round to +make her way swiftly back to port. Julian went directly to him. + +"Look here," he said, "we've got to go in. You grasp that, don't you?" + +Julian had one idea in his head, the cabinet minister had a great many; +every one but Julian was leaving him alone to sort these ideas out. +Julian spent the six hours in which they were flying to port in +eradicating one by one every idea except his own. + +The two men stood together, leaning over the ship's side. It was a clear +summer evening, with a bloom upon the waters. The lights of the boats +they passed--green and red and gold--were like glow-worms in a Southern +night. The sea was very easy under them; it had little movement of its +own, and parted like riven gauze to let the ship through. + +"We can't let France go under," Julian pleaded. "Look at her, +son--stripped, after 1870. How she's sprung up! But thin, you +know--thin, like a gallant boy. + +"Immoral small families? By Gad! how righteous comfortable people are! +How could she help it? Look what she's had to carry--indemnities, cursed +war burdens, and now the three-years service! But she's carried 'em. I +know the French. I've Irish in me, and that helps me to value their +lucidity. Lucidity's sense, you know, it ain't anything dressy or +imaginative, it's horse-sense gone clean as lightning. The French are a +civilized people. Go to Paris,--not the Paris of our luxury-rotted rich, +who have only asked it to be a little private sink of their own,--but to +a Frenchman's Paris. Well, you'll find him there, brain and a heart +under it. And, good Lord, what nerve! + +"I tell you we've got to get down to our own nerve. We've fatted it on +the top, but the French haven't. They're like live wire, with no cover +to it. They're the most serious people on earth, fire without smoke. It +'u'd be an unspeakable shame to help set that damned Prussian heel on +them again. When it comes, it'll come as solid as the mountain that +blotted out Messina, as solid and as senseless, and you'll let that +happen because we aren't '_involved_!' Good Heavens, man, don't sop +yourself or your conscience with catchwords! If this war comes, and I +feel in my bones it's on us, any man who isn't involved is a cur." + +The cabinet minister interrupted him. He cleared his throat, and said +that he was hopeful steps might be taken. + +Julian flung himself upon the phrase. + +"Of course they'll be taken," he shouted across the quiet, shadowy sea. +"They're being taken every minute. Are we the only fellows who've got +feet? + +"What about strategic railways? Ever studied 'em? What about this +spring's having seen Alsace and Lorraine white with camps? What about +Tirpitz slipping his navy votes through the Reichstag, Socialists and +all? I beg your pardon; it's not your department, of course. We've let a +strip of sea as small as a South American river cut us off from the +plain speech of other nations. What speech? My good sir, the plain +speech of other nations is their acts. But it's no use raking up what +we've slid over. We've the national habit of sliding, it's a gift like +any other, and if you've a good eye for ice, it doesn't let you in. But +what Liberal Government ever had a good eye for the ice in Europe. I'm +speaking bitterly, but I'm a Liberal myself, and I've seen in odd places +of the earth that it's no good going slap through an adverse fact, +smiling. You disarm nothing but yourself." + +"We are not," said the cabinet minister, who had a happy disposition and +a strong desire not to be shaken out of it, "really tied up to any +Balkan outbreak--I mean necessarily, of course. Other issues might come +in. But I see no reason, my dear Sir Julian, why we should, in this very +disagreeable crisis, not remind ourselves--and I am, like you, one of +the greatest admirers of the French--that an entente is _not_ an +alliance. Political sympathy can do a great deal to affect these +questions. I can imagine a very strong note--" + +"Is an engagement nothing till you've got the ring on?" asked Julian, +savagely. "Are you going to let down France, who's not very often, but +has just lately, trusted us? If we do, let me tell you this: we shall +deserve exactly what we shall get. And make no mistake about it; we +shall get it. The channel ports, taken from a vindictive, broken France, +used, as they ought to be used, dead against us. A little luck and a +dark night, and I wouldn't give _that_ for England." + +Julian flung his lighted cigarette into the sea; a faint hiss, and the +spark beneath them was sucked into darkness. Neither of the two men +moved. Julian lit another cigarette, and the cabinet minister gazed down +into the lightless sea. After a pause he said in a different voice: + +"Look here, Verny, I've been impressed, devilish impressed, by what +you've said; but have you considered what kind of force we've got? +Picked men, I grant you, but, as you say yourself, when the Germans do +come on, they'll come like half a mountain moving. What's the use of +sending out a handful of grasshoppers to meet half a mountain?" + +Julian laughed. + +"Are you a great man on dog-fights?" he asked. "I've seen a bulldog, +quite a small chap he was, bring down a Great Dane the size of a calf. +The Dane had got a collie by the throat; friend of my little chap's, I +fancy. He couldn't get at the Dane's throat, for fear of piling his +weight on the collie; so he just stepped forward and took half a leg +between his teeth, and buried his head in it. I heard the bone crack. +The Dane tried to face it out,--he was a plucky fellow and the size of a +house,--but after a bit he felt held down. So he wheeled round and +seized the bull by a piece of back (the collie crawled off, he'd had +enough, poor brute!), but the bull didn't stir. He went on cracking that +bone; he gave the Dane all the back he wanted. Devil a bit _he_ turned +till the whole leg went like a split match, that hurled the Dane over, +and I had to take Chang (that was his name) off, or he'd have finished +him up. He'd just begun to enjoy the fight, with half his back chawed +over! + +"We've got a navy that'll do just that to Germany if we hold on long +enough. Don't you forget it. It's pressure that tells against +size--pressure on the right spot, and persistent." + +The cabinet minister tried to say to himself that countries weren't like +dogs; but he was a truthful man, and he thought that on the whole they +were. + +England rose up suddenly before them out of the darkness. They were +coming into Plymouth Sound. The port lights held them steadily for a +minute, and the steam yacht bustled soberly toward the docks. + +"If your little lot sit down under this," said Julian, straightening his +shoulders and holding the other man with his insistent eyes, "by God! +I'll cut my throat and say, 'Here died a Briton whose country had lost +its soul.'" + +"Bit of Irish in him of course," murmured the cabinet minister as Julian +swung away from him. "Still, I suppose what I shall say is that on the +whole, taking everything into consideration, I think we should be wiser +to support France." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Julian had spent thirty-two years--his mother included his first--in +seeing what he wanted to do and doing it. He had never consulted anybody +else, because he had always seen his way clearly, but he had made from +time to time reports to his mother. He had been hostile to his father, +who had opposed him weakly and sometimes unfairly till he died. Julian +never felt disheartened or found any opposition in himself to what he +wanted to do. Opposition in others he liked and overcame. Nothing in him +warned him that love demands participation and resents exclusion. + +On landing, he hurried to London, and went at once to see an old friend +of his in the War Office. + +"Look here, Burton," he said, "you remember 1911, don't you?" + +Burton drew on the blotting-paper with a pencil; he was almost +overwhelmingly cautious. If he had not been, many more serious things +than caution would have been overwhelmed. + +"I think," he said, "if I remember right, you went abroad." + +Julian chuckled. + +"I was a German navvy for six months," he said. "I ate like a German, I +drank thirty bottles of beer at one sitting for a bet, and I lost my +head and my temper in German. It seems as if the best thing I can do +just now is to repeat the experiment." + +"You did it at your own risk," Burton reminded him. "It was certainly +serviceable, but we limited our communications with you as much as +possible. If it should enter into your mind to do such a thing again, we +should of course have no communication with you whatever. Also, you +would need German papers--birth certificates, registrations. I really do +not know at a time like this what you might not find necessary. The +work, if you came back, would be invaluable." + +Julian nodded. + +"Don't you bother yourself about papers," he said. "I've been in a +German consular office, and I've got a German birth-certificate. It's +one of the things I do particularly well. As long as they're not +suspicious they won't ram the papers home, and I don't propose to let +them get suspicious. I shall be Cæsar's wife. Three years of Heidelberg +have oiled my throat to it. My mother tells me I often speak English in +a hearty German voice. My idea is to go out as soon as possible, through +Belgium. They'll strike there, I feel pretty sure, and I'll come back +the same way--October to November, if I can. You can put about that I 'm +off to the Arctic Ocean. If I'm not back by Christmas, don't expect me. +I shall have no communication with any one until my return." + +Burton smiled. + +"My dear Julian," he said, "one moment. I have not yet congratulated you +upon your engagement. I do so with all my heart. But do you intend to +tell Miss Young? She may not like the Arctic Ocean or she may expect you +to fight. She will also, no doubt, look for some communication from you; +and, as you very rightly assert, there can be no communication whatever +with anybody until you return." + +Julian hunched up his shoulders and whistled. + +"She's the pick of women," he said softly. "Leave her to me." + +"It's all going to be left to you," said Burton, gravely. "If you live, +you'll get no apparent acknowledgment; if you die, no one will ever know +how. I do not say this to dissuade you,--there are too many things we +want to know,--but when I saw the announcement of your engagement in the +paper, I said, 'Well, we've lost him.'" + +Julian rose, and walked to the window. Until that moment he had not +given Marian a thought. He was full of a lover's images of her, but he +had not connected them with what he was going to do. He remembered what +Marian's inconspicuous-looking little friend had said to her, "honest as +crystal, equable, strong." + +Then he turned back to his friend. + +"You haven't lost me," he said steadily. "After all, if we're up against +anything at all, Burton, we're up against a pretty big thing. I must do +exactly what is most useful. Of course I'd rather fight. One likes +one's name to go down and all that, and I'd like to please Marian; but +the point, both for her and for me, will be the job." + +"Ah," said Burton. "Then if you'll just come with me, I'll take you to a +fellow who will let you know what we want particularly just now to find +out. You're quite right as far as we are concerned; but it's not fair to +rush a man into our kind of fight. It's not like any other kind. It's +risks without prizes." + +"What you get out of a risk," said Julian, with a certain gravity, "is a +prize." + +Burton looked at him curiously; he rested his hand for a moment on his +friend's shoulder. + +"That's a jolly good phrase, Julian," he said quietly, "and I think it's +true; but it's not necessarily a personal prize. You pay the piper, and +he plays the tune; but you mightn't be there to listen to the tune." + +"Don't be a croaking, weather-beaten, moth-eaten old Scotch raven!" +laughed Julian. "Take my word for it; you get what you want out of life +if you put all you've got into it. That's just at this moment what I +propose to put." + +"And that," said Burton, without returning his smile, "is what we +propose to take, Julian." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Amberley hung upon a cliff of land above the water meadows. Rising high +behind it, fold on fold, were the Sussex Downs, without lines, without +rigidity, as soft as drifting snow. + +The village had been the seat of a tremendous castle,--little of these +famous ruins were left,--but the old, yellow stone walls still girdled +Amberley in the shape of a broken crown. + +There was only one street, a sleepy, winding, white down road, which ran +between mossy barns and deep-thatched cottages under the Amberley Wall. +The castle was older than Amberley House, yet Amberley House was a +respectable three hundred years, and had been all that time the home of +countless Vernys. It had not retreated into relentless privacy, as most +old English homes have done; it stood, with its wide porch, stoutly upon +the moss-grown cobbles. + +But it was better than its promises. If it had no park, there lay behind +its frontage not a park, but a garden--a garden that fitted in with +nature, only to excel it. + +Lady Verny loved two things, her garden and her son; but she had been +able to do most with her garden. There were terraces that swung from +point to point above the long, blue valley; there was a lawn hemmed in +by black yew hedges, over which the downs piled themselves, bare and +high, with only the clouds beyond them. There was a sunken rose-garden, +with rough-tiled pathways leading to a lake with swans. Three hundred +years had helped Lady Verny with the lawn, but the herbaceous borders +had been her own affair. Julian, crossing the lawn toward her, was the +same strange mixture of her hand and time; and she had always known that +when she had done all she could for Julian and the garden, she would +have to give both up. With all their difficulties, their beauties, and +their sullen patches, they would pass into the hands of some young and +untried person unchosen by herself. + +The person had been chosen now. Marian was already at Amberley for a +week-end, and knowing that Julian was expected, she had left Lady Verny +sitting by the tea-table under the yew hedge and gone up toward the +downs. + +Julian would like this; he would not wish his bride to meet him +half-way. He would delight in Marian's aloofness; her deliberate and +delicate coldness would seem to him like the bloom upon a grape. But the +coldness of a future daughter-in-law is not the quality which most +endears her to a mother. + +"Julian," Lady Verny said to herself as he approached her, "will make a +very trying lover. If he is absorbed in Marian, he will interfere with +her; and if he is absorbed in anything else, he will ignore her. He +needs a great deal of judicious teasing. Marian takes herself too +seriously to see the fun of Julian; she only sees the fun of sex. She +was quite right to go up to the downs. It'll amuse him to pursue her +now, but it'll bore him later; and in the end he'll find out that she +doesn't keep him off because she's got so much to give, but because +she's so afraid of giving anything." + +"Where's Marian?" asked Julian before he kissed her. + +"She went up toward the downs," said Lady Verny. "She left no directions +behind her. She's a will-o'-the-wisp, my dear." + +Julian laughed. + +"She knew I'd follow her," he said; "but I'll have my tea first, +please." + +"She has always been followed, I imagine," said Lady Verny, giving him +his tea, "and she has always known it." + +Julian looked pleased; this was the kind of wife he wanted, a woman used +to admiration, and who never made the fatal mistake of seeking it. He +had not much knowledge of women, but he had very strong opinions about +them, unshaken by any personal reckoning. One opinion was that nothing +too much can be done for a good woman. She must be protected, cared for, +and served under every ordeal in life. She must be like a precious +jewel; bars, safes, banks, must be constructed to insure her +inaccessibility from all the dangers of the open world. + +She must be seen--the East receded from him at this point--and admired; +but she must be immaculate. That is to say, she must at no time in her +career personally handle an experience. She must be a wife and mother +(unmarried women, though often presumably virtuous, were only the shabby +bankrupts of their sex), but, once married and a mother, she must be +kept as far as possible from all the implications of these tremendous +facts. + +Bad women were unsexed. That is to say, no law applied to them; they +were as outcast as a man who cheats at cards. The simile was not exact, +as the women were occasionally themselves the cheated; but it was near +enough for Julian. There were of course considerably more female +outcasts than card-sharpers; but this was fortunate, for inadvertently +they protected good women, in a manner in which card-sharpers have not +been known to protect good men. But Julian thought men needed no +protection, only women who were safe, needed it. + +Julian was kinder to women than his opinions promised, because, being +strong, he was on the whole gentle toward those who were weak; but his +kindness was a personal idiosyncrasy, not a principle. + +Lady Verny looked at him a little helplessly. There was something she +wanted very much to say to him, but she suffered from the disability of +being his mother. There is an unwritten law that mothers should not +touch upon vital matters with their sons. Lady Verny believed that +Julian was a victim of passion. She did not think he had understood +Marian's nature, and she knew that when passion burns itself out, one of +two things is left, comradeship or resentment. She had lived with +resentment for twenty years, and she knew that it was not an easy thing +to live with, and that it would have been worth while had she known more +about it earlier, to have found out if there was comradeship under the +passion before the flames of it had burned her boats. + +"I wonder," she said consideringly, gazing into the bottom of her +tea-cup, "if your lovely Marian has a sense of humor?" + +"Humor?" said Julian, taking two savory sandwiches and wrapping them in +bread and butter. "What does she want with humor at her age? It's one of +the things people fall back on when they've come croppers. Besides, I +don't believe in comradeship between the sexes. Infernally dull policy; +sort of thing that appeals to a bookworm. What I like is a little +friendly scrapping. Honor's easy! I never have cared much for brains in +a woman." + +He smiled at the woman he knew best in the world, who had brains, and +had given him the fruit of them all her life, with kindly tolerance. + +Probably she was jealous; but she wouldn't be tiresome if she was, and +he would make things as easy for her as possible. + +Lady Verny saw that Julian thought that she was jealous. She looked away +from him to the terrace where he had fallen as a baby and struck his +head against the stone cornice of the sun-dial. + +She could never look at the sun-dial without seeing the whole scene +happen again--and the dreadful pause that followed it when the small, +limp figure lay without moving. Julian was the only child she had ever +had. She shivered in the hot summer air and gave up the subject of human +love. There is generally too much to be said about it to make it a good +subject of conversation except for lovers, who only want each other. + +She pointed to the newspaper that lay between them; that also was +serious. + +"My dear," she said quietly, "this appears to be a very bad business?" + +"Yes," Julian acknowledged. "This time there'll be no ducking; there's +nothing to duck under." + +"And I dare say," said his mother, without moving the strong, quiet +hands that lay on her lap, "you have been thinking what you are going to +do in it?" + +"Oh, yes, I've decided," said Julian. "I shall be off in ten days. +You'll guess where, but no one else must know." + +"It was a big risk before, Julian," she said tentatively. + +"This time it'll be a bigger one," he answered, meeting her eyes with a +flash of his pleased blue ones. "That's all. It'll need a jolly lot of +thinking out." + +"And you've--and Marian has agreed to it?" Lady Verny asked anxiously. + +"I haven't told her yet," said Julian, easily. "It didn't occur to me to +mention it to her first any more than to you. I knew you'd both +understand. Obviously it was the one thing I could do. She'll see that, +of course." + +"I'm different," said Lady Verny, with a twist of her ironic mouth. "I'm +your mother. A mother takes what is given; a wife expects all there is +to give." + +Julian looked a little uncomfortable. Burton, who was a man, and might +therefore be assumed to know better than a woman what a woman felt, had +come to the same conclusion. + +Julian was prepared to give everything he had to Marian--Amberley and +all his money and himself. There was something in the marriage service +that put it very well, but didn't, as far as he remembered, say anything +to include plans. + +"I hope she likes Amberley?" he ventured. + +Lady Verny filled his cup a second time, and answered tranquilly: + +"Marian thinks it a charming little place to run down to for week-ends." +Then she added very gently: "This is going to be very hard for Marian, +Julian. You'll remember that, won't you, when you tell her?" + +"Damnably hard," said Julian under his breath. "Of course I'll remember. +I wish to Heaven she'd marry me first. By Jove, I'll _make_ her!" + +Lady Verny's lips closed tightly. She wasn't going to tell Julian +anything, because she did not believe in telling things to people who +will in the course of time find them out for themselves. She knew that +Marian would not marry him at a moment's notice. She knew that he was +asking Marian already to stand a very serious burden, and she did not +think Marian's was the type of love that cares for very serious and +unexpected burdens. She gazed at the bushes of blue anchusa; the +gardener had planted pink monthly roses a little too thickly among them. +She could alter that; she did not think there was anything else she +could alter. + +Julian strode toward the downs full of seriousness, eagerness, and +pride, and in her heart Lady Verny prayed not that God's will might be +done, which seemed to her mind superfluous, but that it might as far as +possible be made to square with Julian's. She was a wise and even a just +woman, but she thought that Providence might be persuaded to stretch a +point or two for Julian. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Julian walked easily and swiftly up the slopes of the downs, whistling +as he went. He knew the point from which he would be sure to see his +flying nymph. The air was full of the songs of larks; beneath his feet +the short grasses and wild thyme sent up a clean and pungent fragrance. + +The little, comfortable beauties of the summer's day filled his heart +with gladness. There was no sound in all the sleepy country-side; the +peaceful shining clouds floated over the low green hills as vague as +waking dreams. + +The cropping of the sheep upon the downs, the searching, spiral laughter +of the larks, were part of the air itself; and the shadows ran an +interminable race across the long green meadows. + +Julian had had experiences of love before, but he had never been in love +as he was now. He compared these earlier efforts in his mind with the +light clouds that melted into the sunshine. Marian was the sunshine; +she thrilled and warmed his whole being. She was like an adventure to +him. He felt very humble in his heart to think the sun had cared to +shine upon him, and very strong to meet its shining. + +He noticed little things he had never noticed before: the feathery, fine +stalks of the harebells, and the blue butterflies that moved among them +like traveling flowers. Usually, when he walked, he noticed only the +quickest way to reach his goal. He noticed that now, but he tried not to +crush the small down flowers on his way. + +He caught sight of Marian from a ridge of down, sitting motionless and +erect upon the rim of an old chalk-pit. A long, blue veil hung over her +shoulders like the wings of a blue butterfly fluttering before him. She +saw his shadow before he reached her, and threw her head back with a +little gesture that was half a welcome and half a defiance. + +He came swiftly across the grass toward her, but it was she who was +breathless when he took her in his arms. + +"Trying to run away from me, are you?" he asked, smiling down at her. +"The world's too small here, and it's mine, you know. You shouldn't +have come here if you had wanted to escape me." + +"Let me go, Julian," she murmured. "I'm sure there's a shepherd close +by. Sit down and be sensible." + +"Shepherds be hanged!" said Julian, kissing her. "Do you suppose +anybody's ever been more sensible than I feel now? Kissing you is the +most sensible thing a man ever did; but don't let anybody else guess +it." + +He sat down at her feet and looked up into the beautiful, flushed face +above him. It was as lovely as a lifted flower; but unlike the flower, +it was not very soft. It was even like a slightly sophisticated hothouse +flower; but she had the look of race he loved. Her level, penciled +brows, small, straight nose, curved lips, and chin like a firm, round +apple, were the heritage of generations of handsome lives. Her coloring +was only a stain of pink upon a delicate, clear whiteness; but the eyes +beneath the low, smooth forehead, were disappointing. They were well-cut +hazel eyes, without light in them. They lay in her head a little flat, +like the pieces of a broken mirror. + +Just now they were at their tenderest. Her whole face, bending over him, +cool and sweet as the southwest wind and as provocative as the flying +clouds, moved his heart almost unbearably. She was like an English +summer day, and he knew now what it would mean to leave her. + +"I couldn't bear to stay down there," she explained. "I was frightened, +not of you, you absurd person, but of being glad. I'm afraid I don't +like big feelings very much. I can't explain exactly, but the papers +frightened me. I wanted to see you too much. Yes, sir, you may keep that +for a prize to your vanity; and I knew that if there should be war--" +She stopped, her lovely lips trembled a little. "I shall have to let you +go so soon!" she whispered. + +[Illustration: "I'm afraid I don't like big feelings much"] + +He bowed his head over her hand and kissed it passionately. + +"If I could spare you this pain," he said, "I'd take a thousand +lives--and lose them to do it!" + +"No! no!" she murmured. "Keep one, Julian!" + +He lifted his head and looked at her steadily. + +"I swear I'll keep it," he said. "I'll keep it, and bring it back to +you, cost what it may." + +It did not look as if it were going to cost very much, with the light +clouds passing overhead, and the soft down grasses under them; and their +great citadels of youth and love about them, unmenaced and erect. + +"I've a piece of work I've got to do," Julian went on, "and I can't tell +you anything about it. It'll take me three months, I fancy. I can fight +afterward." + +She looked at him with eyes in which astonishment turned almost hostile. + +"Not fighting?" she said. "But what do you mean, Julian? If we go in, +every one must fight. I know you're not a soldier, but there'll be +volunteers. With all your adventures and experiences, they are sure to +give you a good post. Everybody knows you. What do you mean--a job you +can't tell me about--unless, of course it's something naval?" + +Julian turned his face to the wild thyme. He shook his head. + +"No, not that," he said. "Can't you trust me, Marian?" + +"Trust you!" she said impatiently. "Of course I can trust you, but why +be so mysterious? Mightn't I equally say, 'Why don't you trust me?'" + +"It's part of my job," said Julian quietly, "not to trust the ground +we're on or the larks in the sky or the light of my heart,--that's you, +Marian,--and it doesn't happen to be the easiest part of my job." + +He waited for her to make it easier for him, but he waited in vain. +Marian expected easy things, but she did not expect to have to make +things easy. These two expectations seldom go together. + +"Do you mean to tell me that you are going to be some kind of spy?" she +asked in a tone of frank disgust. "Oh, Julian! I couldn't bear it! It's +so--so--un-English!" + +Julian chuckled. He ought not to have chuckled. If a man does not like a +woman with brains, he must learn not to laugh at their absence. Marian +stiffened under his laughter. + +"England's got to be awfully un-English in some ways if it wants to win +this war," he explained. "But you mustn't even to yourself put a name +to what I'm going to be. I'm just on a job that'll take me three months, +and I'm afraid, my darling, I can't send you a word. That cuts me all to +bits, but you're so brave, so brave, you'll let me go." + +He buried his head in the grass; he was not brave enough to bear to see +the strain he was putting on her courage. Nor was Marian. + +"No, Julian," she said, "you mustn't ask such a thing of me. Not to know +where you are, and not to be able to tell any one what you are doing! To +let you go out into the dark at a time like this! It's too much to ask +of me. Promise me you'll give up all idea of it, and try to get a +commission like other people. Surely that's hard enough for me. But I'll +bear that; I will never make it difficult for you by a word or a look; I +wouldn't hold you back a day! You've not settled anything of course?" + +He told her that he had settled everything, and that in two days he must +go. + +A terrible silence fell between them, a cold silence that was like the +pressure of a stone. Neither of them moved or looked at the other. +Julian took her hand. She did not withdraw it from him, but she left it +in his as unresponsive as a fallen leaf. + +"Marian," he whispered, "Marian. Love me a little." + +She would not turn her face to him. + +"Why do you talk to me of love," she asked bitterly, "when without +consulting me you do something which involves your whole life and mine!" + +He caught her in his arms and held her close to him, kissing her cold +lips till they answered him. + +"My darling! my darling!" he whispered, "I love you like this and like +this! It's sheer murder to leave you! I feel as if it would break me. +But I've got to go. Don't you see, don't you understand? It's work I do +well, it's important, just now it's more important than fighting; it's +not one man's life that hangs on it, but it's thousands. Believe me, +there's no dishonor in it. Love me or you'll break me, Marian! Don't be +against me. I couldn't stand it. Say you'll let me go, for if I go and +you don't say it, I'll go as a broken man." + +She pushed him gently away from her, considering him. She knew her +terrible power. She was very angry with him, and she had hurt him as +much as she meant to hurt him. She had no intention whatever of breaking +him. If he was going to do this kind of work, he must do it well. +Perhaps, after all, it was rather important; but important or not, he +should have asked her first. She laid her small hand over his big one +with a delicate pressure. + +"Never settle such a thing again without telling me," she said gravely. + +Julian promised quickly that he never would. He saw for the first time +that love was not liberty, and for the moment he preferred love. He had +not felt deeply enough to know that there is a way in which you may +widen liberty and yet keep love. + +"I shall let you go," Marian said gently, "and I shall try to bear it as +best I can." + +At the thought of how difficult it was going to be to bear, not to be +able to tell anybody anything, she cried a little. Her face was +uncontorted by her tears. They streamed down her blossom-colored cheeks +like drops of pearly dew. Julian thought her tears were softness, and +he struck at his chance. Now perhaps she would surrender to his hidden +hope. + +He pleaded, with her head against his heart, that she would marry him, +marry him now--at once. He could arrange it all in twenty-four hours. He +presented a thousand impetuous arguments. All his wits and his ardor +fought for him against her soft, closed eyes. She was his; she would be +his forever. He would go with that great possession in his heart; he +would go like a man crowned to meet his future. + +She opened her eyes at last and moved away from him. At that instant she +would have liked to marry him, she would have liked it very much; but +besides the fact that she had no things, there loomed the blank +uncertainty of the future. Would she be a wife or a widow, and how +should she know which she was? There were more immediate difficulties. +Her parents were in Scotland; hurried weddings were always very awkward; +you couldn't have bridesmaids or wedding presents; and a few hours' +honeymoon, with an indefinite parting ahead of it, would be extremely +painful. + +Even if a marriage under all these disabilities was legal--wouldn't it +be worse than illegal--wouldn't it be rather funny? + +Julian was sometimes impossible; he had been nearly overwhelming, but he +was quite impossible. He might be a dangerous man to marry in a hurry. +She would have to train him first. + +"It's out of the question, Julian," she said firmly. "The whole future +is too uncertain. I should love to--but I can't do it. It wouldn't be +right for me to do it. We must wait till you come back." + +Julian returned to his study of the short down grasses. He knew that if +she had loved to--she would have done it. He had a moment that was +bitter with doubt and pain; then his love rose up and swallowed it. He +saw the uncertainty for her. + +He wanted her now because he knew that he might never have her. He +wanted her with the fierce hunger of a pirate for a prize; but the very +sharpness of his desire made him see that it was sheer selfishness to +press his point. He overlooked the fact that it would have been +perfectly useless. No pressure would have changed Marian. Pressure had +done what it could for her already: it had moved her to tears. She dried +them now, and suggested that they had stayed on the downs long enough. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It sometimes seemed to Stella as if Chaliapine had brought on the war. +Those last long golden summer days were filled with his music, and then +suddenly out of them flashed the tents in the park, the processions of +soldiers and bands, the grim stir that swept over London like a squall +striking the surface of a summer sea. + +The town hall did not collapse, but it shook. It was a place where, as a +rule, the usual things took place, and even unusual things happened +usually; but there were several weeks at the beginning of the war when +all day long strange things happened strangely. Offices were changed, +the routine of years was swept up like dust into a dust-pan, and a new +routine, subject to further waves of change, took its place. Workers +voluntarily offered to do work that they were unaccustomed to do. The +council hall became a recruiting office. No. 8, the peculiar sanctum of +the sanitary inspector, was given up to an army surveyor. Tramps asked +the cashier questions. It was like the first act of "Boris Goudonoff." +Even food was carried about on trays, and as for proclamations, somebody +or other was proclaiming something all day long. + +There was no religion and no dancing, but there was the same sense of +brooding, implacable fate; it took the place of music, and seemed, +without hurry and without pause, to be carrying them all along in a +secret rhythm of its own toward an unseen goal. + +Mr. Leslie Travers ruled most of the town hall committees, and he +required innumerable statistics to be compiled and ready to be launched +intimidatingly at the first sign of any opposition to his ruling. + +Stella, to whom the work of compiling fell, had very little time to +consider the war. + +When she got home she usually went to sleep. From time to time she heard +Mrs. Waring announcing that there was no such thing as war and Eurydice +reciting battle-odes to Belgium. + +For the first time in her life Eurydice shared a common cause. She was +inclined to believe that England was fighting for liberty. She knew +that France was, partly because France was on the other side of the +channel and partly because of the French Revolution. The destruction of +Louvain settled the question of Belgium. To Eurydice, whatever was +destroyed was holy. Later on she became a violent pacifist because Mr. +Bolt said that we ourselves were Prussian; but for the moment nobody, +not even Mr. Bolt, had traced this evasive parallel. + +Professor Waring wrote several letters to the papers, asking what +precautions the Belgians were taking about Sanskrit manuscript. He had a +feeling that King Albert, though doubtless an estimable young man and +useful in the trenches, might, like most kings, have been insufficiently +educated to appreciate the importance of Sanskrit. That men should die +in large numbers to protect their country was an unfortunate incident +frequent in history, but that a Sanskrit manuscript should be destroyed +was a national calamity, for the manuscript could never be replaced. + +He made an abortive effort to reach Belgium and see about it himself, +but at the Foreign Office he was stopped by a young man with a single +eyeglass, from whom the professor had demanded a passport. The exact +expression used by this ignorant young person was, "I'm awfully sorry, +sir, but I'm afraid just at present Sanskrit manuscript will have to +rip." + +Professor Waring promptly addressed letters of remonstrance and advice +to several German professors upon the subject. They were returned to him +after three weeks, with a brief intimation that he was not to +communicate with the enemy. Professor Waring had considered German +professors to be his natural enemies all his life; this had been his +chief reason for communicating with them. He was fitted, as few +officials in the Foreign Office can ever have been fitted, to point out +to the German professors the joints in their armor. + +They had a great deal of armor and very few joints, and it discouraged +Professor Waring to leave these unpierced spots to the perhaps +less-practised hands of neutrals. + +But it was not until the destruction of Louvain that he grasped to the +full the reaction of his former antagonists. When Professor Waring read +a signed letter from some of the German professors agreeing to the +destruction of the famous Belgian library he acquiesced in the war. He +stood in front of his wife and woke Stella up in order to make his +declaration. + +"Henrietta, there _is_ a war," he announced. "It is useless for you to +assert that there is not. Not only _is_ there a war, but there should be +one; and if I were twenty years younger, though wholly unaccustomed to +the noisy mechanisms of physical destruction, I should join in it. As it +is, I propose to write a treatise upon the German mind. It is not one of +my subjects, and I shall probably have to neglect valuable work in order +to undertake it; still, my researches into the rough Stone Age will no +doubt greatly assist me. Many just parallels have already occurred to +me. I hope that no one in this house will be guilty of so uneducated a +frame of mind as to sympathize with the Teutonic iconoclasts even to the +extent of asserting, as I believe I heard you assert just now, +Henrietta, that none of them exist." + +Mrs. Waring murmured gently that she thought an intense hopefulness +might refine degraded natures, but the next day she bought wool and +began to knit a muffler. She had capitulated to the fact of the war. +While she knitted she patiently asserted that there was no life, truth, +intelligence, or force in matter; and Stella, when she came home in the +evening, picked up the dropped stitches. + +It was strange to Stella that her only personal link with the war was a +man whom she had seen only once and might never see again. She thought +persistently of Julian. She thought of him for Marian's sake, because +Marian was half frozen with misery. She thought of him because +unconsciously he stood in her mind for England. He was an adventurer, +half-god, half-child, who had the habit of winning without the +application of fear. She thought of him because he was the only young, +good-looking man of her own class with whom she had ever talked. + +Marian was afraid that Stella might think she had been unsympathetic to +Julian about his mission. She told Stella, with her usual direct +honesty, how angry she had been with him. + +"I know I was nasty to him," she said. "I can't bear to have any one +involve me first and tell me about it afterward." + +"Of course you can't," agreed Stella, flaming up with a gust of +annoyance more vivid than Marian's own. "How like him! How exactly like +him to be so high-handed! Fancy whirling you along behind him as if you +were a sack of potatoes! Of course you were annoyed, and I hope you gave +him a good sharp quarrel. One only has to look at Julian to see that he +ought to be quarreled with at regular intervals in an agreeable way for +the rest of his life." + +"I don't like quarrels," Marian said slowly. "They don't seem to me to +be at all agreeable; but I don't think Julian will act without +consulting me again." + +Stella looked at Marian curiously. What was this power that Marian had, +which moved with every fold of her dress, and stood at guard behind her +quiet eyes? How had she made Julian understand without quarreling that +he must never repeat his independences? Stella was sure Marian _had_ +made him understand it. It would be of no use to ask Marian how she had +done it, because Marian would only laugh and say: "Nonsense! It was +perfectly easy." She probably did not know herself what was the secret +of her power; she would merely in every circumstance in life composedly +and effectively use it. Was it perhaps that though Julian had involved +her actions, he had never involved Marian? Was love a game in which the +weakest lover always wins? + +"Of course I've never been in love," Stella said slowly, "and I haven't +the slightest idea how it's done or what happens to you; but I fancy +quarreling might be made very agreeable. Love is so tremendous, isn't +it, that there must be room for concealed batteries and cavalry charges; +and yet of course you know all the time that you are loving the person +more and more outrageously, so that nothing gets wasted or destroyed +except the edges you are knocking off for readjustments." + +"I don't think I do love Julian outrageously," Marian objected. "I +didn't, you see, do what he wanted: he had a mad idea of getting a +special license and having a whirlwind wedding, leaving me directly +afterward. Of course I couldn't consent to that." + +"Couldn't you?" asked Stella, wonderingly. "I don't see that it matters +much, you know, when you give that kind of thing to a person you love. +If you do love them, I suppose it shows you're willing to marry them, +doesn't it? But how, when, or where is like the sound of the +dinner-bell. You don't owe your dinner to the dinner-bell; it's simply +an arrangement for bringing you to the table. Marriage always seems to +me just like that. I should have married Julian in a second if I'd been +you; but I should have made him understand that I wasn't a sack of +potatoes, if I'd had to box his ears regularly every few minutes for +twenty-four hours at a stretch." + +"Surely marriage is sacred," said Marian, gravely. Stella's point of +view was so odd that Marian thought it rather coarse. + +"But it needn't be long," objected Stella; "you can be short and sacred +simultaneously. In fact, I think I could be more sacred if I was quick +about it; I should only get bored if I was long." + +"You have such a funny way of putting things," said Marian, a little +impatiently. "Of course I know what you mean, but I don't like being +hurried. I love Julian dearly, and I will marry him when there is time +for us to do it quietly and properly. Meanwhile it's quite awful not +hearing from him. I have never been so miserable in my life." + +Stella sat on the floor at Marian's feet with Marian's misery. She +entered into it so deeply that after a time Marian felt surprised as +well as comforted. She had not thought grief so pictorial. She felt +herself placed on a pinnacle and lifted above the ranks of happier +lovers. She thought it was her love for Julian that held her there; she +did not know that it was Stella's love for her. Stella for a time saw +only Marian--Marian frozen in a vast suspense, Marian racked with +silences and tortured with imagined dangers. She did not see Julian +until Marian had gone, and then suddenly she put her hands to her +throat, as if she could not bear the sharp pulsation of fear that +assailed her. If all this time they were only fearing half enough and +Julian should be dead? + +She whispered, "Julian dead!" Then she knew that she was not feeling any +more for Marian. She was feeling for herself. Fortunately, she knew +this didn't matter. Feeling for oneself was sharp and abominable, but it +could be controlled. It did not count; and she could keep this much of +Julian--the fear that he might be dead. It would not interfere with +Marian or with Julian. Hopes interfere: but Stella had no personal +hopes; she did not even envisage them. She claimed only the freedom of +her fears. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It is disconcerting to believe that you are the possessor of one kind of +temper--a cold, deadly, on-the-spot temper--which cuts through the +insignificant flurries of other people like a knife through butter, and +then to find a sloppy explosiveness burst from you unaware. + +Mr. Travers had never dreamed that in the town hall itself he could ever +be led to lose a thing he had in such entire control as his temper. He +did not lose it when the blushing Mr. Belk had the audacity to stop him +in mid-career, on his way to his sanctum through No. 7, the outer office +of his assistant clerks, though they were, as a body, strictly forbidden +to address him while passing to and fro. Mr. Belk was so ill advised as +to say: + +"If you please, sir, it's four o'clock, and Miss Waring hasn't been out +to lunch yet." Mr. Travers merely ran his eye over Mr. Belk as a +fishmonger runs his eyes over vulnerable portions of cod laid out for +cutting, and brought down his chopper at an expert angle. + +"Since when, Mr. Belk," he asked, with weary irony, "has Miss Waring's +lunch been on your list of duties?" + +Then he passed swiftly into his office and faced Stella, closing the +door behind him. Temper shook him as a rough wind shakes an +insignificant obstacle. He could not hold it; it was gone. It blew +inside out like a deranged umbrella. He glared at Miss Waring. There was +nothing in her slight, bent figure, with its heavy, brown hair neatly +plaited in a crown about her head, which should have roused any town +clerk to sudden fury. + +"It's abominable," Mr. Travers exclaimed, bringing his trembling hand +down with a bang upon Stella's table, "how women behave!" + +Stella said out loud, "One hundred pounds, ten shillings, and sixpence," +and then looked up at her employer. She asked very quietly who had vexed +him. There might have been a fugitive gleam of laughter at the back of +her eyes, but there were shadows under them that made her look too tired +for laughter. + +"You, of course," he cried. "How are we ever to get through with our +work if you won't eat? It's so silly! It's so tiresome! It's so uncalled +for! Why are you doing these wretched lists now?" + +"Because," said Stella--and now the laughter ran out at him unexpectedly +and tripped him up--"the town clerk has a meeting at five o'clock at +which these statistics must be at hand to justify him in having his own +way!" + +"Put them down!" said Mr. Travers savagely. Stella laid down her pen +with the ready obedience which can be made so baffling when it proceeds +from an unconsenting will. "Now go out and get something to eat," he +went on, "while I do the wretched things. And don't let this occur +again. If you have too much to do,--and I know the correspondence gets +more and more every day,--mention it. We must get some help in." + +She was gone before he had finished his sentence--gone with that absurd +dimple in the corner of her cheek and the sliding laughter of her eyes. + +She had left behind her a curious, restless emptiness, as if the very +room itself waited impatiently for her return. It was half an hour +before she came back. The town clerk had had to answer three telephone +messages and four telegrams. If the outer office had not known that he +was there and Miss Waring wasn't, he would have had more interruptions. +Nevertheless, the figures had helped Mr. Travers to recover his temper. + +He was an expert accountant, and you can take figures upon their +face-value. They are not like women; they have no dimples. + +Mr. Travers was prepared to be the stern, but just, employer again. He +remained seated, and Stella leaned over his shoulder. He had not +expected that she would do this. + +"What have you had to eat?" he asked. It was not at all what he had +intended to say to Stella. + +"A cup of tea, two ham sandwiches, and a bun:--such a magnificent spread +for seven-pence!" replied Stella, cheerfully. "You've forgotten to put +in what the insurance will be--there at the bottom of the page." + +Mr. Travers rose to his feet. He was taller than Stella, and he +considered that he had a commanding presence. Stella slid back into her +seat. + +"You ought to have had," said Mr. Travers, with labored quietness, +"beefsteak and a glass of port." + +"Anybody could tell," said Stella, tranquilly, "that you are an +abstemious man, Mr. Travers. Port! Port _and_ steak! You mean porter. +All real drinkers know that port is sacred. Bottles of it covered with +exquisite cobwebs are kept for choice occasions; they are brought in +softly by stately butlers, walking delicately like Agag. It is drunk in +companionable splendor, tenderly ministered to by nothing more solid +than a walnut, and it follows the courses of the sun. There, you did +quite a lot while I was away, and if you don't mind just looking through +those landlords' repairing leases on your desk, I dare say I shall have +finished this before five." + +Mr. Travers opened his mouth, shut it again, and returned to his +repairing leases. He was not an employer any more. He was not an icy, +mysterious tyrant ruling over a trembling and docile universe: his own +secretary had literally told him to run away and play! + +But it was in the night watches that the worst truth struck him. He had +been furious with Miss Waring for not spending more upon her lunch, he +had upbraided her for it, and she had never turned round and said, "Look +what I earn!" The opportunity was made to her hand. "How can women +secretaries earning a hundred a year eat three-and-sixpenny lunches?" +That ought to have been her answer. Why wasn't it? She hadn't been too +stupid to see it. She had seen it, and she had instantly, before he had +had time to see it himself, covered it up and hidden it under that +uncalled-for eulogy on port. It was not fear. She hadn't been afraid to +stand up to him (uncalled-for eulogies _were_ standing up to him); +besides she had previously called him unfair to his face. It was just +something that Miss Waring _was_--something that made the color spring +into Mr. Traver's face in the dark till his cheeks burned; something +that had made Mr. Belk dare his chief's displeasure to get her lunch; +something that wasn't business. + +"She wouldn't take an advantage, because I'd given it to her," he said +to himself. "I thought everybody took an advantage when they had the +sense to see it; but she doesn't, though she has plenty of sense. But +the world couldn't go on like that." + +This brilliant idea reassured Mr. Travers; he stopped blushing. He was +relieved to think that the world couldn't go on like Stella; but there +was something in him, a faint contradictory something, that made him +glad that Stella didn't go on like the world. + +He went to sleep with these two points unreconciled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Stella had always known that it would come; she had spent two months +far-seeing it. It had usually taken the form of a telegram falling out +of Mrs. Waring's wool, or Eurydice standing upon the steps, +Cassandra-like, to greet her with a message from Marian. Marian would +come to give her the message, but she wouldn't wait; she would drive +swiftly away in a motor, and leave the broken universe behind her. But +disasters do not come as we have planned their coming. + +It was a dull November day, the streets were full of dying leaves, and +at the end of all the cross-roads surrounding the town hall a blue mist +hung like a curtain. Marian, in black velvet and furs, with old Spanish +ear-rings gleaming from her shell-like ears, stood in disgust upon the +steps of the town hall. Her small face was frozen with unexpected pain, +but she could still feel annoyed with the porter. She stood in the +thronged corridor and asked decisively for Miss Waring. + +The porter told her that Miss Waring worked in No. 7, or, at any rate, +No. 7 would know where she was working. + +Marian stared slightly over the porter's head. + +"My good man," she said, "how am I to know where No. 7 is? Go and tell +her to come to me. Here is my card." + +All the way to No. 7 the porter concocted brilliant retorts to this +order. He would tell her he was not a footman and that this wasn't +Buckingham Palace. He would say roughly that, if she had eyes in her +head, she could find No. 7 for herself. But he was intimidated by +Marian's ear-rings. A secret fear that she might turn out to be the lord +mayor's daughter drove him to No. 7. + +Stella was filing letters when he knocked, and when he saw the card she +knew the messenger had come; but she did not forget to say as usual, +"Oh, thank you, Humphreys." + +She finished filing the letters before she looked for Mr. Travers. + +He was coming out of the council chamber at the top of a flight of +stairs. She stood there for a moment, holding him with her eyes, her +lips parted. She looked like a bird that has been caught in a room and +despairs of finding the way out. + +Her face was strained and eager, and her sensitive eyebrows were drawn +together in a little tortured frown; but she spoke quietly as soon as +her breath came back to her. + +"Mr. Travers, a friend of mine is in trouble. May I go to her for the +afternoon? There is still a great deal to do,--I know I ought not to ask +you to let me go,--but Mr. Belk and Miss Flint are so kind that I am +sure they would help me. I--I should be very grateful if you could spare +me." + +"Certainly not," said Mr. Travers, sharply. "I mean, of course, you can +go; but I won't have Mr. Belk or Miss Flint near me. I will do the work +myself." + +"Oh," she cried, aghast at this magnanimous humility on the part of her +employer, "please don't! Do let me ask them! I'd so much rather--" + +Mr. Travers waved her away. He wanted to do the work himself, and he +wanted her to be aghast. He descended the stairs rapidly beside her. + +"You may leave immediately, Miss Waring," he said sternly as they +reached No. 7; "and I will make my own arrangements about your work." + +Stella fled. Again he felt the sense of wings, as if he had opened a +window, and a bird had flown past him into liberty. + +He did not want her to be grateful, but he thought she might have looked +back. She had noticed him only as a barrier unexpectedly fallen. She had +not seen how strange it was that a barrier of so stubborn and erect a +nature as Mr. Travers should have consented to fall. + +If any one else had asked him for an afternoon with a friend in trouble, +Mr. Travers knew that he would have said, "Your friends' troubles must +take place outside office-hours." But when he had seen Stella's face he +had forgotten office-hours. + +Marian was sitting on a chair in the corridor. Her expression implied +that there was no such thing as a town hall, and that the chair was a +mere concession to unnecessary space. She said, as she saw Stella: + +"Please be quick about putting your things on. Yes, it's bad news about +Julian." + +Stella was quick. Marian said no more until they were seated together in +the motor; then she gave Stella a letter she had received from Lady +Verny. Lady Verny wrote: + + My dear Marian: You must prepare yourself for a great distress. + Julian is in England, but he is very much injured. I want you to go + to him at once. Whenever he is conscious he asks for you. My dear, + if he recovers,--and they think that if he has an incentive to live + he will live,--he will be partially paralyzed. I know that he will + want to free you, and it will be right that you should even now + feel free; but till then--for a month--will you give him all you + can? All he needs to live? It is a great deal to ask of you, but I + think you are good and kind, and that I shall not ask this of you + in vain. His life is valuable, and will still be so, for his brain + is not affected. Before he relapsed into unconsciousness he was + able to give the Government the information he acquired. I think it + is not wrong to help him to live; but of course I am his mother, + and it is difficult for me to judge. All this is very terrible for + you, even the deciding of whether you ought to help him to live or + not. If I might suggest anything to you, it would be to talk about + it with that friend of yours, Miss Waring. + + Come to me when you have seen him. Do not think, whatever your + decision is, that I shall not realize what it costs you, or fail + to do all in my power to help you to carry it out. + + Yours affectionately, + + HELEN VERNY. + +Stella dropped the letter and looked at Marian. Marian sat erect, and +her eyes burned. She was tearless and outraged by sorrow. There are +people who take joy as a personal virtue and sorrow as a personal +insult, and Marian was one of these people. Happiness had softened and +uplifted her; pain struck her down and humiliated her solid sense of +pride. + +"Why wasn't he killed?" she asked bitterly, meeting Stella's questioning +eyes. "I could have borne his being killed. Value! What does Lady Verny +mean by value? His career is smashed; his life is to all intents and +purposes over. And mine with it! It is very kind of her to say he will +release me. I do not need his mother to tell me that. She seems to have +overlooked the fact that I have given him my word! Is it likely that I +should fail him or that I could consent to be released? I do not need +any one to tell me my duty. But I hate life! I _hate_ it! I think it all +stupid, vile, senseless! Why did I ever meet him? What good has love +been to me? A few hours' happiness, and then this martyrdom set like a +trap to catch us! And I don't like invalids. I have never seen any one +very ill. I sha'n't know what to say to him." + +"Oh, yes, you will, when you see him," said Stella; it was all that for +a while she could say. + +She had always believed that Marian had a deep, but close-locked, +nature. Love presumably would be the key. + +It was unlocked now. Pain had unlocked it, instead of love, and Stella +shivered at the tearless hardness, the sharp, shallow sense of personal +privation that occupied Marian's heart. She had not yet thought of +Julian. + +Stella told herself that Marian's was only the blindness of the +unimaginative. The moment Marian saw Julian it would pass, and yield +before the directer illumination of the heart. Marian's nature was +perhaps one of those that yields very slowly to pain. When she saw +Julian she would forget everything else. She would not think of her +losses and sacrifices any more, or her duties. Stella felt curiously +stung and wasted by Marian's use of the word "duty." Was that all there +was for the woman whom Julian loved? Was that all there was for Julian! + +But she could deal only with what Marian had; so, when she spoke again, +Stella said all she could to comfort Marian. She spoke of Julian's +courage; she said no life in Julian could be useless that left his brain +free to act. She suggested that he would find a new career for himself, +and she pictured his future successes. Beneath her lips and her quick +outer mind she thought only of Julian, broken. + +They stopped in a large, quiet square, at the door of a private +hospital. There was no sound but the half-notes of birds stirring at +twilight in the small square garden, and far off the muffled murmur of +distant streets. + +A nurse opened the door. + +"You are Miss Young?" she said to Marian. "Yes, of course, we were +expecting you. Sister would like to see you first." + +They stood for a moment in a small neat office. The sister rose from an +old Dutch bureau, one of the traces of the house's former occupants, and +held out her hand to Marian. Her eyes rested with intentness upon the +girl's face. + +"Sir Julian is almost certain to know you," she said gently, "but you +mustn't talk much to him. He has been much weakened by exposure. He lay +in a wood for three days without food or water. There is every hope of +his partial recovery, Miss Young; but he needs rest and reassurance. We +can give him the rest here, but we must look to you to help us to bring +back to him the love of life." + +Marian stood with her beautiful head raised proudly. She waited for a +moment to control her voice; then she asked quietly: + +"Is the paralysis likely to be permanent?" + +The sister moved a chair toward her, but Marian shook her head. + +"It is a state of partial paralysis. He will be able to get about on +crutches," the sister replied. "Won't you rest for a few moments before +going up to him, Miss Young?" + +"No, thank you," said Marian; "I will go up to him at once." + +She turned quickly toward the door, and meeting Stella's eyes, she took +and held her arm tightly for a moment, and then, loosing it, walked +quickly toward the stairs. Stella followed her as if she had no being. +She had lost all consciousness of herself. She was a thought that clung +to Julian, an unbodied idea fixed upon the cross of Julian's pain. She +did not see the staircase up which she passed; she walked through the +wood in which Julian had lain three days. + +He was in a large, airy room with two other men. Stella did not know +which was Julian until he opened his eyes. There was no color in his +face, and very little substance. The other men were raised in bed and +looked alive, but Julian lay like something made of wax and run into a +mold. Only his eyes lived--lived and flickered, and held on to his +drifting consciousness. + +The nurse guided Marian to his bed, and, drawing a chair forward, placed +it close to him. Marian leaned down and kissed his forehead. She had +determined to do that, whatever he looked like; and she did it. + +His lips moved. She bent down, and a whisper reached her: "I said I'd +come back to you, and I have." Then he closed his eyes. He had nothing +further to say. + +Marian did not cry. After the first moment she did not look at Julian; +she looked away from him out of the window. She did not feel that it was +Julian who lay there like a broken toy. It was her duty. She had +submitted to it; but nothing in her responded to this submission except +her iron will. + +The nurse had forgotten to bring a chair for Stella. She leaned against +the door until a red-haired boy with a bandaged arm, on the bed nearest +to her, exclaimed earnestly: + +"Do take my chair! You look awfully done." + +She was able to take his chair because her hands were less blind than +any other part of her, and she smiled at him because she had the habit +of smiling when she thanked people. Then her eyes went back to Julian. +Her heart had never left him; and she knew now that it never would leave +him again. + +She did not know how long or short it was before Marian rose gracefully, +and said in her clear, sweet voice, "I shall come again to-morrow, +Julian." + +Marian stopped at each of the other bedsides before she joined Stella. +She said little, friendly, inclusive words to the other two men, which +made them feel as if they would like to sweep the floor under her feet. + +"All the same," the red-haired man explained after the door closed, "it +was the untidy little one, piled up against the door, that minded most. +I dare say she was his sister." + +He had no need to lower his voice, though he did lower it, for fear of +its reaching Julian. + +Julian had been reassured, and now he was resting. Consciousness had +altogether receded from him, perhaps that it might give him a better +chance of resting. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Julian roused himself with the feeling that he had said only half of +what he had intended to say to Marian. It had been in his mind a long +time. It was while he was lying out under the pine-trees that he had +realized what he had got to say to Marian if he ever got back. There was +a complicated cipher message for the Government, which he had kept quite +clear in his mind, and eventually given to an intelligent doctor to send +off; and there was the message to Marian, which he himself would have to +say when he saw her. + +"I've come back, as I promised; but I can't marry you now, of course. +I'm a crock." + +The first time he saw Marian he had got through only the first part of +the sentence. There was no hurry about the rest of it. The doctor and +the sister had both assured him that there was no hurry. They had been +very kind, and quite as honest as their profession permitted. They said +Marian would come back, and he could tell her then. + +They admitted, when he cross-questioned them with all the sharpness of +which he was capable, that he would be a cripple. They did not bother +him with futile commiserations. They gave him quietly and kindly the +facts he asked for. He would never be able to walk again, but he could +get about easily on crutches. + +Julian did not want to live very much, but his mother's eyes hurt him +when he tried not to; and then Marian came again, and he got through the +rest of his sentence. + +"You see," he explained in a low whisper which sounded in his head like +a gong, "marriage is quite out of the question." + +Marian was there with smiles and flowers, just as he had so often +pictured her; but she sat down with a curious solidity, and her voice +sounded clearer than it had sounded in his dreams. + +"Nothing alters our engagement, Julian," she said. "Nothing can." + +She spoke with a finality that stopped his thinking. He had finished his +sentence, and it seemed hardly fair to be expected to start another on +the spur of the moment. He gave himself up to a feeling of intense +relief: he had got off his cipher to the Government and he had released +Marian. + +He had known these were going to be difficult things to do. The cipher +had been the worst. The French doctor had taken some time to understand +that Julian must neither die nor be attended to until he had sent the +cipher off; and now the business about Marian was over, too. He had only +to lie there and look at her day by day coming in with roses. They did +not talk much. Julian never spoke of his symptoms, but they were too +radical to free him. He lay under them like a creature pinned under the +wreckage of a railway accident. + +Slowly, day by day, his strength came back to him; and as it came back, +peace receded. His eyes lost their old adoring indulgence; they seemed +to be watching Marian covertly, anxious for some gift that she was +withholding from him. He did not demand this as a right, as the old +Julian would have done, breaking down the barriers of her pride to +reach it. He pleaded for it with shamed eyes that met hers only to +glance away. Something in her that was not cruelty as much as a baffling +desire to escape him made her refuse to give him what his eyes asked. + +Julian had loved her for her elusiveness, and the uncaptured does not +yield readily to any appeal from the hunter. The prize is to the strong. + +She would not have withstood a spoken wish of his; but there is +something in speechless suffering from which light sympathies shrink +away. Pity lay in Marian a tepid, quickly roused feeling, blowing +neither hot nor cold. She cried easily over sad books, but she had none +of the maternal instinct which seizes upon the faintest indication of +pain with a combative passion for its alleviation. She became +antagonistic when she was personally disturbed by suffering. + +She was keeping her word to Julian while her heart was drifting away +from him; and he, while he desired her to be free, instinctively tried +to hold her back. They had both put their theories before their +instincts, and they expected their instincts to stand aside until their +theories had been carried out. + +Perhaps if Julian could have told her his experiences he might have +recaptured her imagination; but when she asked him to tell her about +them, he said quickly, "I can't," and turned away his head. He was +afraid to trust himself. He wanted to tell her everything. He was afraid +that if he began, his reticence would break down, and he would tell her +things which must never pass his lips. He longed for her to know that +every day, and nearly every hour, he had fought and conquered intricate +abnormal obstacles. He had slipped across imminent death as a steady +climber grips and passes across the face of a precipice. + +He had never faltered. All that he had gone to find he had found, and +more. At each step he had seen a fresh opportunity, and taken it. He had +been like a bicyclist in heavy traffic assailed on every side by +converging vehicles, and yet seeing only the one wavering ribbon of his +way out. And he had won his way out with knowledge that was worth a +king's ransom. He could have borne anything if Marian would realize that +what he had borne had been worth while. But after her first unanswered +question, Marian never referred again to what he had done. She behaved +as if his services had been a regrettable mistake. + +She talked with real feeling about the sufferings of those who fought in +the war. Her eyes seemed to tell him what her lips refrained from +uttering, that she could have been more sorry for him if he had been +wounded in a trench, and not shot at and abandoned by a nervous sentry +firing in the dark. He could not remember the exact moment when out of +the vague turmoil of his weakened mind he gripped this cold truth: +Marian was not tender. + +When she was not there he could pretend. He could make up all the +beautiful, loving little things she had not said, and sometimes he would +not remember that he had made them up. Those were the best moments of +all. He believed then that she had given him what his heart hungered +for. He was too much ashamed of his ruined strength to feel resentment +at Marian's coldness. It struck him as natural that she should care less +for a broken man. + +His mind traveled slowly, knocking against the edges of his old dreams. + +He thought perhaps a nursing home wasn't the kind of place in which +people could really understand one another, all mixed up with screens +and medicine bottles, and nurses bringing things in on trays. If he +could see Marian once at Amberley for the last time, so that he could +keep the picture of her moving about the dark wainscoted rooms, or +looking out from the terrace above the water meadows, he would have +something precious to remember for the rest of his life; and she +mightn't mind him so much there, surrounded by the dignity of the old +background of his race. One day he said to her: + +"I want to go to Amberley as soon as I can be moved. I want to see it +again with you." + +"In December?" asked Marian, with lifted, disapproving brows. "It would +be horribly damp, my dear Julian, all water-meadows and mist. You would +be much more comfortable here." + +Julian frowned. He hated the word "comfort" in connection with himself. + +"You don't understand," he said, a little impatiently. "I know every +inch of it, and it's quite jolly in the winter. We are above the water. +I want to see the downs. One gets tired of milk-carts and barrel organs, +and the brown tank on the roof across the way. You remember the downs, +Marian?" + +His eyes met hers again with that new, curiously weak look of his. +Marian turned her head away. How could Julian bear to speak of the +downs? + +She saw for a moment the old Julian springing up the hillside assured +and eager, the fine, strong lover who had taken her heart by storm. She +spoke coldly to this weaker Julian. + +"Yes," she said, "I am not likely to forget the downs. I spent the last +happy hours of my life there; but I cannot say I ever wish to see them +again." + +Julian's eyes fell, so that she could not see if he had even noticed how +bitterly she remembered Amberley. + +The next day she found him sitting up for the first time. He was propped +up by cushions, but it made him look as if he had gained some of his +old incisive strength. + +The other two men had been moved, and they had the large, bare room to +themselves. + +No sound came from the square beneath them; in the house itself there +were passing footsteps and the occasional persistent buzzing of an +electric bell. + +"Look here," said Julian in a queer, dry voice, "I've got an awful lot +to say to you--d'you mind drawing your chair nearer? I meant to say it +at Amberley. I'd have liked it better there. I rather hate this kind of +disinfected, sloppy place for talk. You must loathe it, too. But here or +there it's got to be said. You said something or other when I first put +it to you--about our engagement never being broken. It was awfully good +of you, of course. I couldn't see through it at the time. I wanted to +let things slide. But it's all nonsense my dear girl. Women like you +can't marry logs of wood." + +[Illustration: "Women like you can't marry logs of wood"] + +He looked at her anxiously. Her eyes were shut to expression. She sat +there, just as lovely, just as sphinx-like as some old smiling portrait. +There was the same unfluctuating, delicate color in her face, and the +same unharassed, straightforward glancing of the eyes. She was not the +least perturbed by what he said; she expected him to say it. + +"We should be foolish," she answered quietly, "to try to ignore the +terrible difference in our lives, Julian, and I was sure you would want +to set me free; but you cannot do it. I took the risk of your accident, +unwillingly at first; but, still, eventually I accepted it, and I will +not be set free." + +His eyes held hers compellingly, as if he were searching for some inner +truth behind her words, and then slowly reluctant tears gathered across +the keenness of his vision. He leaned his head back on his pillow and +looked away. + +"I don't think," he said slowly, "you're glad to have me back. I don't +want to marry you, I couldn't marry you; but I wish to Heaven you'd been +glad! O Marian, I'm a coward and a fool, but if you'd been glad, I'd +have gone down under it! I'd have married you then. I oughtn't to say +this. It's all nonsense, and you're quite right. It's awfully fine of +you to want to keep your word; but, you see, I didn't want your word. +It's your heart I wanted. I used to say out there sometimes, when things +were a bit thick, 'Never mind. If I get through, she'll be glad.'" + +Marian drew herself up. This did not seem to her fair of Julian. She had +prayed very earnestly to God for his safe return. Neither God nor he had +been quite fair about it. This was not a safe return. + +"I don't know what more I can do, Julian," she said steadily, "than +offer to share my life with you." + +"That's just it," said Julian, with that curious look in his eyes which +kept fighting her, and yet appealing to her simultaneously. "You can't +do more. If you could, I'm such a weak hound, I'd lie here and take it. +If you wanted me, Marian,--wanted a broken fragment of a man fit for a +dust-pan,--I'd land you with it. But, 'pon my word, it's too steep when +you don't want it. Out of some curious sense of duty toward the +dust-pan--I'm afraid I'm being uncivil to the universe, but I feel a +little uncivil to it just now. No; you've got to go. I'm sorry. Don't +touch me. Just let me be; but if you could say just where you are +before you go! But it doesn't matter. I shouldn't believe it. I wouldn't +believe the mother that bore me now. I've seen the end of love." + +The tears burned themselves away from his eyes; they gazed at her as +sunken and blue as the sea whipped by an east wind. She turned slowly +toward the door. + +"I want you to remember, Julian," she said, "that I meant what I said. I +mean it still. I _wish_ to carry out our engagement." + +Julian said something in reply that Marian didn't understand. He was +repeating out loud and very slowly the cipher he had sent to the +Government. + +After all, it had been easier to send the cipher to the Government than +to release Marian. His mind had sprung back to the easier task. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It was not often that Stella took anything for herself, least of all +Saturday afternoons. They belonged by a kind of sacred right to +Eurydice, and what was left over from Eurydice was used on the weekly +accounts. Mrs. Waring found it easier to explain to Stella than to any +one else why one and sixpence that was really due to the butcher should +have been expended upon "The Will of God," bound in white and gold for +eighteenpence, an indisputable spiritual bargain, but a poor equivalent +to the butcher. + +But this Saturday afternoon Stella hardened her heart against Eurydice +and turned her mind away from the vista of the weekly bills. She wanted +to think about Julian. + +Marian had left London the day after her interview with him. She +belonged to that class of people which invariably follows a disagreeable +event by a change of address; but she had found time before she went to +write to Stella. There was something she wanted Stella to send on after +her from the Army and Navy stores. She was really too upset and rushed +to go there herself. Julian had been so extraordinary; he apparently +expected her to be fonder of him now than when he was all right. She had +really made tremendous sacrifices going to that horrid nursing home +every day for a month. Both her parents were delighted that the +engagement was at an end, and of course it was a relief in some ways, +though horribly sad and upsetting, especially as Julian behaved as if +she were to blame. Marian was afraid he wasn't as chivalrous as she had +always thought. She had idealized him. One does when one is in love with +people; but it doesn't last. One wakes up and finds everything +different. + +Stella wanted to forget Marian's letter. It seemed to her as cursory and +callous as a newspaper account of a storm in China. It was all so far +off, and drowned Chinamen are so much alike; and yet she had written to +tell Stella about Julian and the end of love. "Many waters cannot quench +love"; it had not taken many waters to quench Marian's. It occurred to +Stella for the first time that the quality of love depends solely upon +the heart that holds it; not even divine fire can burn on an untended +hearth. + +It was a mild December day; winter had given itself a few soft hours in +which to brood upon the spring. London, the last of places to feel the +touch of nature and the first to profit by it, had passed into a golden +mist. + +Stella left the town hall at two o'clock, and walked down the busy +highway. All the little, lively shops were awake and doing their noisy +business of the week, while farther west all the big, quiet shops, with +other habits, closed on the heels of their departing customers. Stella +slipped away from the eager friendly crowd, glued together in +indissoluble groups upon the pavement. She wanted to be alone and not to +have to keep reminding herself not to think of Julian until she had +finished what she had to do. + +She turned down a narrow lane with high brick walls. Silence and +solitude were at the turn of a corner. London fell away from her like a +jangling dream. + +She passed an iron-scrolled gateway which led into an old garden. The +low-browed house, with its overhanging eaves, was once the home of a +famous poet. Poetry clung about it still; it was in the air, and met her +like the touch of a friend's hand. A little farther along the lane she +came to an opening in the wall, and saw before her a small, surrounded +field of grass. It was a Quaker burial-ground. This unique and quiet +people, in their enmity with form, had chosen of all forms the most +resilient. They had made in the heart of London a picture, and a place +of peace for death. + +There was no sense of desolation in the silent field; only the sunshine, +the old walls, and the green emptiness. It might have been the +grass-grown citadel of Tusculum spread out at Stella's feet, it was a +spot so acquainted with the air, with solitude, and with a nameless +history. + +Beyond it lay a maze of old and narrow streets, with quaint, lop-sided +houses, uneven roofs, and winding causeways. + +At the end of one of these she came suddenly upon a waste of waters the +color of a moonstone. Stella had never been abroad; but she felt as if +a wall between her mind and space had broken down and shown her Venice. +Drifting slowly down the broad stream were two white swans, and across +the river a green bank stood beneath a row of shining towers. + +They were a row of factory chimneys; but rising out of the mist, above +the moonstone flood, they looked like ancient towers. Stella sat upon a +wooden float; it made a luxurious seat for her opposite the drifting +swans. She felt as if all her thoughts at last were free. There was no +one in sight; old and dignified houses leaned toward the water-front: +but for all the life that inhabited them, they might have been the +ghosts of houses. Nothing stirred, but sometimes up the river a +sea-gull, on level wings, with wary eyes, wandered above the watery +highway, challenging the unaccustomed small spaces of the sky. + +Stella wished for the first time that Julian were dead. She did not +believe in a capricious or an impatient God, moved by well-timed +petitions; but all her being absorbed itself into an unconscious prayer +for Julian's peace. + +She could not have told how long she had been there when she heard the +sound of footsteps, strangely familiar footsteps, direct, regular, and +swift. She looked up, to meet the grave, intent gaze of Mr. Leslie +Travers. + +Stella rubbed her eyes as if she had been asleep. Surely in a place of +whispering silences, town clerks did not burst upon you except in +dreams? + +Of course Mr. Travers might live in one of these old, quiet houses, +though it did not seem very likely to Stella. She thought he must live +in some place where the houses looked as if they knew more what they +were about, and did not brood over a deserted waterway + + Seeing all their own mischance + With a glassy countenance, + +like that immortal gazer, the _Lady of Shalott_. + +Mr. Travers did not pass Stella with his usual air of cutting through +space like a knife. He crossed the float gingerly, and asked firmly, but +with kindness, if he might sit down. + +Stella gave a helpless gesture of assent. She could not stop him, but he +was inappropriate. The row of factory chimneys ceased to disguise +themselves as towers; the float looked as if it knew suddenly how +unsuitable it was for a winter afternoon's repose. The swans, +approaching fatally near for the ideal, were very nearly black. + +"Do you not find it damp here?" asked Mr. Travers. + +Stella said: + +"Yes, very"; and then, meeting his surprised eyes, she hastily corrected +herself. "No, not at all." Then gave a little, helpless laugh. "Forgive +me!" she said. "You surprised me so. Has anything gone wrong at the town +hall?" + +Mr. Travers did not immediately answer her question. He had never sat on +a float before. Still, it was not this fact which silenced him. He had +not been sure when he approached if Stella was crying or not. There was +still something that looked suspiciously like the pathway of a tear upon +the cheek next him, and though she was laughing now, it had not the +sound of her usual laughter; it stirred in him a sense of tears. + +"I think I shall confess at once," he said finally, "that I followed +you. I wanted to talk to you without interruption. I might have called +upon you at your home, of course, but I have not had the pleasure of +meeting your family, and in this instance my business was with you." + +Stella gave a faint sigh of relief. She was glad it was business. She +was used to business with Mr. Travers. She was not used to pleasure with +him, and she was not in the mood for new experiences. + +"I shall be glad to talk over anything with you about which I can be of +use," she said gently, "and I think this is a beautiful place to do it +in." + +"The rents," said Mr. Travers, glancing critically at the silent houses, +"must be very low, necessarily low. I hope you do not often come here," +he added after a pause. "It is the kind of place in which I should +strongly suspect drains. We might mention it to the sanitary inspector +and ask him for a report upon it." + +"Oh, must we?" murmured Stella. + +"Not if you would rather not," said Mr. Travers, unexpectedly. "In that +case I would waive the question." + +Stella glanced at him in alarm. Was Mr. Travers going mad from +overstrain at the town hall? He must be very nearly mad to come and sit +upon a float with his secretary on Saturday afternoon, and waive a +question of drains. + +"But that wouldn't be business," she said gravely. + +"Yes, it would," said Mr. Travers, relentlessly. "It is my immediate +business to please you." + +Stella's alarm deepened; but it became solely for Mr. Travers. She did +not mind if he was sane or not if only he refrained from saying anything +that he would ultimately regret. + +"I don't know whether you realize, Miss Waring," Mr. Travers continued, +"that I am a very lonely man. I have no contemporary relatives. My +father died when I was a young child. I lost my mother two years ago. My +work has not entailed many friendships. I began office work very young, +and it has to a great extent absorbed me. I think I should be afraid to +say it to any one but you,--it would sound laughable,--but my chief +attachment of late years has been to a cat." + +It was curious that, though Mr. Travers had often been nervous of his +secretary's humor, he understood that she would not laugh at him about +his cat. + +"Oh," she cried, "I hope it loves you as well. They won't sometimes, I +know; you can pour devotion out on them, and they won't turn a hair. But +when they do, it's so wonderfully reassuring. Dogs will love almost any +one, but cats discriminate. I do hope your cat discriminates toward you, +Mr. Travers?" + +"I think it was attached to me in its way," said Mr. Travers, clearing +his throat. "It was an old cat, and now it is dead. I merely mention it +in passing." + +"Yes, yes," said Stella, quickly. "But I'm so sorry! I hate to think you +had to lose what you loved." + +"You would," said Mr. Travers. "But the point I wish to make to you is +that a man whose sole dependence is upon the attachment of a cat does +not know much about human relationships. I fear I am exceedingly +ignorant upon this subject. Until lately this had not particularly +disturbed me. Now I should wish to have given it more consideration." + +"But I think you have," said Stella, eagerly; "I mean I think you've +changed lately about relationships. Now I think of it, I'm quite sure +you have. I have always enjoyed my work with you, and you have never +been inconsiderate to me. But I used to think people weren't very real +to you, as if you wanted to hurry through them and stick them on a neat, +tight file, like the letters, according to their alphabetical order. But +now I know you're not like that. Even if you hadn't told me about the +cat I should have known it." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Travers. "Thank you very much." + +For a while he said nothing at all, and Stella wondered if that was all +he wanted. She hoped it was all he wanted. Then he turned and looked +down at her. + +"I have formed an attachment now, Miss Waring," he said, "and I am in a +suitable position to carry it out. You have been the best secretary a +man ever had. Could you undertake to become my wife?" + +Stella bowed her head. She had come here to think about Julian, but she +had not been able to think about him for very long. She did not think +about him at all now. She thought only about Mr. Travers. She was so +sorry for him that she could not look at him. What compensation was +there for what she had not got to give him, and in what mad directions +does not pity sometimes drive? For a moment she felt as if she could not +say "No" to him; but to say "Yes" would make nothing any easier, for +after she had said "Yes" she would have nothing more to give. + +There is seldom any disastrous situation in which there is not something +that can be saved. Stella saw in a flash what she might still save out +of it. She could save Mr. Travers's pride at the cost of hers. She was a +very proud and a very reticent woman; she would take the deepest thing +in her heart and show it to Mr. Travers that he might not feel ashamed +at having shown her his own. + +"I can't," she said quickly, slipping her small, firm hand over his; +"not because it isn't beautiful of you. It is, of course; it's one of +the most beautiful things I've ever known, because you know nothing +about me, and I'm so glad I'm not what you would really like if you did +know me. Remember that afterward." + +"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Travers, dryly; "I am the best judge of +what I like." + +"I wonder if you really are," said Stella, with a little gasp, as if she +had been running. "I wonder if I really am myself. But we both think we +are, don't we? We can't help that--and the very same thing has happened +to us both: we've seen and wanted a little--something that wouldn't +do--that wouldn't do at all for either of us ever. If you _had_ to like +somebody that wouldn't do, I think I'm glad you came to me, because, you +see, I know what it feels like. I can be sorry and proud and glad you've +given it to me, and then we need never talk about it any more." + +Mr. Travers looked straight in front of him. Stella had not withdrawn +her hand; but Mr. Travers pressed it, and laid it down reverentially +between them. He would never forget that he had held it, but to continue +to hold it until she had accepted him would have seemed to Mr. Travers a +false position. + +"There is another point to which I should like to draw your attention," +he said after a slight pause. "Marriage does not necessarily imply any +feeling of an intense nature by both parties. I wish to offer you +security and companionship. As I told you before, I am a lonely man; I +could be content with very little. I have noticed that when you come +into a room it makes a difference to me." + +"Don't make me cry!" said Stella, suddenly, and then she did cry a +little, a nervous flurry of tears that shook her for a brief moment and +left her laughing at the consternation in his face. + +"You see how silly I am!" she said. "But however silly, I'm not a cheat. +You offer me everything. I couldn't take it and not offer you everything +back. To me marriage means everything. It isn't only--is it?--a +perpetual companionship, though when you think of it, that's +tremendous,--almost all the other companionships of life are +intermittent, but it's the building up of fresh life out of a single +love." + +Mr. Travers looked away. He was surprised that Stella had not shocked +him. The idea of any woman mentioning the existence of a child until she +had a child might have shocked him; but Stella failed to move his sense +of propriety. It even struck him that marriage would be less inclined +to lapse into the sordid and irregular struggles of his experience if it +was based upon so plain a foundation. He looked away because he felt +that now he could not change her. + +Stella wished that they were in a house. It struck her that a room would +give more of the advantages of a retreat to Mr. Travers. She was very +anxious to make his retreat easy for him. + +"Would you do me a tremendous service?" she asked gently. + +He turned quickly to face her. + +"That is what I should like to do you," he said. But he looked at her a +little suspiciously, for he was not sure that the service Stella asked +wouldn't, after all, be only some new way of helping him. + +"You said the other day," she said, meeting his eyes with unswerving +candor, "that I might have extra help if I wanted it. I do want very +much to find some work for my sister, Eurydice. She is very clever; +cleverer than I am a great deal, only in a different way. She used to +write books, but that did not pay her very well, and when the war came, +she went into the city and worked for a secretarial diploma. I think +she would be of use to you, if you would go slowly with her and make +allowances for her different ways of being clever. Would you like to +help her?" + +Mr. Travers hesitated. Then he stood up and held out his hand to her. + +"The sun has begun to go," he said; "I assure you it is not healthy for +you to linger here. Of course I will engage your sister." + +Stella gave a little sigh of relief. She had found a way out for Mr. +Travers. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +After the arrival of Eurydice, Mr. Travers saw very little of Stella. At +certain moments of the day she came and asked him for orders, but in +some mysterious manner she seemed to have withdrawn herself from +personal contact. She had been impersonal before, but only in a +businesslike and friendly way. She was impersonal now as if she was not +there. + +She could control her attention, but she no longer felt any vitality +behind it. She knew where her life had gone, and she was powerless to +call it back to her. It hovered restlessly about the spirit of Julian. +Stella had never known what it was to repine at her own fate. If there +were many things she wanted that she could not have, she had consoled +herself with driving her desires into what was left to her. But she +could not do this for Julian. + +He had had so much farther to fall. She saw his face as she had seen it +first, with its look of human strength; his frosty, blue eyes, his heavy +sledge-hammer chin, and all the alertness, the controlled activity, of +his young figure. She saw him again like something made of wax, +emaciated and helpless, with flickering eyes. He had not believed in +knocking under, and he had felt defeat incredible. + +But defeat had met him, a blundering defeat that wrecked his body and +left his unprotected heart to face disaster. + +Would he have courage enough for this restricted battle against +adversity? Courage did strange things with pain. It transformed and +utilized it; but courage does not spring readily from a mortally wounded +pride. Marian, with a complete lack of intention, had robbed Julian of +his first weapon. She had dissipated his resources by undermining his +confidence, and left him perilously near to the stultification of +personal bitterness. + +Would it be possible for Julian to escape resentment? Or would he pass +down that long lane which has no turning, and ends in the bottomless bog +of self-pity, in which the finest qualities of the human spirit sink +like a stone? + +Step by step Stella passed with him, by all the hidden and vivid +obstacles between his soul and victory, between it and defeat. + +She could do nothing, but she could not stop her ceaseless watchfulness. +She was like some one who strains his eyes forever down an empty road. +The days began to lengthen into a long cold spring. There were no +outward changes in her life: the drafty town hall, the long bus-rides, +the bad news from France, and at home the pinch and ugliness of poverty. +She had stopped being afraid that people would notice a difference in +her. Nobody noticed any difference. She behaved in the same way and did +the same things. She had gone down under the waters of life without so +much as a splash. + +"I suppose," Stella said to herself, "lots of us see ghosts every day +without knowing it." She had a vague feeling that Mr. Travers knew it, +but that he kept it in the back of his mind like an important paper in a +case, which it was no use producing unless you could act upon it. + +It was an awful day of snow and wind. Everybody but Stella and the +porter had gone home. She had been stupid over the municipal accounts; +over and over again her flagging mind stuck at the same mistake. At last +she finished. She was still sixpence out; but she might see the sixpence +in a flash the next morning, and there would be no flash in anything she +could see to-night. + +When she reached the door she found the gale had become formidable and +chaotic. She staggered out of the town hall into the grip of a fury. All +London shook and quivered; trees were torn down and flung across the +road like broken twigs; taxis were blown into lamp-posts; the icy air +tore and raged and screamed as if the elements had set out to match and +overwhelm the puny internecine struggles of man. "This," Stella thought +to herself, "is like a battle--noise, confusion, senselessness. I must +hold on to whatever keeps stillest, and get home in rushes." + +But nothing kept very still. She was doubtful about trembling +lamp-posts, and area-railings twitched and shook under her hands. Her +skirts whipped themselves about her like whom panic was overcoming +fury, "why not send for her? Lizzie, here are two shillings; go out and +see if you can find a taxi." + +Stella tried to say what might happen to Lizzie in the search for a +taxi, but the effort to speak finished her strength. When she could +realize what was happening again, Cicely had arrived. She pounced upon +the emergency as a cat upon a mouse. + +In a few minutes Stella was tucked up warm and dry, poulticed and eased, +capable of a little very short breath, propped up by pillows. The +professor had retired to his study with a cup of cocoa hotter than he +had known this cheering vegetable to be since Cicely's departure. + +Mrs. Waring was breathing very slowly in her bedroom to restore calm to +the household, and Eurydice was crying bitterly into the kitchen sink. +She was quite sure that Stella was going to die, and that Cicely would +save her. + +The second of these two calamities took place. Stella was very ill with +pleurisy, and remained very ill for several days. Cicely interfered with +death as drastically as she interfered with everything else. She +dragged Stella reluctantly back into a shaky convalescence. + +"Now you're going to get well," she announced to her in a tone of abrupt +reproach. "But what I don't understand is the appalling state of +weakness you're in. You must have been living under some kind of strain. +I don't mean work. Work alone wouldn't have made such a hash of you. +Come, you may as well own up. What was it?" + +Stella blinked her eyes, and looked round her like a dazzled stranger. +Usually she was very fond of her room,--it was a small back room, over a +yard full of London cats,--but it struck her now that there were too +many things with which she was familiar. It was the same with Cicely. +She dearly loved and valued Cicely, but she knew the sight and sound of +her extraordinarily well. + +"Nothing," said Stella, deprecatingly. "It's no use applying gimlets and +tweezers to my moral sense, Cicely. Not even the Inquisition could deal +with a hole. Heretics were solid. I have a perfect right to be ill from +a cold wind. The world seemed made of it that night, and I swallowed +half the world. It must be rather a strain for a thin person to swallow +half the world on an empty stomach. I'm quite all right now, thanks to +you. I was thinking I ought to get back to the town hall next week. +Only, queerly enough, I had another offer of work. Still, it's so +sketchy, that I couldn't honestly fling up my own job for it, though it +sounds rather attractive." + +"Let's see it," said Cicely, succinctly. "You do conceal things, +Stella." + +Stella withdrew an envelop from under her pillow. She looked a little +anxious after its surrender. Cicely always made her a little anxious +over a tentative idea. She had a way of materializing a stray thought, +and flinging it back upon Stella as an incontrovertible fact. Stella was +very anxious not to think that what was in the letter she gave to Cicely +was really a fact. It was like some strange dream that hasn't any right +to come true. Cicely read: + + Dear Miss Waring: You will think this a most extraordinary request + for me to make, and in many ways it is too unformulated to be a + request. You will have heard from Marian that six months ago her + engagement with my son came to an end. This was the natural and + right thing to happen, but it has left him in his invalid condition + very much without resources. + + You were, I remember your telling me, a secretary to Professor + Paulson. I am inclined to think that my son might have his mind + directed to some scientific work if he could meet any one who would + interest him anew in the subject. Probably you are immersed in + other work, but if by any possible chance you should be at liberty + and cared to make the experiment, could you come here for a few + weeks? You would be conferring a great favor upon us, and if the + secretaryship developed out of your little visit, we would arrange + any terms that suited you. I may add that I find my son has no + remembrance of your association with Marian; indeed, he has + forgotten the occasion of your meeting. + + He has been so very ill that you will understand and excuse this, I + feel sure; and in the circumstances I think we had better not refer + to it. I am very anxious to divert his mind from the past, and I + have a feeling that if I could count upon your cooperation, we + might succeed. + + Yours sincerely, + + HELEN VERNY. + +"I don't see anything sketchy about it," said Cicely, slowly; "in the +circumstances, I mean. You needn't definitely chuck the town hall. +You'll get a couple of weeks' holiday. They'll give you a fortnight's +extension easily, and if the job comes your way, it would be a suitable +one. Anyway, you must of course accept it provisionally--" + +"I don't see why I must of course accept it," said Stella. "You never +see any alternatives, Cicely. Your mind is like one of those sign-posts +that have only one name on it, with fields all round and heaps of other +places to go to. It must be awfully confusing to be as simple as you +are. Why couldn't I go back to the town hall next week?" + +"Well, I'll tell you one reason why," said Cicely, grimly. "Simple or +not, your heart's as weak as a toy watch; you very nearly died a week +ago, and in my opinion if you went back to the town hall, you'd be +signing your own death-certificate." + +"I couldn't do that," said Stella, gravely; "it's not legal. I'm not the +next of kin to myself. I know much more about death-certificates than +you do. If I go to Lady Verny at Amberley, what's to become of +Eurydice?" + +"Eurydice will stay where she is," said Cicely. "If you ever saw to the +end of your nose, you'd know that she is as glued to the town hall as +she used to be to 'Shocks,' only this time, let us hope, more +successfully. Some women have to be married. They contract a fatal +desire for it, like the influenza habit every winter. Eurydice is one of +them. It takes different forms, of course. This time it's Mr. Travers; +the Mr. Bolt attachment was far more dangerous. I have made up my mind +that she will marry Mr. Travers, if it's humanly speaking possible." + +"Oh," said Stella, "will she? How clever you are, Cicely! You know +nearly everything. Why do you say 'humanly speaking possible?'" + +"Because you've always made him out as cold as a fish and as hard as +iron," said Cicely. "He may be one of the few men who won't yield to +vanity or fancy." + +"I see," said Stella. "It's not very nice of you to want Eurydice to +marry an iron fish. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not quite so certain +about Mr. Travers. The iron and the fish are only on the top. I think, +humanly speaking, he's quite possible. I'm going to sleep now. When +you've made up your mind about Amberley you can wake me up." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +There are two winds in March; one comes in like a tight-lipped +school-master set on punishment. It is frequently accompanied by dust, +sunshine, and influenza. It has all the cold of winter, and acts as if +life could be produced solely by formidable harshness. + +But there is another wind, a mild, sensitive wind which carries the +secrets of the spring--a wind that wanders and sings on sunless days, +penetrating the hard crust of the earth as softly and as inveterately as +love, a wind that opens while its forceful brother shuts. + +It was this wind, calling along the railway lines against the swinging +train, that brought Stella to Amberley. It lifted her out of her +carriage to the small, wayside station, embracing her with its welcome +under shaking trees. The air was full of the earth scents of growing +fields. The sky was wide and very near and without strangeness. + +A porter, lurching out of the surrounding darkness, told Stella there +was a car from Amberley House waiting for her. It could only be for her, +because no one else was on the platform. + +The station-master himself put her into it. She sank into soft cushions, +and shut her eyes to feel the soundless speed. Stella had been on rare +occasions in a taxi; but this creature that leaped without friction +forward into the darkness, flinging a long road behind it with the ease +with which an orange is peeled, was a wholly new experience. When she +opened her eyes again they became gradually accustomed to the flying +darkness, which was not wholly dark; trees loomed up mysteriously out of +it, and the tender shapes of little hills as soft and vague as clouds. + +Stella was sorry when the car stopped; she could not see the doorway of +Amberley House, hidden under a mass of ivy. It opened suddenly before +her into a dusky hall lighted by tall candles in silver candle-sticks. + +The hall was full of shadows. There was a fragrance in it of old roses +and lavender, and it was quiet. It was so quiet that Stella held her +breath. She felt as if for centuries it had been still, and as if no one +who had ever lived there had made a noise in it. She was afraid of the +sound of her own voice. + +At the farther end of the hall there was a glow of firelight on old oak +panels. A door opened, and Lady Verny came toward her, very tall and +stately, but with the same kind, steady eyes. + +Lady Verny came all the way across the long, shadowy room to meet +Stella, and held out both her hands; but when she came near, Stella saw +that only her eyes were the same. Her face was incredibly older. The +firm lines were blurred, the delicate color was gone. The woman who +looked down at her was at the mercy of the years. Grief had forced her +prematurely out of her comfortable upward path. Even her smile had +changed; it carried no serenity. + +"I am very glad you have come," Lady Verny said gently. "We will have +tea in my room, I think, and then you must rest. I can see you have been +ill." + +She led the way into a room that seemed curiously like her. It was +spacious and convenient, with very few small objects in it. Even the +pictures on the walls had the same quality: they were very definite, +clear-colored French landscapes, graceful and reticent. + +The china, on a low table by the fire, was old and valuable; but it was +used every day. Lady Verny had no special occasions, and nothing that +she possessed was ever too priceless or too important for use. + +"I hope you did not have a very tiresome journey," she continued. "I do +not like a change on so short a run, but we have not been able to +arrange to have a train straight through from town. Julian was thinking +of doing something about it some time ago, but the matter has dropped." + +Stella noticed that as Lady Verny spoke of Julian her voice hurried a +little. It did not shake; but it passed over his name quickly as if she +were afraid that it might shake. + +"Since his illness he has taken less interest in local matters," she +finished tranquilly. + +Stella did not dare to ask if Julian was better. She did not like to +speak about his interests; it seemed to her as if almost anything would +be better than to say something stupid to Lady Verny about Julian. + +"It was a lovely journey," she said quickly, "and I would have hated not +to change at Horsham. I was so sorry it was nearly dark. Shelley lived +there once, didn't he? I wanted to go and look for the pond where he had +sailed five-pound notes because he hadn't anything else to make boats +with. Amberley came much too soon; and I couldn't see anything but a +bundle of dark clouds. I could only feel it, awfully friendly and kind, +blowing across the fields!" + +"Yes," said Lady Verny, consideringly, giving Stella her tea; "I think +it is a kind little place. There is nothing dreadful about it, not even +an ugly chapel, or one of those quite terrible little artist's +houses,--you know the type I mean,--as uncomfortable as a three-cornered +chair. The kind that clever people live in and call cottages. They've +quite spoiled the country round Pulborough; but mercifully the station +is inconvenient here, and a good deal of the land is Julian's. I hope +you will like it,"--she met Stella's eyes with a long, questioning +look,--"because I hope you will stay here for a long time." + +"As long as you want me to stay," said Stella, firmly. + +"We must not spoil your other opportunities for work," said Lady Verny; +"that would be most unfair. I must confess to you, Miss Waring, that I +am leaving the whole question very much in the air. It would be more +satisfactory to have the arrangement come direct from Julian. If, as I +hope, by your presence the old interest and the old questions come back +to him, he will ask you to stay himself. For the present I have simply +told him that you are my friend and that you have given up your +secretarial work to come here for a much-needed holiday; but we must not +waste your time or do anything against your interests. I could not allow +that." + +"It won't take very long, I expect," Stella answered, "because he would +take a dislike so quickly. And if he did that, it wouldn't do, of +course. We should see in a week or two. If he _doesn't_ dislike me; I +can easily talk to him about Professor Paulson. I remember they had an +argument once--about reindeer-moss. Your son said he had discovered it +where Professor Paulson had said it didn't exist. I could bring that up +quite comfortably. The mere mention of a fellow-laborer's effort stings +a man into the wish to prove something or other about it; and once you +start proving, secretaries follow." + +"Make them follow," said Lady Verny, smiling. "I don't think he will +dislike you,--we usually dislike the same people,--only Julian always +goes further than I do; he dislikes them more." Then her smile faded. +"You will see him to-night at dinner," she said gravely. She could not +smile again after she had said that; but she took Stella herself through +the dark oak hall and up the broad, winding staircase to a little, old, +square room that looked out over the garden to the flooded +water-meadows. + +"I don't know if you like gardens," Lady Verny said a little shyly. +"It's rather a hobby of mine. You'll see it to-morrow." + +"I like even my own," said Stella, "though it only holds one plane-tree +and ten cats. At least it doesn't really _hold_ the cats. They spill in +and out of it in showers like the soot, only more noisily; and I +pretend there's a lilac-bush in the corner." + +Lady Verny stood by the door for a moment as if she were making up her +mind for an immense advance, an almost dazzling plunge into confidence. + +"I have a feeling," she said slowly, "as if you would make a _good_ +gardener." + +After she had gone, Stella opened the window, and leaned out into the +garden. She could see nothing but the soft darkness, sometimes massed in +the thickness of the yew-hedges, and sometimes tenuous and spread out +over the empty spaces of the lawns. + +The air blew fresh upon her face, full of sweetness and the promise of +life. Stella told herself bitterly that nature was cruel; it let strong +young things die, and if that didn't matter (and she sometimes thought +dying didn't), nature did worse: it maimed and held youth down. But +nothing in her responded to the thought that nature was cruel. A tiny +crescent moon shone out between the hurrying clouds, and cast a slim +shadow of silver across the dark waters. "Things are cruel," Stella said +to herself, "but what is behind them is not cruel, and it must come +through. And I'm little and stupid and shy; but some of it is in me for +Julian, and he'll have to have it. I shan't know how to give it to him. +I shall make hideous blunders and muddles, and the more I want to give, +the harder it'll be to do it. Fortunately, it does not depend on me. I +can be as stupid as I like if I'm only thinking of him and only caring +for him and only wanting it to come through me. Nothing can stop it but +minding because I'm stupid. And as for being in love, the more I'm in it +the better. For that's what we're all in really, only we're none of us +in it enough. As long as I'm not in it for anything I can get out of it, +everything will be all right. If I do mind, it doesn't matter if only +what I want gets through to Julian." + +She lay down on the bed and listened to the wind in the garden playing +among the tree-tops. She listened for a long time, until she thought +that the garden was upon her side, and then she heard another sound. She +knew in a moment what it was; it struck straight against her heart: it +was the _tap-tap_ along the passage of wooden crutches. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Lady Verny and Julian were sitting in the hall when Stella joined them. +It wasn't in the least terrible meeting Julian; he had reduced his +physical disabilities to the minimum of trouble for other people. He +swung himself about on his crutches with an extraordinary ease, and he +had taught himself to deal with his straitened powers so that he needed +very little assistance; he had even controlled himself sufficiently to +bear without apparent dislike the occasional help that he was forced to +accept. + +It was the Vernys' religion that one shouldn't make a fuss over anything +larger than a broken boot-lace. Temper could be let loose over the +trivial, but it must be kept if there was any grave cause for it. + +Julian wished to disembarrass the casual eye of pity, partly because it +was a nuisance to make people feel uncomfortable, and partly because it +infuriated him to be the cause of compassion. Lady Verny had not +pointed this out to Stella; she had left her to draw her own inferences +from her own instincts. Lady Verny did not believe in either warnings or +corrections after the days of infancy were passed. + +She smiled across at Stella and said quietly: + +"My son--Miss Waring." + +Stella was for an instant aware of Julian's eyes dealing sharply and +defensively with hers. He wanted to see if she was going to be such a +fool as to pity him. She wasn't such a fool. Without a protest she let +him swing himself heavily to his feet before he held out his hand to +her. Her eyes met his without shrinking and without emphasis. She knew +she must look rather wooden and stupid, but anything was better than +looking too intelligent or too kind. + +She realized that she hadn't made any mistake from the fact that Lady +Verny laid down her embroidery. She would have continued it steadily if +anything had gone wrong. + +There was no recognition in Julian's eyes except the recognition that +his mother's new friend looked as if she wasn't going to be a bother. +Stella hadn't mattered when he met her before, and she didn't matter +now. She had the satisfaction of knowing that she owed his oblivion of +her to her own insignificance. + +"I'm sure it's awfully good of you," Julian said, "to come down here and +enliven my mother when we've nothing to offer you but some uncommonly +bad weather." + +"I find we have one thing," Lady Verny interposed. "Miss Waring is +interested in Horsham. You must motor her over there. She wants to see +Shelley's pond." + +"Do you?" asked Julian. "I'll take you with pleasure, but I must admit +that I think Shelley was an uncommonly poor specimen; never been able to +stand all that shrill, woolly prettiness of his. It sets my teeth on +edge. I don't think much of a man, either, who breaks laws, and then +wants his conduct to be swallowed like an angel's. Have you ever watched +a dog that's funked a scrap kick up the earth all round him and bark +himself into thinking he's no end of a fine fellow in spite of it?" + +"I don't believe you've read Shelley," cried Stella, stammering with +eagerness. "I mean properly. You've only skimmed the fanciest bits. And +he never saw the sense of laws. They weren't his own; he didn't break +_them_. The laws he broke were only the dreadful, muddled notions of +respectable people who didn't want to be inconvenienced by facts. I dare +say it did make him a little shrill and frightened flying in the face of +the whole world. However stupid a face it has, it's a massive one; but +he didn't, for all the fright and the defiance, funk his fight." + +"Let us settle Shelley at the dinner-table," said Lady Verny, drawing +Stella's arm into hers and leaving Julian to follow. "Personally I do +not agree with either of you. I do not think Shelley was a coward, and I +do not think that as a man he was admirable. He has always seemed to me +apart from his species, like his own skylark; 'Bird _thou_ never wert.' +He was an 'unpremeditated art,' a 'clear, keen joyance,' anything you +like; but he hadn't the rudiments of a man in him. He was neither tough +nor tender, and he never looked a fact in the face." + +"There are plenty of people to look at facts," objected Stella, "Surely +we can spare one to live in clouds and light and give us, in return for +a few immunities, their elemental spirit." + +"People shouldn't expect to be given immunities," said Julian. "They +should take 'em if they want 'em, and then be ready to pay for 'em; +nobody is forced to run with the crowd. What I object to is their taking +to their heels in the opposite direction, and then complaining of +loneliness. Besides, start giving people immunities, and see what it +leads to--a dozen Shelleys without poems and God knows how many +Harriets. What you want in a poet is a man who has something to say and +sticks to the path while he's saying it." + +"Oh, you might be talking about bishops!" cried Stella, indignantly. +"How far would you have gone yourself on your Arctic explorations if +you'd stuck to paths? Why should a poet run on a given line, like an +electric tram-car?" + +"I think Miss Waring has rather got the better of you, Julian," said +Lady Verny, smiling. "You chose an unfortunate metaphor." + +"Not a bit of it," said Julian, with a gleam of amusement. "I chose a +jolly good one, and she's improved it. You can go some distance with a +decent poet, but you can't with your man, Miss Waring. He twiddles up +into the sky before you've got your foot on the step." + +"That's a direct challenge," said Lady Verny. "I think after dinner we +must produce something of Shelley's in contradiction. Can you think of +anything solid enough to bear Julian?" + +"Yes," said Stella. "All the way here in the train I was thinking of one +of Shelley's poems. Have you read it--'The Ode to the West Wind'?" + +"No," said Julian, smiling at her; "but it doesn't sound at all +substantial. You started your argument on a cloud, and you finish off +with wind. The Lord has delivered you into my hand." + +"Not yet, Julian," said Lady Verny. "Wait till you've heard the poem." + +It did not seem in the least surprising to Stella to find herself, half +an hour later, sitting in a patch of candle-light, on a high-backed oak +chair, saying aloud without effort or self-consciousness Shelley's "Ode +to the West Wind." + +Neither Lady Verny nor Julian ever made a guest feel strange. There was +in them both an innate courtesy, which was there to protect the feelings +of others. They did not seem to be protecting Stella. They left her +alone, but in the act of doing so they set her free from criticism. Lady +Verny took up her embroidery, and Julian, sitting in the shadow of an +old oak settle, contentedly smoked a cigarette. He did not appear to be +watching Stella, but neither her movements nor her expressions escaped +him. She was quite different from any one he had seen before. She wore a +curious little black dress, too high to be smart, but low enough to set +in relief her white, slim throat. She carried her head badly, so that it +was difficult to see at first the beauty of the lines from brow to chin. +She had a curious, irregular face, like one of the more playful and less +attentive angels in a group round a Botticelli Madonna. She had no +color, and all the life of her face was concentrated in her gray, +far-seeing eyes. Julian had never seen a pair of eyes in any face so +alert and fiery. They were without hardness, and the fire in them melted +easily into laughter. But they changed with the tones of her voice, +with the rapid words she said, so that to watch them was almost to know +before she spoke what her swift spirit meant. Her voice was unfettered +music, low, with quick changes of tone and intonation. + +[Illustration: Her voice was unfettered music] + +Stella was absorbed in her desire to give Julian a sense of Shelley. She +wanted to make him see that beyond the world of fact, the ruthless, +hampering world of which he was a victim, there was another, finer +kingdom where no disabilities existed except those that a free spirit +set upon itself. + +She was frightened of the sound of her own voice; but after the first +verse, the thought and the wild music steadied her. She lost the sense +of herself, and even the flickering firelight faded; she felt out once +more in the warm, swinging wind, with its call through the senses to the +soul. The first two parts of the poem, with their sustained and +tremendous imagery, said themselves without effort or restraint. It was +while she was in the halcyon third portion of + + "The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, + Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams," + +that it shot through Stella's mind how near she was to the tragic +unfolding of a fettered spirit which might be the expression of Julian's +own. She dared not stop; the color rushed over her face. By an enormous +effort she kept her voice steady and flung into it all the +unconsciousness she could muster. He should not dream she thought of +him; and yet as she said: + + "Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! + I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! + A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bowed + One too like thee--tameless, and swift, and proud." + +it seemed to her that she was the voice of his inner soul stating his +bitter secret to the world. A pulse beat in her throat and struggled +with her breath, her knees shook under her; but the music of her low, +grave voice went on unfalteringly: + + "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is. + What if my leaves are falling, like its own!" + +Lady Verny laid down her embroidery. Julian had not moved. There was no +sound left in the world but Stella's voice. + +She moved slowly toward the unconquerable end, + + "Oh, Wind, + If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" + +All the force of her heart throbbed through Shelley's words. They were +only words, but they had the universe behind them. Nobody spoke when she +had finished. + +She herself was the first to move. She gave a quick, impatient sigh, and +threw out her hands with a little gesture of despair. + +"I can't give it to you," she said, "but it's _there_. Read it for +yourself! It's worth breaking laws for; I think it's worth being broken +for." + +Julian answered her. He spoke carefully and a little stiffly. + +"I don't think I agree with you," he said. "Nothing is worth being +broken for." + +Stella bowed her head. She was aware of an absolute and appalling sense +of exhaustion and of an inner failure more terrible than any physical +collapse. + +It was as if Julian had pushed aside her soul. + +"Still, I think you must admit, Julian," Lady Verny said quietly, "that +'The Ode to the West Wind' is an admirable poem. I'm afraid, my dear, +you have tired yourself in saying it for us. I know the poem very well, +but I have never either understood or enjoyed it so much before. Do you +not think you had better go to bed? Julian will excuse us. I find I am a +little tired myself." + +Stella rose to her feet uncertainly. She was afraid that Julian would +get up again and light their candles; but for a moment he did not move. +He was looking at her reconsideringly, as if something in his mind was +recognizing something in hers; then he dragged himself up, as she had +feared he would, and punctiliously lighted their candles. + +"It's rather absurd not having electric light here, isn't it?" he +observed, handing Stella her candle. "But we can't make up our minds to +it. We like candle-light with old oak. I'm not prepared to give in about +your fellow Shelley; but I confess I like that poem better than the +others I have read. You must put me up to some more another time." + +If she had made one of her frightful blunders, he wasn't going to let +her see it. His smile was perfectly kind, perfectly impenetrable. She +felt as if he were treating her like an intrusive child. Lady Verny +said nothing more about the poem; but as she paused outside Stella's +door she leaned over her and very lightly kissed her cheek. + +It was as if she said: "Yes, I know you made a mistake; but go on making +them. I can't. I'm too like him; so that the only thing for me to do is +to leave him alone. But perhaps one day one of your mistakes may reach +him; and if they can't, nothing can." + +Stella shivered as she stood alone before the firelight. Everything in +the room was beautiful, the chintz covers, the thick, warm carpet, the +gleam of the heavy silver candle-sticks. The furniture was not chosen +because it had been suitable. It was suitable because it had been chosen +long ago. It had grown like its surroundings into a complete harmony, +and all this beauty, all this warm, old, shining polish of inanimate +objects and generations of good manners, covered an ache like a hollow +tooth. Nobody could get down to what was wrong because they were too +well bred; and was it very likely that they were going to let Stella? +She would annoy Julian, she had probably annoyed him to-night; but would +she ever reach him? In her mind she had been able to think of him as +near her; but now that she was in the same house, she felt as if she +were on the other side of unbridged space. He was frightening, too; he +was so much handsomer than she remembered, and so much more alive. It +was inconceivable that he should ever want to work with her. + +She sat down before an oval silver mirror and looked at her face. It +seemed to her that she was confronted by an empty little slab without +light. She gave it a wintry smile before she turned away from it. + +"I don't suppose he'll ever want anything of you," she said to herself, +"except to go away." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Later Stella wrote: + + Eurydice dearest: + + It's the strangest household, or else, perhaps, everybody else's + is. You never see anybody doing anything, and yet everything gets + done. It's all ease and velvet and bells; and yet in spite of + nothing being a minute late, you never notice the slightest hurry. + It isn't clockwork; it's more like the stars in their courses. I + always thought being properly waited on made people helpless; it + would me in ten minutes. I can see myself sinking into a cream-fed + cushion, but the Vernys sit bolt upright, and no servant they + possess can do any given thing as well for them as they can do it + for themselves. + + I have breakfast in my room, with a robin, and the window open--oh, + open on to the sharpest paradise! + + While I lie in bed I can see an old, moss-covered barn which always + manages to have a piece of pink sky behind it and a black elm bough + in front. It's a wonderful barn, as old as any hill, and with all + the colors of the rainbow subservient to it. That's one window; the + other two look over the garden. + + There's a terrace, and a lawn out of which little glens and + valleys wander down the hillside into the water-meadows, and + there's a lake drowned out by the water, with swans more or less + kept in it by a hedge of willows. + + The water-meadows are more beautiful than all the little shiny + clouds that race across the valley. Sometimes they're like a silver + tray, with green islands and wet brown trees on them; and sometimes + they are a traveling mist; and then the sun slants out (I haven't + seen it full yet), and everything's blue--the frailest, pearliest + blue. + + Yesterday was quite empty, with only its own light, and when + evening came the water-meadows and the little hills were lost in + amethyst. + + I haven't said anything about the downs. I can't. We walk on them + in the afternoon. At least we walk along the lane that goes through + the village (it's full of mud; but one gets quite fond of mud), and + then when you feel the short turf under you, and the fields drop + down, you go up into the sky and float. + + One begins so well, too. At breakfast there's such beautiful china, + butter in a lordly dish, always honey, and often mushrooms. + Everything tastes as if it came fresh out of the sky. + + I can do exactly as I like all day. Nobody's plans conflict with + any one else's. That's partly being rich and partly being sensible; + it's quite wonderful how easy life is if you're both. There's a + special room given to me, with a piano and books; and if I want + Lady Verny, I can find her in the garden. + + I can see her out of my window now; she's wearing a garment that's + a cross between a bathing-dress and a dressing-gown, enormous + gauntlets, and one of Sir Julian's old caps. There _are_ gardeners, + especially one called Potter. (Whenever anything goes wrong Lady + Verny shakes her head and says, "Ah, that's the Potter's thumb!") + But you never see them. She's always doing something in the garden. + Half the time I can't discover what; but she just smiles at me and + says, "Nature's so untidy," or, "The men need looking after." Both + Lady Verny and Sir Julian are very serious over their servants. In + a way they're incredibly nice to them, they seem to have them so + much on their minds. They're always discussing their relatives or + their sore throats, and they give very polite, plain orders; but + then just when you're thinking how heavenly it must be to work for + them, they say something that chills you to the bone. One of the + housemaids broke a china bowl yesterday, and came to Lady Verny, + saying: + + "If you please, m' Lady, I didn't mean to do it." + + "I should hope not," Lady Verny said in a voice like marble. "If + you had _meant_ to do it, I should hardly keep you in the house; + but your not having criminal tendencies is not an excuse for + culpable carelessness." + + Sir Julian's worse because his eyes are harder; he must have caught + them from one of his icebergs. But the servants stay with them + forever, and when one of the grooms had pneumonia in the winter, + Sir Julian sat up with him for three nights because the man was + afraid of dying, and it quieted him to have his master in the + room. + + I'm beginning to work in the garden myself, the smells are so nice, + and the dogs like it. Lady Verny has a spaniel and two + fox-terriers, and Sir Julian a very fierce, unpleasant Arctic + monster, with a blunt nose like a Chow, and eyes red with temper + and a thirst for blood. + + He's always locked up when he isn't with Sir Julian. If he wasn't, + I'm sure he'd take the other three dogs as hors-d'oeuvre, and + follow them up with the gardeners. + + I don't know what he does all day. Sir Julian I mean; the Arctic + dog growls. They never turn up till tea-time; then they disappear + again, and come back at dinner. At least Sir Julian does. The + Arctic dog (his name is Ostrog) is not allowed at meals, because he + thinks everything in the room ought to be killed first. + + After dinner I play chess with Sir Julian. He's been quite + different to me since he found I could; before he seemed to think I + was something convenient for his mother, like a + pocket-handkerchief. He was ready to pick me up and give me back to + her if I fell about, but I didn't have a life of my own. + + Now he often speaks to me as if I were really there. They're both + immensely kind and good to everybody in the neighborhood, but they + see as little of people as possible. + + They're not a bit religious, though they always go to church, and + Lady Verny reads Montaigne--beautifully bound, like Sir Thomas à + Kempis--during the sermon. A great deal of the land belongs to + them, and I suppose they could use a lot of influence if they + chose. I always dislike people having power over other human + beings; but the Vernys never use it to their own advantage. In nine + cases out of ten they don't use it at all. I heard the vicar + imploring Sir Julian to turn a drunken tenant out of a cottage, as + his example was bad for the village. But Sir Julian wouldn't even + agree to speak to him. "I always believe in letting people go to + the devil in their own way," he said. "If you try to stop 'em, they + only go to him in yours. Of course I don't mean you, Parson. It's + your profession to give people a lead. But I couldn't speak about + his morals to a man who owed me three years' rent." + + I expect I shall have to come back next week to the town hall. + Thank Mr. Travers so much for saying I may stay on longer, but I + really couldn't go on taking my salary when I'm bursting with + health and doing nothing. I'll wait two more days before writing to + him, but I must confess I'd rather have all my teeth extracted than + mention Professor Paulson to Sir Julian. + + I haven't seen the slightest desire for work in him; but, then, I + haven't seen any desire in him at all except a suicidal fancy for + driving a dangerous mare in a high dog-cart. He never speaks of + himself or of the war, and he is about as personal as a mahogany + sideboard. + + Lady Verny isn't much easier to know, though she seems to like + talking to me. I asked her to call me Stella the other day, and she + put down her trowel and looked at me, as if she thought it wasn't + my place to make such a suggestion; then she said, "Well, perhaps + I will." I wish we'd been taught whose place things are; it would + be so much simpler when you are with people who have places. But + Lady Verny doesn't dislike me, because I've seen her with people + she dislikes. She's much more polite then, and never goes on with + anything. Last night when I was playing chess with Sir Julian (it + was an awful fight, for he's rather better than I am, though I + can't let him know it) she said to him, "I hope you are not tiring + Stella." + + He looked up sharply, as if he was awfully surprised to hear her + saying my name, and then he gave me a queer little smile as if he + were pleased with me. I believe they're fond of each other, but + I've never seen them show any sign of affection. + + But, O Eurydice, though they're awfully charming and interesting + and dear, they're terribly unhappy. You feel it all the time--a + dumb, blind pain that they can't get over or understand, and that + nothing will ever induce them to show. They aren't a bit like the + Arctic dog, who is always disagreeable unless he has a bone and Sir + Julian. You know where you are with the Arctic dog. + + Tell Mr. Travers I'll write directly I have fixed a date for my + return. + + Your ever-loving, disheveled, enthralled, perturbed, unfinished + + STELLA. + + P.S. I suppose as a family we all talk too much; we over-say + things, and that makes them seem shallow. If you say very little, + it comes out in chunks and sounds solid. You remember those + dreadful old early-Saxon people we read once who never used + adjectives? I think we ought to look them up. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Stella found Lady Verny weeding. She drew the weeds up very gracefully +and thoroughly, with a little final shake. + +It was a hard, shivering March morning. Next to the bed upon which Lady +Verny was working was a sheet of snowdrops under a dark yew-hedge. They +trembled and shook in the light air like a drift of wind-blown snow. + +Stella hovered irresolutely above them; then she said: + +"Lady Verny, I am afraid I must go back to the town hall next week. I +haven't been any use." + +Lady Verny elaborately coaxed out a low-growing weed, and then, with a +vicious twist, threw it into the basket beside her. + +"Why don't you go and talk to Julian?" she asked. "He can't be expected +to jump a five-barred gate if he doesn't know it's there." + +Stella hesitated before she spoke; then she said with a little rush: + +"What I feel now is that I'm not the person to tell him--to tell him +it's there, I mean. I don't know why I ever thought I was. The person to +tell him that would be some one he could notice like a light, not a +person who behaves like a candle caught in a draft whenever he speaks to +her." + +"My dear," said Lady Verny, ruthlessly exposing, and one by one +exterminating, a family of wireworms, "I fear you have no feminine +sense. You have a great many other kinds,--of the mind, and no doubt of +the soul. You should try to please Julian. You don't; you leave him +alone, and in consequence he thinks he's a failure with you. Women with +the feminine sense please a man without appearing to make the effort. +The result is that the man thinks he's pleasing _them_, and a man who +thinks that he has succeeded in pleasing an agreeable woman is not +unaware of her." + +"But I'm so afraid of him," pleaded Stella. "I don't believe you know +how frightening he is." + +"Yes," said Lady Verny; "he has lost his inner security. That makes a +person very frightening, I know. He has become aggressive because he +feels that something he has always counted on as a weapon has been +withdrawn from him. It's like living on your wits; people who do that +are always hard. I think you can give him the weapon back; but to +succeed you must use all your own. You must go into a room as if it +belonged to you. It's astonishing how this place suits you; but you must +hold your head up, and lay claim to your kingdom." + +"But I've never had a kingdom," objected Stella, "and I only want him to +be interested in the idea of writing a book." + +"Well, that's what I mean," said Lady Verny, decently interring the +corpses of the worms. "At least it's part of what I mean. The only way +to get Julian to write a book just now is to charm him. Men whose nerves +and hearts are broken don't respond readily to the abstract. You can do +what I can't, because I'm his mother. He's made all the concessions he +could or ought to make to me. He promised not to take his life. +Sometimes in these last few months I've felt like giving him his +promise back. Now are you going to be afraid of trying to please +Julian?" + +"O Lady Verny," Stella cried, "you make me hate myself! I'll do anything +in the world to please him; I'd play like a brass band, or cover myself +with bangles like Cleopatra I Don't, _don't_ think I'll ever be a coward +again!" + +"You needn't go as far as the bangles," said Lady Verny, smiling grimly. +"Do it your own way, but don't be afraid to let Julian think you like +him. He finds all that kind of thing rather hard to believe just now. + +"He's been frozen up. Remember, if he isn't nice to you, that thawing is +always rather a painful process. Now run along, and leave me in peace +with my worms." + +It cannot be said that Stella ran, but she went. She passed through the +hall and down a passage; and wondered, if she had been an +early-Christian martyr about to step into the arena, whether she +wouldn't on the whole have preferred a tiger to Julian. + +The door opened on a short passage at the end of which was an old oak +doorway heavily studded with nails. She knew this must be Julian's +room, because she heard Ostrog growling ominously from inside it. Julian +presumably threw something at him which hit him, for there was the sound +of a short snap, and then silence. + +"Please come in," said Julian in a voice of controlled exasperation. +Stella stepped quickly into the room, closing the door behind her. + +It was a long, wide room with a low ceiling. There were several polar +bear-skins on the floor, and a row of stuffed penguins on a shelf behind +Julian's chair. Three of the walls were covered with bookcases; the +fourth was bare except for an extraordinarily vivid French painting of a +girl seated in a café. She had red hair and a desperate, laughing face, +and was probably a little drunk. There was a famous artist's signature +beneath her figure, but Stella had a feeling that Julian had known the +girl and had not bought the picture for the sake of the signature. + +Ostrog stood in front of her, growling, with every separate hair on his +back erect. + +"Keep quite still for a moment," said Julian, quickly. "Ostrog, lie +down!" The dog very slowly settled himself on his haunches, with his +red, savage eyes still fixed on Stella. "Now I think you can pass him +safely," Julian added. "He has a peculiar dislike to human proximity, +especially in this room. You can't write him down as one who loves his +fellow-men, and I fear he carries his unsociability even further in +respect to his fellow-women." + +"It must be nice for you," said Stella, "to have some one who expresses +for you what you are too polite to say for yourself." + +Julian gave her a quick, challenging look. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "Why should you suppose any such thing?" + +"I expect because it is true," said Stella, quietly. "Of course you +don't growl or show your teeth, and your eyes aren't red; but nobody +could suppose when you said 'Come in' just now that you wanted anybody +to come in." + +"The chances were all in favor of its being somebody that I didn't +want," explained Julian, politely. "For once they misled me. I +apologize." + +Stella smiled; her eyes held his for a moment. She did not contradict +him, but she let him see that she didn't believe him. "If he was ever +really sorry," she thought, "he wouldn't apologize. When he's polite, +it's because he isn't anything else." + +"I came," she explained, "to ask you to lend me Professor Paulson's book +on reindeer-moss. Will you tell me where it is and let me get it for +myself, if Ostrog doesn't mind?" + +To her surprise, Julian allowed her to find it for herself. Ostrog +continued to growl, but without immediate menace. When she had found it, +she took it across to Julian. + +"Please don't run away," he said quickly, "unless you want to. Tell me +what you intend to look up about the moss. I had a little tussle with +Paulson over it once. He was an awfully able fellow, but he hadn't the +health to get at his facts at first hand. That was unfortunate; +second-hand accuracy leaks." + +Stella sat down near him, and in a minute they were launched into an +eager discussion. She had typed the book herself, and had its facts at +her fingers'-end. She presented a dozen facets to her questions, with a +light on them from her dancing mind. + +Julian differed, defended himself, and explained, till he found himself +at length in the middle of an account of his last expedition. He pulled +himself up abruptly. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "what a dark horse you are! Do tell me how you +come to know anything about such a subject. Did you smuggle yourself +into an Arctic expedition as a stowaway, or have you been prospecting +gold at Klondike with a six-shooter and a sleeping-sack? It's amazing +what you know about the North." + +"It is not so uncanny as you think," said Stella, quietly. "I was +Professor Paulson's secretary. For five years I studied the fauna and +flora of arctic regions. I used to help him examine the tests brought +back by explorers. He taught me how to understand and check climate and +weather charts. All the collected specimens went through my hands. I did +the drawings for this book, for instance. You know, a secretary is a +kind of second fiddle. Give him a lead, and he catches up the music and +carries it through as thoroughly, though not so loudly, as the first +violin. I like being a second fiddle and I like the North." + +"That's odd," said Julian, drawing his heavy eyebrows together. "I had +an idea I had met Professor Paulson's secretary before." + +"You are quite right," said Stella; "you did meet her before." + +Julian stared at her; his eyes hardened. + +"Do you mean that it was you I met at Sir Francis Young's?" he asked +her. "You are Miss Young's great friend, then, are you not?" + +Stella turned her eyes away from him. She hated to see him guarding +himself against her. + +"I was her friend," she said in a low voice; "but I have not seen her or +heard from her for six months, nor have I written." + +Sir Julian still looked at her, but the sternness of his eyes decreased. + +She sat meekly beside him, with her drooping head, like the snowdrops +she had brought in with her from the March morning. She did not look +like a woman who could be set, or would set herself, to spy upon him. He +acquitted her of his worst suspicions, but his pride was up in arms +against her knowledge. + +"It's too stupid for me," he said, "not to have recognized you +immediately; for I haven't in the least forgotten you or our talk. You +said some charming things, Miss Waring; but fate, a little unkindly, has +proved them not to be true." + +Stella turned her eyes back to his. She no longer felt any fear of him. +She was too sorry for him to be afraid. + +"No," she said eagerly, "I was perfectly right. I said you were strong. +Things have happened to you,--horrible things,--but you're there; you're +there as well as the things--in control of them. Why, look at what +you've been telling me--the story of your last expedition! It's so +fearfully exciting, and it's all, as you say, first-hand knowledge. You +brought back with you the fruits of experience. Why don't you select and +sort them and give them to the world?" + +He looked at her questioningly. + +"Do you mean these old arctic scraps?" he said slowly. "They might have +mattered once, but they're all ancient history now. The flood and the +fire have come on us since then. All that's as dead--as dead and useless +as a crippled man. Besides, no one can write a book unless it interests +him. I'm not even interested." + +Stella's eyes fell; her breath came quickly. + +"But don't you think," she said, "you could be made a little interested +again? You were interested, weren't you, when you were talking to me a +few minutes ago?" + +Sir Julian laughed good-naturedly. + +"I dare say I was interested talking to you," he said. "You're such a +changeling: you play chess like a wizard and know the North like a +witch. I'm afraid, Miss Waring, that interest in your conversation isn't +in itself sufficient to turn a man into an author." + +Stella rose slowly to her feet. She opened her lips as if to speak to +Julian, but he was looking past her out of the window, with a little +bitter smile that took away her hopefulness. Ostrog escorted her, +growling less and less menacingly, to the door. Stella did not look back +at Julian, and she forgot to hold her head up as she went out of the +room. After she had gone Julian discovered that she had dropped two of +her snowdrops on the floor. He picked them up carefully and laid them on +his desk. + +"A curious, interesting girl," he said to himself; "an incredible friend +for Marian to have had. I wonder what made my mother take her up?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Lady Verny finished her weeding. It took her an hour and a half to do +what she wanted to the bed; then she rose from her cramped position, and +went into Julian's library by one of the French windows. She guessed +that Stella had failed. + +Julian was lying on a long couch, with his hands behind the back of his +head and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Lady Verny knew that, when he +was alone, he was in the habit of lying like this for hours. He had told +her that since his accident it amused him more than anything else. + +She came in without speaking, and, drawing off her long gauntlets, +folded them neatly together, and sat down, facing him. + +Julian's eyes moved toward her as she entered; but he gave her no +further greeting, and after a speculative glance his eyes returned to +the ceiling. + +"It's a pity," said Lady Verny, thoughtfully, "that poor child has to go +back to the town hall next week, a dreadful, drafty place, and be made +love to by a common little town clerk." + +Julian's eyes flickered for a moment, but did not change their position. + +"Town clerks," he observed, "are, I feel sure, distinguished persons who +confine their passions to rates and taxes." + +"That must make it all the more trying," said Lady Verny. "But I don't +mind the town clerk as much as I mind the drafts. Stella had pleurisy +before she came here; and you know what girls who do that kind of work +eat--ghastly little messes, slopped on to marble tables, and tasting +like last week's wash." + +"Well, why the devil doesn't she look for another job?" Julian asked +irritably. "She has brains enough for twenty. That's what I dislike +about women: they get stuck anywhere. No dash in 'em, no initiative, no +judgment." It was not what he disliked about women. + +"She has tried," said Lady Verny. "The man she hoped to get a job from +wouldn't have her. She tried this morning." + +Julian's eyes moved now; they shot like a hawk's on to his mother's, +while his body lay as still as a stone figure on a tomb. + +"Then it was a trap," he said coldly. "I wondered. I thought we'd +settled you were going to leave me alone." + +"Yes," said Lady Verny in a gentle, even voice, "I know we had, Julian; +but I can't bear it." + +Julian's eyes changed and softened. He put his hand on her knee and let +it rest there for a moment. + +"I can, if it's only you," he said; "but I can't stand a lot of +sympathetic women. One's a lot." + +"You don't like her, then?" his mother asked. "I'm sorry; I always did +from the first day I saw her. I don't know why; she hasn't any +behavior." + +"I don't dislike her," said Julian. "I don't think her behavior matters. +She isn't at all a bother. I rather like her being so awfully little a +woman; it's restful. Half the time I don't notice if she's in the room +or not." + +"And the other half of the time?" Lady Verny asked, with apparent +carelessness. + +"Oh, the other half of the time," said Julian, with a little, twisted +smile, "I quite appreciate the fact that she is. Especially when you've +taken the trouble to dress her as you did last night." + +"I had to see what she looked like," Lady Verny explained defensively. + +"I think, if you want her to stay in this house," said Julian, dryly, +"you'd better let her look as little like that again as possible. I +might have tolerated a secretary if I had wanted to write a book; but +I'd tolerate no approach to a picture. She can go and be picturesque at +the town hall. My artistic sense has already been satisfied up to the +brim. How did you get her to take the clothes she had on last night?" + +"I told her," said Lady Verny, blushing, "that I had the materials by +me, and couldn't possibly use them, as I was too old for light colors, +and Girton could make her a simple little dress. And then I stood over +Girton. As a matter of fact, I _did_ send for the green jade comb and +the shoes and stockings." + +"You seem to me," said Julian, "to have entered most light-heartedly +upon a career of crime and deceit unusual at your age. I don't wonder +that you blush for it." + +"It wasn't only you, Julian," Lady Verny pleaded. "I did want to help +the girl. I can't bear public offices for gentlewomen. It's so +unsuitable!" + +"Most," agreed Julian. "But, my dear mother, this is a world in which +the unsuitable holds an almost perfect sway, a fact which your usual +good sense seldom overlooks." + +"You don't know," said Lady Verny, earnestly, "how even a bad patch of +ground facing north _can_ improve with cultivation." + +"Do what you like with the north side of the garden," replied Julian, +"do even what you like with the apparently malleable Miss Waring; but +please don't try the gardening habit any more on me." + +Lady Verny sighed. Julian looked as inexpressive and immovable as a +stone crusader. + +Lady Verny was a patient woman, and she knew that, once seed is dropped, +you must leave it alone. + +She had learned to abstain from all the little labors of love which are +its only consolations. From the first she had realized that the things +she longed to do for Julian he preferred to have done for him by a +servant. + +She had accepted his preferences as the only outlet of her emotions; but +when she saw he was fast approaching the place where nothing is left but +dislikes, she made an effort to dislodge him. She was not sure, but she +thought that she had failed. Without speaking again, she went back to +the garden and did a little more digging before lunch. The earth was +more malleable than Julian; digging altered it. + +If you have never been able to buy any clothes except those which you +could afford, none of them having any direct relation to the other, but +merely replacing garments incapable of further use, to be dressed +exactly as you should be is to obtain a new consciousness. It was not +really Stella who looked with curious eyes at herself in a long mirror +beneath the skilful hands of Girton. It was some hidden creature of +triumphant youth with a curious, heady thirst for admiration. She gazed +at herself with alien eyes. + +"It's like an olive-tree," she said dreamily to Girton, "a silvery gray +olive-tree growing in the South." + +"I dare say, Miss," said Girton; "but if you was to remember when you +sit down just to bring your skirts a trifle forward, it would sit +better." + +"Yes, Girton," said Stella, submissively. But the submission was only +skin-deep. She knew that whatever she did, she couldn't go far wrong; +her dress wouldn't let her. It gave her a freedom beyond the range of +conduct. People whose clothes fit them, as its sheath of green fits a +lily of the valley, become independent of their souls. + +Julian's eyes had met hers last night with a perfectly different +expression in them. He was too polite to look surprised, but he looked +as soon as it was convenient, again. + +Usually he looked at Stella as if he wanted to be nice to her, but last +night for the first time he had looked as if he wished Stella to think +him nice. She had had to hold her head up because of the jade comb. + +It wouldn't matter how either of them looked now, as she was going away +so soon; but she was glad that for once he had noticed her, even if his +notice was inspired only by the green dress. + +Julian did not appear at dinner; it was the first time since Stella's +arrival that this had happened. + +"He's had a bad day," Lady Verny explained. "He will get about more than +he ought. It's a great strain on him, and then he suffers from fatigue +and misery--not pain, exactly. I don't think he would mind that so much, +but it makes him feel very helpless. He wants his chess though, if you +don't mind going into his library and playing with him." + +Julian was sitting up in his arm-chair when Stella joined him. His back +was to the light, and the chess-board in front of him. + +His face was gray and haggard, but there was a dogged spark of light in +his eyes, as if he was amused at something. + +"Thanks tremendously for coming in to cheer me up," he said quickly. +"You see, I've dispensed with Ostrog for the evening, to prevent further +comparison between us. D'you mind telling me why you didn't let me know +this morning that, if I wrote a book, you'd work for me?" + +Stella flushed, and let her jade comb sink beneath its level. + +"If you didn't want to write the book," she said, "why should you want a +secretary?" + +"It didn't occur to you, I suppose," Sir Julian asked, "that if I wanted +the secretary, I might wish to write the book?" + +"What has Lady Verny said to you?" Stella demanded, lifting her head +suddenly, and looking straight across at him. + +"Nothing that need make you at all fierce," Julian replied, with +amusement. "She said you were going back to the town hall next week, and +I said I thought it was a pity. You don't seem to me in the least fitted +for a town hall. I've no doubt you can do incredible things with drains, +but I fear I have a selfish preference for your playing chess with me. +My mother added that it was my fault; you were prepared, if I wished to +write a book, to see me through it." + +"Yes," said Stella, defensively, "I was prepared, if I thought you +wanted it." + +"I suppose you and my mother thought it would be good for me, didn't +you?" asked Julian, suavely. "I have an idea that you had concocted a +treacherous underground plot." + +"We--I--well, if you'd _liked_ it, it might have been good for you," +Stella admitted. + +"Most immoral," said Julian, dryly, "to try to do good to me behind my +back, wasn't it? You see, I dislike being done good to; I happen very +particularly to dislike it, and above all things I dislike it being done +without my knowledge." + +"Yes," said Stella, humbly. "So do I; I see that now. It was silly and +interfering. Only, if you _had_ been interested--" + +"I wasn't in the least interested," said Julian, implacably, "but I'm +glad you agree about your moral obliquity. My mother, of course, was +worse; but there is no criminal so deep seated in her career as a woman +under the sway of the maternal instinct. One allows for that. And now, +Miss Waring, since neither of us likes being done good to, and since +it's bad for you to go back to the town hall, and worse for me to remain +unemployed, shall we pool this shocking state of things and write the +book together?" + +"Oh!" cried Stella with a little gasp. "But are you sure you want to?" + +Julian laughed. + +"I may be politer than Ostrog," he said, "but I assure you that, like +him, unless reduced by force, I never do what I don't want to." + +"And you haven't been reduced?" Stella asked a little doubtfully. + +"Well," said Julian, beginning to place his chessmen, "I don't think so; +do you? Where was the force?" + +Stella could not answer this question, and Lady Verny, who might have +been capable of answering it, was up-stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Stella found that there were several Julians. The first one she knew +quite well; he only wanted to be left alone. She dealt quite simply with +him, as if he were Mr. Travers before Mr. Travers was human. + +She came into his library every morning at ten o'clock, and this Julian, +looking out of the window or at Ostrog or at the ceiling, dictated to +her in a dry voice, slowly and distinctly, the first draft of a chapter. + +Julian had never worked with an efficient woman before, and Stella's +promptness and prevision surprised him; but this Julian never showed any +surprise. He did the work he had set himself to do from the notes he had +prepared before she came. If there were any facts of which he was +doubtful, he asked her to look them up, telling her where she would be +likely to find references to them. Stella went to the right bookcase by +a kind of instinct, placed a careful hand on the book, and found the +index with flying fingers. She never asked this Julian questions or +troubled him with her own opinions. She carried off her notes without +comment, and returned them to him carefully typed for his final +inspection next morning. It was like the town hall, only quieter. + +The second Julian was almost like a friend. He was a mischievous, +challenging Julian, who wouldn't at any price have an impersonal, +carefully drilled secretary beside him, but who insisted upon Stella's +active cooperation. They discussed the chapter from every point before +they wrote it. This Julian demanded her opinions; he dragged out her +criticisms and fought them. He made their work together a perilous, +inspiriting tug-of-war. The chapters that resulted from this cooperation +were by far the most interesting in the book. They even interested +Julian. + +But these were rare days, and what was most curious to Stella was that +Julian, who seemed at least to enjoy them as much as she did, should +appear to want to suppress and curtail them. He was obviously reluctant +to let the second Julian have his fling. + +Stella saw the third Julian only in the evenings. He was a polite and +courteous host, stranger to Stella than either of the others. He was +always on his guard, as if he feared that either of the watchful women +who wanted to see him happy might think he was happy or might, more +fatally still, treat him as if he were unhappy. + +While Stella and Lady Verny were anxiously watching the transformations +of Julian, spring came to Amberley. It came very quietly, in a cold, +green visibility, clothing the chilly, shivering trees in splendor. The +hedges shone with a green as light as water, and out of their dried +brown grasses the fields sprang into emerald. The streams that ran +through the valley fed myriads of primroses. Stella found them +everywhere, in lonely copses, in high-shouldered lanes, or growing like +pale sunshine underneath the willows. + +The spring was young and fugitive at Amberley; it fled before its own +promises, and hid behind a cloak of winter. Dull gray days, cold +showers, and nipping raw down winds defied it, and for weeks the earth +looked as hard as any stone; but still the green leaves unsheathed +themselves, and the birds sang their truculent triumphant songs, certain +of victory. + +Lady Verny spent all her time in the garden now, watching against +dangers, preparing for new births, protecting the helpless, and leaving +things alone. The bulbs were up and out already; crocus and daffodil, +hyacinth and narcissus, flooded the glades and glens. Crocuses ran like +a flock of small gold flames under the dark yew-hedges; daffodils +streamed down the hillside to the lakes, looking as if they meant to +overtake the sailing swans. The willows in the valley had apricot and +pale-gold stems. They hung shivering over the lake like a race of +phantom lovers searching for their lost brides. + +Stella never saw Julian outdoors. He was always interested and polite +about the garden, but he was never in it. He did not seem to want to see +things grow. She did not know how far he could drag himself upon his +crutches, and it gave her a little shock of surprise to find him one day +in one of her favorite haunts. + +It was outside the garden altogether, behind the village street. A sunk +lane under high hedges led to a solitary farm. One of the fields on the +way to it overlooked a sheltered copse of silver birches. Julian was +stretched at full length under the hedge, looking down into the wood; +his crutches lay beside him. Under the silver birches the ground was as +blue as if the sky had sprung up out of the earth. There was no space at +all for anything but bluebells. Far away in the valley a cuckoo called +its first compelling notes. + +Julian's face was set. He looked through the silver-and-blue copse as if +it were not there; his eyes held a tortured universe. + +Stella would have slipped away from him unseen, but his voice checked +her. + +"Is that you, Stella?" he asked quietly. "Won't you come and sit down +here and look at this damned pretty world with me?" + +His voice was startlingly bitter; it was the first time that he had used +her name. + +She came to him quickly, and sat down beside him, motionless and alert. +She knew that this was yet another Julian, and an instinct told her that +this was probably the real one. + +He, too, said nothing for a moment; then he began to speak with little +jerks between his sentences. + +"What do you suppose," he said, "is the idea? You know what I mean? You +saw the papers this morning? Have you ever seen a man gassed? I did +once, in Wales--a mine explosion. We got to the fellows. One of them was +dead, and one was mad, and one would have liked to be mad or dead. I +rather gather that about two or three thousand Canadians were gassed +near Ypres. They stood, you know,--stood as long as you can +stand,--gassed. I always thought that phrase, 'died at their posts,' +misleading. There aren't any posts, for one thing, and, then, +dying--well, you don't die quickly from gas. If you're fairly strong, +it's a solid performance, and takes at the least several hours. + +"I beg your pardon. I oughtn't to talk to you like that. Please forgive +me for being such a brute. On such a lovely morning, too! Are there any +new bulbs up? I ought to be ashamed of myself." + +"Julian--" said Stella. + +He turned his head quickly and looked at her. + +"Yes," he said; "what is it?" + +"You ought to be ashamed _not_ to talk to me," Stella said, with sudden +fierceness. "Doesn't it make any difference to you that we're friends?" + +He put his hand over hers. + +"Yes," he said, smiling; "but I happen to be rather afraid of +differences." + +He took his hand away as quickly as he had touched her. + +"Do you know," she asked in a low voice, "what was the saddest thing I +ever saw--the saddest and the most terrible?" + +"No," he said, turning his eyes carefully back to the silver birches; +"but I have an idea that it was something that happened to somebody +else." + +"Yes," said Stella; "it happened to a sea-gull. It was the only time I +ever went to the sea. Eurydice had been ill, and I went away with her. I +think I was fourteen. I had gone out alone after tea on to the cliffs +when I saw a motionless sea-gull at the very edge. I walked close up to +it. It was as still as a stone, and when I came up, O Julian, one of its +wings was broken! It could not fly again. Its eyes were searching the +sea with such despair in them; it knew it could not fly again. I picked +it up and carried it home. We did everything we could for it, but it +died--like that, without ever changing the despair in its eyes--because +it could not fly." + +"Lucky brute to be able to die," said Julian under his breath. Stella +said nothing. "Why did you tell me?" he asked after a pause. "Any lesson +attached to it?" + +She shook her head. + +"You're not crying?" he asked suspiciously. Then he looked at her. She +was sitting very still, biting her lips to keep her tears back. + +"You really mustn't, Stella!" he urged in a queer, soft voice she had +never heard him use before. "I'm not a sea-gull and I'm not dying, and +I'm not even a stone." + +"No," she whispered, "but you're just like the sea-gull: you won't share +your pain." + +"Look here," said Julian, "I--you--Would you mind sitting on that log +over there,--it's quite dry,--just opposite? Thanks. Now I can talk more +easily. I want you to remember that I'm a million times better off than +most people. What troubles me isn't what the vicar calls my affliction. +I'm rather proud of what I'm able to do with a pair of crutches in six +months. It's being out of it; that's what set me off on those Canadian +chaps. I miss the idea that I might be in that kind of thing, rather. +You see, I feel quite well. I'll settle down to it in time, and I won't +shut you out, if you'll remember not to let me--you're most awfully +innocent, aren't you? D'you mind telling me how old you are?" + +"Twenty-eight," said Stella. "But I'm not really innocent. I think I +know all the horrible things." + +Julian laughed ruefully. "You wouldn't see them coming though," he said; +"and, besides, the things that aren't innocent are by no means always +horrible. However, that's not what I was going to say. If we're to be +friends at all, and it's not particularly easy even for me to live in +the same house with you and not be friends, you'll have to help me +pretty considerably." + +"How shall I help you?" Stella asked eagerly. "I have wanted to, you +know. I mean that I did sometimes think you wanted to be friends--as +Mr. Travers did when he tried to become human because his cat died. I +haven't told you about that; it made him see how important it was. And +when you didn't want to be friendly, I tried not to bother you; I just +went on with the work. That _was_ the best way, wasn't it?" + +"Yes," said Julian, carefully. "You did the work uncommonly well, my +dear, and you never bothered me in that way. I'm afraid I don't quite +follow Mr. Travers. I suppose he is the town clerk, isn't he? He may +have meant the same thing that I do; but I should have thought it would +have been--well--simpler for him. I don't know how to explain to you +what I mean. You remember Marian?" Stella nodded, "I came a cropper over +Marian," Julian explained. "She behaved extraordinarily well. No one +could possibly blame her; but she wasn't exactly the kind of woman I'd +banked on, and I had banked on her pretty heavily. When I saw my +mistake, I understood that I wasn't fit for marriage, and I became +reconciled to it. I mean I accepted the idea thoroughly. It would be +tying a woman to a log. But I don't want to start feeling just yet--any +kind of feeling. Even nice, mild, pitying friendship like yours stings. +D'you understand?" + +"I'm not mild and I'm not pitying," said Stella, quietly. "And you don't +only shut me out; you shut out everybody. Why, you won't even let +yourself go over your old polar bears in the book!" + +"I can't afford to let myself go," said Julian, "even to the extent of a +polar bear--with you." + +"Just because I'm a woman?" asked Stella, regretfully. + +"If you like, you may put it that way," agreed Julian; "and as to the +rest of the world, it's very busy just at present fighting Germans. All +the men I like are either dead or will be soon. What's the use of +getting 'em down here to look at a broken sign-post? I'd rather keep to +myself till I've got going. I will get going again, and you'll help me, +if you'll try to remember what I've just told you." + +"Oh, I shall _remember_ it," replied Stella, hurriedly; "only I don't +quite know what it is. Still, I dare say, if I think it over, I shall +find out. At any rate, I'm _very, very_ glad you'll let me help you. Of +course I think you're all wrong about the other men. You think too much +of the outside of things. I dare say it's better than thinking too +little, as we do in our family. Besides, you have such a lovely house +and live so tidily. Still, I think it's a mistake. The men wouldn't see +your crutches half as much as they'd see _you_. The things that matter +most are always behind what anybody sees. Even all this beauty isn't +half as beautiful as what's behind it--the spirit of the life that +creates it, and brings it back again." + +"And the ugliness," asked Julian, steadily, "the ugliness we've just +been talking about over there, that long line of it cutting through +France like a mortal wound, drawing the life-blood of Europe,--what's +behind that?" + +"Don't you see?" she cried, leaning toward him eagerly. "Exactly the +same thing--life! All this quietness that reproduces what it takes away, +only always more beautifully. Don't you think, while we see here the +passing of the great procession of spring, behind in the invisible, +where their poured-out souls have rushed to, is a greater procession +still, forming for us to join? That even the ugliness is only an awful +way out into untouched beauty, like a winter storm that breaks the +ground up for the seed to grow?" + +"I can see that _you_ see it," said Julian, gently. "I can't see +anything else just now. You'd better cut along back to the house; you'll +be late for lunch. Tell my mother I'm not coming--and--and try not to +think I'm horrid if I'm not always friendly with you. I sha'n't be so +unfriendly as I sound." + +"I don't believe you know," said Stella, consideringly, "how very nice I +always think you--" + +"That," said Julian, "happens to be exactly one of the things you'd +better refrain from telling me. Good-by." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +It is always hard to return in the character of a captive to a scene in +which you have played the part of victor, and Julian had told the truth +to Stella when he said that what stung him most was his new relation to +women. Men knew what he had done; many of them were facing the same +odds. They had a common experience and a common language to fall back +upon. They were his mates, but they did not come near enough to him to +hurt him; they had no wish to understand or help his sufferings. It was +sufficient for them to say, "Hard luck!" and leave that side of it +alone. Women were different: he had pursued women. + +Julian had a good average reputation. Very few women attracted him +beyond a certain point; but all his experiences had been successes. + +He had loved Marian with the best love his heart had known; but it had +been the love of Marian as a creature to possess. It had not been an +invasion of his personality. He would have given anything to possess +Marian; he had not been for a moment possessed by her. It did not seem +to Julian that a woman could ever do more than charm a man. + +She could charm you, if you let her, to distraction; but if you had any +strength, you remained intact. Nothing in you moved to meet her charm. +You simply, not to put too fine a point upon it, took what you could +get. Naturally, if you could no longer let a woman charm you, she +became, if she wasn't merely a nuisance, a menace. + +Julian acquiesced in Stella's remaining as his secretary only because he +had a theory that she did not charm him. He could not make head or tail +of her. He recognized that she had a mind, but it was a perplexing and +unchallenging mind, a private enjoyment of her own. She never attempted +to attract Julian by it. If he stirred her, she ran off like a poet or a +bird, upon her subject. She did not, as Julian supposed all women did, +put Julian himself at the other end of her subject. + +She had attractions: sympathy, wit, a charming, fugitive smile. She +arranged them no better than she arranged her hair; and it was +lamentable how she arranged her hair. + +Julian could not have borne her constant presence if she had not effaced +herself; his bitter self-consciousness would have been up in arms +against an effective personality at his elbow. Nevertheless, he was +obscurely annoyed that Stella made no attempt to impress him. She would +sit there morning after morning without looking at him, without noticing +him, without the lift of an eyelid to make him feel that he was anything +to her but the supply of copy for his chapter. She was as inhuman and +unpretentious as a piece of moss on a wall. + +But her voice haunted him; he would catch snatches of her talk with Lady +Verny in the garden. His mother had no scruple against intimacy with +Stella, and Stella was not docile with Lady Verny; she was enchanting. +She had a tantalizing voice full of music, with little gusts of mischief +and revolt in it. + +Julian told himself that he must put up with Stella for his mother's +sake. Lady Verny did not make friends easily, and liked bookworms. He +dismissed Stella as a bookworm. She had ways that, he told himself, were +intensely annoying. She came punctually to her work,--probably the poor +town clerk had taught her that much,--but she had no other +punctualities. Bells, meals, the passage of time, had no landmarks for +her. She seemed to drift along the hours like a leaf upon a stream. + +She was disorderly: she left things about; books face downward, scraps +of paper, flowers. She was always saying that she had lost her +fountain-pen. She didn't say this to Julian, but he heard her say it to +Ostrog, whom she accused outrageously of having eaten it, to all the +servants, and to his mother. None of them seemed to mind, not even +Ostrog. + +Ostrog's growls had ceased. He slept in Stella's presence, uneasily, +with half a red eye upon her; but he slept. + +After a few days he chose a position close to her feet and slept +solidly, with snores; finally he took her out for walks. Julian approved +of this, since she would go all over the place by herself, hatless, and +looking like a tramp, it was as well she should be accompanied by +Ostrog. + +Ostrog had never before been known to go for walks with any one except +Julian. He took plenty of exercise independently of human control in the +direction of rabbits. + +Stella was extremely wasteful with writing-paper. Over and over again +Julian saw her throw half a sheet, white and untouched, into the +waste-paper basket; and she cut string. It was curious how little Julian +felt annoyed by these depredations, considering how much he wished to be +annoyed. He was not by nature economical, but he lashed himself into +imaginary rages with Stella, and told her that she must once for all +turn over a new leaf. She was quite meek about it, and next time she +lost her fountain-pen she went into the village and bought a new one +which wouldn't write. She paid for it with her own money, and Julian +wanted to box her ears. He subsequently found the other one on the rack +where he kept his pipes. + +For some time he believed that she was not provocative because she was +negligible. She was one of those clever neutral women who haven't the +wit to be attractive. + +Then one day it flashed across him that for all her mild agreement with +his wishes, her spirit never for one instant surrendered to him. It did +not even think of escaping; it was free. + +This startled Julian. He liked evasive women, but he had thought Stella +extraordinarily the opposite. She was as frank as a boy. But was this +frankness merely because she was dealing with what was non-essential to +her? He tried to make her talk; he succeeded perfectly. + +Stella would talk about anything he liked. She enjoyed talking. She made +Julian enjoy it; and then he found that he had arrived nowhere. She gave +him her talk, as she gave him her attention, exactly as she would have +got up and handed him a book if he had asked for it. There was no more +of herself in it than in the simplest of her services. + +Julian was not sure when it was that he discovered that he had a new +feeling about her, which was even more disconcerting than her +independence; it was anxiety. + +Perhaps it was during the extremely slow and tiresome week-end on which +Stella paid a visit to her family. She went without her umbrella,--not +that it would have done much good if she had taken it, for Julian found, +to his extreme vexation, that it was full of holes,--the weather was +atrocious, and she came back with a cold. + +It might have been gathered that no one at Amberley had ever had a cold +before. As far as Julian was concerned nobody ever had. + +Julian possessed a sane imagination, and generally treated the subject +of health with a mixture of common sense and indifference. But this cold +of Stella's! + +It was no good Stella's saying it was a slight cold; he forced her to +take a list of remedies suitable for severe bronchitis. He quarreled +with his mother for saying that people had been known to recover from +colds, and finally he sent for the doctor. + +The doctor, being a wise man with a poor country practice, agreed with +Julian that you could not be too careful about colds, and thought that +priceless old port taken with her meals would not do Miss Waring any +harm. + +Stella disliked port very much, but she drank it submissively for a +week. + +"Nobody can call me fussy," Julian announced sternly, "but I will not +have a neglected cold in the house." + +He was not contradicted, though everybody knew that for weeks the cook +and two housemaids had been sneezing about the passages. + +It was a strange feeling, this sharp compulsion of fear. It taught +Julian something. It taught him that what happened to Stella happened to +himself. He no longer thought of pursuit in connection with her. He had +found her in his heart. + +It was an extremely awkward fact, but he accepted it. After all, he had +crushed passions before which had gone against his code. He had iron +self-control, and he thought it would be quite possible to stamp out +this fancy before it got dangerous, even while he retained her presence. + +He couldn't remain friendly to her, but he could be civil enough. He +tried this process. For nine days it worked splendidly. Of course Stella +didn't like it, but it worked. She had too much sense to ask him what +was the matter, but she looked wistful. On the tenth she cut her finger +sharpening a pencil, and Julian called her "Darling." Fortunately she +didn't hear him, and he managed to bandage her finger up without losing +his head; but he knew that it had been an uncommonly near shave, and if +she hurt herself again, he wasn't at all sure how he would stand it. + +Love flooded him like a rising tide; all his landmarks became submerged. +He could not tell how far the tide would spread. He clung to Stella's +faults with positive vindictiveness despite the fact that he had +surprised himself smiling over them. He dared not let himself think +about her qualities. The one support left to him was her own +unconsciousness. He needn't tell her, and she wouldn't guess; and as +long as she didn't know, he could keep her. If she did know, she would +have to go away; even if she didn't want to go, as she most probably +would, he would have to send her away. He became as watchful of himself +as he had been when his life depended on every word he said; but he +could not help his eyes. When other people were there he did not look at +Stella at all. + +It was the first day Stella had been late for her work, and Julian had +prepared to be extremely angry until he saw her face. She came slowly +toward the open window out of the garden, looking oddly drawn and white. +The pain in her eyes hurt Julian intolerably. + +"Hullo!" he said quickly, "what's wrong?" + +She did not answer at once; her hands trembled. She was holding a +letter, face downward, as if she hated holding it. + +"Your mother asked me to tell you myself," she began. "I am afraid to +tell you; but she seemed to think you would rather--" + +"Yes," said Julian, quickly. "Are you going away?" + +"Oh, no," whispered Stella. "If it was only that!" + +Julian said, "Ah!" It was an exclamation that sounded like relief. He +leaned back in his chair, and did nothing further to help her. + +Stella moved restlessly about the room. She had curious graceful +movements like a wild creature; she became awkward only when she knew +she was expected to behave properly. Finally she paused, facing a +bookcase, with her back to Julian. + +"Well?" asked Julian, encouragingly. "Better get it over, hadn't we? +World come to pieces worse than usual this morning?" + +"I don't know how to tell you," she said wretchedly. "For you perhaps it +has--I have heard from Marian." + +Julian picked up his pipe, which he had allowed to go out when Stella +came in, relit it, and smiled at the back of her head. He looked +extraordinarily amused and cheerful. + +"She hadn't written to me," Stella went on without turning round, "for +ages and ages,--you remember I told you?--and now she has." + +"She was always an uncertain correspondent," said Julian, smoothly. "Am +I to see this letter? Message for me, perhaps? Or doesn't she know +you're here?" + +"Oh, no!" cried Stella, quickly. "I mean there's nothing in it you +couldn't see, of course. There _is_ a kind of message; still, she didn't +mean you actually to see it. She heard somehow that I was here, and she +wanted me to tell you--" Stella's voice broke, but she picked herself up +and went on, jerking out the cruel words that shook her to the heart,-- +"she wanted me to tell you that she's--she's going to be married." + +Stella heard a curious sound from Julian incredibly like a chuckle. She +flinched, and held herself away from him. He would not want her to see +how he suffered. There was a long silence. + +"Stella," said Julian at last in that singular, soft, new voice of his +that he occasionally used when they were alone together, "the ravages of +pain are now hidden. You can turn round." + +She came back to him uncertainly, and sat down by the window at his +feet. He had a tender teasing look that she could not quite understand. +His eyes themselves never wavered as they met hers, but the eagerness in +them wavered; his tenderness seemed to hold it back. + +She thought that Julian's eyes had grown curiously friendly lately. +Despite his pain, they were very friendly now. + +"Any details?" Julian asked. "Don't be afraid to tell me. I'm not--I +mean I'm quite prepared for it." + +"It's to be next month," she said hurriedly. "She didn't want you to see +it first in the papers." + +"Awfully considerate of her, wasn't it?" interrupted Julian. "By the +by, tell her when you write that she couldn't have chosen anybody better +to break it to me than you." + +"O Julian," Stella pleaded, "please don't laugh at me! Do if it makes +you any easier, of course; only I--I mind so horribly!" + +"Do you?" asked Julian, carefully. "I think I'm rather glad you mind, +but you mustn't mind horribly; only as much as a friend should mind for +another friend." + +"That is the way I mind," said Stella. + +She had a large interpretation of friendship. + +"Oh, all right," said Julian, rather crossly. "Go on!" + +"She says it's a Captain Edmund Stanley, and he's a D.S.O. They're to be +married very quietly while he's on leave." + +"Lucky man!" said Julian. "Any money?" + +"Oh, I think so," murmured Stella, anxiously skipping the letter in her +lap. "She says he's fairly well off." + +"I think," observed Julian, "that we may take it that if Marian says +Captain Stanley is fairly well off, his means need give us no anxiety. +What?" + +"Julian, must you talk like that?" Stella pleaded. "You'll make it so +hard for yourself if you're bitter." + +"On the whole, I think I must," replied Julian, reflectively. "If I +talked differently, you mightn't like it; and, anyhow, I daren't run the +risk. I might break down, you know, and you wouldn't like that, would +you? Shall we get to work?" + +"Oh, not this morning!" Stella cried. "I'm going out; I knew you +wouldn't want me." + +"Did you though?" asked Julian. "But I happen to want you most +particularly. What are you going to do about it?" + +She looked at him in surprise. He had a peculiarly teasing expression +which did not seem appropriate to extreme grief. + +"I'll stay, of course, if you want me," she said quietly. + +"You're a very kind little elf," said Julian, "but I don't think you +must make a precedent of my wanting you, or else--look here, d' you mind +telling me a few things about your--your friendship with Marian?" + +Stella's face cleared. She saw now why he wanted her to stay. She turned +her eyes back to the garden. + +"I'll tell you anything you like to know," she answered. + +"You liked her?" asked Julian. + +"She was so different from everybody else in my world," Stella +explained. "I don't think I judged her; I just admired her. She was +awfully good to me. I didn't see her very often, but it was all the +brightness of my life." + +"Stella, you've never told me about your life," Julian said +irrelevantly. "Will you some day? I want to know about the town hall and +that town clerk fellow." + +"There isn't anything to tell you," said Stella. "I mean about that, and +Marian was never in my life. She couldn't have been, you know; but she +was my special dream. I used to love to hear about all her experiences +and her friends; and then--do you remember the night of Chaliapine's +opera? It was the only opera I ever went to, so of course I remember; +but perhaps you don't. You were there with Marian. I think I knew +then--" + +"Knew what?" asked Julian, leaning forward a little. "You seem awfully +interested in that gravel path, Stella?" + +"Knew," she said, without turning her head, "what you meant to her." + +"Where were you?" Julian inquired. "Looking down from the ceiling or up +from a hole in the ground, where the good people come from? I never saw +you." + +"Ah, you wouldn't," said Stella. "I was in the gallery. Do you remember +the music?" + +"Russian stuff," Julian said. "Pack of people going into a fire, yes. +Funnily enough, I've thought of it since, more than once, too; but I +didn't know you were there." + +"And then when you were hurt," Stella went on in a low voice, "Marian +told me. Julian, she did mind _frightfully_. I always wanted you to know +that she _did_ mind." + +"It altered her plans, didn't it," said Julian, "quite considerably?" + +"You've no business to talk like that!" said Stella, angrily. "It's not +fair--or kind." + +"And does it matter to you whether I'm fair or kind?" Julian asked, with +deadly coolness. + +"I beg your pardon," said Stella, quickly. "Of course it has nothing to +do with me. I have no right to--to mind what you say." + +"I'm glad you recognize that," said Julian, quietly. "It facilitates our +future intercourse. And you agreed with Marian that she only did her +duty in painstakingly adhering to her given word? Perhaps you encouraged +her to do it? The inspiration sounds quite like yours." + +She looked at him now. + +"Julian," she said, "am I all wrong? Would you rather that we weren't +friends at all? You are speaking as if you hated me." + +"No, I'm not," he said quickly, "you little goose! How could I keep you +here if I hated you? Have a little sense. No, don't put your hand there, +because, if you do, I shall take it, and I'm rather anxious just now not +to. You shall go directly you've answered me this. Did you agree with +Marian's point of view about me? You know what it was, don't you? She +didn't love me any more; she wished I had been killed, and she decided +to stick to me. She thought I'd be grateful. Do you think I ought to +have been grateful?" + +"You know I don't! You know I don't!" cried Stella. "But why do you make +me say it? I simply hated it--hated her not seeing, not caring enough +to see, not caring enough to make you see. There! Is that all you wanted +me to say?" + +"Practically," said Julian, "but I don't see why you should fly into a +rage over it. In your case, then, if it had been your case, you would +simply have broken off the engagement at once, like a sensible girl?" + +"I can't imagine myself in such a situation," said Stella, getting up +indignantly. + +"Naturally," interposed Julian smoothly. "But, still, if you had +happened, by some dreadful mischance, to find yourself engaged to me--" + +"I should have broken it off directly," said Stella, turning to +go--"directly I found out--" + +"Found out what?" asked Julian. + +"That you were nothing but a cold-blooded tease!" cried Stella over her +shoulder. + +"You perfect darling!" said Julian under his breath. "By Jove! that was +a narrow squeak!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +It puzzled Stella extremely that she found herself unable to say, "What +is it that you want, Julian?" She knew that there was something that he +wanted, and there was nothing that she would dream of denying him. What, +therefore, could be simpler than asking him? And yet she did not want to +ask him. + +She began by trying hard to understand what it was that he had told her +above the bluebell wood, because she thought if she discovered what he +wanted then, the rest would follow. He had wanted a particular kind of +help from her; that was plain. It had something to do with her being a +woman; that was plainer. But was it to his advantage or to his +disadvantage that she was a woman? Ought she to suppress the fact or +build on it? And how could she build on it or suppress it when she never +felt in the least like anything else but a woman? + +Cicely used to say that the only safe way with men was never to be nice +to them; but Stella had always thought any risk was better than such a +surly plan. Besides, Julian couldn't mean that. He liked her to be nice +to him. She saw quite plainly that he liked her to be nice to him. + +Unfortunately, Julian had taken for granted in Stella a certain +experience of life, and Stella had never had any such experience. She +had never once recognized fancy in the eyes of any man. As for love, it +belonged solely to her dreams; and the dreams of a woman of +twenty-eight, unharassed by fact, are singularly unreliable. She thought +of Mr. Travers, but he did not count. She had never been able to realize +what he had felt for her. Her relation to him was as formal, despite his +one singular lapse, as that of a passenger to a ticket-collector. She +had nothing to go on but her dreams. + +In her very early youth she had selected for heroes two or three +characters from real life. They were Cardinal Newman, Shelley, and +General Gordon. Later, on account of a difference in her religious +opinions, she had replaced the Cardinal by Charles Lamb. None of these +characters was in the least like Julian. + +One had apparently no experience of women, the other two had sisters, +and Shelley's expression of love was vague and might be said to be +misleading. + + She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, + That I beheld her not. + +Life had unfortunately refused to meet Shelley on the same terms, and +difficulties had ensued, but it was this impracticable side of him that +Stella had accepted. She had skipped Harriet, and landed on +"Epipsychidion." Love was to her "a green and golden immortality." She +was not disturbed by it, because the deepest experiences of life do not +disturb us. What disturbs us is that which calls us away from them. + +It made it easier to wait to find out what Julian wanted that he was +happier with her. He was hardly ever impersonal or cold now, and he +sometimes made reasons to be with her that had nothing to do with their +work. + +It was June, and the daffodils had gone, but there were harebells and +blue butterflies upon the downs, and in the hedges wild roses and Star +of Bethlehem. Lady Verny spent all her time in the garden. She said the +slugs alone took hours. They were supposed by the uninitiated to be +slow, but express trains could hardly do more damage in less time. So +Stella and Ostrog took their walks alone, and were frequently +intercepted by Julian on their return. + +Julian, who ought to have known better, thought that the situation might +go on indefinitely, and Stella did not know that there was any +situation; she knew only that she was in a new world. There was sorrow +outside it, there was sorrow even in her heart for those outside it; but +through all sorrow was this unswerving, direct experience of joy. She +would have liked to share it with Julian, but she thought it was all her +own, and that what he liked about her--since he liked something--was her +ability to live beyond the margin of her personal delight. The color of +it was in her eyes, and the strength of it at her heart; but she never +let it interfere with Julian. She was simply a companion with a hidden +treasure. She sometimes thought that having it made her a better +companion; but even of this she was not sure. + +It made her a little nervous taking Ostrog out alone, but she always +took the lead with him, and slipped it on him if a living creature +appeared on the horizon. There were some living creatures he didn't +mind, but you couldn't be sure which. + +One evening she was tired and forgot him. There was a wonderful sunset. +She stood to watch it in a hollow of the downs where she was waiting for +Julian. The soft, gray lines rose up on each side of her, immemorial, +inalterable lines of gentle land. The air was as transparently clear as +water, and hushed with evening. Far below her, where the small church +steeple sprang, she saw the swallows cutting V-shaped figures to and fro +above the shining elms. + +For a long time she heard no sound, and then, out of the stillness, came +a faint and hollow boom. Far away across the placid shapes of little +hills, over the threatened seas, the guns sounded from France--the dim, +intolerable ghosts of war. + +Ostrog, impatient of her stillness, bounded to the edge of the hollow +and challenged the strange murmur to the echo. He was answered +immediately. A sheep-dog shot up over the curve of the down. Ostrog was +at his throat in an instant. + +There was a momentary recoil for a fresh onslaught, and then the shrieks +of the preliminary tussle changed into the full-throated growl of +combat. There was every prospect that one or other of them would be dead +before their jaws unlocked. + +Stella hovered above them in frantic uncertainty. She was helpless till +she saw that there was no other help. The sheep-dog had had enough; a +sudden scream of pain stung her into action. She seized Ostrog's hind +leg and twisted it sharply from under him. + +At the moment she did so she heard Julian's voice: + +"Wait! For God's sake, let go!" + +But she could not wait; the sheep-dog was having the life squeezed out +of him. She tugged and twisted again. Ostrog's grip slackened, he flung +a snap at her across his shoulder, and then, losing his balance, turned +on her in a flash. She guarded her head, but his teeth struck at her +shoulder. She felt herself thrust back by his weight, saw his red jaws +open for a fresh spring, and then Julian's crutch descended sharply on +Ostrog's head. Ostrog dropped like a stone, the bob-tailed sheep-dog +crawled safely away, and Stella found herself in Julian's arms. + +[Illustration: She tugged and twisted again] + +"Dearest, sure you're not hurt? Sure?" he implored breathlessly, and +then she knew what his eyes asked her, they were so near her own and so +intent; and while her lips said, "Sure, Julian," she knew her own eyes +answered them. + +He drew her close to his heart and kissed her again and again. + +The idea of making any resistance to him never occurred to Stella. +Nothing that Julian asked of her could seem strange. She only wondered, +if that was what he wanted, why he had not done it before. + +He put her away from him almost roughly. + +"There," he said, "I swore I'd never touch you! And I have! I'm a brute +and a blackguard. Try and believe I'll never do it again. Promise you +won't leave me? Promise you'll forgive me? I was scared out of my wits, +and that's a fact. D' you think you can forgive me, Stella?" + +"But what have I to forgive?" Stella asked. "I let you kiss me." + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Julian, half laughing, "you are an honest woman! +Well, if you did, you mustn't 'let me' again, that's all. Ostrog, you +wretch, lie down! You ought to have a sound thrashing. I'd have shot you +if you'd hurt her; but as I've rather scored over the transaction, I'll +let you off." + +Stella looked at Julian thoughtfully. + +"Why mustn't I let you again?" she inquired, "if that is what you want?" + +Julian, still laughing, but half vexed, looked at her. + +"Look here," he said, "didn't I tell you you'd got to help me? I can't +very well keep you here and behave to you like that, can I?" + +Stella considered for a moment, then she said quietly, "Were you +flirting with me, Julian?" + +"I wish to God I was!" said Julian, savagely. "If I could get out of it +as easily as that, d'you suppose I should have been such a fool as not +to have tried?" + +"I don't think you would have liked me to despise you," said Stella, +gently. "You see, if you had given me nothing when I was giving you all +I had, I should have despised you." + +Julian stared at her. She was obviously speaking the truth, but in his +heart he knew that if she had loved him and he had flirted with her, he +would have expected her to be the one to be despised. + +He put out his hand to her and then drew it back sharply. + +"No, I'm hanged if I'll touch you," he said under his breath. "I love +you all right,--you needn't despise me for that,--but telling you of +it's different. I was deadly afraid you'd see; any other woman would +have seen. I've held on to myself for all I was worth, but it hasn't +been the least good, really. I suppose I've got to be honest about it: I +can't keep you with me, darling; you'll have to go. It makes it a +million times worse your caring, but it makes it better, too." + +"I don't see why it should be worse at all," said Stella, calmly. "If we +both care, and care really, I don't see that anything can be even bad." + +Julian pulled up pieces of the turf with his hand. He frowned at her +sternly. + +"You mustn't tempt me," he said; "I told you once I can't marry." + +"You told me once, when you didn't know I cared," agreed Stella. "I +understand your feeling that about a woman who didn't care or who only +cared a little, but not about a woman who really cares." + +"But, my dear child," said Julian, "that's what just makes it utterly +impossible. I can't understand how I ever was such a selfish brute as to +dream of taking Marian. I was ill at the time, and hadn't sized it up; +but if you think I'm going to let _you_ make such a sacrifice, you're +mistaken. I'd see you dead before I married you!" + +Stella's eyebrows lifted, but she did not seem impressed. + +"I think," she said gently, "you talk far too much as if it had only got +to do with you. Suppose I don't wish to see myself dead?" + +"Well, you must try to see the sense of it," Julian urged. "You're young +and strong; you ought to have a life. I'm sure you love children. You +like to be with me, and all that; you're the dearest companion a man +ever had. It isn't easy, Stella, to say I won't keep you; don't make it +any harder for me. I've looked at this thing steadily for months. I +don't mind owning that I thought you might get to care if I tried hard +enough to make you; but, darling, I honestly didn't try. You can't say I +wasn't awfully disagreeable and cross. I knew I was done for long ago, +but I thought you were all right. You weren't like a girl in love, you +were so quiet and--and sisterly and all that. If I'd once felt you were +beginning to care in that way, I'd have made some excuse; I wouldn't +have let it come to this. I'd rather die than hurt you." + +"Well, but you needn't hurt me," said Stella, "and neither of us need +die. It's not your love that wants to get rid of me, Julian; it's your +pride. But I haven't any pride in that sense, and I'm not going to let +you do it." + +"By Jove! you won't!" cried Julian. His eyes shot a gleam of amusement +at her. It struck him that the still little figure by his side was +extraordinarily formidable. He had never thought her formidable before. +He had thought her brilliant, intelligent, and enchanting, not +formidable; but he had no intention of giving way to her. Formidable or +not, he felt quite sure of himself. He couldn't let her down. + +"The sacrifice is all the other way," Stella went on. "You would be +sacrificing me hopelessly to your pride if you refused to marry me +simply because some one of all the things you want to give me you can't +give me. Do you suppose I don't mind,--mind for you, I mean, +hideously,--mind so much that if I were sure marrying you would make you +feel the loss more, I'd go away from you this minute and never come near +you again? But I do not think it will make it worse for you. You will +have me; you will have my love and companionship, and they are--valuable +to you, aren't they, Julian?" + +Julian's eyes softened and filled. + +"Yes," he muttered, turning his head away from her; "they're valuable." + +"Then," she said, "if you are like that to me, if I want you always, and +never anybody else, have you a right to rob me of yourself, Julian?" + +"If I could believe," he said, his voice shaking, "that you'd never be +sorry, never say to yourself, 'Why did I do it?' But, oh, my dear, you +know so little about the ordinary kind of love! You don't realize a bit, +and I do. It must make it all so confoundedly hard for you, and I'm such +an impatient chap. I mightn't be able to help you. And you're right: I'm +proud. If I once thought you cared less or regretted marrying me, it +would clean put the finish on it. But you're not right about not loving +you, Stella, that's worse than pride; loving you makes it impossible. I +can't take the risk for you. I'll do any other mortal thing you want, +but not that!" + +"Julian," asked Stella in a low voice, "do you think I am a human +being?" + +"Well, no!" said Julian. "Since you ask me, more like a fairy or an elf +or something. Why?" + +"Because you're not treating me as if I were," said Stella, steadily. +"Human beings have a right to their own risks. They know their own +minds, they share the dangers of love." + +"Then one of 'em mustn't take them all," said Julian, quickly. + +"How could one take them all?" said Stella. "I have to risk your pride, +and you have to risk my regret. As a matter of fact, your pride is more +of a certainty than a risk, and my regret is a wholly imaginary idea, +founded upon your ignorance of my character. Still, I'm willing to put +it like that to please you. You have every right to sacrifice yourself +to your own theories, but what about sacrificing me? I give you no such +right." + +For the first time Julian saw what loving Stella would be like; he would +never be able to get to the end of it. Marriage would be only the +beginning. She had given him her heart without an effort, and he found +that she was as inaccessible as ever. His soul leaped toward this new, +unconquerable citadel. He held himself in hand with a great effort. + +"What you don't realize," he said, "is that our knowledge of life is not +equal. If I take you at your word, you will make discoveries which it +will be too late for you to act upon. You cannot wish me to do what is +not fair to you." + +"I want my life to be with you," said Stella. "Whatever discoveries I +make, I shall not want them to be anywhere else. You do not understand, +but if you send me away, you will take from me the future which we might +have used together. You will not be giving me anything in its place but +disappointment and utter uselessness. You'll make me--morally--a +cripple. Do you still wish me to go away from you?" + +Julian winced as if she had struck him. + +"No, I'll marry you," he said; "but you've made me furiously angry. +Please go home by yourself. I wonder you dare use such an illustration +to me." + +Stella slipped over the verge of the hollow. She, too, wondered how she +had dared; but she knew quite well that if she hadn't dared, Julian +would have sent her away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Stella was afraid that when she went down to dinner it would be like +slipping into another life--a life to which she was attached by her love +for Julian, but to which she did not belong. It did not seem possible to +her that Lady Verny would be able to bear her as a daughter-in-law. As a +secretary it had not mattered in the least that she was shabby and +socially ineffective. And she couldn't be different; they'd have to take +her like that if they took her at all. She ranged them together in her +fear of their stateliness; she almost wished that they wouldn't take her +at all, but let her slink back to Redcliffe Square and bury herself in +her own insignificance. + +But when she went down-stairs she found herself caught in a swift +embrace by Lady Verny, and meeting without any barrier the adoration of +Julian's eyes. + +"My dear, my dear," said Lady Verny, "I always felt that you belonged to +me." + +"But are you pleased?" whispered Stella in astonishment. + +"Pleased!" cried Lady Verny, with a little shaken laugh. "I'm satisfied; +a thing that at my age I hardly had the right to expect." + +"Mother thinks it's all her doing," Julian explained. "It's her theory +that we've shown no more initiative than a couple of guaranteed Dutch +bulbs. Shall I tell you what she was saying before you came +down-stairs?" + +"Dear Julian," said Lady Verny, blushing like a girl, "you're so +dreadfully modern, you will frighten Stella if you say things to her so +quickly before she has got used to the idea of you." + +"She's perfectly used to the idea of me," laughed Julian, "and I've +tried frightening her already without the slightest success. Besides, +there's nothing modern about a madonna lily, which is what we were +discussing. My mother said, Stella, that she didn't care very much for +madonna lilies in the garden. They're too ecclesiastical for the other +flowers, but very suitable in church for weddings. And out in ten days' +time, didn't you say, Mother? I hope they haven't any of Stella's +procrastinating habits." + +"You mustn't mind his teasing, dear," Lady Verny said, smiling. "We will +go in to dinner now. You're a little late, but no wonder. I am delighted +to feel that now I have a right to scold you." + +"The thing that pleases me most," said Julian, "is that I shall be able +to remove Stella's apples and pears forcibly from her plate and peel +them myself. I forget how long she has been here, but the anguish I have +suffered meal by meal as I saw her plod her unreflecting way over their +delicate surfaces, beginning at the stalk and slashing upward without +consideration for any of the laws of nature, nothing but the +self-control of a host could have compelled me to endure. I offered to +peel them for her once, but she said she liked peeling them; and I was +far too polite to say, 'Darling, you've got to hand them over to me.' +I'm going to say it now, though, every time." + +"Hush, dear," said Lady Verny, nervously. "Thompson has barely shut the +door. I really don't know what has happened to your behavior." + +"I haven't any," said Julian. "I'm like the old lady in the earthquake +who found herself in the street with no clothes on. She bowed gravely to +a gentleman she had met the day before and said, 'I should be happy to +give you my card, Mr. Jones, but I have lost the receptacle.' Things +like that happen in earthquakes. I have lost my receptacle." He met +Stella's eyes and took the consent of her laughter. He was as happy with +her as a boy set loose from school. + +Lady Verny, watching him, was almost frightened at his lack of +self-restraint. "He has never trusted any one like this before," she +thought. "He is keeping nothing back." It was like seeing the released +waters of a frozen stream. + +While they sat in the hall before Julian rejoined them, Lady Verny +showed Stella all the photographs of Julian taken since he was a baby. + +There was a singularly truculent one of him, at three years old, with a +menacingly poised cricket-bat, which Stella liked best of all. Lady +Verny had no copy of it, but she pressed Stella to take it. + +"Julian will give you so many things," she said; "but I want to give you +something that you will value, and which is quite my own." So Stella +took the truculent baby, which was Lady Verny's own. + +"You look very comfortable sitting there together; I won't disturb you +for chess," Julian observed when he came in shortly afterward. "I was +wondering if you would like to hear what I did in Germany. It's a year +old now and as safe with you as with me, but it mustn't go any further." + +Julian told his story very quietly, leaning back against the cushions of +a couch by the open window. Above his head, Stella could see the dark +shapes of the black yew hedges and the wheeling of the bats as they +scurried to and fro upon their secret errands. + +Neither Lady Verny nor Stella moved until Julian had finished speaking. +It was the most thrilling of detective stories; but it is not often that +the roots of our being are involved in detective stories. + +They could not believe that he lay there before them, tranquilly +smoking a cigarette and breathed on by the soft June air. As they +watched his face comfort and security vanished. They were in a ruthless +world where a false step meant death. Julian had been in danger, but it +was never the danger which he had been in that he described; it was the +work he had set out to do and the way he had done it. He noticed danger +only when it obstructed him. Then he put his wits to meet it. They were, +as Stella realized, very exceptional wits for meeting things. Julian +combined imagination with strict adherence to fact. He had the courage +which never broods over an essential risk and the caution which avoids +all unnecessary ones. + +"Of course," he broke off for a moment, "you felt all the time rather +like a flea under a microscope. Don't underrate the Germans. As a +microscope there's nothing to beat them; where the microscope leaves off +is where their miscalculations begin. A microscope can tell everything +about a flea except where it is going to hop. + +"I had a lively time over my hopping; but the odd part of it was the +sense of security I often had, as if some one back of me was giving me +a straight tip. I don't understand concentration. You'd say it is your +own doing, of course, and yet behind your power of holding on to things, +it seems as if Something Else was holding on much harder. It's as if you +set a ball rolling, and some one else kicked it in the right direction. + +"After I'd been in Germany for a month I began to believe in an +Invisible Kicker-Off. It was company for me, for I was lonely. I had to +calculate every word I said, and there's no sense of companionship where +one has to calculate. The feeling that there was something back of me +was quite a help. I'd get to the end of my job, and then something fresh +would be pushed toward me. + +"For instance, I met a couple of naval officers by chance,--I wasn't out +for anything naval,--and they poured submarine facts into me as you pour +milk into a jug--facts that we needed more than the points I'd come to +find out. + +"I'm not at all sure," Julian finished reflectively, "that if you grip +hard enough under pressure, you don't tap facts. + +"Have you ever watched a crane work? You shift a lever, and it comes +down as easily as a parrot picks up a pencil; it'll lift a weight that a +hundred men can't move an inch, and swing it up as if it were packing +feathers. Funny idea, if there's a law that works like that. + +"I came back through Alsace and Lorraine, meaning to slip through the +French lines. A sentry winged me in the woods. Pure funk on his part; he +never even came to hunt up what he'd let fly at. But it finished my +job." + +Lady Verny folded up her embroidery. + +"It was worth the finish, Julian," she said quickly. "I am glad you told +me, because I had not thought so before." Then she left them. + +"It isn't finished, Julian," murmured Stella in a low voice. "It never +can be when it's you." + +"Well," said Julian, "it's all I've got to give you; so I'm rather glad +you like it, Stella." + +They talked till half the long summer night was gone. She sat near him, +and sometimes Julian let his hand touch her shoulder or her hair while +he unpacked his heart to her. The bitterness of his reserve was gone. + +"I think perhaps I could have stood it decently if it hadn't been for +Marian," he explained. "I was damned weak about her, and that's a fact. +You see, I thought she had the kind of feeling for me that women +sometimes have and which some men deserve; but I'm bound to admit I +wasn't one of them. When I saw that Marian took things rather the way I +should have taken them myself, I went down under it. I said, 'That's the +end of love.' It was the end of the kind I was fit for, the kind that +has an end. + +"Now I'm going to tell you something. I never shall again, so you must +make the most of it, and keep it to hold on to when I behave badly. +You've put the fear of God into me, Stella. Nothing else would have made +me give in to you; and you know I have given in to you, don't you?" + +"You've given me everything in the world I want," said Stella, gently, +"if that's what you call giving in to me." + +"I've done more than that," said Julian, quietly. "I've let you take my +will and turn it with that steady little hand of yours; and it's the +first time--and I don't say it won't be the last--that I've let any man +or woman change my will for me. + +"Now I'm going to send you to bed. I oughtn't to have you kept you up +like this; but if I've got to let you go back to your people to-morrow, +we had to know each other a little better first, hadn't we? I've been +trying not to know you all these months. + +"Before you go, would you mind telling me about Mr. Travers and the +cat?" + +"No," said Stella, with a startled look; "anything else in the world, +Julian, but not Mr. Travers and the cat." + +"Ostrog and I are frightfully jealous by nature," Julian pleaded. "He +wouldn't be at all nice to that cat if he met it without knowing its +history." + +"He can't be unkind to the poor cat," said Stella; "it's dead." + +"And is Mr. Travers dead, too?" asked Julian. + +"I should think," said Stella, "that he was about as dead as the +red-haired girl in the library." + +"What red-haired girl?" cried Julian, sharply. "Who's been telling +you--I mean what made you think I knew her? It's a remarkably fine bit +of painting." + +"But you did know her," said Stella; "only don't tell me anything about +her unless you want to." + +"I won't refuse to answer any questions you ask," said Julian after a +pause, "but I'd much rather wait until we're married. I am a little +afraid of hurting you; you wouldn't be hurt, you see, if you were used +to me and knew more about men. You're an awfully clever woman, Stella, +but the silliest little girl I ever knew." + +"I'll give up the red-haired girl if you'll give up Mr. Travers," said +Stella. She rose, and stood by his side, looking out of the window. + +"Do you want to say good night, or would you rather go to bed without?" +he asked her. + +"Of course I'll say good night," said Stella. "But, Julian, there are +some things I so awfully hate your doing. Saying good night doesn't +happen to be one of them. It's lighting my candle unless I'm sure you +want to. I want to be quite certain you don't mind me in little things +like that." + +Julian put his arms round her and kissed her as gently as he would have +kissed a child. "Of course you shall light your candle," he said +tenderly, "just to show I don't mind you. But it isn't my pride now. I +don't a bit object to your seeing I can't. I'm quite sure of you, you +see; unless you meant to hurt me, you simply couldn't do it. And if you +meant to hurt me, it would be because you wanted to stop me hurting +myself, like this afternoon, wouldn't it?" + +Stella nodded. She wanted to tell him that she had always loved him, +long before he remembered that she existed. All the while he had felt +himself alone, she was as near him as the air that touched his cheek. +But she could not find words in which to tell him of her secret +companionship. The instinct that would have saved them only brushed her +heart in passing. + +Julian was alarmed at her continued silence. + +"You're not frightened or worried or anything, are you?" he asked +anxiously. "Sure you didn't mind saying good night? It's not +compulsory, you know, even if we are engaged. I'd hate to bother you." + +"I'm not bothered," Stella whispered; "I--only love you. I was saying it +to you in my own way." + +"I'll wait three days for you," said Julian, firmly. "Not an hour more. +You quite understand, don't you, that I'm coming up at the end of three +days to bring you home for good?" + +Stella shivered as she thought of Redcliffe Square. Julian wouldn't like +Redcliffe Square, and she wouldn't be able to make him like it; and yet +she wouldn't be able not to mind his not liking it. + +Julian knew nothing about Redcliffe Square, but he noticed that Stella +shivered when he told her that he was going to bring her home for good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +It would be too strong an expression to say that after Stella's +departure Julian suffered from reaction. He himself couldn't have +defined what he suffered from, but he was uneasy. + +He had given himself away to Stella as he had never in his wildest +dreams supposed that one could give oneself away to a woman. But he +wasn't worrying about that; he hadn't minded giving himself away to +Stella. + +Samson was the character in the Old Testament whom Julian most despised, +because he had let Delilah get things out of him. What Samson had got +back hadn't been worth it, and could probably have been acquired without +the sacrifice of his hair. He had simply given in to Delilah because he +had a soft spot for her; and Delilah quite blamelessly (from Julian's +point of view) had retaliated by crying out, "The Philistines be upon +thee, Samson!" + +Julian had always felt perfectly safe with women of this type; they +couldn't have entrapped him. But there wasn't an inch of Delilah in +Stella. She had no Philistines up her sleeve for any of the +contingencies of life and she had not tried to get anything out of +Julian. + +That was where his uneasiness began. He understood her sufficiently to +trust her, but he was aware that beyond his confidence she was a mapless +country; he did not even know which was water and which was land. His +uncertainty had made him shrink from telling Stella about Eugénie +Matisse. + +If Marian had been sharp enough--she probably wouldn't have been--to +guess that Julian knew the girl in the picture, she would have known, +too, precisely what kind of girl she was, and she would have thought +none the worse of Julian. + +But he didn't know what Stella expected. He wasn't afraid that she would +cast him off for that or any other of his experiences; then he would +have told her. She would have forgiven him as naturally as she loved +him; but what if her forgiveness had involved her pain? + +He had spoken the truth when he told Stella that she had "put the fear +of God into him." Julian had not known much about God before or anything +about fear; but he was convinced now that the fear of God was not that +God might let you down, but that you might let down God. He wanted to be +as careful of Stella as if she had been a government secret. + +Did she know in the least what she was in for. Or was she like an +unconscious Iphigenia vowed off to mortal peril by an inadvertent +parent? + +He had done his best to make her realize the future, but there are +certain situations in life when doing one's best to make a person aware +of a fact is equivalent to throwing dust in his eyes. And Stella herself +might by a species of divine fooling, have outwitted both himself and +her. She might be marrying Julian for pity under the mask of love. + +Her pity was divine, and he could stand it for himself perfectly; but he +couldn't stand it for her. Why had she shivered when he had said he was +going to bring her home? He cursed his helplessness. If he had not been +crippled he would have taken her by surprise, and let his instincts +judge for him; but he had had to lie there like a log, knowing that if +he asked her to come to him, she would have blinded him by her swift, +prepared responsiveness. + +The moment on the downs hardly counted. She had been so frightened that +it had been like taking advantage of her to take her in his arms. + +The one comfort he clung to was her fierce thrust at his pride. He +repeated it over and over to himself for reassurance. She had said, if +he wouldn't marry her, he would make her morally a cripple. That really +sounded like love, for only love dares to strike direct at the heart. If +he could see her, he knew it would be all right; if even she had written +(she had written, of course, but had missed the midnight post), he would +have been swept back into the safety of their shared companionship. But +in his sudden loneliness he mistrusted fortune. When a man has had the +conceit knocked out of him, he is not immediately the stronger for it; +and he is the more vulnerable to doubt not only of himself, but of +others. The saddest part of self-distrust is that it breeds suspicion. + +It would be useless to speak to his mother about it, for, though a just +woman, she was predominantly his mother; she wanted Stella too much for +Julian to admit a doubt of Stella's wanting him for herself. She would +have tried to close all his questions with facts. This method of +discussion appealed to Julian as a rule, but he had begun to discover +that there are deeper things than facts. + +Lady Verny was in London at a flower show, and Julian was sitting in the +summer-house, which he was planning to turn into a room for Stella. His +misgivings had not yet begun to interfere with his plans. He had just +decided to have one of the walls above the water meadows replaced by +glass when his attention was attracted by the most extraordinary figure +he had ever seen. + +[Illustration: The most extraordinary figure we had ever seen] + +She was advancing rapidly down a grass path, between Lady Verny's +favorite herbaceous borders, pursued by the butler. At times Thompson, +stout and breathless, succeeded in reaching her side, evidently for the +purpose of expostulation, only to be swept backward by the impetuosity +of her speed. Eurydice was upon a secret mission. She had borrowed a +pound from Stella with which to carry it out; and she was not going to +be impeded by a butler. + +She no longer followed the theories of Mr. Bolt, but she still had to +wear out the kind of clothes that went with Mr. Bolt's theories. He +liked scarlet hats. Eurydice's hat was scarlet, and her dress was a long +purple robe that hung straight from her shoulders. + +It was cut low in the neck, with a system of small scarlet tabloids let +in around the shoulders. Golden balls, which were intended to represent +pomegranates, dangled from her waist. + +Eurydice's hair was thick and very dark; there was no doing anything +with it. Her eyebrows couched menacingly above her stormy eyes. Her +features were heavy and colorless, except her mouth, which was +unnaturally (and a little unevenly) red. + +She wore no gloves,--she had left them behind in the train,--and she +carried a scarlet parasol with a broken rib. + +"I wish you'd send this man away," she said as she approached Julian. +"He keeps getting under my feet, and I dislike menials. I saw where you +were for myself. I nearly got bitten by a brute of a dog on the terrace. +You have no right to keep a creature that's a menace to the public." + +"I regret that you have been inconvenienced," said Julian, politely; +"but I must point out to you that the public are not expected upon the +terrace of a private garden." + +"As far as that goes," said Eurydice, frowning at a big bed of blue +Delphiniums, "nobody has a right to have a private garden." + +Thompson, with an enormous effort, physical as well as spiritual, cut +off the end of the border by a flying leap, and reached the young +woman's elbow. + +"If you please, Sir Julian," he gasped, "this lady says she'd rather not +give her name. She didn't wish to wait in the hall, nor in the +drawing-room, sir, and I've left James sitting on Ostrog's 'ead,--or I'd +have been here before. What with one thing and another, Sir Julian, I +came as quickly as I could." + +"I saw you did, Thompson," said Julian, with a gleam of laughter; "and +now you may go. Tell James to get off Ostrog's head." He turned his eyes +on his visitor. "I am Miss Waring," she said as the butler vanished. + +"This is extraordinarily kind of you," Julian said, steadying himself +with one hand, and holding out his other to Eurydice. "I think you must +be Miss Eurydice, aren't you? I was looking forward to meeting you +to-morrow. I hope nothing is wrong with Stella?" + +"Everything is wrong with her," flashed Eurydice, ignoring his +outstretched hand; "but she doesn't know I've come to talk to you about +it. She'd never forgive me if she did. So if I say anything you don't +like, you can revenge yourself on me by telling her. I haven't come to +be _kind_, as you call it. I care far too much for the truth." + +"Still, you may as well sit down," said Julian, drawing a chair toward +her with his free hand. "The truth is quite compatible with a wicker +arm-chair. You needn't lean back in it if you're afraid of relaxing your +moral fiber. + +"As to revenge, I always choose my own, and even if you make it +necessary, I don't suppose it will include your sister. What you suggest +would have the disadvantage of doing that, wouldn't it? I mean the +disadvantage to me. It hasn't struck you apparently as a disadvantage +that you are acting disloyally toward your sister in doing what you know +she would dislike." + +Eurydice flung back her head and stared at him. She accepted the edge of +the wicker arm-chair provisionally. Her eyes traveled relentlessly over +Julian. She took in, and let him see that she took in, the full extent +of his injury; but she spared him pity. She looked as if she were +annoyed with him for having injuries. + +"What I'm doing," she said, "is my business, not yours. It mightn't +please Stella,--I must take the risk of that,--but if it saves her from +you, it will be worth it." + +Julian bowed; his eyes sparkled. An enemy struck him as preferable to a +secret doubt. + +"I didn't know," she said after a slight pause which Julian did nothing +to relieve, "that you were as badly hurt as you appear to be. It makes +it harder for me to talk to you as freely as I had intended." + +"I assure you," said Julian, smiling, "that you need have no such +scruples. My incapacities are local, and I can stand a long tongue as +well as most men, even if I like it as little." + +"I thought you would be insolent, and you are insolent," said Eurydice, +with gloomy satisfaction. "That was one of the things I said to Stella." + +Julian leaned forward, and for a moment his frosty, blue eyes softened +as he looked at her. + +"I admit I'm not very civil if I'm wrongly handled," he said in a more +conciliatory tone. "Your manner was just a trifle unfortunate, Miss +Eurydice; but I'd really like to be friends with you. I've not forgotten +that Stella told me you were her 'special' sister. Shall we start quite +afresh, and you just tell me as nicely as you know how what wrong you +think I'm doing Stella?" + +"I couldn't possibly be friends with you," Eurydice said coldly. "The +sight of you disgusts me." + +Julian lowered his eyes for a moment; when he raised them again the +friendliness had gone. They were as hard as wind-swept seas. + +"I suppose," he suggested quietly, "that you have some point to make. +Isn't that a little off it?" + +"I don't mean physically," said Eurydice, with a wave of her hand which +included his crutches. "You can't help being a cripple. It is morally I +am sick to think of you. Here you are, surrounded by luxury, waited on +hand and foot by menials, and yet you can't face your hardships +alone--you are so parasitic by nature that you have to drag down a girl +like Stella by trading on her pity." + +"It would," said Julian in a level voice, holding his temper down by an +effort, "be rather difficult for even the cleverest parasite to drag +your sister down in the sense of degrading her. Possibly you merely +refer to her having consented to marry me?" + +"No, I don't," said Eurydice, obstinately. "I call it dragging a person +down if you make them sacrifice their integrity. Stella and I always +agreed about that before. She cared more for the truth than anything. +Now she doesn't; she cares more about hurting your feelings. I faced her +with it last night, and she never even attempted to answer me. She only +said, 'Oh, don't!' and covered her face with her hands." + +"What unspeakable thing did you say to her?" asked Julian, savagely, +"to make her do that?" + +Ostrog, released from James, rejoined them, cowering down at his +master's feet; he was aware that he was in the presence of an anger +fiercer than his own. + +"I didn't come here to mince matters," said Eurydice, defiantly. "If you +want to know what I said to Stella, I asked her why she was going to +marry a tyrannical, sterile cripple?" + +For a moment Julian did not answer her; when he did, he had regained an +even quieter manner than before. + +"Very forcibly put," he said in a low voice; "and your sister covered +her face with her hands and said, 'Oh, don't!'--you must have felt very +proud of yourself." + +"If you think I like hurting Stella, you're wrong," said Eurydice. "But +I'd rather hurt her now than see her whole life twisted out of shape by +giving way to a feeling that isn't the strongest feeling in her, or I +wouldn't have come down here. But she didn't deny it." + +"What didn't she deny?" asked Julian. + +"What I came to tell you," said Eurydice. "The strongest feeling in +Stella's life is her love for Mr. Travers, and she gave him up because +she discovered that it was also the strongest thing in mine." + +Julian flung back his head. + +"Seriously, Miss Eurydice," he asked, "are you asking me to believe that +your sister's in love with a town clerk?" + +Eurydice flushed crimson under the undisguised amusement in Julian's +eyes. He was amused, even though he had suddenly remembered that Mr. +Travers was the name of the town clerk. + +"Why not?" asked Eurydice, fiercely. "He's wonderful. He isn't like +you--he works. He's like Napoleon, only he's always right, and _he_ +hasn't asked her to be his permanent trained nurse!" + +Julian had a theory that you cannot swear at women; so he caught the +words back, and wondered what would happen if Eurydice said anything +worse. + +"Don't you think," he said after a pause, "that if you insulted me once +every five minutes, and then took a little rest, we might finish +quicker? I will admit that there is no reason why Stella shouldn't be +in love with Mr. Travers except the reason that I have for thinking +she's in love with me." + +"Well, she isn't," asserted Eurydice. "She's awfully fond of you, but it +all started with her finding out that you were unhappier than she was. +She came to you to get over what she felt about Mr. Travers, and to free +him to care for me; but he doesn't. That's how I found out; I asked +him." + +"The deuce you did!" exclaimed Julian. "Poor old Travers!" + +Eurydice ignored this flagrant impertinence. She repeated Mr. Travers's +exact words: "I cared for your sister, Miss Waring; I am not a +changeable man." + +"But I notice," said Julian, politely, "that this profession of Mr. +Travers's feelings which you succeeded in wringing from him does not +include your sister's. I had already inferred from my slight knowledge +of your sister that Mr. Travers was attached to her. The inference was +easy." + +"I hoped that myself," said Eurydice--"I mean, that she didn't care. I +wrote and asked Cicely. She's my other sister; she hates me, but she's +just. She doesn't know about you, of course. Would you like to see her +letter?" + +"It seems a fairly caddish thing to do, doesn't it?" asked Julian, +pleasantly. "However, perhaps this is hardly the moment for being too +particular. Yes, you can hand me over the letter." Julian read: + + My dear Eurydice: + + You ask if I think Stella cared for Mr. Travers. I dislike this + kind of question very much. However, as you seem to have some + qualms of conscience at last, you may as well know that I think she + did. She's never had anything for herself. You've always taken all + there was to take, and I dare say she thought Mr. Travers ought to + be included. She never told me that she cared for him, but of + course even you must know that Stella wouldn't do such a thing as + that. She spoke during her illness of him once in a way that made + me suspect what she was feeling, added to which I was sure that she + was struggling against great mental pain, as well as physical. She + evidently wanted to get away from the town hall and leave Mr. + Travers to you. You can draw your own inferences from these facts. + Stella would rather be dragged to pieces by wild horses than tell + you any more; so, if I were you, I would avoid asking her. + + Your affectionate sister, + + CICELY. + +"You did ask her, of course," said Julian, handing Eurydice the letter; +"and as we are both acting in a thoroughly underhand way, perhaps you +will not mind repeating to me Stella's reply." + +"At first she didn't answer at all," said Eurydice, slowly, "and then +when I asked her again she said; 'I'm not going to tell you anything at +all about Mr. Travers. I came here to tell you about Julian, only you +won't listen to me.' Then," said Eurydice, "she cried." + +"Please don't tell me any more," said Julian, quickly, shading his eyes +with his hand. "I should be awfully obliged if you'd go. I think you've +said enough." + +Eurydice also thought that she had said enough; so she returned with the +satisfaction of one who has accomplished a mission, on the rest of +Stella's pound. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + This is going to be my last love-letter to you, Stella. I wonder if + you will know it is a love-letter. It won't sound particularly like + one. It's to tell you that I can't go through with our marriage. I + can't give you my reasons, and I can't face you without giving them + to you. You must try to take my word for it that I am doing what I + think best for both of us. + + You see, I trust you to do what I want, though I know I am acting + in a way that you'll despise. If you will think of what it means + for me to act in such a way, you'll realize that I am pretty + certain that I am right. + + You are the best friend I ever had, man or woman, and I know you + value my friendship, so that it seems uncommonly mean to take it + away from you; and yet I'm afraid I can't be satisfied with your + friendship. + + It would honestly make me happier to hear that you were married; + but I couldn't meet you afterward, and if you don't marry, I + couldn't let you alone. + + You see, I tried that plan when I didn't know you'd let me do + anything else, and it can't be said to have worked very well, can + it? It would be quite impossible now. There are two things I'd like + you to remember. One is, if you set out, as I think you did, to + heal a broken man, you've succeeded, and nothing can take away + from your success. You put in a new mainspring. I am going to work + now. Some day I'll finish the book, but not yet. The second thing + is something I want you to do for me. I know I have no right to ask + you! I'm only appealing to your mercy. Will you let my mother help + you a little? I know you won't let me, but you would have let me, + Stella. Think what that means to me--to know that you would have + taken my help, and that by freeing you I am also, in a sense, + deserting you. If you still want to make a man happier who has only + been a nuisance to you, you can't say I haven't shown you the way. + + I should like to give you Ostrog, but I suppose he'd be out of + place in a town hall. + + I'm not going to ask you to forgive me; for I'm not really sorry + for anything except that there wasn't more of it and I'm never + going to forget anything. + + Good-by. + + Your lover, + + JULIAN. + +Stella was in the middle of ironing the curtains when she received +Julian's letter. Everything else was ready for his visit except the +curtains. + +Mrs. Waring was dressed. It had taken several hours, a needle and +cotton, and all the pins in the house, and now she was sitting in a +drawing-room which was tidier than any she had sat in since her early +married life. She thought that it looked a little bare. + +Professor Waring was in the Museum. He had become so restless after +breakfast that it had seemed best to despatch him there, and retrieve +him after Julian arrived. + +Eurydice had not asked Mr. Travers for a morning off; she had merely +conceded that she would allow Stella to arrange a subsequent meeting +with Julian on Sunday, if it was really necessary. + +Eurydice kissed Stella tenderly before she left the house to go to the +town hall. She knew that she had saved her sister, but she foresaw for +the victim of salvation a few painful moments. Even a kindly Providence +may have its twinges of remorse. + +Stella let the iron get cold while she was reading Julian's letter; but +when she had finished it, she heated the iron again and went on with the +curtains. They could not be hung up rough dried. + +Mrs. Waring was relieved to hear that Julian was not coming. Stella told +her at once, while she was slipping the rings on the curtains, which she +had brought up-stairs. She added a little quickly, but in her ordinary +voice: + +"And we aren't going to be married, after all." + +"Dear me!" said Mrs. Waring, trying not to appear more relieved still. +"Then there won't have to be any new arrangements. Marriage is very +unreliable, too--it turns out so curiously unlike what it begins, and it +even begins unlike what one had expected. I often wish there could be +more mystical unions. I can't agree with dear Eurydice about the +drawback of Julian's being rich. We are told that money is the root of +all evil, but there is no doubt that it is more peaceful and refreshing +to have it, as it were, growing under one's hand; and, after all, evil +is only seeming. I think I'll just go up-stairs and take off these +constricting clothes, unless, dear, you'd like me to help you in any +way. You'll remember, won't you, that sensation is but the petal of a +flower?" + +Stella said that she thought, if she had the step-ladder, she would be +all right. + +The only moment of the day (it was curiously made up of moments +prolonged to seem like years) when Stella wasn't sure whether she was +really all right or not was when she heard Lady Verny's voice in the +hall. Lady Verny's voice was singularly like Julian's. + +Something happened to Stella's heart when she heard it; it had an +impulse to get outside of her. She had to sit down on the top of the +stairs until her heart had gone back where it belonged. + +The drawing-room had gone to pieces again. The kitten's saucer was in +the middle of the floor, and the plate-basket came half in and half out +of the sofa-cover. Lady Verny was looking at it with fascinated eyes. +She had never seen a plate-basket under a sofa-cover before. Mrs. +Waring, exhausted by her hours of dressing, had gone to lie down. So +there was only Stella. She came in a little waveringly, and looked at +Lady Verny without speaking. + +Lady Verny shot a quick, penetrating glance at her, and then held out +her arms. + +"My dear! what has he done? What has he done?" she murmured. + +Stella led Lady Verny carefully away from the saucer of milk into the +only safe arm-chair; then she sat down on a footstool at her feet. + +"I thought," she said in a very quiet voice, "that you'd come, but I +didn't think you'd come so soon. I don't know what he's done." + +"It's all so extravagant and absurd," said Lady Verny, quickly, "and so +utterly unlike Julian! I have never known him to alter an arrangement in +his life, and as to breaking his word! I left him happier than I have +ever seen him. He'd been telling me that you insisted on my staying with +you after your marriage. I told him that I had always thought it a most +out-of-place and unsuitable plan, and that he couldn't have two women in +our respective positions in his house, and he laughed and said: 'Oh, +yes, I can. Stella has informed me that marrying me isn't a position; +it's to be looked on in the light of an intellectual convenience. You're +to run the house, and she's to run me. I've quite fallen in with it.' I +think that was the last thing he said, and when I came back, there was +his astounding letter to say that your marriage was impossible, and that +I was on no account to send him on your letters or to refer to you in +mine. + +"He gave me his banker's address, and said that he'd see me later on, +and had started some intelligence work for the War Office. He was good +enough to add that I might go and see you if I liked. I really think he +must be mad, unless you can throw some light on the subject. A letter +came from you after he had gone." + +Stella, who had been without any color at all, suddenly flushed. + +"Ah," she said, "I'm glad he didn't read that before he went! I mean, if +he'd gone after reading it, I should have felt--" She put out her hands +with a curious little helpless gesture, but she did not say what she +would have felt. + +"Can't you explain?" Lady Verny asked gravely. "Can't you explain +_anything_? You _were_ perfectly happy, weren't you? I haven't been a +blind, meddling, incompetent old idiot, have I?" + +Stella shook her head. + +"When he left me," she said, "he gave me this." She took it out of her +belt and handed it to Lady Verny; it was a check for two hundred pounds +inclosed in a piece of paper, on which was written, "Dearest, please!" +"I took it," said Stella. + +Lady Verny was silent for a moment; then she said more gravely still: + +"My dear, I think I ought to tell you something,--it is not fair not to +let you have every possible indication that there is,--but the day after +you left, while I was away, I hear from Thompson, who seemed to be +extremely upset by her, that a lady _did_ call to see Julian and she +would not give her name. Thompson says he thinks she was a foreigner. + +"I do not know what Julian may have told you about his life, but I +myself am quite positive he would have asked no woman to marry him +unless he felt himself free from any possible entanglement. Still, there +it is: he went away after this person's visit." + +For a moment it seemed to Stella that some inner citadel of security +within her had collapsed. She knew so little about men; she had nothing +but her instincts to guide her, and the memory of Eugénie Matisse's +evil, laughing eyes. She covered her face with her hands and shut out +every thought but Julian. It seemed to her as if she had never been so +alone with him before, as if in some strange, hidden way she was +plunging into the depths of his soul. + +When she looked up she had regained her calm. + +"No," she said; "I am quite sure of Julian. Perhaps some woman could +make him feel shaken--shaken about its being right to marry me. I can +believe that, if she was very cruel and clever and knew how to hurt him +most; but there is nothing else, or Julian would have told me." + +Lady Verny gave a long sigh of relief. + +"That is what I think myself," she said; "but I couldn't have tried to +persuade you of it. My dear, did Julian know that you had always loved +him?" + +Stella shook her head. + +"I thought he knew all that mattered," she explained. "I didn't tell him +anything else. You see, there was so very little time, and I was rather +cowardly, perhaps. I didn't want him just _at once_ to know that I had +loved him before he even knew that I existed." + +"I see, I see," said Lady Verny. "But would you mind his knowing now? He +can't be allowed to behave in this extraordinary way, popping off like +a conjurer without so much as leaving a decent address behind him. I +intend to tell him precisely what I think of his behavior, and I hope +that you will do the same." + +Stella turned round to face Lady Verny. + +"No," she said firmly; "neither of us must do that. I don't know why +Julian has done this at all, but it is quite plain that he does not want +to be interfered with. He wishes to act alone, and I think he must act +alone. I shall not write to him or try to see him." + +"But, my dear child," exclaimed Lady Verny, "how, if we enter into this +dreadful conspiracy of silence, can anything come right?" + +"I don't know," said Stella, quietly; "but Julian let it go wrong quite +by himself, and I think it must come right, if it comes right at all, in +the same way. If it didn't, he would distrust it. I shouldn't--I should +be perfectly happy just to see him; but, then, you see, I _know_ it's +all right. Julian doesn't. Seeing me wouldn't make it so; it would +simply make him give in, and go on distrusting. We couldn't live like +that. You see, I don't _know_ what has happened; but I do know what he +wants, so I think I must do it." + +"But you don't think this state of things is what he _wants_, do you?" +Lady Verny demanded. "I may of course be mistaken, but up till now I +have been able to judge fairly well what a man wanted of a woman when he +couldn't take his eyes off her face." + +"He wants me more than that," said Stella, proudly. "I think he wants me +very nearly--not quite--as much as I want him. That's why I couldn't +make him take less than he wanted. To take me and not trust me would be +to take less. If we leave him quite alone for six months or a year, +perhaps, he'll have stopped shutting his mind up against his feelings. +It might be safer then to make an appeal to him; but I shouldn't like to +appeal to him. Still, I don't say I won't do anything you think right, +dear Lady Verny, if you want me to, to make him happier; only I must be +_sure_ that it will make him happier _first_. I know now that it +wouldn't." + +"You're the most extraordinary creature!" said Lady Verny. "Of course I +always knew you were, but it's something to be so justified of one's +instincts. I'm not sure that I sha'n't do precisely what you say--for +quite different reasons. Julian will count on one of us disobeying his +injunctions, and he'll be perfectly exasperated not to have news of you. +Well, exasperation isn't going to do any man any harm; it'll end by +jerking him into some common-sense question, if nothing else will." + +Stella smiled, but she shook her head. + +"Please don't hope," she said under her breath. + +"There's one thing," Lady Verny said after a short pause, "that I do ask +you to be sensible about. I can't take you abroad, as there hardly seems +at the present time any abroad to take you to, but I want you to come +and live with me. I think, after all this, I really rather need a +companion." + +Stella hid her face in Lady Verny's lap. + +"I can't," she whispered. "You're too like him." + +Lady Verny said nothing at all for a moment; she looked about the room. +It was clean; for a London room it was quite clean, and Stella thought +she had hidden all the holes in the carpet. Lady Verny's ruthless, +practised eye took the faded, shabby little room to pieces and +reconstructed the rest of the dingy makeshift home from it. She knew +that Stella's room would be the worst of all. + +"My dear," she said at last, "you are so very nearly a member of my +family that I think I may appeal to you about its honor. Are you going +to live like this and not let me help you? You are not strong enough to +work, and this folly of poor Julian's won't make you any stronger. Since +you can't live with me, won't you accept a little of what is really +yours?" + +"Money?" asked Stella, looking up into Lady Verny's face. "I would if +you weren't his mother, because I love you; but I can't now. You see, +Julian's taken his honor away from me; he's left me only my own. I know +he'll think me cruel, and I'll never return what I did take. He'll think +perhaps I would use it, if I needed it, and that may make him happier; +but I mustn't take any more. I must be cruel." + +"Yes, you're very cruel," said Lady Verny, kissing her. "Well, I sha'n't +bully you, for I wouldn't do it myself. It'll only make my heart ache in +a new way, and really, I'm so used to its aching that I oughtn't to +grumble at any fresh manifestation. As to Julian's heart, he's been so +extraordinarily silly that only the fact that folly is a sign of love +induces me to believe he's got one." She rose to her feet, with her arms +still about Stella. "I'm simply not to mention you at all?" she asked. + +Stella shook her head. She clung to Lady Verny speechlessly, but without +tears. + +"And when I see him next," Lady Verny asked a little dryly,--"and, +presumably, he'll send for me in about a fortnight,--he'll say, 'Well, +did she take the money'? What am I to answer to that?" + +"Say," whispered Stella, "that she would have liked to take it, but she +couldn't." + +"I could make up something a great deal crueller to say than that," said +Lady Verny, grimly. "However, I dare say you're right; it sounds so +precisely like you that it's bound to hurt him more than any gibe." + +Stella burst into tears. + +"Oh, don't! don't!" she sobbed. "You must--you must be kind to him! I +don't want anything in the world to hurt him." + +"I know you don't," said Lady Verny, gently. "You little silly, I only +wanted to make you cry. It'll be easier if you cry a little." + +Stella cried more than ever then, because Lady Verny was so terribly +like Julian. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was the hour of the day that Julian liked least. Until four o'clock +in the afternoon his mind was protected by blinkers; he saw the road +ahead of him, but the unmerciful vastness of the world was hidden from +him. He was thankful that he could not see it, because it was possessed +by Stella. + +He could keep her out of his work; but there was no other subject she +left untouched, no prospect that was not penetrated with her presence, +no moment of his consciousness that she did not ruthlessly share. + +He knew when he left her that he must be prepared for a sharp wrench and +an unforgetable loss; what he had not foreseen was that the wrench would +be continuous, and that he would be confronted by her presence at every +turn. + +Women's faces had haunted him before, and he had known what it was to be +maddened by the sudden cessation of an intense relationship; but that +was different. He could not remember Stella's face; he had no visual +impression of her physical presence; he had simply lost the center of +his thoughts. He felt as if he were living in a nightmare in which one +tries to cross the ocean without a ticket. + +He was perpetually starting lines of thought which were not destined to +arrive. For the first few weeks it was almost easier; he felt the +immediate relief which comes from all decisive action, and he was able +to believe that he was angry with Stella. She had obeyed him implicitly +by not writing, and his mother never mentioned her except for that worst +moment of all when she gave him Stella's words, without comment. "She +would like to take the money, but she cannot do it." This fed his anger. + +"If I'd been that fellow Travers, I suppose she'd have taken it right +enough," he said to himself, bitterly, and without the slightest +conviction. He said nothing at all to his mother. Julian knew why Stella +had not taken the money. It was because she had not consented to what he +had done; he had forced her will. Of all her remembered words, the ones +that remained most steadily in his mind were: "You are not only +sacrificing yourself; you are sacrificing me. I give you no such right." + +That was her infernal woman's casuistry. He had a perfect right to save +her. He was doing what a man of honor ought to do, freeing a woman he +loved from an incalculable burden. It was no use Stella's saying she +ought to have a choice,--pity had loaded her dice,--and it was sheer +nonsense to accuse him of pride. He hadn't any. He'd consented to take +her till he found she had a decent marriage at her feet. He couldn't +have done anything else then but give her up. The greatest scoundrel +unhung wouldn't have done anything else. It relieved Julian to compare +himself to this illusory and self-righteous personage. + +As to facing Stella with it, which he supposed was her fantastic claim, +it only showed what a child she was and how little Stella knew about the +world or men. There were things you couldn't tell a woman. Stella was +too confoundedly innocent. + +Why should he put them both to a scene of absolute torture? Surely he +had endured enough. He wasn't a coward, but to meet her eyes and go +against her was rather more than he could undertake, knocked about as he +was by every kind of beastly helplessness. He fell back upon self-pity +as upon an ally; it helped him to obscure Stella's point of view. She +ought to have realized what it would make him suffer; and she didn't, or +she would have taken the money. He did well, he assured himself, to be +angry; everything in life had failed him. Stella had failed him. But at +this point his prevailing sanity shook him into laughter. He could still +laugh at the idea of Stella's having failed him. + +You do not fail people because you refuse to release them from acting up +to the standard you had expected of them; you fail them when you expect +less of them than they can give you. When Julian had faced this fact +squarely he ceased to beat about the bush of his vanity. He confessed to +himself that he was a coward not to have had it out with Stella. But he +acquiesced in this spiritual defeat; he assured himself that there were +situations in life when for the sake of what you loved you had to be a +coward. Of course it was for Stella's sake; a man, he argued, doesn't +lie down on a rack because he likes it. + +He wished he could have gone on being angry with Stella, because when he +stopped being angry he became frightened. + +He was haunted by the fear of Stella's poverty. He didn't know anything +about poverty except that it was disagreeable and a long way off. He had +a general theory that people who were very poor were either used to it +or might have helped it; but this general theory broke like a bubble at +the touch of a special instance. + +The worst of it was that Stella had not really told him anything about +her life. He knew that her father was a well-known Egyptologist, that +her mother had various odd ethical beliefs, and he knew all that he +wanted to know about Eurydice. But of Stella's actual life, of its +burdens and its cares, what had she told him? That there weren't any +bells in the house and that the clocks didn't go. + +This showed bad management and explained her unpunctuality, but it +explained nothing more. It did not tell Julian how poor she was, or if +she was properly looked after when she came home from work. + +If she married Travers, she would have about nine hundred a year. Julian +had made investigations into the income of metropolitan town clerks. + +He supposed that people could just manage on this restricted sum, with +economy; but there seemed no reliable statistics about the incomes of +famous Egyptologists. Why hadn't he asked Stella? She ought to have told +him without being asked. He tried being angry with her for her +secretiveness, but it hurt him, so he gave it up. He knew she would have +told him if he had asked her. + +Julian made himself a nuisance at the office for which he worked on the +subject of pay for woman clerks. It relieved him a little, but not much. + +Logically he ought to have felt only his own pain, which he could have +stood; he had made Stella safe by it. But he had deserted her; he +couldn't get this out of his head. He kept saying to himself, "If she's +in any trouble, why doesn't she go to Travers?" But he couldn't believe +that Stella would ever go to Travers. + +The lighting restrictions--it was November, and the evening +thoroughfares were as dark as tunnels--unnerved him. Stella might get +run over; she was certain to be hopelessly absent-minded in traffic, and +would always be the last person to get on to a crowded bus. + +It was six months since he had broken off their engagement. Julian did +not think it could possibly remind Stella of him if he sent her, +addressed by a shop assistant, a flash-light lamp for carrying about the +streets. She wouldn't send back a thing as small as a torch-lamp, even +if she did dislike anonymous presents. He was justified in this +conjecture. Stella kept the lamp, but she never had a moment's doubt as +to whom it came from; if it had had "Julian" engraved on it she couldn't +have been surer. + +Julian always drove to his club at four o'clock, so that he didn't have +to take his tea alone. He didn't wish to talk to anybody, but he liked +being disturbed. Then he played bridge till dinner, dined at the club, +and went back to his rooms, where he worked till midnight. This made +everything quite possible except when he couldn't sleep. + +He sat in an alcove, by a large, polished window of the club. It was +still light enough to see the faces of the passers-by, to watch the +motor-buses lurching through the traffic like steam tugs on a river, and +the shadows creeping up from Westminster till they filled the green park +with the chill gravity of evening. + +A taxi drew up opposite to the club, and a man got out of it. There was +nothing particularly noticeable about the man except that he was very +neatly dressed. Julian took an instant and most unreasonable dislike to +him. He said under his breath, "Why isn't the fellow in khaki?" + +The man paid the driver what was presumably, from the scowl he received +in return, his exact fare. Then he prepared to enter the club. He did +not look in the least like any of the men who belonged to Julian's club. +A moment later the waiter brought to Julian a card with "Mr. Leslie +Travers" engraved upon it. + +"Confound his impudence," was Julian's immediate thought. "Why on earth +should I see the fellow?" Then he realized that he was being angry +simply because Mr. Travers had probably seen Stella. + +Julian instantly rejected the idea that Stella had sent Mr. Travers to +see him; she wouldn't have done that. He wasn't in any way obliged to +receive him; still, there was just the off chance that he might hear +something about Stella if he did. Julian would rather have heard +something about Stella from a condemned murderer; but as Providence had +not provided him with this source of information, he decided to see the +town clerk instead. You could say what you liked to a man if he happened +to annoy you, and Julian rather hoped that Mr. Travers would give him +this opportunity. + +Mr. Travers entered briskly and without embarrassment. His official +position had caused him to feel on rather more than an equality with the +people he was likely to meet. He did not think that Sir Julian Verny was +his equal. + +Mr. Travers considered all members of the aristocracy loafers. Even when +they worked, they did it, as it were, on their luck. They had had none +of the inconveniences and resulting competence of having climbed from +the bottom of the ladder to the top by their own unaided efforts. + +There were three or four other men in the room when he entered it, but +Mr. Travers picked out Julian in an instant. Their eyes met, and neither +of them looked away from the other. Julian said stiffly: "Sit down, +won't you? What will you take--a whisky and soda?" + +"Thanks," said Mr. Travers, drawing up a chair opposite Julian and +placing his hat and gloves carefully on the floor beside him. "I do not +drink alcohol in between meals, but I should like a little aërated +water." + +Julian stared at him fixedly. This was the man Eurydice had compared +with Napoleon, to the latter's disadvantage. + +Mr. Travers refused a cigar, and sat in an arm-chair as if there were a +desk in front of him. It annoyed Julian even to look at him. + +"I have no doubt," said Mr. Travers, "that you are wondering why I +ventured to ask you for this interview." + +"I'm afraid I am, rather," Julian observed, with hostile politeness. "I +know your name, of course." + +"Exactly," said Mr. Travers, as if Julian had presented him with a +valuable concession greatly to his advantage. "I had counted upon that +fact to approach you directly and without correspondence. One should +avoid black and white, I think, when it is possible, in dealing with +personal matters." + +"I am not aware," said Julian, coldly, "that there are any personal +matters between us to discuss." + +"I dare say not," replied Mr. Travers, blandly, placing the tips of his +fingers slowly together. "You may have observed, Sir Julian, that +coincidences bring very unlikely people together at times. I admit that +they have done so in this instance." + +"What for?" asked Julian, succinctly. He found that he disliked Mr. +Travers quite as much as he intended to dislike him, and he despised him +more. + +"An injustice has been brought to my notice," said Mr. Travers, slowly +and impressively. He was not in the least flurried by Julian's hostile +manner, which he considered was due to an insufficient business +education; it only made him more careful as to his own. "I could not +overlook it, and as it directly concerns you, Sir Julian, I am prepared +to make a statement to you on the subject." + +"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you," said Julian; "but I trust you will +make the statement as short and as little personal as possible." + +"Speed," Mr. Travers said reprovingly, "is by no means an assistance in +elucidating personal problems; and I may add, Sir Julian, that it is at +least as painful for me as for you, to touch upon personal matters with +a stranger." + +"The fact remains," said Julian, impatiently, "that you're doing it, and +I'm not. Go on!" + +Mr. Travers frowned. Town clerks are not as a rule ordered to go on. +Even their mayors treat them with municipal hesitancy. Still, he went +on. Julian's eyes held him as in a vice. + +"You have probably heard my name," Mr. Travers began, "from the elder +Miss Waring." Julian nodded. "She was for two years and a half my +secretary. I may say that she was the most efficient secretary I have +ever had. There have been, I think, few instances in any office where +the work between a man and woman was more impersonal or more +satisfactory. It is due to the elder Miss Waring that I should tell you +this. It was in fact entirely due to her, for I found myself unable to +continue it. There was a lapse on my part. Miss Waring was consideration +itself in her way of meeting this--er--lapse; but she unconditionally +refused me." + +Julian drew a quick breath, and turned his eyes away from Mr. Travers. + +"At the same time," Mr. Travers continued, "she gave me to understand, +in order, I fancy, to palliate my error of judgment, that her affections +were engaged elsewhere." + +Julian could not speak. His pride had him by the throat. He could not +tell Mr. Travers to go on now, although he felt as if his life depended +on it. + +"There are one or two points which I put together, at a later date," Mr. +Travers continued, after a slight pause, "and by which I was able to +connect Miss Waring's statement with her subsequent actions. She is, if +I may say so, a woman who acts logically. You were the man upon whom her +affections were placed, Sir Julian, and that was her only reason for +accepting your proposal of marriage." + +Julian stared straight in front of him. It seemed to him as if he heard +again the music of Chaliapine--the unconquerable music of souls that +have outlasted their defeat. He lost the sound of Mr. Travers's +punctilious, carefully lowered voice. When he heard it again, Mr. +Travers was saying: + +"It came to my knowledge through an interview with the younger Miss +Waring, who has also become one of our staff, that she had regrettably +misinformed you as to her sister's point of view. The younger Miss +Waring acts at times impetuously and without judgment, but she had no +intention whatever of harming her sister. She has been deeply anxious +about her for the last few months, and she at length communicated her +anxiety to me." + +"Anxious," exclaimed Julian, sharply. "What the devil's she anxious +about?" + +"Her sister's state of health is not at all what it should be," Mr. +Travers said gravely. "She looks weak and thin, and she occasionally +forgets things. This is a most unusual and serious sign in a woman of +her capacity." + +"Damn her capacity!" said Julian savagely. "Why on earth couldn't you +stop her working?" + +"It is not in my province to stop people earning their daily bread," +said Mr. Travers, coldly, "and I have never discussed this or any other +private question with the elder Miss Waring since her return. When she +came back to the town hall she refused to displace her sister, who had +undertaken her former work and went into the surveyor's office." + +"All right, all right," said Julian, hastily. "I dare say you couldn't +have helped it; but how on earth did you find out if you've never talked +to Miss Waring, what had happened?" + +"I investigated the matter," said Mr. Travers, "with the younger Miss +Waring. She confessed to me, under some slight pressure on my part, her +very mistaken conclusions, and the action she had based upon them. I +sent her at once, without mentioning what course of action I had decided +to take myself, to her sister." + +"You shouldn't have done that," said Julian, with the singular injustice +Mr. Travers had previously noted and disliked in members of the upper +classes. "There wasn't any need to give Eurydice away to her; I could +have managed without that." + +"You forget," said Mr. Travers, steadily, "the younger Miss Waring had +forfeited her sister's confidence; it would have been impossible to +avoid clearing up the situation by bringing all the facts to light. It +will not, I feel sure, cause permanent ill feeling between the two +sisters." + +Julian gave a long, curious sigh. His relief was so intense that he +could hardly believe in it; but he could believe, not without +reluctance, in the hand that had set him free. It had taken a town clerk +to show him where he stood. + +"It would be difficult," he began--"By Jove! it's impossible to express +thanks for this kind of thing! You won't expect it, perhaps, and I know +of course, you didn't do it for me. For all that, I'm not ungrateful. +I--well--I think you're more of a man than I am, Travers." + +"Not at all, Sir Julian," said Mr. Travers, who privately felt surprised +that there should be any doubt upon the matter. "Any one would have +done precisely the same who had the good fortune to know the elder Miss +Waring." + +"Perhaps they would," said Julian, smiling, "or, you might add, the +misfortune to come across the erratic proceedings of the younger one." + +Mr. Travers looked graver still. + +"There I cannot agree with you," he said quietly. "Perhaps I should have +mentioned the matter before, but it scarcely seemed germane to the +occasion; I am about to marry Miss Eurydice." + +A vivid memory of Eurydice shot through Julian's mind. He saw her +advancing down the grass path arrayed in the purple garment, with the +scarlet hat and the dangling pomegranates; and the thought of her in +conjunction with the town clerk was too much for him. Laughter seized +him uncontrollably and shook him. He flung back his head and roared with +laughter, and the graver and more disapproving Mr. Travers looked, the +more helplessly and shamelessly Julian laughed. + +"I'm most frightfully sorry," he gasped, "but I can't help it. Are you +sure you're going to marry her? I mean, _must_ you?" + +Mr. Travers took his hat and gloves carefully in his hand. + +"This is not a subject I care to discuss with you, Sir Julian," he said, +with dignity, "nor is your tone a suitable one in which to refer to a +lady. A man of my type does not shilly-shally on the question of +matrimony; either he is affianced or he is _not_. I have already told +you that I am. You may have some excuse for misjudging the younger Miss +Waring; but there can be no excuse whatever for your flippant manner of +referring to our marriage. It is most uncalled for. I might say +offensive." + +A spasm of returning laughter threatened Julian again, but he succeeded +in controlling it. + +"My dear Travers," he said, holding out his hand, "please don't go away +with a grievance. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself as it is, and more +grateful to you than I can possibly express. You'll forgive me for not +getting up, won't you? And try to overlook my bad manners." + +It was the first time during the interview that Mr. Travers realized +Julian's disabilities, but they did not make him feel more lenient. + +Mr. Travers liked an invalid to behave as if he were an invalid, and he +thought that a man in Julian's position should not indulge in unseemly +mirth. + +"Pray don't get up," he said coldly. "I am bound to accept your apology, +of course, though I must confess I think your laughter very ill timed." + +Julian took this rebuke with extraordinary humility. He insisted on +giving Mr. Travers an unnecessarily cordial hand-shake, and invited him +to drop in again at some hour when he would have a drink. + +Mr. Travers waived aside this suggestion, he did not wish to continue +Julian's acquaintance and he disapproved of Julian's club. The large +luxurious lounges, the silent obsequious servants and the sprinkling of +indolent men swallowed up in soft arm-chairs, bore out Mr. Travers's +opinion of the higher classes. They were drones--whether they were in +khaki or not. + +Mr. Travers sighed heavily as he crossed the threshold. "She was a +perfect business woman," he said to himself bitterly, "nipped in the +bud." + +For the first time since Mr. Travers had known her, he found himself +doubting the judgment of the elder Miss Waring. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Julian's first impulse was to drive to the town hall and carry Stella +off. He was debarred from doing so only by a secret fear that she might +refuse to come. He was a little afraid of this first meeting with +Stella. She might haul him over the coals as much as she liked; but he +wanted to stage-manage the position of the coals. + +He decided after a few moments of reflection to ring her up on the +telephone. The porter at the other end said that Miss Waring was still +at work, and seemed to think that this settled the question of any +further effort on his part. Julian speedily undeceived him. He used +language to the town hall porter which would have lifted every separate +hair from Mr. Travers's head. It did not have this effect upon the +porter. He was a man who appreciated language, and he understood that +there was an expert at the other end of the line. It even spurred him +into a successful search for Stella. + +"That you, Stella?" Julian asked, "Do you know who's speaking to you?" + +There was a pause before she answered a little unsteadily: + +"Yes, Julian." + +"Well," said Julian, with an anxiety he could hardly keep out of his +voice, "I want to see you for a few minutes if you can spare the time. +Will you come to the Carlton to tea? I suppose I mustn't ask you to my +rooms." + +"I can't do either," replied Stella. "I'm too busy. Can't you wait till +Saturday?" + +"Impossible," Julian replied firmly. "May I come and fetch you in a +taxi? I suppose you don't dine and sleep at the town hall, do you?" + +"No, you mustn't do that," said Stella, quickly; "but you can come to +the Cottage Dairy Company, which is just opposite here, if you like. I +shall go there for a cup of tea at five o'clock. I can spare you half an +hour, perhaps." + +"Oh, you will, will you?" said Julian, grimly. "I suppose I +must be thankful for what I can get. Five sharp, then, at the +what-you-may-call-'em." + +Stella put up the receiver, but he thought before she did so that he +heard her laugh. + +Julian had never been to the Cottage Dairy Company before. It was a very +nice, clean, useful little shop, and there was no necessity for him to +take such an intense dislike to it. The rooms are usually full, and for +reasons of space the tables are placed close together. The tables are +marble-topped and generally clean. There is not more smell of inferior +food than is customary in the cheaper restaurants of London. + +Julian arrived at five minutes to the hour, and he turned the place +literally upside down. It did no good, because Cottage Dairy Companies +are democratic, and do not turn upside down to advantage. + +He only succeeded in upsetting a manageress and several waitresses, and +terrifying an unfortunate shop-girl who was occupying the only table in +the room at which Julian could consent to sit by standing over her until +she had finished her tea, half of which she left in consequence. + +Stella was ten minutes late; by the time she arrived Julian had driven +away the shop-girl, had the table cleared, and frozen every one in the +neighborhood who cast longing glances at the empty place in front of +him. He was consumed with fury at the thought that in all probability +Stella had had two meals a day for six months in what he most unfairly +characterized as a "loathsome, stinking hole." + +As a matter of fact, Stella had not been able to afford the Cottage +Dairy Company. She had had her meals at the People's Restaurant, which +is a little cheaper and not quite so nice. + +Julian's anger failed him when he saw Stella's face. She looked ill. He +could not speak at first, and Stella made no attempt whatever to help +him. She merely dropped her umbrella at his feet, sat down opposite him, +and trembled. + +"How dare you come to this infernal place?" Julian asked her at last, +with readjusted annoyance, "and why didn't you tell me you were ill?" +Then he ordered tea from a hovering waitress. "If you have anything +decent to eat, you can bring it," he said savagely. + +Stella smiled deprecatingly at the outraged waitress before she answered +Julian. + +"I'm not ill," she said gently, "and I couldn't very well tell you +anything, could I, when I didn't know where you were?" + +"Of course, if you make a point of eating and drinking poison," said +Julian, bitterly, "you aren't likely to be very well. I suppose you +could have told my mother, but no doubt that didn't occur to you. You +simply wished--" He stopped abruptly at the approach of the waitress. + +Stella did not try to pour out the tea; she showed no proper spirit +under Julian's unjust remarks. She only put her elbows on the table and +looked at him. + +"There, drink that," he said, "if you can. It's the last chance you'll +get of this particular brand. They call it China, and it looks like dust +out of a rubbish-heap. I don't know what you call that thing on the +plate in front of you, but I suppose it's meant to eat. So you may as +well try to eat it." + +"Food," said Stella, with the ghost of her old fugitive smile, "isn't +everything, Julian." + +"It's all you'll get me to talk about in a place like this," said +Julian, firmly. "I wonder you didn't suggest our meeting in one of those +shelters on the Strand! Do you realize that there's a Hindu two yards to +your right, a family of Belgian refugees behind us, and the most +indescribable women hemming us in on every side? How can you expect us +to talk here?" + +"But you and I are here," said Stella, quietly. "Julian, how could you +believe what Eurydice told you?" + +Julian lowered his eyes. + +"Must I tell you now?" he asked gravely. "I'd rather not." + +"Yes, I think you must," said Stella, relentlessly, "You needn't tell me +much, but you must say enough for me to go on with. If you don't, I +can't talk at all; I can only be afraid." + +Julian kept his eyes on a tea-stained spot of marble. There was no +confidence in his voice now; it was not even very steady as he answered +her. + +"I made a mistake," he said. "You weren't there. I wanted you to have +everything there was. I can't explain. I ought to have let you choose, +but if you'd chosen wrong I should have felt such a cur. I can't say any +more here. Please, Stella!" + +She was quick to let him off. + +"I oughtn't to have left you so soon," she said penitently; "that was +_quite_ my fault." + +Julian made no answer. He drew an imaginary pattern on the table with a +fork; he couldn't think why they'd given him a fork unless it was a +prevision that he would need something to fidget with. It helped him to +recover his assurance. + +"I suppose you know," he said reflectively, contemplating the +unsuspicious Hindu on his right, "that I'm never going to let you out of +my sight again?" + +"I dare say I shall like being alone sometimes," replied Stella; "but I +don't want you to go calmly off and arrange things that break us both to +pieces. I'd never see you again rather than stand that!" + +"Now," said Julian, "you've roused the Belgians; they're awfully +interested. I'll never go off again, though you're not very accurate; it +was you that went off first. I only arranged things, badly I admit, when +I was left alone. I wasn't so awfully calm. As far as that goes, I've +been calmer than I am now. Have you had enough tea?" + +"You know it's you I mind about," said Stella, under her breath. + +"You mustn't say that kind of thing in a tea-shop," said Julian, +severely. "You're very nearly crying, and though I'd simply love to have +you cry, I believe it's against the regulations. And there's a fat lady +oozing parcels to my left who thinks it's all my fault, and wants to +tell me so." + +"I'm not crying," said Stella, fiercely. "I'm going back to work. I +don't believe you care about anything but teasing." + +"I don't believe I do," agreed Julian, with twinkling eyes; "but I +haven't teased any one for six months, you know, Stella. How much may I +tip the waitress? Let's make it something handsome; I've enjoyed my tea. +I'll take you across to the town hall." + +"It's only just the other side of the road," Stella objected. + +"Still, I'd like you to get into this taxi," said Julian, hailing one +from the door. + +Stella looked at him searchingly. "I should be really angry if you +tried to carry me off," she warned him. + +"My dear Stella," said Julian, meeting her eyes imperturbably, "I +haven't the nerve to try such an experiment. I'm far too much afraid of +you. Get in, won't you? The man'll give me a hand." He turned to the +driver. "Drive wherever you like for a quarter of an hour," he +explained, "and then stop at the town hall." + +The taxi swung into the darkened thoroughfare, and Julian caught Stella +in his arms and kissed her as if he could never let her go. + +"Not very clever of you," he murmured, "not to guess why I wanted a +taxi." + +[Illustration: "Not very clever of you," he murmured, "not to guess why +I wanted a taxi"] + +Stella clung to him speechlessly. She did not know what to say; she only +knew that he was there and that the desperate loneliness of the empty +world was gone. + +She wanted to speak of the things that she believed in, she wanted not +to forget to reassure him, in this great subdual of her heart; but she +did not have to make the effort. It was Julian who spoke of these things +first. + +He spoke hurriedly, with little pauses for breath, as if he were +running. + +"I know now," he said, "I've been a fool and worse. I saw it as soon as +I looked at you; it broke me all up. How could I tell you'd mind losing +a man like me? I'm glad it's dark; I'm glad you can't see me. I'm +ashamed. Stella, the fact is, I gave you up because I couldn't stick it; +my nerve gave way." + +"I shouldn't have left you so soon; it was all my fault for leaving +you," Stella murmured. + +"That rather gives the show away, doesn't it," asked Julian "not to be +able to stand being left?" + +"You weren't thinking only of yourself," Stella urged defensively. + +"Wasn't I?" said Julian. "I kept telling myself I was behaving decently +when I was only being grand. Isn't that thinking of yourself?" + +"But on the downs," urged Stella, "you weren't like that, darling." + +"You were on the downs, remember," said Julian. "I got your point of +view then--to give in, anyhow, to love. It wasn't easy, but it made it +more possible that if I didn't marry you, you only had hard work and a +dull life. It seemed different when I heard about that fellow Travers. +You see, that cut me like a knife. I kept thinking--well, you know what +a man like me keeps thinking--at least I don't know that you do. It was +my business to fight it through alone." + +"No it isn't," Stella protested quickly. "We haven't businesses that +aren't each other's." + +"Well," admitted Julian, "I couldn't bear thinking I'd cheated you out +of my own values; so I let yours slide. I knew, if I gave you the +choice, you'd stick to me; but I couldn't trust you not to make a +mistake. That's where my nerve broke down." + +"Ah, but I didn't know," whispered Stella; "I didn't know enough how to +show you I loved you. If you'd seen, you wouldn't have broken down. I +was afraid to try. Now I can. All these six months have eaten up my not +knowing how." She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You see, +I do know how!" + +He held her close, without speaking; then he murmured: "And knowing how +doesn't make you afraid?" + +"It's the only thing that doesn't," said Stella, lifting her eyes to +his. + +The taxi stopped before the door of the town hall. + +"And have I got to let you go now?" Julian asked gently. + +"I shall never really go," Stella explained; "but you can let me get out +and tidy up the surveyor's papers, and then be free for you to-morrow." + +Julian opened the door for her. She stood for a moment under the arc of +light beneath the lamp-post looking back at him. + +The love between them held them like a cord. Julian had never felt so +little aware of his helplessness; but he wondered, as he gazed into her +eyes, if Stella realized the bitterness of all that they had lost. + +She neither stirred nor spoke. She held his eyes without faltering; she +gave him back knowledge for knowledge, love for love; and still there +was no bitterness. At last he knew that she had seen all that was in his +heart; and then for a moment, if but for a moment, Julian forgot what +they had lost; he remembered only what they had found. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +When Stella reëntered the town hall the porter was still sitting at his +desk near the door, but every one else had gone. + +"Oh, I hope I have not kept you, Humphreys," Stella said apologetically. +"I had no idea it was so late. I'll be as quick as I can." + +"Mr. Travers is still in 'is room," Humphreys admitted gloomily; "'e +came back an hour ago. Gawd knows how long 'e'll be at it. There's been +a tri-bunal and wot not this afternoon. Talk abaht mud in the trenches! +'Alf the gutters of Lunnon 'as been dribbling through this 'ere 'all. +I've asked for an extra char, an', what's more, I mean ter 'ave 'er. War +or no war, I'll 'ave a woman under me." + +The surveyor's office was empty. Stella's papers were just as she had +left them, but her whole life lay in between. + +She would never copy the surveyor's plans again or do the office +accounts or look through the correspondence. She would not hover in the +drafty passages and listen to the grumbling Humphreys nor stand outside +glass doors and help bewildered fellow-clerks over their blunders before +they went in to face a merciless authority. + +She would probably never see green baize again. She tried to fix her +mind on the accounts, but through the columns of figures ran the wind +from the downs. The half-darkened, empty room filled itself with +Amberley. + +She tried to imagine her life with Julian. It would be unlike anything +she had lived before; it would require of her all she had to give. The +town hall had not done this. It had taken the outer surfaces of her +mind, her time, and much of her youth: but her inner self had been free. + +It was not free now; it had entered that dual communion of love. It was +one with Julian, and yet not one; because she knew that though he filled +every entrance to her heart, though her mind companioned his mind, and +her life rested on him, yet she was still herself. She would be for +Julian the Stella of Amberley, but she would not cease to be the Stella +of the town hall. + +She would not part with her experiences; poverty, drudgery, the endless +petty readjustments to the ways of others should belong to her as much +as joy. Privilege should neither hold nor enchain her, and she would +never let anything go. + +She would keep her people, her old interests, Mr. Travers, even the +surveyor, if he wished to be kept. Stella mightn't be able to impart +them to Julian, but she could give him all he wanted and still have +something to spare. Julian himself would profit by her alien interests; +he would get tired of a woman who hadn't anything to spare. Stella was +perfectly happy, but she could still see over the verge of her +happiness. Joy had come to her with a shock of surprise which would have +puzzled Julian. He had the strength of attack, which is always startled +when it cannot overcome opposition. Julian never coöperated with +destiny, he always fought it. Sometimes he overcame it; but when it +overcame him, he could not resign himself to defeat. Stella took +unhappiness more easily; in her heart, even now, she believed in it. She +believed that the balance of life is against joy, that destiny and fate +prey upon it, overcloud it, and sometimes destroy it; and she believed +that human beings can readjust this balance. She believed in a success +which is independent of life, an invisible and permanent success. + +She did not think of this for herself, it never occurred to her that she +possessed it; but she believed in its existence, and she wanted it, and +sought for it, in every soul she knew. She wanted it most for Julian, +but she did not think it could be got for him to-morrow. She did not +expect to get it for him, though she would have given all she possessed +to help him to obtain it. + +She only hoped that he would win it for himself, and that she would not +be a hindrance to his winning it; that was as far as Stella's hopes +carried her before she returned to the accounts. + +When she had finished the accounts, she took them to the town clerk's +room. + +Mr. Travers was sitting as usual at his desk, but he did not appear to +be writing. Perhaps he was also doing his accounts. + +"I'm afraid," Stella said apologetically, "I'm very late with these +papers, Mr. Travers. I was detained longer than I had intended." + +"I expected you to be late," said Mr. Travers, quietly. "In fact, I +should not have been surprised if you had not returned at all. It +occurred to me that you might not come back to the town hall again." + +"I had to finish my work," said Stella, gently, "and I wanted to see +you; but after this, if you and Mr. Upjohn can find some one else to +take my place, I shall not return. I know I ought not to leave you in +the lurch like this without proper notice; I should have liked to have +given you at least another week to find some one to take my place, but I +am afraid I must leave at once." + +"I think I can make a temporary arrangement to tide us over," Mr. +Travers replied thoughtfully. "Your leaving us was bound to be a loss in +any case." + +They were silent for a moment. Mr. Travers still sat at his desk, and +Stella stood beside him with the papers in her hand. + +"I hope you will not think I took too much upon myself, Miss Waring," +said Mr. Travers at last, "in going to see Sir Julian Verny this +afternoon. It seemed to me a man's job, if I may say so, and not a +woman's. I thought your sister had done enough in letting you know +herself how gravely she had misunderstood us all; and if I had notified +you of my intention, I feared that you might not have seen your way to +ratify it." + +"I am very glad indeed you spared Eurydice," said Stella; "I would not +have let her go to Julian. I would have gone myself; but I am glad I did +not have to do it. You spared us both." + +"That," said Mr. Travers, "was what I had intended." + +Stella put the papers on the desk; then she said hesitatingly: + +"Mr. Travers, may I ask you something?" + +"Yes, Miss Waring; I am always at your disposal," replied Mr. Travers, +clearing his throat. "You are not an exacting questioner." + +"I hope you will not think me so," said Stella, gently; "but are you +sure--will you be quite happy with Eurydice?" + +Mr. Travers met her eyes. She did not think she had ever seen him look +as he looked now; his eyes were off their guard. It was perhaps the only +time in his life when Mr. Travers wished any one to know exactly what +he felt. + +"You will remember, Miss Waring," he said, "that I told you once before +that I am a lonely man. I have not won affection from people. I think I +have obtained your sister's regard, and I am proud to have done so. I +suppose, too, that all men have the desire to protect some one. I do not +know much about feelings in general, but I should suppose that the +desire for protection _is_ a masculine instinct?" + +Stella nodded. She wished to give Mr. Travers all the instincts that he +wanted, and if he preferred to think them solely masculine, she had not +the least objection. + +"I see that you agree with me," said Mr. Travers, with satisfaction, +"and you will therefore be able to understand my point of view. I have a +very real regard for Miss Eurydice. Her work is of great, though +unequal, value, and I should like to see her happy and comfortable and, +if I may say so, safe. I do not think that the life of women who work in +public offices, unless they are peculiarly gifted by nature, is safe. I +may be old-fashioned, Miss Waring, but I still maintain that woman's +sphere is the home." + +"I am glad you feel like that about Eurydice," said Stella, softly. + +She paused for a moment. She wanted to thank him, but she knew that she +must thank him only for some little thing. The greater things she must +leave entirely alone. He trusted her to do this; he was trusting her +with all he had. She must protect him from her gratitude. + +"Before I leave the town hall, Mr. Travers," she said, "I want to thank +you for what I have learned here. That is really one of the reasons I +came back to-night. You have been such a help to me as a business woman. +I am not going to give it up. I shall keep all that you have taught me, +and take it into my new life with me. It has been an education to work +in your office under your rule." + +"I am glad you have felt it to be so, Miss Waring," said Mr. Travers, +with grave satisfaction. "I have devoted what talents I possess to the +running of this town hall, under the auspices of the mayor, of course. I +am very much gratified if my methods have been of any service to you. +Our relationship has certainly not been a one-sided benefit. I took +occasion to say to Sir Julian this afternoon that I had never had a more +efficient secretary." + +"I am so glad you told Julian that," said Stella, smiling. "My work with +him was only make-believe." + +"There is a leniency about your dealings with people," Mr. Travers +continued, ignoring her reference to Julian, "which sometimes needs +restraint, Miss Waring. The world, I fear, cannot be run upon lenient +principles. Nevertheless, in some cases I am not prepared to say that +your system has not got merits of its own. I recognize that personal +leniency modifies certain problems even of business life. I should be +apprehensive of seeing it carried too far; but up to a certain point," +said Mr. Travers, rising to his feet and holding out his hand to Stella +to close the interview, "I am prepared to accept your theory." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Second Fiddle, by Phyllis Bottome + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41107 *** |