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diff --git a/43616.txt b/43616.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 621a1f3..0000000 --- a/43616.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7269 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quaint Companions, by Leonard Merrick - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Quaint Companions - With an Introduction by H. G. Wells - -Author: Leonard Merrick - -Release Date: September 1, 2013 [EBook #43616] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUAINT COMPANIONS *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.) - - - - - -THE QUAINT COMPANIONS - -BY - -LEONARD MERRICK - - -WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY - -H. G. WELLS - - -HODDER & STOUGHTON - -LONDON--NEW YORK--TORONTO - -1919 - - - - - "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor - free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Jesus - Christ."--Galatians iii. 28. - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -The chief fault of _The Quaint Companions_ is that it ends. Mr. Merrick -is no follower of the "well-made novel" school; he accepts his liberties -as an English novelist, and this book has not only the beginning and -middle and end of one story, but the beginning and some of the middle -of another. The intelligent reader would be the gladder if it went -on to that second end, and even then he might feel there was more to -be said. For this book is about the tragedy of racial miscegenation. -It is, perhaps, the most sympathetic and understanding novel, in its -intimate everyday way, about the clash of colour and race-prejudice -and racial quality that has ever been written in English, and its very -merits make its limitation of length and scope the more regrettable. It -is not a book to read alone. One should go from it to _Le Chat Maigre_ -of M. Anatole France; and good collaterals to it would be Mr. Archer's -_Through Afro-America_ and Mr. Hesketh Prichard's _Where Black rules -White_. - -On the whole the strength of the book lies rather in the earlier part -of it. Elisha Lee is the realest, most touching individuality in this -little piebald group of second-rate humanity. He has, as the vulgar -way of the studio puts it--_guts_. When he is hurt he swears, and the -heart of the reader responds. David Lee is a weakling, diffusing a -weakness over all the story of his development. The story loses spirit -as he replaces his father. He is sensitive without strength, and -expressive without pride. He _writes_. He wields what is ultimately -the most powerful weapon a man can take into his hand, the pen. He -has, we are told, the moving touch. What more is needed for pride and -happiness? Apparently the normal gratification of a healthy guinea-pig. -All Mr. Merrick's skill will not reconcile us to the pathos of David's -disappointment at the loss of a pretty fool, or make us see in him and -Bee anything more than two unreasonably despondent beings who have -merely to look up to rejoice in the gifts of understanding they possess. -This second story is not a tragedy, but a misunderstanding, and when Mr. -Merrick should begin to elucidate that, when, indeed, he has just got to -the gist of his enthralling subject and brought his Quaint Companions -together, he sounds a short unjustifiable note of sentimentality--and -ends. - -Since 1900 when Mr. Merrick closed this story eighteen years have -passed. It is now possible to tell a little more of the fate of Bee -and David. They did come into closer juxtaposition even as Mr. Merrick -fore-shadowed. Indeed, availing themselves of the wilder courage of -these latter days, they married. They had no children. Bee developed a -practical side that was extraordinarily sustaining to David. She learnt -to write and he, adventuring beyond the delicacies of his earlier days, -began to produce short fantastic pieces of fiction that had an immense -vogue in America.... - -But why confine ourselves to the limit of 1918? Let us glance on a -few years. David's long-deferred success was now at hand. The younger -generation hailed him with the utmost delight, his name became almost -a symbol for the revolt against the lengthy, crowded novels of -Bennett, Merrick, Wells, Cannan, Compton Mackenzie and their elderly -contemporaries. David was inordinately praised by the aged but still -active Yeats, and elected an original member of the New Academy of -Literature which had just received its charter. Mr. Gosse was extremely -nice to him.... David's slight melancholy, his effect of ill-usage -patiently borne has never quite deserted him, and the subtle charm of -Bee's crumpled sweetness became more and more recognisable with the -passing of the years.... - -Perhaps, like the sailor who wanted to fight the villain of the play, -I have been a little carried away by the reality of the figures before -me. How real these people are! So real are they that one can take them -out of their author's hands and look at them in another light and not -destroy them. That is a very good test of created reality. Elisha Lee -is a memorable and unique figure. He stands for something that has -never been done in fiction before, and he is done so well that he must -necessarily become a type in our memories. He lives in my mind just -as Micawber or Peter Quint live. And I would never be surprised to -find myself in a railway carriage with Mrs. Lee and his stepson. How -disagreeable they would make the journey! Bee I did actually see the -other day, in the Hampstead tube; she did not look up, but I knew that -it was Bee. And how admirable, too, is Professor Sorrenford and his -comic opera! - -But why go on? Yielding to a modern convention among publishers that -good wine needs a bush, and being eager to set my admiration for and -interest in Mr. Merrick on record, I have written this. But having -subscribed my testimony, I very cheerfully gesture the reader on to the -book. - -H.G. WELLS. - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Lee had not returned from the concert alone. Gregarious at all times, -he never found solitude so little to his taste as when he left the -platform--when he was still excited by the fervour of his voice and -the public's applause. Two of the other soloists had driven to the -hotel with him, and he had taken them up to his sitting-room to give -them champagne, and proffer fat cigars. Though his guests resented -his prosperity too bitterly to need reminding of it, he had changed -his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket of plum-coloured velvet and was -complacently conscious, as he crossed his slippered feet on the -window-sill, that neither of his fellow-artists would fail to notice -that he wore silk socks. - -There was a pause in the vociferous conversation. Somewhere in the -distance a clock struck a quarter to one. Like his companions, he had -arrived here only in time for his engagement, but unlike them, he was -remaining a fortnight for his pleasure. His gaze wandered from their -sprawling forms to the view outside. The night was fair, and behind the -silent Parade the decorous sea of Brighton shimmered becomingly under a -full moon. Fifteen years had slipped by since he was in Brighton last, -and in his mind they were momentarily effaced. By a perfectly natural -process there rose in the stillness beyond the uncurtained window the -apparition of his First Love. - -Neither of the other men in the room saw it. Indeed she lingered there -only an instant--just for a heart-beat--though some enchantment played -upon the scene after she had gone. Lee turned in his chair, and followed -the girl into the past. In reality he was thirty-one; in fancy he was -sixteen. - -She had been beautiful. Even in retracing his youth by the light of -experience, he would not wrong her by a lesser word. She was beautiful, -and there was justification for his homage. But heavens! In retrospect -he was humiliated to perceive his shyness; he beheld his blunders and -his ignorance with dismay. How very young he had been at sixteen--how -very young, to be sure! - -The discovery caused him a distinct shock, for at the time he was -convinced that he was exceedingly old for his age, and he had never been -back till now to see if it was true. He recollected the evening when she -first dazzled him; he had gone to the theatre here, and the overture was -not more than half over when his sight was smitten by a girl sitting in -the next row. She had the slightly disdainful air which becomes a girl -to whom the gods have been bountiful, and whose dressmaker has done her -duty. He watched her as man watches woman in the stage when he has yet -to realise that she is mortal. She was with a lady whose features seemed -familiar to him, and presently he remembered the lady's name. She was -Mrs. Tremlett, and the girl could be no other than "Ownie"--"Ownie" who, -when he stayed in their lodging-house a few summers since, had been in -short frocks. Of a truth it was a very pretty incident, and the ordinary -boy would have pronounced it "jolly luck"; but he--O lout! how stupid he -had been, how self-conscious and impossible. - -"You and Ownie must want to talk over old times?" A simple, kindly soul, -the mother. He recalled her suggestion, and the divinity's involuntary -glance at her white kid glove as he released her hand. The sentiment of -the evening, his tremors and his painful struggle to think of something -to say recurred to him, though fifteen years had gone by since the -audience dispersed. As they streamed out, Ownie Tremlett had turned with -a smile to look at herself in a mirror in the vestibule. That was vivid, -the girl's movement, and the reflection of her figure with the flimsy -white thing over her hair--quick with the warmth of yesterday. - -His absurdity of the following morning recurred to him too: he had -lately acquired a trick with a loop of string, and had tramped the town -tirelessly with a piece of string in his pocket, thrilling with the -thought that it might draw their heads together. He recollected that -at last he had met her, but that he didn't show her the trick after -all--somehow the careless reference to it that he had rehearsed stuck -to his tongue. He had said, "How d'ye do," and agreed that Brighton was -very full. There was a humming in his ears that dulled her voice, and he -had been obliged to keep clearing his throat. He was rather relieved to -bid her good-bye. Reviewing the period, he could not remember that there -had been any more, excepting that he had had the emotion of bowing to -her on several occasions. Yes, that was all that had happened really. In -the lyric that he made up about her, things had gone further--in that -he had saved her life, and married her--but actually he had said very -little, and forgotten her very soon. - -Nevertheless she had been his First Love, and his thoughts strayed to -her--or to his own boyhood--tenderly to-night. He wondered if she lived -here still, and if it often surprised her to reflect that the lad whom -she had once known had risen to fame. She must be his own age, or rather -more; the fact struck him queerly. The cruelties of life had bruised her -now--Time had dimmed the radiance of the girl who had patted her golden -hair in the mirror. For years she had not flitted across his memory, but -being where he was, he saw her again. His interest revived, and gained -ephemeral strength. He hoped she was not unhappy. - -The pause came to an end. One of the visitors yawned, and said something -about "making a move." Lee went downstairs with them, and they accepted -a cigar each from his jewelled case to smoke on their way. - -"Of course he can't help it," said the 'cellist to the baritone -tentatively, as they got into stride, "but he does grate on a -gentleman's nerves a bit, eh?" - -The baritone took his arm, and foresaw a cheerful walk. - -"What can you expect of a nigger?" he said with a shrug. "I always say -it's a damned insult to us to put us in the same programme as a black -chap. Have you got a match?--this cigar isn't burning straight." - -In the card-room the gas was still alight, and Lee went in for a minute -to open a local directory. He had forgotten the number, but her home -had been in Regency Square. The name of "Mrs. Tremlett" appeared -agreeably as the tenant of Sunnyview House. Ownie, no doubt, though, was -married. - -His youth sang clear to him when he went to bed, and it was not entirely -mute next day. When he took a stroll after breakfast he smiled at -his idea, but turned attentive eyes and hoped for what he felt to be -unlikely. It was his humour to declare it possible that he might pass -her, and he thought that he would know her if they came face to face. So -Elisha Lee, the negro tenor, sauntered along the Brighton front, looking -for Ownie Tremlett where he had looked for her fifteen years before. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -The month was November, and the King's Road wore its smartest air. This -was in the time before Brighton boasted so many places of amusement and -while it was much more amusing. People promenaded on the roof of the -Aquarium after dinner then; the pier at night twinkled with diamonds; -and "La Fille de Madame Angot" was the popular selection by the band. -Lee had stopped at a florist's and bought a rose for his buttonhole. In -his elaborate toilette, twirling a tortoise-shell stick, and with his -hat tilted a trifle to one side, he bore himself proudly. Nearly all of -the last night's audience idled on the front. He marked with painful -eagerness the quick glances, the occasional whispers he provoked--always -avid of signs of recognition, always fearful of reading derision of his -race. Sometimes at a look he caught, his teeth met behind his great -lips, and fiercely he reminded himself of his empire while he sang. -It was not so they looked at him then, these insolent women--with the -curious stare that they might have levelled at a showman's freak. No, he -could make their cold eyes misty, and their hearts throb faster, sway -them, and thrill them--he, with his voice! - -The man was to be pitied, though nobody pitied him and there were -thousands who would have changed skins with him for the sake of his -income. He was not without vulgarities; he was vain; he was prodigal; -his failings were the failings of the average negro, intensified by the -musical temperament and a dazzling success; but he had his higher hours, -and in these he was doomed to be alone. He could buy gay company, but he -could never gain affection; there were many who would laugh with him, -but there was none to give him a sigh. - -When he reached Regency Square he hesitated for an instant, and then -moved slowly up it. He had no intention of calling at the house, but he -wanted to look at the windows again. It was pleasurable to stroll round -the square. It had not changed at all; it was just as he remembered it. -He remembered the bushes at the top of the enclosure, and that they had -been known to him as the "brigands' lair"; a military band used to play -three times a week on the lawn when he was a child, and he wondered -if it did so now. As he neared Mrs. Tremlett's, the door opened, and -a woman came down the steps. She walked listlessly ahead of him. His -full black eyes dilated, and he paused agape, presenting a rather -comic appearance, as the negro so often does when he is in earnest. He -thought that he had discerned a likeness to Ownie in her face; but it -had flashed on him only for a second--in the circumstances he was very -liable to deceive himself. - -He saw that she was in mourning--more, that the veil depending from her -bonnet proclaimed her a widow. He followed. She turned the corner; and, -quickening his pace, he arrived in Preston Street just in time to see -her enter a fishmonger's. Her position during the few minutes that she -remained there was unfavourable; but when she came out, the view that he -caught of her could scarcely have been better, and now he was tempted to -address her on the chance of being right. - -She passed him before he had thought what to say, and he loitered behind -her discreetly, until she went into a greengrocer's. A display of fruit -offered an alternative to his waiting on the pavement this time; he -would order some grapes to be sent to his hotel! He would order some -grapes and utter his name loudly, so that she heard it; if he had really -found Ownie, she might bow. - -Her business was concluded, however, and she left the shop before anyone -attempted to serve him. Some minutes were wasted before he was free to -pursue her. He took hasty strides, afraid that she was lost. Her veil -came in sight again at the end of the street, and, dodging among the -crowd on the King's Road, he kept at close quarters to her for a long -while, wishing that she would cross to the other side and sit down. - -At the foot of Ship Street she crossed to the other side at last, but -she did not stop until she reached Marine Parade. On Marine Parade there -were fewer visitors. A nursemaid narrated her wrongs, while her charges -imperilled their necks on the railings; here and there a bow-backed -man who owned a bath-chair enjoyed a respite and a pipe; a sprinkling -of convalescent Londoners, basking in the summer weather, forgot their -shivers in the City of Gloom. The lady settled herself on a bench. -Lee lounged nearer. She was paler and more languid than he recalled -her; he could see shadows about Beauty's eyes which the mirror had not -shown to him at the theatre, but he felt sure it was she. Though he had -believed himself prepared to find her changed, he found the difference -saddening--just as if he were a white man, and a girl of whom he used to -be fond had been met after many years. - -As he drew level with her, she noticed him with a quick frown. Evidently -she had misconstrued his interest. He stopped, and, throwing away his -cigar with a nourish, said: - -"Miss Tremlett?" - -The lady in widow's weeds looked surprised and indignant, and he added -hurriedly: - -"That's the name I knew you by. Don't you remember me? I'm Elisha Lee." - -Her expression was astonished still, but the indignation had faded when -he heard her, voice. - -"Oh!" she said. "Oh, are you? I didn't know you again. Fancy! Yes, I -remember. It's a long time ago." - -"Let me see," he said; "it must be fifteen years. I recognised you at -once." - -She regarded him more kindly, and gave him a faint smile; "I shouldn't -have thought you would." - -"How's that? I'm not short-sighted. Do you know, I was thinking about -you yesterday; hoped I should meet you--and here you are. I haven't been -in Brighton since the last time I saw you." - -"Haven't you really?" - -"No; it's funny, isn't it? I've often been coming--for the week-end, or -a concert, but something has always turned up to prevent me. Well, this -is first-rate! Were you at the Dome last night?" - -"No," she said, "I couldn't go; I was sorry. I heard you in Liverpool -once. Let me congratulate you--though I suppose you get such a lot of -congratulations that you don't care much about them any more?" - -"You can bet I care for yours," he said. "Have you been living here all -the time?" - -"Oh no; I left here when I married; I only came back after my loss." Her -tone was bitter. - -"I saw," said Lee, "I saw by your dress that----Is it long since you -were left a widow?" - -"Twelve months. My home was in Liverpool while my poor husband was -alive. Why, you used to know him, Mr. Lee! Yes, of course you did. That -summer as children we were all together. How strange! I'm not sure if -you met him afterwards? I wonder if you can remember 'Reggy Harris'?" - -The long-forgotten name awoke memories of a pasty-faced boy peppered -with freckles, who had always called him "Snowball." He bowed solemnly. -For a moment it deprived the situation of all its sentiment to hear that -she had married Reggy Harris. - -"Things happen queerly, don't they?" she said with a short laugh. "I -married, and I left Brighton for good--and I sit telling you about it -when I am in Regency Square all over again. I never thought I should -come back any more, excepting on a visit. Of course I used to come to -see mother." - -"I hope your mother is well?" he said. - -"Yes," she answered, "thank you.... It was mother who was certain from -the first that the singer we read about must be you. I had forgotten -you were called 'Elisha,' but she was sure you were; and the 'Elisha' -settled it. We did stare!" - -"I thought you would. But I'm not the only 'Elisha' where I come from, -by a long chalk. Biblical names are very common among us; we like -them. In Savannah, where I was born, I daresay you'd find a good many -'Elishas'--and as to 'Lees,' they're as plentiful as pins. You stared, -eh? It seemed wonderful?" - -"Well, yes, it did. But your parents were--were musical, too, weren't -they?" - -"My parents came over here as ban joists when I was a kiddy. They played -jolly well." - -"Are they living?" - -He shook his head. "I am quite alone in the world," he said -theatrically. "They were spared to see me famous, though; I'm glad of -that." - -"They must have been ever so proud of you." - -"They were ever so good to me," he replied, and his manner was natural -again. "They got decent terms in the music-halls, and they sent me to -school, and did all they could for me. It was on one of their tours, you -know, that I stayed in your house. They paid some people to give me a -good time during my holidays, God bless 'em." - -There was a brief pause. A little child, trailing her toy spade, lagged -to a standstill and watched him expectantly. He drove her away with an -angry gesture; the lady blushed. - -"I think I must be going," she murmured, rising. "I've got to meet my -baby and the nurse. If you sing down here again, Mr. Lee, I hope I shall -hear you." - -"I'll sing to you whenever you like," he said promptly. "Won't you and -Mrs. Tremlett come and have dinner with me at the hotel one evening? -I've got a piano in my sitting-room." - -"My mother so seldom goes out at night." - -"Let me ask her and do a bit of coaxing!" - -"Oh--er--if you can, of course," she said, "though I'm afraid it would -be no good. We shall be glad to see you." - -He swept off his hat, and took leave of her buoyantly. While they talked -he had ceased to contrast her with what she used to be and thought only -of the young and pretty woman who was present. Having less refinement -than when she was a girl, too, she made him a more intimate appeal. -The vulgarities in her blood had come to the surface by this time. At -seventeen, to be a gentlewoman superficially is not impossible, but at -thirty-two the varnish cracks. - -He saw her again, himself unnoticed, as he was returning to lunch. -A little nurse-girl-a cheap imitation to be called a "nurse," he -thought--pushed a perambulator, and the widow walked drearily beside it. -Threading her way among the fashionable toilettes, she looked poor and -discontented to him; she looked sullen, like a woman who resents her -fate. But she had blue eyes and yellow hair, and he had never resisted a -desire in his life. He promised himself to call on her the next day. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -He went early in the afternoon, and he found her more cordial than on -Marine Parade, though he gathered that she had been unprepared to see -him so soon. He was shown into a small back parlour reserved for the -family's own use, and when he entered she was in a rocking-chair with -her baby on her lap. At his playful advances it began to cry, and it -wailed continuously while he paid it the usual compliments, and heard -that it was fifteen months old, and christened "Vivian." - -"The only one?" he asked, as the noise subsided. - -"Yes," she said, "I lost my little girl. How nice of you to remember -your promise! I made sure you'd forget." - -"That was very wicked of you. You ought to have known better; didn't I -show you what sort of a memory I've got?" - -"Well, really you did! I can't think how you knew me again." - -"Why, you haven't changed much," he said, "you were just as good-looking -then." - -"Don't be so foolish." She bent over the baby. - -"I knew you directly I caught sight of you. You were just coming out of -the house." - -"What, this house? Were you passing?" - -He nodded, grinning. "And I followed you into Preston Street." - -"I saw you in Preston Street," she said. "You came into the -greengrocer's, didn't you?" - -"Yes, but first I'd had to wait outside a fishmonger's. Oh, I had a heap -of trouble before I got a chance to speak to you, I can tell you! You -looked so----Lee was 'fraid!" - -"Did I?" She gave him instinctively the glance she would have given to a -white man. "Oh, I had no idea who you were, you know. I thought----" - -"Thought my admiration infernal cheek, eh? Didn't you look me up and -down when I came to the seat! 'Sir, how dare you?' you meant. _I_ -knew!" His jolly laughter shook him, and startled the baby into a fresh -outbreak. - -"Well, I was all right when I understood, now wasn't I?--There, there, -pet, suck his ribbons, and let his mummy talk!--Do you know, I've got -something to ask you, Mr. Lee; after you had gone it struck me you -might be able to give me a hint. I want to make use of my voice; I -thought perhaps you would tell me the best way to set about it? I have -written to people already, but they don't answer, and----His mummy will -have to send him away if he isn't quiet." - -"Make use of your voice?" he said doubtfully. "Oh yes, I'll help you -with pleasure if there's anything I can do, but what is it you mean?" - -"I was thinking of concert singing; only in a small way, of course--I -know I can't expect to do anything marvellous--but I've had a lot of -lessons, and in Liverpool I used to practise hard. My master----If -you'll excuse me for a minute, I'll take Baby upstairs." - -He excused her for that purpose readily, and when she came back her -mother was with her. He found that Mrs. Tremlett had altered too, but -in the most surprising way. When he was a lad she had looked quite old -to him, and now she looked only middle-aged. She was the widow of a -novelist who had written such beautiful prose that many people had been -eager to meet him--once. Afterwards they talked less about his prose -than his manners. He had left her, their daughter, a policy for five -hundred pounds, and an album of carefully pasted Press cuttings. During -his life she had suffered with him in furnished apartments; at his -death she took to letting them. She was a well-meaning, weak-natured -creature. For forty years she had related her dream of the previous -night over the breakfast-table, and read the morning paper after supper. -She religiously preserved the reviews, which she had never understood; -believed that Darwin was a monomaniac who said we sprang from monkeys; -and that Mrs. Hemans had written the most beautiful poetry in the world. - -"Mother was quite excited when she heard I had seen you," said Mrs. -Harris. "Weren't you, mother?" - -"You were a very bad girl. What do you think, Mr. Lee? She came home and -said that a--that a"--she gulped--"a strange man had stopped and spoken -to her. Such a thing to say! And she didn't tell me who it was for ever -so long." - -He understood that he had been referred to as a "nigger." She deprecated -her blunder to the younger woman with worried eyes, and the latter -struck in hastily: - -"I was just telling Mr. Lee what I want to do, mother. He thinks he -might help me." - -"Oh, now I'm sure that's very kind of him indeed! You see, Mr. Lee, it's -not altogether nice for Ownie here, and of course having had a home of -her own, she feels it more still. Well, dear, you do, it's no good -denying it! If she had something to take her out of herself a little it -would be so good for her in every way; and we always thought she would -make money with her voice--it's a magnificent one, really." - -Mrs. Harris shrugged her shoulders. "To talk about its being -'magnificent' in front of Mr. Lee is rather funny. But if I could make -even a second-rate position," she went on, "I should be satisfied. I'd -try for an engagement in a comic opera if I thought I could act, but -I'm afraid I should be no good on the stage, and one has to start in -such tiny parts. We had a lady staying with us who used to be in the -profession, and she was telling us how hard the beginning was." - -"And do you imagine that concert-engagements are to be had for the -asking?" he said. "Good heavens! But of course you don't know anything -about the musical world--how should you?" - -"I don't imagine that they are to be had for the asking," she returned -a shade tartly; "but if one can sing well enough, the platform must be -easier for a woman like me than the stage, by all accounts." - -"Accounts," he echoed, "whose accounts? I could give you accounts -that would make your hair stand up. Do you know that professional -singers, with very fine voices, come over from the Colonies to try to -get an appearance here and find they can't do it? They eat up all the -money that they've saved and go back beggared. They go back beaten and -beggared. It is happening all the time. My dear girl, you couldn't make -a living on the concert-stage under five years if you had the voice of -an Angel." - -"Not if I had bad luck, I daresay," she muttered. - -"I tell you nobody can do it--it isn't to be done. It would take you -five years to earn a bare living if you were a Miracle. The Americans -and Australians try it for two or three and clear out with broken -hearts and empty pockets. It's killing; they starve while they are -struggling to be heard. I'll give you an example; a singer with a -glorious voice came to England--_I_ say it, 'glorious.' I won't mention -his name, it wouldn't be fair; but, mind, this is a fact! He had worked -hard in his own country--they believed in him there; they got up a -benefit for him before he sailed. He had three thousand pounds when -he landed--and he spent every penny trying to get a footing here and -went home in despair.... Do you know that when I give a concert, even -artists who _are_ making a living go to my agent, and offer him twenty, -twenty-five, thirty guineas to be allowed to sing at it?" - -"They pay to be allowed to sing?" said Mrs. Tremlett. "But why should -they do that?" - -"Because they can't get into a fashionable programme without; and it's -worth paying for. Singers who have been at the game half their lives do -it, I tell you. I'm not supposed to know. _I_ don't get their money; -I leave the agent to engage the people to support me, and if he makes -a bit extra over the affair--well, he forgets to talk to me about it! -But it's a usual thing. 'Easy for a woman'?" He turned to Mrs. Harris -again, and rolled his black head. "Easy? Poor soul! She looks so fine, -doesn't she, when she sweeps down the platform in her satin dress and -lays her bouquet on the piano? Oh, dear Lord! if you knew what she has -gone through to get there. And what it has cost her to get there. And -how she has pigged to buy the bouquet and the satin dress. You think if -you can sing, that's all that's wanted, do you? You can wait and beg for -years before an agent will hear your singing. And when you are heard at -last--if your production is first-rate, and the quality pleases him, -and you are a smart and agreeable woman, and you have found him at the -right moment--he will ask: 'How many pounds' worth of tickets will you -guarantee?'" - -"And in spite of everything, some women get on!" she said. "One would -think nobody had ever had an immense success, to hear you talk. One -would think there had never been a Patti, or----" - -"Ah, Jehoshaphat! An immense success? With an immense success--when it -comes--you're the cock of the walk. When a woman has made an 'mmense -success' she can fill the Albert Hall, and move the world. She can move -even the English, and hold them breathless in the gallery, though they -have got no chairs and the notices forbid them to sit on the floor. The -singers who make 'immense successes' are the kings and queens. They -mayn't be able to act, or to talk--they may be as stupid as geese; -but God has given them this wonderful power; nobody knows why.... And -sometimes with His other hand He gives them a black skin; nobody knows -why!" - -At the unexpected reference to his colour, Mrs. Tremlett started as if -she had been pinched; and her daughter murmured: - -"Well, I thought you might be able to do something for me. I see you -only think that I'm very foolish." - -"I haven't heard you yet. I just warn you what sort of a life it is at -the beginning. I'd do any blessed thing I could for you. What is your -voice? Come, sing to me now!" - -"Oh! not now, Ownie," exclaimed the landlady; "the drawing-room people -are in, dear, and you know they complain so of every sound." - -"You are still called 'Ownie,' I see," he said. - -"Mother used to call me her 'little own, her little ownie,' when I was -no higher than that, I believe "--she raised her hand about a foot from -the table--"and I have been 'Ownie' ever since; I suppose I shall never -be anything else now, though I was christened 'Lilian Augusta.' My -voice is contralto. I'll sing to you the next time you are here--if the -lodgers are out," she added with a harsh laugh. "One must consider the -lodgers. The lodgers heard Baby crying in the night and were surprised -we didn't keep it in the coal-cellar. At least that's what they seemed -to mean." - -"Oh, my dear," protested Mrs. Tremlett feebly, "I'm sure they didn't -mean that. Mrs. Wilcox had gone to bed with a bad headache, and was just -dropping off to sleep. She only said----" - -"She complained when she thought it belonged to the dining-rooms; -when she heard it was mine, she was astonished at the impudence of a -landlady's daughter in having a baby. Oh, I'm not finding any fault with -what she said"--but her tone was very resentful--"a lodging-house isn't -the place for a child, I know! It's a little hard on poor Baby, perhaps, -that's all." - -Lee felt very glad, when he rose, that the piano had not been opened. -That she was inhabiting a castle in the air he had no doubt whatever, -and he flinched from the task of shattering it. The woman of thirty-two -who had had "a lot of lessons" was now a pathetic as well as an alluring -figure to him; and she did not lose her pathos in the following days, -for he often met her, and she never failed to recur to her desire. In -their earliest meetings she was considerably abashed in walking beside -him, and being conscious of his colour at every step, always declared -herself bound for the least frequented parts. But soon she lost much -of this embarrassment, and even came to take a nervous pride in the -increased attention she attracted. She reminded herself that it was not -as if she were with an ordinary negro, or as if he were a famous negro -who wasn't recognised. Nearly all the people they passed knew he was -Elisha Lee, and there was nothing to be ashamed of in being seen with -him. He looked less repulsive to her, too, on acquaintance. She now -remembered having noticed niggers with much wider nostrils than those -that had looked so wide to her a week ago; and his lips didn't seem to -protrude so much as they had done at first. It was a pity they were -so dark. If it hadn't been for his lips he really would not have been -repugnant at all; there was nothing to make one shudder in a merely -black skin when one grew used to seeing it, and he carried himself -splendidly. As to his ears, if they had only been white, they would have -been the prettiest ears she had ever seen on a man; little delicate -ears, set close to his head. And he could interest her. Like most of -his People, he told a good story well, and he was full of anecdotes of -the musical celebrities. It made her feel nearer to the platform, to be -admitted to the artists' room in his confidences. - -But though she hankered after the platform, and spoke of her ambition -daily, she was not an ambitious woman in the sense in which many women -are ambitious who besiege the offices of the musical and dramatic -agents. She was a dissatisfied woman; it was not notoriety she thirsted -for so much as means. She wanted money--the road by which she earned -it was a detail. If somebody had left her an independence, she would -not have been eager to sing at all. Her life was sour to her. As a -schoolgirl she had understood that her prettiness was damaged by her -surroundings; when she was twelve years old she had felt that the -hateful card, printed "Furnished Apartments," in the window ticketed -her "cheap." It was the first card to deteriorate that square that -has fallen from grace. The society in which girls went to dances -and sat on the stairs with rich young men, was as unattainable as a -carriage-and-pair. She had nothing to expect; she looked down on the -tradespeople, and the residents looked down on her. She couldn't even -write novels as her father had done, and hope to escape her environment -in that way. - -She had married when she was five-and-twenty--not so soon as she would -have married in happier circumstances; not so well as she would have -married but for the card in the window. She married a furrier. Even this -had been an improvement for her; she wore her first sealskin, and tasted -the joy of comparative extravagance. But the business had failed and the -bankrupt had died; and then there was nothing for her but the Brighton -lodgings again. - -It was in his sitting-room in the hotel that she at last sang to Lee. -He had asked her and Mrs. Tremlett to luncheon--wondering how much he -could contrive to spend on it--but the landlady had declared it was -impossible for her to leave the house, and Ownie had come alone--"for -ten minutes, just to hear his opinion." - -She had begged him to let her sing the song through without interrupting -her, and he said nothing until she finished. It had hurt him very much -to hear her sing; for a few minutes he had almost forgotten her eyes -and hair. His thick black fingers lingered on the final chord of the -accompaniment with thankfulness and with dismay; he did not know how to -undeceive her. - -"Well?" she demanded. - -He struck E, F, and F sharp, still hesitating. "You use too much force -there in swelling the tone of your head voice," he said. "Those are your -weak notes--they are mine too. They are the weak notes with all tenors -and sopranos. After G the crescendo is easy enough, but the E, F, and F -sharp are devils." - -"You call my voice soprano?" she exclaimed. "Why, my range is----" - -"Range? Did your master tell you that the range makes the voice -contralto or soprano? It's the colour of tone, not that." He kept -striking and re-striking the notes without looking at her. She observed -the diamonds on his hands enviously. - -"Do you--are you trying to tell me I'm no good?" she asked with a little -gasp. - -"You have been badly taught," he said, "awfully badly. I expected it. -Your voice has never been placed." - -"Thank you," she said. "It's kind of you to be candid." She was very -pale. "I suppose there's nothing I can do to--to make it all right?" - -"I'm afraid not," said Lee. - -"And all because I've been badly taught?" - -"Oh, I don't say that. It has done harm of course--the natural colour of -the voice isn't there; but I don't think--if you want me to tell you the -truth--I don't think you could ever have done what you hoped under any -circumstances." - -There was a long silence. Then she forced a smile, and put out her hand. - -"Good-bye," she said. - -"You're not going like that? Ah, you make me feel a beast! Do you want -it so much? Think of the hardships you'd have to go through, even if you -could make a start. Cheer up! Things aren't so bad after all." - -"Aren't they?" she muttered. She sank into a chair. "Why?" - -"You aren't obliged to earn a living--you have a home, anyhow. Plenty of -women haven't that; there are plenty of them worse off than you, I give -you my word!" - -"There aren't," she cried, "there's nobody worse off than I am! Some -people are resigned to drig on all their lives and never have enough of -anything. I'm not resigned. I hate the scrimping and scraping, and the -peal of the lodgers' bells, and the drabs of servants who think they can -be impudent to you because you 'let.' I'm sick, sick, sick of it all. I -got away from it once, and now I'm in a back parlour again, with never -a soul to speak to. How would _you_ like it? But you don't know what -loneliness means. How can you understand what I feel--you?" - -"Why should you say I can't understand?" he answered. "Because my name -is printed in large letters on the bills, and I've got all that you -want? I haven't got all that _I_ want. Doesn't it strike you that inside -here I may feel all that a white man feels, though no white woman will -ever feel the same for me? Ah, that's news to you, eh? But it's true. -People say of fools like me, 'Oh, he keeps low company, he's happiest -in the gutter.' Liars! Some of us take what we can get, that's all. The -moon we cry for is over our heads, and we make shift with its reflection -in the puddle. I do know what loneliness, means--when I let myself think -about it. Do I think about it often? No, not me, I'm not such a blooming -fool: I enjoy. But the knowledge is there, and the loneliness is worse -than yours. Money? I make pots of money--I never sing under eighty -pounds--money isn't everything. You see these rings? They cost--Lord -knows!--three hundred. I'll give them to you. All of them: here--one, -two, three, four!" He threw them into her lap. "They belong to you now. -Are you quite happy? No, you're not; you still want something. Well, -with me it's the same. _I_ still want something--and I shall go wanting -all my life." - -"So shall I," she returned. She picked the rings up one by one, and held -them out to him with a sigh. - -"What, you won't keep them?" he inquired. Though his impulse had taken a -theatrical form, it was quite sincere. - -"Keep them?" She looked at him amazed. "Do you mean to say you really -gave them to me to keep?" - -"Why shouldn't I give them to you? I'll give you anything you like. Go -on, put them on, or--they're too big for you--put them in your pocket. -Yes, I mean it--they're yours." - -"Oh," she exclaimed, "I can't keep things from you like----But you're -joking?" - -"I mean it," he repeated. "Bless me, why not? I want you to have them. -They're a present." - -"You must be mad," she faltered: "I can't accept presents from you. -It's very kind of you--very generous--but it isn't possible." - -He extended his hand an inch at the time. She laid them in the yellowish -palm, and watched him slip them over the finger-nails that looked as if -they were bruised. Her heart dropped heavily. - -"It wasn't rude to offer them to you, was it?" he asked. "I didn't mean -to offend you, you know." - -"I'm not offended," she said. "But--but ladies can't take presents from -men--not valuable presents, hundreds of pounds' worth of rings." - -"Mustn't I give you anything?" - -The rings magnetised her; she couldn't wrench her gaze from them. - -"What for? Are you so sorry for me--the idiot who thought she could -sing?" - -"It's not that; it's nothing to do with your singing. Sweets? May I give -you sweets?" - -"I"--her eyelids fell--"I suppose so." - -"What else?" - -"Why should you give me anything at all?" - -"Because I want to; because I--like you, Ownie.... Tell me what I can -get for you." - -He leant nearer to her. She quivered in realising what he meant. Her -physical impulse was to repel him, and the cravings of her mind tempted -her to let him hope. She hesitated a moment. - -"Get me some sweets, then," she said unsteadily. "I must go, or I shall -be late." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -When the time came for him to return to town, Mrs. Tremlett's -first-floor lodgers left her, and Lee took the vacant rooms. Though his -headquarters were in London, it was understood that he meant to run down -to Brighton very often during the winter, and he explained that he would -find private apartments more to his taste than an hotel. - -Telegrams from different places were received from him every few days, -and in Sunnyview House the theatrical element in his nature, found its -supreme expression. Profuse at all times, he surpassed himself here. -He was infatuated--blind to everything but the passion that had sprung -up in him--and he meant to show the woman whom he burned to marry the -sort of thing he could bestow on his wife. The housemaid, accustomed -to speculating whether the parting tip would be a half-crown or five -shillings, was dumfounded by a sovereign almost as often as he rang the -bell; the supply of roses in his room made it look like a flower-show; -prize peaches were ordered, only that they might be left to rot on the -sideboard, and he had two bottles of champagne opened daily for the -effect of banishing them to the kitchen three-parts full. - -He had not failed, either, to place a liberal interpretation upon -"sweets." The rain of bonbons and bouquets that descended on the -discontented blonde in rusty crape could hardly have been more -persistent if she had been a prima donna, and his prodigality made the -desired sensation in a household where the "drawing-rooms" usually took -mental photographs of the joints before they were removed. Mrs. Tremlett -it horrified, but to her daughter there was a strong fascination in it, -a fascination even more potent than it exerted over the servants--a -class who rejoice at extravagance, whether it be their own or other -people's. She was not backward in deriving the moral; she, too, might -enjoy this lavish life if she allowed him to ask her! The chance had -befallen her so suddenly that it dizzied her. She felt strange to -herself; she could not realise her point of view. His admiration for -her had improved his appearance very much, but it could not quell the -race prejudice entirely. She knew that if he had been a nonentity she -would have found his homage preposterous; and ardently as she longed to -embrace the life that he could open to her, she shrank from the thought -of embracing the man. - -She was aware, nevertheless, that she was precipitating a moment when it -would be necessary for her to take a definite course, and she was not -surprised to hear Mrs. Tremlett broach the subject to her one afternoon. -The landlady was making out the dining-room bill, and Ownie had been -sitting upstairs, in the twilight, while Lee sang to her at the grand -piano that he had hired as soon as he was installed. In the morning he -practised his cadenzas and phrases alone, but in the afternoon he sang, -and had begged her to go up, assuring her that a vocalist needed someone -present at such times; he had omitted to add that he needed a true -musician. To sing to her intoxicated him. To listen to him stimulated -her. When his fancy ran riot and he thought of falling at her feet (to -fall at her feet was his mental picture), he always saw himself doing it -in an hour like this--while the dusk befriended him, and his voice was -pleading in her senses. - -"Have you been in there again, Ownie?" - -"Yes," she said, pulling the rocking-chair to the fire; "it wasn't very -long, was it? He wants us to go to his concert next week at the Albert -Hall; he'd like us to stay the night at an hotel. Of course we should be -his guests, and it would be a nice change. I told him I'd speak to you -about it." - -"Sleep in town at an hotel? Oh no, dear, I shouldn't think of such a -thing! Whatever for?" - -"Because he has invited us, because he's going to sing. I said I didn't -think you'd go for the night, but we might run away in time to catch the -last train. I don't much care about going alone--though he wants me to -do that, if you won't come." - -"Wants you to go alone?" She made a blot, and put down the pen. "Wants -you to go alone, as his guest?" she repeated. - -"Yes; why shouldn't I? Still, if you'll come too----" - -"How can I go and leave everything to look after itself? Besides, it -wouldn't be right. As to your going alone, that would be worse still. -I'm sure I don't see----" - -"Don't see what?" - -Mrs. Tremlett hesitated. "Don't you think the servants will begin to -talk?" she murmured. "You know what I mean, dear; you're up there so -much--and he's always sending you things. Of course I shouldn't like him -to leave, but it's a pity he doesn't see that he oughtn't to----Well, -I'm sure the servants are talking! When I wanted you just now about the -deposit on the bottles, Ada said, 'Oh, she's with Mr. Lee, ma'am--I'd -better not call her out.' I could see what she thought, though I -pretended not to notice anything." - -"What did she think?" - -"Well, dear, she thought that--that he was paying you attentions. And -so he is! The poor fellow.... It's quite natural, I daresay, that he -should take to you, but I should make him understand that he mustn't be -foolish, before it goes any further, if I were you. Of course, with a -man like that, it mayn't be serious, but you can't _tell_ what ideas he -may have in his head, can you?" - -"You mean he might ask me to marry him?" said Ownie slowly; "is that it?" - -"Well, my dear, I suppose that--ridiculous as it sounds, I suppose that -is what it might come to; and of course it would make unpleasantness, -and we should have the drawing-rooms empty at the worst time of the -year. Much better to keep him in his place and to show him that it would -be no good." - -Ownie's abrupt little laugh sounded. She swung herself to and fro in the -rocking-chair rather violently. - -"If I did that, I think you'd have the drawing-rooms empty at once. His -'place'? 'His place' is funny! Why, sometimes he's paid as much as a -thousand pounds for four nights, and I'm a pauper.... You take it for -granted, then, that if he asked me I should say 'No'?" - -Mrs. Tremlett looked bewildered. Her gaze fell, and wandered helplessly. -Her brow was puckered when she spoke. - -"Wouldn't you say 'No'?" she faltered. - -"Why should I?" - -"Oh, of course if you could care for him----Of course in the sight of -Heaven we're all equal; but it isn't as if he were a white man, is it? -And you scarcely know him." - -"I know who he is--I might do a good deal worse for myself than marry -Elisha Lee. I should be a rich woman." - -"I don't think you'd be very rich, dear; it seems to me he must spend -every penny he makes, even if he does get a thousand pounds for four -nights sometimes. Besides, if you mean to marry him just for what he -can give you, I'm afraid you'd be very miserable. You're not a girl, I -know, and you must judge for yourself in these things, but I don't think -any amount of money would make you satisfied with what you'd done if -you don't care for him--and I'm sure I don't see how you can! When I -married your poor father----" - -"When you married father he had nothing, I know. And you've had nothing -ever since. The children of people who marry on nothing are seldom as -sentimental as their parents were. You were brought up in a comfortable -home, and so you were romantic, and said, 'Money's the least thing;' _I_ -was brought up in a lodging-house, and so I'm practical, and put money -before everything else. I think," she exclaimed, "I think it's wicked -that people who make improvident marriages should brag of the folly to -their poor children afterwards!" - -"I am not bragging, dear. But when a woman has loved her husband, she -never admits that their marriage was a folly, even in her own thoughts. -A man----" She sighed. "A man, I am afraid, sometimes does. As I say, -you're not a girl, and you must know your own mind, but the idea seems -awful to me; I would never have believed you could think of doing such a -thing." - -Ownie flushed, and her shoe tapped the floor irritably. "Just because -he is black," she muttered. "Where is your religion? I thought you said -just now that in the sight of Heaven all men were equal?" - -"In Heaven, no doubt, he will be as white as the rest of us," returned -Mrs. Tremlett, after a slight pause. "But in the meantime he's a nigger, -and I can't think it would be right." - -Her daughter did not reply; nor did the elder woman summon courage to -recur to the matter. She was, however, relieved on the morrow and -the next day to notice that her remonstrance had borne fruit and that -Ownie's visits to the drawing-room were discontinued. Lee, who passed -the two days in hourly expectation of them, was first restless, and then -enraged. The besetting tendency of the negro in his intercourse with -Europeans is to take affront, and he told himself that her neglect was -an insult which she would never have dared to put upon an Englishman. He -left Brighton this time without any adieu, and he was absent for longer -than usual. - -There were two reasons for his going back when he did. When women say of -another woman--as they are often heard to say--that there is nothing in -her to explain infatuation, they babble, for there is no young woman, -however commonplace, who may not appear unique to some man. One of Lee's -reasons was, that his desire to see Ownie again was fevering him; the -other was, that he wanted to know if she meant to occupy the box that he -had kept for her. - -He returned late, and he had no hope of seeing her that night, but he -spent the following morning between the windows--his hat and fur coat -on the table--waiting for her to leave the house. She had no sooner -done so than he descended the stairs with elaborate carelessness, and -manoeuvred until they came face to face. - -"Oh, Mr. Lee," she said. "So you are back again!" - -His resolve to ignore his grievance succumbed to the temptation to -reproach her for it. - -"I didn't think you knew I'd been away," he said sulkily. - -"Not know you had been away?" The innocent wonder of her tone was -unsurpassable. - -"I hadn't seen you for a long time when I went. Have you forgotten that?" - -"A long time?" she smiled. "Two days, wasn't it?" - -"It seemed a week to me." - -Now she had trembled during his absence, and though she was as far as -ever from knowing whether she wished to marry him, she knew at least -that she did not wish to avert his asking her. So she shot a glance at -him before her eyes were lowered, and said: - -"One can't always do as one likes, you know." - -A platitude and a pair of eyes are sometimes potent. He walked on beside -her mollified. - -"What about the concert?" he inquired. "I've saved the box for you." - -"Oh, have you?" she stammered. "I don't quite know. I'm afraid----Have -you really saved it?" - -"Rather! Don't say you aren't coming--you as good as promised. Have you -spoken to your mother?" - -"Yes, she can't go--that's to say, she says she can't. There's nothing -to prevent her, but she's so funny, you know. I 'don't see how I can go -alone." - -"Why not? That would be jollier still. Don't be unkind. I should sing so -much better if you were there." - -"Such nonsense!" she said. "I--I'll see. Of course I should like it -awfully. I'll think about it, and tell you to-morrow." - -And on the morrow she told him that she was going. She was dogged, -though Mrs. Tremlett sighed protests. Her life was dull enough, she -insisted; she meant to extract the little amusement that was to be had! -Lee went to town again jubilantly. He had arranged to meet her at the -station when she arrived, and to travel back with her at night. She was -to go up in the afternoon and to take her evening frock in a trunk. - -On the day of the concert she found him at Victoria, attended by a -gentlemanly person who he explained was his valet. As he greeted her, -he tossed away a cigar which he had just lighted for that purpose; he -felt it must impress her with his breeding to see him throw away a -long cigar. The valet seemed to have little to do but to show that he -existed. Lee led her to a brougham, and they were driven to the hotel -that was then the most fashionable, and ushered into a sitting-room -glorified with roses. A chambermaid conducted her to a bedroom. - -Here more flowers did her honour, and on the dressing-table were bottles -of scent, the largest that could be bought, and all of different -colours. In front of the armchair that had been rolled to the fire was a -pair of velvet slippers, with the sort of buckles she had coveted in the -East Street windows. - -She thrilled with a sense of her importance. The buckles fascinated -her so much that she put the slippers on at once, and went back to the -sitting-room in them, though in his excessive admiration he had chosen a -size that cramped her toes. - -She had scarcely rejoined him when a waiter appeared with tea and petits -fours. She observed that Lee was addressed as if he had been a prince. - -"Aren't you going to have any?" she asked. - -"I mustn't," he said. "I must run away in a minute. But they'll look -after you all right here, don't be afraid." - -"I'm not," she said, laughing. "Did the manager provide the slippers?" -She raised her foot coquettishly, and resented her stockings. "I'm sure -you might have a cup of tea and a biscuit if you may smoke--I saw you -throw away a cigar as you met me." - -He was gratified that this effect had been remarked. - -"Oh, that's nothing," he said; "smoking doesn't hurt." - -"You say so because you like it. Well, smoke now, then." - -"May I?" - -"Why, of course you may, if it really isn't bad; but I always thought it -was awful for singers." - -"Some fools say so. Mario always smoked just before he sang--he was the -only man ever allowed to smoke behind at Covent Garden. I do wish I -could stop! If you knew how glad I am you've come!" - -"I'm glad too," she said. "But I won't encourage you to do anything -wrong. Go home, and----" She was going to say, "Think of me," but she -felt that her elation was carrying her too far. "And do your best," she -added. "Remember I am coming to applaud you." - -He remained for about a quarter of an hour, and as soon as he had gone -she took the slippers off, and spread her feet on the hearth in comfort. - -At half-past six the deferential waiter appeared again, accompanied by -another--mute, but seeming to deprecate by his shoulders the liberty -of moving on the same planet with her. For the first time in her -experience she dined. Perhaps, because she was a woman, the appointments -impressed her more than the cuisine, but she appreciated the menu too. -She enjoyed the oysters, the strange dark red soup, the sole with prawns -and little mushrooms and things on the top; she liked the bird, and -the pink frilled cutlets with a wonderful sauce, the omelette in blue -flames, the silver bowl of strawberries and cream inserted in a block -of ice. The resplendent sweet, representing a castle, and glowing with -multi-coloured lights, astonished her, and the wines that flowed into -the glasses stole through her veins deliciously. - -She had not long set down her coffee-cup when she was informed that -the brougham was at the door. She left the tiny flagons of liqueurs -untouched, and ran back to the bedroom, to grimace at her toilette, -and dip her puff in the powder again. In the brougham she felt even -more opulent than she had done when Lee was beside her in it; she felt -almost as if it were her own. She wrapped the rug about her knees, and -looked out luxuriously at the gaslit streets. Soon all the traffic of -London seemed to converge; the flash of carriage-lamps and the clatter -of hoofs surrounded her. Into the cheaper parts of the Hall, the long -black files of patient music-lovers still pressed forward. Her demeanour -was haughty as she was shown to her box. To her first glance the great -building seemed already full, but a thin stream of white-breasted women -and shirt-fronts trickled continuously down the red stairway to the -stalls. A certain exultation possessed her; they were all here to hear -him--the man who was in love with her. - -Somebody climbed to the great organ. His name was unfamiliar to her, and -she did not know what the title of the piece meant. He juggled with the -stops, and flooded the house with a composition in E flat. She cared -little for the organ; it reminded her too strongly of church. She was -relieved when he finished. A lady sailed on to the platform and warbled -something of Schumann's. Was it a fact that she could not afford her -dress? How beautifully it was made! She retired amid loud applause, -her finger-tips supported by a gentleman whose functions suggested the -ring-master at a circus. She was recalled, and bowed deeply three times, -and tripped off with the ring-master once more. A popular baritone -received an "encore." A lady violinist had painfully thin arms. Ownie -glanced at the programme again--yes, the next name was "Mr. Elisha Lee." -The faces in the serried tiers of the vast dome seemed to crane a -little; a wave of expectation stirred the throng. There was a long pause -before he came. - -He bore himself loftily--that was her first thought. The slow, -measured steps that he had been taught to make added to his height; -the conventional costume, in which his native predilections found no -scope, became him well. The unsightly hands were gloved; only his black -features and frizzy hair marred the dignity of the man as he stood -before the hushed audience, during the opening bars on the piano. He -raised his head--the music that he held vibrated for an instant; and -then from the nigger's mouth--out over the breathless stalls, mounting -high and mounting higher to the back of the far massed gallery--there -seemed to float God's Voice. And now nobody remembered that the features -were black; and no man among the thousands knew what message the voice -was bringing to the heart beside him, for to all there was a different -message that the poet had never told. Men tightened their lips to hide -their tremors; the jewels on the women's breasts rose faster. Among the -hot, tense crowd that strained over the topmost railings, was heard the -sobbing of a little child--but only one soul heard it, and the child -would have been a woman then if she had lived. - -The music was lowered--his arms falling in studied curves to his sides, -gave the signal for applause; there was the moment's silence that was -so sweet to him. He bowed, and drew a step back. The audience recovered -itself; the thunders broke. She saw fashionable women beating their -hands together frantically; the roar recalled him again and again. He -responded, and retired with a glance at Ownie. Her eyes were moist, and -she shivered a little. She was not an emotional woman, but she was a -vain one. - -In Part II. he sang early, to conform with her arrangements, and they -drove to Victoria, where the valet was waiting with her trunk. Lee -guided her to a first-class compartment, and she congratulated herself -on her forethought in having taken only a "third single" at Brighton. -She observed, though she betrayed no consciousness of the fact, that the -guard turned his key in the door after the foot-warmers were put in. - -"And so," asked Lee for the second time, "you were satisfied with me?" -His desire to flatter her was inordinate, but it wasn't responsible for -the question: he was only thirsting to be praised. - -"I felt as if I had never heard you sing before," she said; "I felt as -if I had never heard _anybody_ sing. You thrilled me. You have given me -a day I shall remember all my life; it was perfect from beginning to -end." - -"I should like to give you many such days," he blurted. - -"Ah!" She smiled--the faint, appealing smile that had always been so -effective with Harris before he married her. "I'm afraid that isn't -possible; I must think of this one instead." - -Her heart throbbed heavily at her boldness. Even now she was not sure -what answer she meant to make; why was she encouraging him to ask the -question? - -But though he had promised himself to ask it on the journey, Lee -hesitated. The question surged to his throat, and swelled immensely and -stuck there. A great timidity was on the nigger who had just swaggered -before a multitude. The man's heart throbbed heavily at his cowardice. - -He leant forward, and tucked the rug round her. He was rather a long -time tucking the rug round her. "Is that better?" he muttered. "You're -not cold?" - -"Thank you. No, I'm as warm as can be. Oughtn't you to keep your wrap -round your neck?" - -"Not in here," he said; "I'll put it on again at the other end. Sunset -is the worst time for me, too--not night." - -"That's funny." - -"I believe it's the worst time for all singers." - -The velocity of the train seemed to him phenomenal, and a sudden -misgiving seized him about the second door: somebody might intrude on -them at the first stoppage, in spite of the tip. The minutes flew, and -in every flashing bank and tree he saw a danger-signal. - -"Why?" he said at last. - -"'Why'?" She was at a loss. - -"Why isn't it possible for you to have other days just as good?" - -He was terribly black--she averted her face before she spoke: - -"How can I?" she murmured. - -"I love you," he said huskily. - -She had no words. He got up, and sat beside her. She felt his hand -groping for hers under the rug, and trembled. Should she let him take -it?... He was holding it. "Do I frighten you?" She shook her head. "I'd -give my life for you!" he cried. "Oh, if you can like me a little, only -a little, I'll be so good to you! You shall never be sorry--I'll give -you everything you want. I love you; I sang to _you_ to-night. No white -man could adore you as I do. Can't you--can't you forget the difference? -It's cruel to me. No, no, not cruel; you could never be cruel; I know, I -know, it's natural you can't understand--you fill my soul, but you can -see no deeper than my skin." - -"I do like you," her voice made answer. - -"Will you be my wife?" - -"Yes," she said. She shut her eyes and let him kiss her. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -And she did not repent the promise, nor did her mother's consternation -have any effect upon her, other than making her lend a willing ear to -Lee's entreaties for a speedy marriage. She agreed to marry him at the -end of the following month. She even came to accept his kisses without -shrinking much, and to offer her own in return for the jewellery that he -brought her. Only once during the engagement her reflections terrified -her. The thought crossed her mind that he might lose his voice. He might -lose his voice and she would have done it all for nothing! He would be -helpless; she would have yoked herself for life to a negro dependent on -her exertions. What a future! What a hell! In the moment of alarm it -even occurred to her--because she attended church punctiliously every -Sunday--that the disaster would be a fitting punishment for the sin she -was committing in stifling her better instincts. She was abasing herself -under a temptation--she might be bowed under a burden as the result. -Characteristically she ignored the fact that to afflict her husband -in order to point the moral would be a shade unjust; there are many -Christians who would figuratively fire the house to roast the pig, like -Ho-ti in the Dissertation. And quite as many who can reconcile their -interests and their conscience by judicious prayer. The name of "Vivian" -figured in Ownie's prayer. She prayed for strength to act a mother's -part to Vivian. - -Also she determined that before she had been Lee's wife long she -would persuade him to assure his life. Experience teaches; and this -precautionary measure had been neglected during her first marriage. She -was naturally ignorant of the negro temperament, or she would have known -that there is nothing from which it is quite so averse as providing for -emergencies, and that she might almost as hopefully have begged him to -acquire a cream-and-roses complexion. - -Meanwhile there were paragraphs in the papers; and presents were -delivered from his fellow-artists, and from some of the Musical -Societies; and there were presents from the Public. Even Mrs. Tremlett -began to say, "It might be all for the best," now. A man who received -big silver teapots from total strangers, she felt, was entitled to more -respect than she had shown to him. Her grandchild and the adolescent -nurse were to remain with her until the honeymoon was over. The wedding -took place in London, and Ownie and Lee departed for Paris, where he was -to sing. - -If Mrs. Lee had kept a journal at this period, it would have been one of -the most fascinating of human documents, though much of its fascination -would have lain between the lines, since she inherited nothing of her -father's gift for expression. It would have been the gradual diminuendo, -that told the tale, the change of key. They stayed in Paris nearly five -weeks, and before a fortnight had passed, the outcry in her heart was -still. She was resigned. She did not acknowledge it to herself yet; that -would not have been written in the diary; she did not look it; but her -avaricious little soul was gratified, although her eyes claimed sympathy. - -Strangers gave it to her. She was prettier still in the extravagant -gowns that Lee paid for--that true loveliness unadorned is adorned -the most is as silly a thing as the poet of "The Seasons" could have -said--and the Englishmen and Americans in Paris spoke feelingly of -"that pretty woman married to a nigger." There are women to whom pity -is as sweet as noise to the masses, and Ownie Lee's abortive conscience -found all the anodyne it needed in the perception that she was held -a pathetic figure. The appealing smile which had always become her so -well, gained in intensity. Lucretia might have worn that expression in -time, if she had taken drives in the Bois instead of stabbing herself. - -And Lee? Lee was intoxicated. If he had wooed her in a fool's paradise, -at least the shadow of the tree of knowledge had been in it; he had had -no illusions. He had not looked for passion, or for tenderness, or for -understanding. It was enough for him as yet to squander devotion on -indifference. He shook at the touch of the languid woman who accepted -his transports with such sovereign calm. To pour out money for her -adornment, to buy diamonds to flash on her fingers and her breast, -was his delight. He had a contract for a six weeks' tour in England -at six hundred a week, and he spent a fortnight's fees on jewels for -her one morning. In the foyers and the streets, when he read the men's -eyes, exultance swelled him; they envied his possession of her, these -blatant fools who were consequential because they had been born with a -white skin. He cursed them cheerfully in his thoughts, arrogant with -power--the woman who attracted them was his wife! - -Yet there was one occasion before the honeymoon ended when he seemed -almost to stultify himself, when the admiration that she roused enraged -him instead, and was responsible for a burst of resentment. They had -met a Londoner of his acquaintance, a singer; and Lee the elated had -presented him to her gaily. The singer, who was a handsome man, and not -a gentleman, was too bent on being gallant to remember to be polite as -he ogled her, and curled his moustache, and propped his elbows on the -cafe table. His shoulder excluded Lee more and more; the conversation -became frankly a duologue. The art of rebuffing a man without gaucherie -is not known to every woman; it is, in fact, the peculiar attribute of -the well-bred. Still Ownie was to blame; she regarded such impertinence -as a compliment, and she made no attempt to check it with dignity -or otherwise. Lee's scowl grew fiercer and fiercer, his lips bulged -appallingly; and the Englishman had no sooner bowed himself away than -she beheld her husband in a new light. - -He rose from his chair, and put his hand on her arm. She could feel that -he was trembling, but he said nothing until they had walked some steps. -She turned to him, half frightened and half defiant. - -"What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter with you?" - -"Don't you ever speak to that fellow again," he exclaimed hoarsely. "Do -you hear? I won't have it. Don't you ever dare to speak to him again. -If you meet him, you're to pass him by. Is that the way you think a -respectable woman ought to behave? Sitting there and----Blast him, I -wish I'd thrown the glasses in his face!" - -She was alarmed and angry too now. She tried to subdue him by her tone. - -"Have you gone out of your mind?" she said, as steadily as she could -speak. "I think you forget who it is you're talking to." - -"I'm talking to you," he gasped; "I'm talking to my wife; don't you -forget it either! You flirted with him, you know you did. You sat there -flirting with him--and in front of your husband; you sat flirting with -a skunk you'd never seen before, in front of your husband." He came to -a standstill, gesticulating excitedly. "You weren't so ready with _me_, -were you? I suppose any man may make love to you if he's white, eh? But -take care--you don't know me yet. By God----" - -"Hush," she said, "for Heaven's sake; the people are staring at you." - -She signalled nervously to a cabman, and gave him the name of the -hotel. In the cab Lee's reproaches were so furious that she drew up -the windows to muffle his voice from the passers-by. The distance -between the cafe and the hotel was short, and in less than five minutes -the courtyard was reached. She sprang out, and hurried to the bedroom -while he paid the fare. When he tried the door he found that she had -locked it. He called to her, but she made no answer. Then he beat at the -panels, and to avoid a scandal she turned the key. - -"Is this going on all night?" she demanded, running to the bell-pull. -"If you try to hit me, I'll ring for the manager." Her dread of -receiving a blow was of the slightest--such fear of personal violence as -she had known had faded during the drive--but it was the cruellest thing -that she could invent to say on the spur of the moment. She clung to the -bell-pull, a picture of agitation. - -The threat, the idea that she thought him capable of striking her, -sobered him. He entered shamefacedly. - -"You needn't be afraid that I shall hurt you," he muttered. - -"Needn't I?" she said. "How do I know that? I don't know what you might -do, you bully, you--you coward!" - -He winced, and stood looking at the ground in silence. Then: - -"I didn't mean to bully you," he said huskily. "I--I'm sorry, Ownie, -I'll never do it again." - -She saw that she was mistress of the situation. Her hold on the -bell-pull relaxed; her tone acquired a tinge of shrewishness. - -"You won't ever have the chance again," she retorted, "don't flatter -yourself! You've shown me what I might expect--I won't live with you." - -Though the words were empty enough, they frightened him. He took a step -towards her in a panic. - -"Ownie!" he cried. And again: "Ownie, I'm sorry!" - -"It's not the least consequence whether you're sorry or not," she -sneered; she was quite composed now. "I'm sure _I_ don't care. It's very -easy to say you're sorry after you've shouted at me, and insulted me as -much as you want to. Yes, insulted me, you----Ah, it's what I might have -expected! I'm ashamed of having married you. Only a man--a man _like -you_ would talk so to a woman." - -She saw him shiver. She was reminded suddenly of a dog that Harris used -to beat. There was a pause, in which she observed the effect of her -taunt with satisfaction. After a few seconds she turned away, and began -to unpin her hat at the toilet-table. - -"It was because I was jealous," he stammered; "I couldn't help it--I -didn't mean to insult you. Ah, take that back--don't say you're ashamed -of me! Trust me, and you shall see how good I'll be to you in future. I -love you, I love you, you don't know how I love you. Look at yourself -in the glass. See how beautiful you are. How can you wonder that I'm -jealous? Look at your hair--how soft it is! And your skin--it feels like -a flower. I'd die for you. It drove me mad to see you look at another -man like that. I know, I know you didn't mean anything by it, but I -couldn't bear it. Ownie, forgive me!" - -She made no answer. She moved carelessly across the room, tossing her -cloak on to the bed. Her slippers lay by an armchair, and she sat -down in it, bending over her boots. He was on his knees before her in -an instant, trying to seize her hands. She snatched them away with a -gesture of aversion, and clasped them behind her head. - -"I _am_ ashamed," she repeated. "You've disgusted me. I'd let any white -man make love to me, would I? Anyhow no white, man would be beast enough -to say such a thing." - -He put out his hands again--not to caress her this time, but as if to -ward off the daggers she was planting in him. The tears welled into -his eyes, and, with a thrill of power, she watched one trickle down the -black face. - -"Forgive me," he implored. - -"It serves me right for not listening to advice," she went on. "I ought -to have known what you would be. You can't help being jealous? What -right have you got to be jealous--how dare you use such a word to me? -Do you suppose that I'm never going to speak to any other man again -because I married you?" - -"I was wrong," he cried, "I know I was wrong--don't say you're -'ashamed'! It's just because I'm a coloured man that the jealousy comes. -Oh, can't you understand? Try to make allowances for me. Don't you see, -don't you see?--I remember my colour all the time, I never forget it; -and when you sat there talking so--talking like that to him, I hated him -because he was white. But I'll never complain any more, I swear I won't! -You shall do as you like--I know how good you are." - -"There aren't many women who would forgive such behaviour, I can tell -you," she said sulkily. She thrust out her foot, and he began to -unbutton her boot. "How do I know you'll keep your word?" - -"Trust me," he begged. "Be kind to me--only trust me." - -She lay back in the chair without replying; her pretty face was -stubborn still. He drew off her boots. "Be kind to me," he entreated, -"be kind to me." He covered her feet with kisses. He knelt there, suing -to her, until she said at last that she forgave. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -But it was not in the woman's nature to refrain from accepting -attentions and showing that they pleased her; and it was not in human -nature for a husband who loved her to keep his oath and be tolerant. -Before six months had passed there had been half-a-dozen such scenes. -Lee upbraided more violently--the reconciliations did not always follow -so soon, but the order of things was always the same; she flirted, and -he abused her, and then grovelled for pardon till her resentment was -assuaged. Her perception of the extent to which she could make him -grovel awoke a savage instinct in the woman. Though her faults were the -outcome of weakness, not of strength, the taste of power excited her, -and she often remained obdurate merely to prolong the enjoyment of it. -Once she even wounded him for no other reason than to gratify the taste. -They had returned from a concert, and to see the man, fresh from his -triumph, abasing himself before her so shamelessly, gave her a vicious -pleasure. - -They had taken a house at Hampstead, a house with an ample garden, -and the necessary stabling. Except the practice-room, with its bare, -polished floor, its windows curtainless--containing nothing but the -piano and two chairs--she had revelled in the furnishing of every -corner. She wrote to her mother with pride that "there wasn't a cheap -thing in the place." With almost equal truth she might have added that -there wasn't a thing beautiful. She and Lee had one point in common: -both admired the ostentatious, and he found his surroundings nearly -ornate enough to justify the amount that had been wasted on them. - -And she had half-a-dozen servants; the tenor's stepchild was wheeled to -the Heath now in fine apparel by a competent nurse. In her servants Mrs. -Lee aroused less sympathy than in the men whom her husband called his -"friends"; they looked down upon her for having married "that blacky," -who was so much more considerate to them as a master than was she as -a mistress. Instinctively she knew it, and it was a frequent thing -for a maid at The Woodlands to be discharged on the grounds of being -"disrespectful in her manner." A landlady's daughter and negro's wife -was the last person likely to submit to disrespect. - -One or two women whom she met had also appeared to take a different -view of her position from that taken by the men; she found feminine -society a shade irksome after her marriage. There were a few mortifying -incidents from the first; still she knew that people who were envious -always pretended to be disdainful; and the benefits were countless, she -reminded herself as time went by. But for the knowledge of what was in -store, it would have sufficed for composure to reflect that the other -women would act just the same, assuming they had the chance. Her real -humiliation came in the form of a baby. - -It was a little yellow baby who in the hour of its birth was not -expected to live. She did not hear that until some days later--and -when she was told, she closed her eyes, for fear they should betray -her thought. It was a little yellow baby that she sickened to know her -own, and when they put it in her arms, her flesh shrank from it. Lee's -joy enraged her. She hated him as he hung smiling over the pillow, was -angered by what she felt to be his callousness in supposing she could be -glad. - -He was enraptured: the child was hers and his. With the passing of the -months, he had come to seek more of her than acceptance, and it seemed -to him that henceforth they must be one. She was no longer merely the -sovereign who permitted--she was the mother of his boy. - -But his mistake was very brief, and it was his child who proclaimed to -the man that his marriage had been a madness. It was when he saw that -she was ashamed of her motherhood that he was ashamed of his passion; -it was her contempt for their baby that showed him how he himself was -despised. - -For her humiliation did not fade, and though she tried to hide the -feeling, all the household knew that she never touched the child without -an effort. She was humiliated as often as she saw him. The pomp of -robes and ribbons, the lace, the paraphernalia of infancy, was painful -to her. When he was carried into the air, she winced in imagining -the neighbours' comments at their windows. Each time she bent over -the bassinet the little face inside looked to her swarthier and more -grotesque. - -He was christened "David." It was Lee's wish, and the matter had no -interest for her. It was Lee who brought him his first toy, and who -haunted the nurseries in dread of draughts; it was Lee to whom the nurse -soon learnt to turn when she had expensive suggestions to make. Ownie's -affection for the other boy had hitherto been somewhat careless, but now -she was stung to jealousy, and knew spasms of devotion which were the -outcome of resentment. Though the man remained as gentle and generous as -ever to him, she called him, "poor little Vivie" in her oughts, and a -giggling servant, who was overheard to remark that "his nose was out of -joint with somebody," was dismissed tempestuously at an hour's notice. - -The baby's unsightliness increased with its length. The stain of the -skin deepened; only the tiny palms and the soles of the flat little feet -retained the yellowish tint. The spread nostrils gradually widened; the -bunch of lip and the high cheek-bones took more and more distressfully -the negro type. Vivian had a complexion like a peach, and his head was -crowned with damp little flaxen curls that had been coaxed round a comb; -David's face became the colour of a medlar, and his hair threatened to -be as kinky as his father's. Even for a mulatto he was ill-favoured, -and the mulatto and his half-brother were a queer contrast opposite -each other in the perambulator. Strangers used to stop the nurse in -the street and ask questions--which she seldom failed to repeat to -her mistress. Vivian was robust, and had "taking ways"; David was -delicate, and the most that the maids found to say for him was that he -was "a very patient baby." He made known his desire for food by the -whimper which served him for speech, but if the bottle didn't come, the -whimper ceased. A faint bleat, and he gazed at the undesired world with -resignation. - -There was no resignation in Lee. He rebelled furiously--rebelled -against his wife's disdain and his own weakness, for he remained the -slave to a passion which he knew degraded him. This commonplace woman -without intellect, without gratitude, without pretences, held him -captive by a purely physical attraction against his will. There were -hours when he hated her, yet she retained the power to fire him with a -look, and torture him with a glance at another man. - -She was not the woman to be unfaithful--for one thing, she appreciated -the advantages of virtue too deeply to jeopardise them--but -recriminations lost their terror for her soon, and she humoured her -vanity without pity or fear. And Lee was no judge of character: in his -hell, suspicion smouldered too. The recriminations were so frantic -sometimes that the servants, startled from their sleep, hung trembling -over the banisters; and there were crashes heard, and broken ornaments -were swept up in the morning. "The nigger" was supposed to have thrown -them in "the missis's face." In truth the madman shattered them to keep -his hands off her. - -By slow degrees he began to drink, not heavily--enough to give the -situation a cheerier aspect for awhile; enough to shorten his career -if he didn't check the habit. It was surprising how much brighter the -world looked if he took a little whisky-and-water--especially if he -took a little more whisky-and-water. Often after one of his frenzies of -resentment he would remain away from the house for a week, though his -engagements permitted him to return in two or three days. He would sing -at Exeter, or Worcester, or Newcastle, as the case might be, and then -go back to town, but not to Hampstead. Moralists in his profession who -came upon him dissipating, said that he "treated his wife damned badly." -And while he laughed and filled the glasses, the thought of her contempt -burned in the man, and at last the suspicion that he could not drown -drove him home. - -As the child grew old enough to be played with, there came another -influence; Lee's love for his child saved him from many excesses. The -remembrance of something the boy had said or done would rise in him -suddenly and fill him with tenderness. The truest pleasure in the -singer's life was when he walked abroad holding his little son's hand, -to pick blue-bells where Fitz-John's Avenue stands now, or to bear him -westward from the Swiss Cottage in a cab. - -David was not mercenary. He jumped at the blue-bells as eagerly as at -the cab, though he had learnt already that hansoms always went to the -fairyland where presents hung. He was very solicitous about Lee's -safety, and lisped cautions against crossing a road when a horse was -in sight, and the danger of falling through a cellar-plate into a -coal-cellar. Once the nurse told David that the fascinating berries in -the hedge were called "deadly nightshade," and that "if he fiddled with -them he would die." He was impressed, and "Must never figgle with deadly -nightshirt!" was his next warning to his father. - -At a very early age there were signs that he was ambitious to secure a -reputation as a humorist, notably an evening when he said his prayers in -a facetious voice, and met rebuke by explaining that he was only trying -to make God laugh. But the phase was a brief one, and he developed into -a mournful child who was found to be more like a girl in his character -than a boy. "Now Vivian was such an 'igh-spirited little feller!" - -David called the lady downstairs "mamma," because he had been told that -was her name; and he called his father "pops," because the diminutive -came naturally to him. When he was nearly six years old, Ownie closed a -door too swiftly and jammed his finger in it. The circumstance caused -him to take an unusual liberty--he clung to her knees, howling for -comfort. She looked at the finger, and patted him on the frizzy head, -and said, "There, there, it isn't bad; suck it--it'll soon be well!" -She meant to be gracious. Lee, who watched her face, caught him in his -arms, and fondled him till the sobs ceased; and there were tears in the -man's eyes which the child was too young to understand. - -"I'm so glad you married pops, mamma," said David--"I do like him so!" - -It was about this time that he began to understand, in a wordless, -instinctive way, that his mother found him disgusting. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -The two boys had a daily governess, and Vivian was her favourite. She -was an unsympathetic person, who prided herself on being extremely just, -and she was careful to explain that as David was much younger than -Vivian, she set him much shorter tasks. She also talked a great deal -about "the spirit of emulation, which she was afraid he lacked." To -supply the deficiency she offered a prize to the child who earned the -greater number of marks by the end of the term. Vivian took the lead, -and kept it; and when David knew hopeful moments and promised to catch -him up yet, Miss Fewster always answered reprovingly that "she feared -he had let his half-brother get too far ahead." After which David the -downcast made less progress still. - -She found him inattentive. She told him once how bewilderingly far from -the earth the sun was, and how comparatively close was the moon. In -the same minute he asked her if the moon wasn't "much the nearest to -Heaven." She sighed, and recapitulated figures. - -David's most violent emotions at this period shook him on the mornings -when she was late. It occasionally happened that she did not arrive at -all, and then he was free to sit in the garden, doing nothing--"like a -girl." (He was always hearing now that he was like a girl; he began to -think it would be rather nice to know one.) His feverish hope, as the -clock ticked on; the passion of suspense in which he went out to watch -for Miss Fewster, praying that she wouldn't appear; the sickening thud -of his heart as she turned the corner, seemed physically to weaken him. -And always she exclaimed briskly, "So you came to meet me, eh?" And -knowing that she saw through him, he would force a hopeless smile and -murmur that he had. His thought of the lost garden tied a knot in his -throat during the lesson hours, and the droning of the bees grew so loud -sometimes that it was impossible to understand what she said. It was -really the garden that stood in the way of his writing his exercises, -so full was it of sounds, and scents, and of fluttering shadows that he -liked to see. In the drawing-room there was a silver inkstand which he -knew the Queen had given to his "pops," and one day he thought that if -he could have this royal object to dip his pen in, the exercises might -be easier. So Lee, who was nettled by the comparisons, lent it to him -gladly, and Miss Fewster shuddered. But the Queen's inkstand did not win -David the prize. - -"Isn't it strange that he never sings?" Ownie asked Lee reproachfully. -"Nearly every child sings, or tries to, when he's playing about; they -say this boy can't hum a bar." - -Lee frowned, and looked away. She was telling him something that he knew -already. - -"Well, what of it?" he said. - -"Well, isn't it strange? If he is going to sing at all----" She felt -that if he had sung, he would have done something to justify his -existence. - -"Nobody can tell if he'll sing, as a man, till he's about eighteen. He -won't sing as a child, of course." - -"Humph," she said. - -"What do you mean by 'humph'? Who wants him to sing as a child?" -exclaimed Lee angrily; "why the hell should he?" - -"One would think _you_ wanted him to, by your tone!" said the woman. -"I'm sorry I inquired, I'm sure. I was wondering what he would do when -he grew up if he hadn't a voice." - -"He'll do better than _I_'ve done, I hope, anyhow. There are worse -troubles than having no voice." - -"That's lucky for you," she retorted; "if you go on in the way you're -going, you won't have one long!" - -He rapped out an oath: - -"Which skunk said that?" - -"Which?" she sniggered. "Everybody!" - -"Some man, of course! Drinks my champagne, and runs me down to my wife -behind my back." - -"Runs you down?" she echoed. "Do you think any man--or any woman -either--could tell me more about you than I know?" - -"And a lot you care, don't you?" - -"I should care if you lost your voice," she said shamelessly. David was -all ears behind a picture-book during this conversation. - -As the boys grew older, they knew that their parents constantly -quarrelled, just as the servants, and the tradespeople, and the -neighbours knew it. Vivian, as was natural, had imbibed the servants' -view, and held his stepfather a brute who beat "poor mamma" in the -night. He called him to David once "a black beast," and in the scuffle -that followed, the younger child got badly beaten; his indignation was -stronger than his arms. David understood quite early that his father -was looked down on because he was black; he realised that it was a -disgrace not to be white. That explained why grandmamma had called -him "poor little fellow," and why mamma only kissed him when visitors -were present. It explained why her rare kisses fell on his cheek like -the flick of a wet flannel. He began to see things. And in gabbling -his Collects to Miss Fewster, he pronounced with fervour the petition: -"Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord!" - -Once he asked Lee where he was born. - -"In Savannah, sonny." - -Miss Fewster's geography lessons had not extended to Savannah. David -wanted to know where it was. - -"In America, my boy." - -"Are there other people like you and me in America, pops?" - -"Oh yes, heaps of them," said Lee after a stare. - -David was puzzled. He had always believed his pops so wise, and really -he seemed to have done a very thoughtless thing indeed. He would have -been more sensible himself. - -"If I'd been you, I should have stopped there," he said at last. "Then -nobody would have noticed you so much." - -Lee laughed, without being amused. - -"You see I wanted to be noticed," he answered; "all artists do." - -"Is that why you came to England?" - -"Well, it's why I stayed here. I came with my father and mother when I -was no bigger than you are." - -"Shall I be an artist too, pops, when I'm a man?" - -"I hope you will." - -"And shall I marry a white girl, like you did?" - -"I hope you won't," said Lee from his heart. - -"Why?" asked David. - -"Because the coloured man who marries a white girl is a fool, David. He -won't be happy." - -"I don't think I should like to marry a black one, pops." - -"Then you'd better not marry at all," replied Lee. He reflected. "Don't -tell your mamma what I've said." - -This was before David went to school. Vivian and he were sent to a -day-school in the neighbourhood after Miss Fewster turned the corner -for the last time, and the elder child reported that "David was an -awful little duffer in the playground." The authorities were not much -more flattering about his mental attainments. The only high marks that -he ever secured were in the composition-class, in which he generally -got "double-six"--and was humbled if he didn't. For the rest, he was -not ambitious. It was always "Harris" who brought home a prize bound -in calf at the end of the term, though it was "Lee" who used to read -it. "Harris" was popular, and conspicuous in the lower-school Eleven; -"Lee" was a solitary, and usually went out with a "duck's egg." On the -horizontal bar "Harris" was as good as many of the boys in trousers; -"Lee" could barely manage to pull himself up to his chin. - -He was just ten when he fell in love. She was a governess, who took some -of the junior classes. Before he left in the evening he used to steal -back into the silent schoolroom to say "good night" to her. He always -found her standing at the wide window, looking out at the sunset, or the -stars. She was still young enough to have her dreams--old enough to be -weary. He never told her that he loved her, but she used to lend him her -own books, and once she called him "David," and that day he walked up -Belsize Park Gardens quivering with joy. Vivian said: "Can't you talk, -fat-head?"--and he couldn't. - -From the fly-leaves of the books he learnt that her name was Minnie. -The knowledge was rapture; for a week he felt that he moved in a -different world from the other boys, who only knew her as "Miss Pugh." -Once she asked him if he was fond of poetry. He associated it with -"Casabianca" and "The Collier's Dying Child," but he would not have -sunk in her esteem for a whole holiday, and he said "Yes." So she lent -him Tennyson--a shabby volume, with her favourite passages marked. -The pencil-marks were very scholastic and precise, and the passages -were very sad and sentimental. Poor Miss Pugh! The hardest duty of the -governess was to discipline the woman. But David was too young to read -the poetry in the margin. - -And he was too young to understand the book, but parts of "Maud" he read -again and again, and they throbbed in him. They translated what he felt -while his father sang, and what the shadows were always hinting in the -garden. It was as if he had been waiting for a chord, and it had come. -The melody of sense intoxicated him. To put the garden into words, and -make music at the same time--how wonderful! Not long afterwards a master -discovered him poring dejectedly over original and precocious verse when -he ought to have been engaged with declensions, and passed sentence, -whereat the versifier gave way to tears. - -"I don't like to see boys cry when they're punished, Lee; it isn't -English!" said the Englishman, meaning that it wasn't brave. - -David looked at him, aggrieved. - -"I am crying," he explained, "because I couldn't say what I meant." But -henceforth he spoiled his paper more guardedly. - -When Vivian was thirteen, Ownie complained that he ought to be at a -public school, instead of at Belsize Manor. It was "only right," she -declared--"they owed him such advantages"--and Elisha, who had never -refused her anything but men to flirt with, answered carelessly, "All -right, my dear. Why didn't you say so before? Let him go to Eton or -Harrow then, where the swells go. Send him to any place you like." The -boy's own wish was to accompany one of his chums to a college on the -south coast, and though Ownie parted reluctantly with the idea of Eton -or Harrow where the swells went, she gave him his way in the end. She -told the cook to see that his playbox was properly filled, and his -stepfather presented him with a five-pound note. He made joyous adieux. -David, it was understood, would follow him about two years later. - -It was when the time came for David to proceed to the college that -Vivian began to unburthen his mind to Ownie. The confidential period -was not long-lived, but during that Easter recess they used to walk up -and down the garden together, disparaging the man who kept them. In one -of their conversations, the lad said impetuously: - -"I do wish that Dave could be sent somewhere else, you know, mater! I -shall get awfully boshed when he joins--it's rather hard lines on a -fellow. Why can't he stop at the Manor?" - -She sighed. "Will it be very bad for you, dear?" - -"Well, a fellow's bound to be boshed. Of course he won't be in my form, -but everybody 'll know who he is. It's rather hard lines, having a -half-brother who's a blacky." - -"Hush! Try and make the best of it," she said, squeezing his arm; "I'm -afraid it's too late to send him anywhere else now. We all have things -to put up with, Vivie; _I_ have, as well as you." - -"Y-e-s," he returned. "It's a good job he won't be in my form. I don't -mind so tremendously much. The first time anybody gives me any cheek -I'll jolly well sock their heads. Oh, I know you have things to put up -with; by Jove, I wonder how you stand the governor sometimes!" - -"We learn to stand things as we get older," she replied. "What can't be -cured must be endured, Vivie." - -"He's such a--I mean leaving his being a negro out of it -altogether--he's such a cad. It does lick me how you ever did it, mater!" - -"Did it?" she murmured. Her heart missed a beat. - -"Well, married him! You never got on with him--I don't see how you could -have expected to. Why, I can remember your rows when I was a kid. I -think it was awful. I can't make out how you could do it, I'm hanged if -I can!" - -She winced--the colour in her face fluttered a little. For an instant -she was ashamed. Her son looked very tall to her, and her sale looked -very foul. But when she answered, her tone was saint-like. - -"I had a great deal to consider, dear," she said, "more than you are old -enough to understand. To begin with, there was _you_. And another thing: -I was very young, and your grandmother----Anyhow I did do it, and we -must make the best of it, Vivie, while it lasts." - -She drew his arm round her waist, and was humiliated to feel that it lay -there limply. They strolled for a minute in silence, both thinking of -the last words that had escaped her. - -"It's beastly, going out with him, you know," went on the boy. "And -he's got no tact--you'd think he'd know a fellow didn't like it! We -met some chaps in Regent Street the other day--chaps in the Fourth; -I saw 'em grin as they went by. _He_ didn't see. He was as cool as a -cucumber--lugged me into a shop and stood tuck. He'd have lugged them -in too, if I'd given him half a chance. You'd have been much happier if -you hadn't taken him, mater; it would have been a jolly sight better for -both of us." - -"Not for you," she said; "I'm sure of that, I've always felt that. Of -course there are drawbacks for you now, but, later on, you'll appreciate -the benefits. I'm sure that when you're older you'll say I didn't make -the sacrifice for nothing. I found it hard to do--I prayed to God to -make me strong enough; but the knowledge that I was able to bring you up -to be a gentleman has helped me to bear it all." She nodded sadly. "When -you're a man, and getting on, you needn't see any more of him than you -want to!" she added. - -So when Vivian went back to the school, David went too; and the little -mulatto's experiences there did nothing to lessen the sensitiveness that -had been bred in him. He found his form-mates brutal, and his masters -contemptuous. Probably he exaggerated their contempt--circumstances had -made him morbid--but those with whom he was brought in contact were not -magnanimous, and neither his race nor his temperament was any passport -to their favour. - -He was bullied atrociously. The taunt of "dirty nigger" embittered his -life. When it could not be made aloud, it was written on scraps of paper -and passed to him under cover of Latin grammars. A favourite amusement -of the form was to pin him to the ground while one of the number set -fire to his hair, and when it was discovered that he was the weakest -among them, they punched his head and wrenched his ears twenty times a -day. Often he used to drag himself away from their sports, to hide in -the Gothic corridors, or slink round the great cricket field, crying -with pain; but to be found "blubbing" meant worse pain to follow, for -then half-a-dozen stalwart lads would hack his shins, and twist his puny -arms till he writhed on his knees in agony. - -What he dreaded most were the classes which were held twice a week in -an annexe of the college. The master who took these always withdrew -for five or ten minutes in the middle of the afternoon, and no sooner -had he gone than a shower of blows drove David to mount a desk by the -window and keep watch, while the other boys had larks. The outcome was -always the same. His cry of "Cave!" suppressed the frolics in good time, -but the uplifted face of the little beaten sentry through the glass -met the master's eyes the instant he set foot in the courtyard, and he -re-entered with a stereotyped inquiry: - -"Has anybody moved here besides Lee?" - -To this there was a chorus of "No, sir." - -Then he said, "Lee, fifty lines;" and by-and-by he came to say, "Two -hundred lines." So twice a week David got an imposition as well as -the kicks and blows. Apparently it never struck the man as noteworthy -that the undesirable post of sentinel was always filled by the same -boy; it never occurred to him to draw deductions from the fact. He was -abnormally obtuse, even for a schoolmaster. - -Elisha had not been sent to a public school himself, and when David -went home, a false shame kept him from-owning that he was ill-treated. -However, as he got bigger, the worst of his physical sufferings ceased. -But he was always twitted with his colour, always made to feel that he -was a lower thing than the lusty young English lads who insulted him -with filthy verses and obscene cartoons. He never found a chum in the -college in all the terms that he was there; his real companion was his -father in the holidays. - -It was a queer fellowship between the morbid youth and the despised -husband. Before David was sixteen, he was Lee's confidant in all -matters. He heard about his debts and debauches, and his difficulty in -reconciling the diminished income with the expenses. He also advised. -Though the fees remained the same, the engagements were far fewer, and -the prodigal father waded in a sea of debt perpetually now; he talked of -the money "I used to make," and of "What my voice was once." There was -an afternoon in the practice-room when he gave way to despair, sobbing -across the piano like a mourner across a grave; but that was after a -late night when his nerves were out of order. David prescribed a couple -of glasses of port and a cigar for him, and he was soon cheerful enough -to suggest a dinner up West. The tenor and his ugly son were familiar -figures in the Regent Street restaurants, "Cafe, and Cafe-au-lait" -somebody had nick-named them. - -At the age of sixteen "Cafe-au-lait" was a man in his knowledge of one -side of life--a man in his reflections and self-restraint--though he -still trembled under the masters' glances, and boggled over his Caesar. -He boggled, indeed, over everything except the very occasional essays -that demanded no dry-as-dust facts; when he was at liberty to draw on -his imagination the essays were a pleasure to him. Lee's was not the -nature to expurgate the subject which rankled in him most, and the -warning that had escaped him to the child was amplified a thousandfold -to the boy. - -David understood. Marriage had spoilt his father's life; marriage was -the forbidden fruit in his own. The warnings seemed superfluous to him, -after what he had seen at home and at school. He no longer wanted to -know a girl; he laughed when Lee said, "Remember all I've told you when -you're mad about some woman yourself. Your wife would treat you as your -mother has treated me. You'd suffer hell every time a white man spoke to -her." - -"There's no fear of _my_ ever marrying, father." - -"Ah!" said Lee, who knew more of temptation. - -"I've seen too much." - -"But you haven't seen the woman. When she comes along you'll fool -yourself. She'll be 'so different' from everybody else; I thought your -mother 'so different' before I got her. By God, we hadn't been married -a month when she threw it in my face that I was a negro!" - -David brought him some verses one day, and asked him nervously if they -could be set and sung. For the first time he was timid with his father. - -Lee said, "Why do you break your head in your holidays writing things? -You're always scribbling in your bedroom, I hear. What do you write -about, sonny?" - -David looked more confused still. - -"Things come," he said; "there's so much to write about. I hope----" - -"What do you hope?" - -"I hope I shall always write. I've got it in me," he blurted. - -"You just pray for a voice instead," his father answered; "it will -pay you a heap better. Let fools hammer out the words for _you_! It's -not the chaps that write things who have good times, my boy; it's the -fellows that sing, or publish 'em." He read the lines slowly, while the -author trembled. "I don't understand what it's meant to be," he said; -"is it a hunting song? It's all about the fox's suffering, instead of -the people's sport." - -David winced: "The fox does suffer, doesn't he?" - -"I daresay; but the people enjoy themselves. A hunting song must be -jolly--Pink and Tallyho! Have you ever been to a meet? It's a very -pretty sight, let me tell you." - -"I know it is; but I didn't try to feel like the people who dress up to -kill the fox--I tried to feel like the fox they all want to kill." - -"What's the good of that? Foxes don't, buy songs. You should have -thought about the fun and the cheers. It's all on the wrong side; it's -wrong-headed, that's what it is." - -"I did think about the cheers--I thought how they must sound to the -fox. And I thought when he sees a crowd of big men and women on horses, -with a pack of hounds, chasing him to death, the field must look like -the world to his fright. He has run till he's breathless, his legs 'll -hardly carry him. The crowd are gaining on him and his heart feels as if -it's going to burst. They swoop nearer and nearer, and he's bedraggled, -and panting, and dead beat. Oh yes, I thought of the cheers--he hears -them right to the end. And then the dogs fall on him--such a lot of -dogs--and a man sticks a knife into his body, and the lady who's there -when he dies carries away a piece of the corpse, and feels proud. It -sounds like a game of savages, father." - -"Whatever it is, you won't alter it, sonny. You don't suppose you're -going to make the world any better?" - -This was really David's most sanguine hope. But he looked modest. - -"Anyhow, I can write the truth," he said. - -"The truth? Who the devil wants the truth?" replied the nigger. "People -hate the truth, especially English people; there's nothing English -people detest so much. And they always deny it.... I'll tell you what -you might do if you feel like that--you might make it a bull-fight and -go for the brutality of foreigners. But even then it would be no good -for music. If you want to do lyrics, you must write about love, or the -valour of Englishmen. Nothing else is any use. Nobody would sing this." - -"I don't want to write about love," said David; "I only write what I -feel. There are plenty of things in the world besides women and war. -'No good for music'? Why, some of it _is_ music! Listen to this." He -declaimed his pet stanza entreatingly, and waxed boastful. "Can't you -hear it? They came, the last two lines, all by themselves; they just ran -into my head, and sang themselves on to the paper. I know they're good. -You'll see! Wait till I'm famous. When I bring out a volume of poems, -and everybody is talking about it, you won't think I'm so stupid for -wanting to write. I tell you I've got it in me." - -"Lord! I wish you had had a better mother," said Lee, dismayed at -literary ambition. - -Ownie, grown rather stout, and puffy under the eyes, used to read novels -in the drawing-room, while the pair strolled up and down the garden, -talking. She was forty-nine now. When they turned, the lad could see -her--the woman who was contemptuous of them both. She wore black; Mrs. -Tremlett had recently died. The crape recalled to Lee the little parlour -in Regency Square, the period of his courtship. - -Her mind was at this time chiefly occupied by the thought of Vivian. -He had left school, and she wondered what was to be done with him. He -himself had no definite views on the subject. When she broached the -matter to him, he said lightly that he was hanged if he knew. On the -whole, he thought he preferred the Army, and as the Army was out of the -question, he would try his hand at anything they liked. He was cheerful -and indifferent. - -"Business?" she suggested. - -"I don't mind," he said. "Where's the oof to come from, though? Will he -part?" Between Ownie and Vivian, Lee was generally referred to as "he." - -"I daresay a little could be found to give you a start with, dear, but -I don't know what you could do. I had better speak to him about it. -You're so young, and you see we don't know many business people." - -"I'll tell you what--I'll go to the Cape," he said. "Singleton, a fellow -who left last term, is going out there. That would be rather jolly. It -would suit me better than an office." - -"Go to the Cape?" exclaimed Ownie. "Whatever would you do at the Cape? -Don't talk nonsense; I'm not going to have you packed off to the world's -end like that. You must stop in London, where I can see you. You're all -I've got, remember!" She was hurt that he could propose such a thing. - -"Oh, well," he demurred, "that's rot, you know, mater! A fellow can't -sit in his mother's lap all his life. Singleton has got a mother too, I -suppose, but it doesn't prevent him doing the best he can for himself." - -Ownie was silent for a moment. Then she said: "We must try to find you -something that you'll like quite as well, dear," and there was a little -touch of sadness in her voice. She was reluctant to acknowledge it, but -it had forced itself upon her more than once that her handsome young -son was a shade selfish. It was the fault that jarred upon her most in -others. - -Time had not left her complacence unimpaired. The menace of the future -was in her reveries, and she had lost her youth, and her figure, and -her admirers. Decrepit foreigners who smelt of pomatum, and dyed their -moustaches purple, were the only men who languished at her now. Even her -youngest captives had ceased to adore her when they heard Vivian, five -feet ten in his socks, calling her "Mater." And she had never reproached -him, even in her thoughts; she felt it was rather cruel that he wasn't -more attached to her. - -She very often attempted to discuss the subject of his career with Lee; -but Lee found it easier to tip his stepson an occasional sovereign and -let him loaf, than to give the matter serious consideration. Vivian was -idle for the best part of a year; and when he made a beginning it was -only in a West-End concert-hall as assistant business-manager. It was -a depressing drop from the altitude on which his mother had foreseen -him--he was paid thirty shillings a week, and the position was quite -subordinate. But unless she sold some of her jewellery to put him into -a profession, there seemed to be nothing else for him to do--and he did -not incline to any profession except the Army. - -So the elder boy went to town every day now and began to cultivate -the air of an impresario, and the younger continued to meet his Muse -clandestinely in the college grounds and write surreptitious verse. -Then, in the middle of a term--one morning during the Euclid hour--he -was summoned from the college by telegram, and sped to the station sick -with fear. Lee was in the provinces, very ill. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -In the first days of an intended tour he had taken a slight cold. He had -to leave for Birmingham on the morrow, and he reached it chilled and -shivering. To sing was out of the question. He remained in the hotel, -and ordered hot drinks and additional blankets. Next morning he woke -with a cough, and sent for a doctor; but the cough grew worse in spite -of medical aid, and when he was joined by a companion whom he had been -expecting, he was found in bed with pneumonia. - -He was asleep when David arrived. In the sitting-room the companion -was having dinner. David accepted her presence without astonishment. -She said she supposed he must be hungry, and told him to ring the -bell; he answered that he was not hungry in the least. She had -peroxide-of-hydrogen hair, and painted cheeks, and a coarse voice. He -sat in an armchair by the fire, and looked at her. - -"How soon shall I be able to go in?" he asked, trembling. - -"They'll tell 'im you're here when 'e wakes up," she said, with her -mouth full. "You'd better have something to eat, you know. 'David' your -name is, isn't it?" - -"Yes. I couldn't eat anything, thank you. Who is taking care of him?" He -knew already that the companion wasn't. - -"The doctor sent round two nurses from the hospital--a day nurse and a -night nurse. He's in a bad way. You should see how thin 'e's got." - -"Will he--get well?" inquired his son, with a jerk. - -"Let soap so," said the woman. She refilled her glass, and emptied the -bottle. "Have some champagne?" - -He shook his head. "I wish he'd wake." - -"You better had," she rejoined; "there's nothing like champagne when -you're feeling low." The waiter reappeared with the sweets. "Bring -up another bottle," she said, "and a green chartrooze. I don't think -I'll take any of those. What's that one--the floppy thing with the -pink-and-white stuff on it?" - -The waiter murmured that it was trifle. - -"No, I don't want any." She made a wretched pun, and told him to pass -her the cigarettes. The box was a silver one that belonged to the sick -man; the boy winced to see her careless hand thrust in it. He wondered -what the waiter thought of her, wondered that his father wasn't -ashamed--and knew a gust of self-reproach for condemning him to-night. A -lump rose suddenly in his throat, his eyeballs pricked; he stared hard -at the fire in a struggle to keep back the tears that were starting.... -To his shame he felt one trickling down his cheek. - -"Don't you smoke?" asked the woman. - -"Not now," he muttered, and knew that his voice had betrayed him. - -She turned to him surprised. "What's the matter with you?" - -"Nothing," he said angrily; "what should there be?" - -In the road, a piano-organ reeled out a cadenza, and then stopped short. -After the sharp silence that ensued, the roll of the traffic seemed to -fill the room. The cork popped, and he drank his wine at a draught. - -"Go on." - -"I don't want any more." - -"Sure?" She tilted her glass. "Well, here's to Temperance, and down with -champagne!" - -Though he no longer watched her, he was intensely conscious of her -presence; it weighed upon his senses, he resented it with every nerve. -The odour of her cigarette permeated his thoughts while he waited, and -he fancied that he could hear her breathe. - -The nurse came in, and said that Lee was asking for him. She warned him -not to remain more than a few minutes. The sight of her strengthened the -boy. As he followed this clean-faced woman in her sober dress, a tinge -of confidence lightened his apprehension. - -Lee had altered painfully. His words were whispers. In the first moments -there seemed something unreal in seeing him lying there so weak. - -"Davie." - -"Father." - -"Sit down." - -"Why didn't you wire before, father?" - -"It was time enough." - -"You're getting on nicely, they say." - -"Perhaps." - -"Do they know at home?" - -Lee bent his head. "The papers. But I don't want her here. I told her -she needn't come." - -"But she may, and----" - -"Oh no; she won't want to." - -There was a pause. Then he said in firmer tones: - -"This is a bad business, sonny." - -"It'll be all right." - -"Have you seen Julia?" - -"The woman in there? Yes." - -"She's a good sort, Julia--looks after everything. Most of 'em would -have cleared out and left me." - -David wondered what awaited her elsewhere. He turned very cold--the -illusion frightened him, for in health Lee had had no illusions. - -"A good sort," murmured the man, "eh?" - -"Yes," said the boy, faintly. - -"She's got a friend here now--comes in to see her sometimes--but it must -be very slow for her; not many women would have stopped. See that she's -comfortable, Davie." - -"I'll see to it, father." - -Lee closed his eyes, and his thoughts wandered through the years to a -morning when he followed a widow about Brighton, and overtook her on -Marine Parade. The sun shone out to him again, and he heard the wash of -the waves on the beach. He came back to David. - -"If I don't pull through, it'll be an awful mess," he said. "God knows -what I owe I I wish I'd put a bit by for you." - -"You'll have plenty of time to put by in, father. Don't talk nonsense -about not pulling through; in a month you'll be as strong as ever." - -The woman who was called Julia opened the door, and whisked over to the -dressing-table. - -"Sorry to bother," she said; "there's another bill from the chemist's -come in; I've got no money left." - -"Take some," said the dying man. "Where do you keep the key?" - -She unlocked the drawer, and whisked out again. There had been a rustle -of bank-notes. - -"A good sort, Julia," he repeated; "looks after everything. I must give -her something, Davie.... There's my scarf-pin somewhere about--it'll do -for her tie." - -David left him soon, mindful of the nurse's instructions, and at nine -o'clock the doctor paid another visit. - -"I should like to have a physician down from town, if you don't mind," -stammered the lad; "the best we can get." - -"Just as you please," said the practitioner, stiffly. "But the treatment -in these cases----" - -David felt shy, and was annoyed with himself for being so. The sense, -inherited and acquired, of racial inferiority cowed him as he opposed -his opinion to the authoritative stranger's. - -"Yes, if you don't mind, I should like a physician," he insisted, after -an inward struggle. Embarrassment lent a ring of defiance to his voice, -and the doctor thought him a cub. - -So the telegram was written, and the cub went out with it himself. - -When he returned to the sitting-room, Julia was playing cards for -coppers with a faded woman in shabby black, who was presented to him as -"Mrs. Hayes." A brandy bottle and a syphon stood between the glasses on -the table; and when Mrs. Hayes won a shilling she tittered: "Lucky at -love, unlucky at cards, my dear!" As she put on her bonnet, she gave a -start. "There! I meant to 'ave bought sixpenn'orth, against my being bad -again in the night, dear," she exclaimed; "the pubs 'll be shut by now!" -And then her hostess summoned the waiter, and Mrs. Hayes carried another -bottle home under her cape. - -It was in these surroundings, rather more than a week after the -consultation, that the tenor died. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -And Ownie--in weeds for the second time in her life--sighed as she had -sighed when she lost Harris, "I don't know what will become of me!" -Though her youth was gone, her egoism remained, and even the solicitor -was touched by the pathos of her helplessness. "I was a good wife," she -said, having had a week to convince herself of it; "it's hard that he -never made any provision for the future." - -David did not return to school, and Vivian, who found his mother's -lamentations wearisome when he was at home, began to thaw towards his -half-brother, and discussed matters with him. - -"The mater is selfish, you know," he said; "she only thinks of herself. -It's deuced rough on you and me, but she never talks about _that_. I -suppose we shall have to go into a poky little house somewhere, and pig -along with one or two servants eh?" He was unconsciously picturing the -environment in which he had been born. - -"I suppose so," said David. - -"Good Lord! When one remembers all the money that was made, you know, -it's awful. They ought to have saved. The idea of spending every bob, -and never thinking about to-morrow! I don't blame him any more than her, -of course," he added hastily; "it was her fault too; but I wish they had -let me go to the Cape. It isn't a lively look-out to live in a tin-pot -house here, and come home to find the mater fretting over her lost -splendours. That's what it will be--she isn't the woman to be cheerful -when things go wrong. I shan't be able to stand it; I know I shan't. I -shall cut it after a bit, and take a room up West." - -"She won't let you. Besides, she may need your salary." - -"What?" - -"Well, who's going to keep her if _we_ don't?" - -"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Vivian, "do you mean to tell me we shall be as -poor as all that?" - -"I don't know. I hope we shan't. I'm sure _I_ don't want to live at home -either now; but it's likely enough, isn't it?" - -Vivian pondered. - -"There's her jewellery," he said at last; "that's worth a lump, you -know. As to your not living at home either, one of us will have to, it's -certain! She can't be left by herself; it wouldn't be right." - -"I don't think that _my_ going would trouble her; she has never wanted -_me_. If she does, of course I'll stop. The thing is, I don't know what -sort of berth I can expect to get. I'm afraid it won't be very easy -for--for a fellow like me to get anything to do, will it?" He tried to -force a laugh. "I've never been in demand so far." - -"No, there _is_ that," said Vivian. "She was talking about it yesterday." - -"What did she say?" - -"Only that. It won't be so easy as if you were--you know! You ought to -have sung, Dave, then you'd have been all right. Fancy, if you'd had the -governor's voice; by Jove, there would have been none of this bother -at all! Of course, if you can write, it'll be better than nothing." He -hesitated, and looked a little sheepish, for such confidences were new -between them. "You want to go in for being an author, don't you?" - -David nodded. "I've sent verses to magazines already; only, they weren't -taken." - -"I should peg away at it if I were you. I always told the mater it -wasn't half a bad idea for you when she called it 'rot.' It doesn't -matter what an author looks like, you see; if he's as hideous as the -veiled Johnny in what's-its-name, it doesn't show in his books. Just you -go on turning it out; that's my advice. I'd like to see some of your -things one day." - -"Still," said David, "I shall have to get a berth at first, you know. -I shall give it up before long, of course, but I must have one at the -start." - -A sincere belief in oneself generally inspires conviction in somebody. -That is why Ownie had never failed to find supporters. Vivian regarded -his half-brother a shade enviously. - -"It's my opinion you're not half such a fool as the mater thinks, old -chap," he murmured. "I wish I could do something of the sort myself, -though I can't say I'm nuts on poetry. Just you swot away. If you write -enough, some of it's bound to bring in some coin sooner or later. Now, -what have J got to look forward to? Why, nothing at all! I can stick on -where I am for ever. If I'd gone to the Cape, I might have come back a -millionaire; but how on earth can I hope to make any money in a billet -in London?" - -"I thought," David said, "that what you really wanted was to go into the -Army?" - -"Oh, well, I did--I was younger then; we all want to do something silly -at that age. I've changed my mind about that. I want to make money, -that's all _I_ want; I'd like to be a manager. There's plenty of oof -to be made in the musical business, I can tell you, even if you don't -sing or play yourself. There are lots who do--and brains are as good as -a voice, if it comes to that. Of course the swell artists get deuced -big terms, but if you're smart you can get the others to pay _you_. -I'm keeping my eyes open, what do _you_ think? It isn't difficult to -make a profit on a concert if your rent's not too high, and you go the -right way to work; it's like making a book on a race. And, after a bit, -you get cracked up in the papers for your 'services to musical art in -England,' too. If I had something to start with, I'd have a shot at the -game to-morrow." - -He stroked an incipient moustache, and David looked at him with respect. -Himself, he panted to be famous--fortune was a detail--but the flourish -of qualities that he didn't possess impressed him. - -Some little time passed before Vivian was relieved of his fear of -having to contribute immediately towards his mother's support. Then, -when light was shed, it was evident that if she sold her diamonds, -she could withdraw from The Woodlands with a considerable sum, and the -earliest idea was to remove to a villa at Balham or Wandsworth. On the -advice of one of the decrepit foreigners, however, who promised her a -clientele, she talked presently of taking a boarding-house at Regent's -Park as soon as she was able to sub-let. The fall was crushing, but at -least it was better than solitude in a suburb and living on her capital. -Privately, too, as she foresaw herself ministering to the palates of -bachelors, with a red lampshade over the dinner-table, she considered -the possibility of marrying again. She was prepared to view purple -moustaches with a more lenient eye now, and she contemplated a business -run on good lines with more complacence than she permitted to appear. - -In the meantime, before a tenant was forthcoming, several attempts were -made to find David employment. The decrepit, but faithful, rallied round -her--the least deserving generally receive the most sympathy--and though -a coloured boy of forbidding countenance was no acquisition, he at last -obtained a clerkship at a music publisher's. - -When he had been engaged at Panzetta's a few days, he broached to his -mother his desire to live alone. He didn't allude to her lack of -affection for him; he put the matter on grounds of expedience. - -"I don't think my money would be any help to you, would it?" he said; -"fares and lunches run away with a good deal. I couldn't give you any -more out of a pound a week than it would cost you to keep me. If I took -a bedroom near Panzetta's, there wouldn't be any fares to pay. I saw one -advertised for seven shillings, quite close by; I might go and look at -it, if you don't mind." - -Now she had reflected already that he would be no acquisition to -a boarding-house either, and in her heart she was relieved by his -proposal. Still her hesitation was not wholly insincere. - -"You're very young to go away by yourself, David," she demurred; "you're -not seventeen, you know. I don't think you ought to do that yet." - -"I'm quite old enough to take care of myself. If you have no objection, -I should prefer to go." He spoke in the tone that was natural to him -when he addressed his mother, and it sounded as if he were resigning a -situation. It pierced even her coldness. She flushed, and looked down. - -"I know you've never been very fond of me, of course," she faltered. -"Now your father is dead, I suppose there's nothing to keep you with me?" - -"I never said that," replied David. But she observed that he did not -deny it. "I don't see what use there is in stopping here--and in a -boarding-house you would find me in the way, too." - -She was startled. It came upon her as a shock, to discover how well she -was understood by the son to whom she had voluntarily revealed herself -so little. For almost the first time she felt remorseful; something of -tenderness moved her towards the boy whom she had taught to regard her -as a stranger. - -"If you'll be happier away, go," she returned, in a low voice; "only -don't forget there's always your home if you want to come back." One -cannot undo the past by a mood; missing the confirmation of response, -she was never keenly aware of it herself, but there was a stir of appeal -within her as she added the last words. - -"Thank you," said David politely. - -He went to look at the room during the luncheon hour next day. It -was in. Soho: the ordinary lodging-house attic, with a rickety chest -of drawers, a white paraffin lamp, and a low ceiling that dipped to -a window which commanded a fairly extensive view of neighbouring -chimneys. However, he was not dissatisfied. The window, indeed, rather -attracted him by reason of a resemblance it bore to the one in the -familiar prints of Chatterton. He settled to move in on the following -Monday, and left a half-crown as deposit. Ownie, duly informed of his -arrangements, said little but that she should expect him to come to see -her on Sundays, wherever she might be. Not so Vivian; Vivian said that -he would be very short on a pound a week, but that he was to be envied -all the same. As for himself, he had thrown out hints of taking diggings -too, and "the mater had sat on him promptly. Considering she meant to -run a hash-house, her opposition was distinct rot, you know, because she -would have plenty of people to talk to there without him!" - -It would have been becoming for David to feel sentimental when he packed -his books, and his clothes, and went to bed in his little room in The -Woodlands for the last time; but he did not. He was vaguely surprised at -the absence of appropriate emotions. A profound relief was in his heart, -the relief with which the unwelcome embrace solitude. There is none -deeper. - -He had grown in fetters. The burden of knowledge had weighted his soul, -hampered his speech, even cramped his gait; and he was to be free. His -spirit stretched itself. The only love that had been given to him had -passed away, and he expected life to yield no other, was resigned to -know no other; he wasn't seventeen. To be alone, to be famous! as yet -he asked no more. And he looked forward boldly. No suspicion of the -disappointments, the disillusions that lay before him, no inkling of the -difficulties that throng the path of the literary idealist, leavened his -mood. - -When he drew up the blind next morning, the sky was fair; the garden of -his childhood glistened in the sunshine. Ownie was not an early riser, -and when he had breakfasted, he went upstairs again to say good-bye to -her. "Well!--don't forget to come on Sunday," she said, and he nodded -assent. His trunk was to be called for and delivered at the lodging -during the day, so he walked with Vivian to the station. Hampstead -was alive with young men walking to the station, young men recently -introduced into their fathers' businesses and proudly conscious of their -first silk hats, and their gold watch-chains. No overcoats hid the -watch-chains, though it was freezing. David marked the youths pityingly: -to have no other prospect than an office all one's life! - -He took his seat in Panzetta's with a new exhilaration. The hopes of -glory that have faded on an office-stool might have provided him with -another theme, but he did not think of that. Mentally he examined his -manuscripts, and decided which of them to submit to an editor next. -Nine-tenths of the journals published in London were unknown to him, -his verse was as yet imitative, he believed that the best work was the -easiest to sell. But the road was hidden from him, and he smiled. - -A small fire was smoking in the attic when he reached it. His box had -arrived. He lit the lamp, and produced from his pocket a purchase that -he had just made--it was a penny bottle of ink. When he had had a cup -of tea and some bread-and-butter, he put his clothes in the rickety -chest of drawers, and arranged his books on the top of it. Then he took -from the trunk pens and foolscap, drew the one chair to the table with -infinite zest, and brushed the crumbs out of his way. - -But he did not write. Memories flocked thick and fast. After awhile he -got up and looked out over the chimney-pots. The view was very cold; -under the moon the roofs shone white, and snow was falling. He thought -of it falling on a grave. The poignancy of sorrow overcame him, and he -sat huddled by the window, the tears dripping down his face. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Thus began the second book of David's life, where so many books of -life have begun, and where so many are fated to end--in a garret of a -lodging-house. Now, too, began his acquaintance with larger London, -no longer the capital of concerts and cafes to him, but the London of -grim, inhospitable streets, of dull-faced, tramping crowds, the London -that the millions know, sordid and unsmiling--cheerful only for a -consideration, a niggard even of its light. There were many evenings -when he could not write--in the first months many evenings when he did -not attempt to write--and, drifting from Soho, he would rove about the -city till late, rove west and east, tempted to unfamiliar quarters -by the promise of their names, storing impressions. He supped at -coffee-stalls and heard the vagrants talk, and rose at dawn to breakfast -among the workers and the wastrels in the five-o'clock public-houses -near the markets. On Sundays when it did not rain, and he didn't go -to see his mother, he explored the parks, or wandered beyond the -stretching tentacles of London in woodland which the monster had not -yet absorbed. He journeyed among holiday-makers who were boisterous, -but never gay, who shouted, but who never laughed. The outskirts that -he found were beautiful, and he yearned to read the hearts of these -excursionists who, whether they covered the miles in dreary silence, or -shrieked the burden of a cockney song, had always the same vacant gaze, -the same sad, hopeless air. He saw that look on everyone, in varying -degrees--the London look, bred of the dismal climate and the gloomy -streets; he thought that he would recognise a Londoner anywhere, by his -eyes. And when he returned, he noted how the fairness of England was -disfigured where Englishmen began to build. - -The love of London which some men have felt, was never born in David. -He could not grow to love it though he tried. In time he came to -wonder if he was blind--if something was lacking in him--when he read -word-pictures of its "beauty," and knew that he found it execrable. -True, there were many nights when the river mesmerised him and he hung -rapt upon the bridges, but then the lamps shone only on the water, and -the spell lay in the vast suggestiveness of a great city that he did not -see. - -Occasionally he went to the gallery of a theatre; more often he saved -the shilling and bought a book that he coveted. Because he realised that -he was not eating enough to feel very strong, he pawned his watch and -chain when he had been in Soho about six months. It was a severe pang -to him to part with what had been his father's present, even to part -with it temporarily, and only the knowledge that his father, if he could -advise, would bid him "pop it for all he could get," enabled him to make -the sacrifice. A week afterwards, however, his diet had dwindled to its -original proportions, and his library had much increased. - -Meanwhile his manuscripts came back just as often as he enclosed a -stamped and directed envelope. The word "regrets" grew odious to him; -in the work of David Lee the word was seldom to be found, and he never -wrote it without reluctance. Nobody wanted his poetry, nobody thought -it worth printing. The rose-colour gradually faded from, his reveries; -at the end of a year the boastfulness of boyhood had passed. He began -to realise how stupendous was the task that he had approached so -confidently. To attack London with a pen! he felt as if he were throwing -sea-shells at a fortress. By degrees, too, he came to understand that -a poet must be either celebrated, or ridiculous; the pennies that he -spent in a news-room showed him that the poet in adversity appealed to -the national sense of humour every week. - -He derived encouragement from reading the biographies of great writers -of the past--and was depressed when he scanned the reminiscences of -successful authors of the day, for these always seemed to have "arrived" -so gracefully. It surprised him to note that poverty and disdain had -been the portion of only those who were dead. - -It happened on a morning in April, the event that he never forgot, a -morning when the sky across the chimney-pots was blue, and the sparrows -hopped in a strange, yellow light which the oldest bird on the slates -told them was called "sunshine." David woke up to find--not that he -was famous, but that his jug of hot water supported a communication by -which an editor offered him a guinea for a sonnet. And his behaviour -was less original than his verse. He burned to impart the news to the -drudge in curling-pins who brought in his tea and haddock, he wanted to -pat the heads of the children who were playing tip-cat in the roads. -In Soho it is never too early nor too late for the children who fill -the roads to play tip-cat. In Bloomsbury they incline to roller-skates; -in Bayswater---that happy hunting-ground of the organ-grinder and the -street-arab--they "Follow my leader," yelling; but the passion of Soho -is tip-cat. He bought a bunch of daffodils on his way to the office, -and stuck them on his desk. He was still at Panzetta's--his salary had -been raised ten shillings by this time--and the prospect of tendering -his resignation shone out to his eager eyes again. The clouds had hidden -it so long that he was dazzled. There was the gladness of summer in the -sunlight that slanted through the dusty windows; all the temptations of -the country lurked in the pennyworth of daffodils beside the ink-pot; -he panted to be in the open, free to loose the extravagance of joy that -swelled his heart. - -"It's the sort of morning," he said in a burst to the accountant, who -sat opposite, "that makes you think it's hot out-of-doors and want to go -and pick poppies, and hear the rye rustle!" - -The accountant lived at Ealing, and travelled by the same train as a -distinguished counsel every day. He often mentioned vaingloriously that -Sir Edward Jennings had nodded to him on the platform. - -"Ah!" he rhapsodised. "With a carriage-and-pair to come and fetch you!" - -David was a little less than nineteen when his first verses were -accepted; he was a little less than twenty when they were paid for. -Thus the thoughtfulness of the Editor provided him with two distinct -occasions for rejoicing. He sent several other sonnets to the journal, -and some of these were taken also, but a guinea is the professional -_Pons asinorum_, and it was a long time before he cashed a cheque for -any larger sum. The bright prospect of resigning the clerkship receded -from him like a will-o'-the-wisp, and by-and-by he even smiled at his -youthfulness, in remembering how happy that first acceptance of his work -had made him feel. - -And still he wrote. Sometimes he sat writing poetry, in front of the -washhand-stand, until the lamp-flame waned and bobbed, and went out. -So grew the manuscripts which were to be submitted to the publishers. -Excepting the boarding-house, where Ownie reigned on in widowhood, he -visited no one; excepting Vivian, who made his way to the attic at -long intervals, no one visited him. Few among the millions in London -were more utterly alone than this young man who alternately hoped and -despaired, and, whether he was elated or despondent, had never an ear -to heed him, heard never a voice that said "Cheer up." Vivian and -Ownie were the only persons who ever inquired about his work, and to -a dejected man the inquiries of the uncongenial are worse than none -at all. No strangers could have been more foreign to each other than -were the half-brothers, although they had a myriad memories in common. -It is not time that enables people to understand one another, it is -temperament. The world is heavy with couples who have sat opposite each -other for forty years and are still tone deaf to each other's humour, -and stone blind to each other's moods; and a recent acquaintance may -say the right things to both. Vivian had encouraged poetry while he -thought it might pay; since it didn't pay, he explained that the proper -line of action was to deal in something else instead. There was nothing -unpractical about the son of the late Mr. Harris; he was the kind of -young fellow of whom it may be predicted, even while his pockets are -empty, that he will rise somehow, and throw a few of his scruples -overboard in the process. He was an occasional caller, but never a -companion. - -And slowly there crept into David's life a dull resentment of the -solitude that had once been a relief, a longing for sympathy, for -tenderness--a sense of bitter oppression as he looked in the glass -and knew that he must never expect to find these things. And the face -of every girl became a glass to him, and he winced before it. When -his resources were low, he took his mid-day meal in a vegetarian -restaurant, a place with a faint distinctive smell, and a three-course -dinner for sixpence. One of the waitresses there was very pretty, and -all had arch glances and undertones for the regular customers who -cheated hunger with scones and "coffee," or some dish with an attractive -name and a strangely nasty taste. Only with David none was ever arch. -Once he summoned courage to say more to the pretty waitress than "Two -poached eggs, please," and the haughtiness of her eyebrows slew him -before she turned away. Often in the streets he saw a negro--black as -Elisha had been--and across the crowd the gaze of the aliens would -meet for a moment--drawn together by something deeper than curiosity. -But neither could lift his silk hat and say to the other, "We are both -damned, so let us be friends!" because the influence of civilisation -prevented their acting like that, although their skins were the wrong -colour. - -Woman, impalpable, insistent, shared the garret with David now. And -sometimes she was fair, and sometimes she was dark, but always she -was beautiful; for at twenty the gift that man counts best in woman -is loveliness; and at thirty it is wit; and at forty it is a keen -appreciation of his own. From the dream-women who let him woo them, -David heard many odes. At first his visitors were cold--mere Beauties -from a hair-dresser's window--and he could only watch them timidly. -But by degrees he found his voice, and told them how empty the attic -had been before they came; and while he talked, the forms took flesh -and blood, the lips whispered love words back to him; they made him -confidences, and uttered sweet conceits, and then--Why then, the drudge -in curling-pins banged, with a rejected poem, and the room was bare -again. - -The slim volume for the publishers grew slowly; some evil power of -daylight seemed to freeze the verse that he had left aglow, so often was -a night of exultation followed by an evening of dismay. A manuscript of -sad surprises. Yet at last it was finished, for even he could find no -more to alter. - -Then its journeys began, and eventually it found a home; but it was -not treated kindly there, and it brought him little recognition, and -no money. He had scarcely realised the intensity of his prayers for it -till it failed; nor had he known what strength he derived from the hope -of fame until the hope sank. With the loss of faith in his work, the -feeling of desolation deepened. A passion of revolt possessed him as he -looked from the mirror to the future and saw himself perpetually alone. -Because his misery cried for expression, he picked up his pen again; but -though his interest in his art revived as time went by, the bitterness -was always in his soul. Even as the years passed, there grew within him -a hatred of his own person--a jealousy of every shop-boy who was kissed -by a servant-girl for love. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Professor Sorrenford had five daughters, but only the eldest and the -youngest were unmarried; the others had removed to homes of their own. -The house, of which the early Victorian furniture was falling to decay, -stood in a genteel street in Beckenhampton--one of those streets in -which every third household hankers after a "paying guest," and shivers -at the proposal of a "boarder." On the door a brass plate announced, in -worn lettering, that Professor Sorrenford taught music and elocution, -and from time immemorial vain efforts had been made to induce the -"generals" to pull down their sleeves before they opened that door. - -In the dining-room, which was also the parlour--for the drawing-room was -reserved for the reception of pupils in the daytime--a girl was lying on -the sofa one afternoon before a fire, that needed poking. Her eyes, grey -and luminous, and the fashion in which she coiled her abundant hair, -gave to her delicate face a character, a grandeur, which she dissipated -when she smiled. Her smile was perhaps a little foolish. When her mouth -was in repose she looked a woman to die for; when she smiled she was -merely a very pretty girl with a pink-and-white complexion and a dimple -in her cheek. She wore a pale blue flannelette dressing-gown with a -superfluity of ribbons; and as she was not smiling on the sofa, but -stitching the dead body of a sea-gull on to her best hat, she had that -air of spiritual reflection which always embarrassed her partners so -much until they discovered that there was really nothing to be afraid -of. This was Hilda, the Professor's youngest. The eldest had been -christened "Hebe," but in deference to her wishes no one ever called her -so, nor did she ever write the name. She came in now--bringing the other -something in a breakfast-cup--a girl with a curvature of the spine. - -She was short. Her shoulders were square, her features drawn, the lips -were thin and sensitive; only her eyes denoted to a cursory glance that -nature had meant her to be beautiful. The angular deformity of the spine -that defeated nature's intention had resulted from an accident when she -was barely three: a nursemaid's carelessness for a moment--then for the -child, inactive, prostrate, long years of suffering while her sisters -played. Her mother died before the torture which the doctor described -as "rest" had worn to an end, and--as the pastimes of the other girls -were denied to her--it was Hebe who came gradually to fill the mother's -place: to withhold the bills that would worry the Professor, and to -order fish for dinner when the butcher's foot was down. It was her -part to cut the sandwiches when the other girls went skating, and to -stop behind and devise "high teas" for their return. It was her part, -by-and-by, to screw their frocks out of the housekeeping money when they -were asked to dances, and to sit up to look at their programmes when -they came back. Later still, it was her part to watch lovers come into -three lives in turn, and to contrive three trousseaux, and see three -younger sisters wooed and wed. - -None of the family remembered any longer that she had not been born -to stand aside; there is nothing from which we recover more healthily -than the affliction of somebody else; and that she had a woman's heart, -and all a woman's natural longings herself, was a fact that her poor -exterior obscured--to the perception of other people. When we say that -we admire a face, we mean, consciously or not, that we admire some -attribute that the face suggests to us, and when the exterior repels -we seldom speculate very curiously about the soul. To-day, at the age -of twenty-six, she found the addition of the tradesmen's bills less -disquieting than formerly, by reason of the reduction of the household; -and since she earned a little money by her brush, she was able to sweep -a number of thorns from the Professor's path. She was not his favourite -daughter, because there were hours in which he found the sight of her -deformity depressing, but when he was troubled about the rent he often -exclaimed with emotion that he didn't know what he would do without her. - -"What have you got in that cup, Bee?" - -"Mutton broth," she said; "you didn't eat any dinner. Have you been -asleep?" - -"No," Hilda complained. "I couldn't; just as I was dropping off, half a -dozen doors began to slam. Is there any salt in it?" Her voice was small -and high. The first time that one heard it pipe from her queenliness one -felt dismayed. One felt as if the grand organ stops had produced the -effect of a penny whistle. - -Bee nodded, and made up the fire. "It's snowing again," she said. "Why -didn't you wait till the spring before you had your influenza?--then you -might have gone to the seaside afterwards. Doctor Fellowes doesn't think -it would do you much good this weather. I met him just now in Market -Street, and asked him." - -"What did he say?" - -"He thought you had better wait till it was warmer and you could sit -about more. I went to Tuffington's; I couldn't get any of the books on -your list--they haven't had them down, of course. Miss Tuffington said -that nobody had asked for them." - -Tuffington's was the principal circulating library and bookseller's -of Beckenhampton. The proprietor was at present displaying, at -three-and-elevenpence-halfpenny, in wadded roan, a line that he had -labelled "Tuffington's Series of Padded Poets. Tried, and not found -wanting. Specially recommended." It was a rare occurrence to find a -recent novel there, however, and he made no reference to padded fiction. -Hilda's gesture was more impatient than surprised. - -"There were eighteen on that list," she said. "I'm sure I don't know -what we subscribe for. I can't keep on reading _East Lynne_ and _Jane -Eyre_ all my life. Didn't you bring anything at all?" - -"They said they'd try to send you up something to-night before they -shut. I could only get the book I'd ordered--the one that's criticised -in the _Review of Reviews_ this month." - -"Poetry!" She wrinkled her dainty nose. "What sinful waste of money. -Where is it? Let's look." - -"It's downstairs--I left it in the hall when I went to see about your -broth. Shall I fetch it?" - -"Yes, do, or father will pick it up, and then he'll elocute it at us -all the evening; I'd rather read it myself than that. Who's in the -drawing-room?" - -"Nobody. It's Thursday, you know--father's afternoon at Great Hunby. I -was going to send in a steak for his supper, but Rose always burns them -so; the last we had came up a cinder. I really don't know what to get." - -"As the dinner was raw, she's quite sure to burn the supper. Why don't -you make him an omelette?" - -"He likes something substantial when he comes back," said Bee -thoughtfully. "Perhaps eggs and bacon----" - -"Eggs and bacon are so soon over," objected Hilda; "and, besides, if -they aren't broiling hot----_I_ know! Get him a Perrin's pork-pie." - -Bee brightened. Its pride in its pork-pies is a cult in -Beckenhampton--they obsess the local mind--but there are pies and pies, -and Perrin's are the pinnacle. If the King were to consent to sup in -a Beckenhampton menage, the breathless question, "What shall we give -him?" would be disposed of when someone exclaimed, "Give him a Perrin's -pork-pie." - -"That's it," she said. "I'll tell Rose to run out now. I don't know what -I was about not to think of it--I might have brought one in with me." - -She went downstairs again promptly, and, when she returned, the book -that she had bought was in her hands. This had not, as had Rossetti and -Tennyson and the others in the "line," the cachet of Mr. Tuffington's -"special recommendation"; it was a mere work that he did not stock. She -gave it to her sister, and lit the gas. - -"There you are," she smiled; "it will be something to go on with, though -it _is_ poetry." - -"Anything is livelier than the advertisement sheets of the newspaper," -said Hilda, unwrapping it, "if you're sure you don't want it yourself. -I'm so dull I could read Shakespeare. What a hideous cover! '_A -Celibate's Love Songs--by_ David Lee.' Why did you order it; is he -anybody? He only seems to have written one thing before." - -"The _Review of Reviews_ said he had genius," answered Bee, "and parts -of the criticism made me think I should like it. No, you can be quite -comfortable with it; I'll wait till they send up your novel." - -She pushed an armchair to the hearth and sat down as if she were tired. -She was, as she had said, in no hurry for the book, though she had been -eager to read it a week ago; her mind was full of other thoughts this -afternoon, now that she was free to think them. There was the picture -that she was unable to begin; it floated through her brain, elusive -and incongruent. She had been so pleased last week when she came back -from Elphick's farm, but the more she pondered over the photographs -that she had taken there, the more she was perplexed. It was that barn -with the lichened roof that threw her out. Such colour! She couldn't -bring herself to forget the barn; yet, if she didn't, the picture would -be quite different from the one she proposed to paint. Her camera was -always leading her into temptation, she reflected. She had bought it to -see how her subjects composed, and to photograph the trunks and branches -of trees, in order to study their form at her leisure; but since she -had had it she was constantly preparing disappointments for herself, -constantly happening on the impracticable. She stared into the fire, -her elbows on her lap. Her gaze was wide while she was wondering; then -her lids drooped low, and lower, as on the blank canvas of her mental -view there grew laboriously a conception. Her chin was raised, and -mechanically her thumb made little downward movements in the air. - -The silence lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour; it was broken by the -younger girl. She turned on the sofa petulantly: "Read to me, Bee, -there's a dear!" she exclaimed. "My eyes ache, and the light makes them -worse." - -"I thought you hated being read to?" said Bee, starting, and hoping that -the start wasn't noticed, because it would be considered affectation. - -"Not by you; it's elocution lessons in disguise that get on my nerves. -Do go on--it's very pretty here and there." - -Bee took the book reluctantly, and began to read by an effort. For an -instant the fact that she had been curious about it was dormant in -her mind, but almost immediately she remembered, and the cause of her -curiosity--the expectation of finding in the poetry just the passionate -protest that was in her own heart--brought a little eagerness into her -voice. Very soon she came to some lines that had been quoted in the -review. She read them twice--once to Hilda, and once to herself; and -again she thanked the man for saying that. - -"It's rather nice, isn't it?" Hilda commented, as she paused. - -"Yes," she said, "it's rather 'nice.'" - -But she held the book before her face as she went on. The man revealed -her secrets--told all that she felt every day of her life--and she was -afraid that Hilda must know it, though Hilda didn't. Her mind and spirit -responded vehemently to his verse. He was voicing her soul, uttering the -emotions which nature woke in her, and which she had never been taught -to express in her art; he cried aloud thoughts that she had nursed in -bitterness, and thoughts that she had shrunk from, too cowardly to own. -Once she questioned if the poet was a man at all. Wasn't it the outcry -of a woman, hungry and resentful like herself, only gifted with the -power to interpret, and the courage to avow? - -She questioned only for a minute; man's deification of woman's beauty, -a man's illusions about women, thrilled through the verse too strongly -for her to be deceived; but a deep interest in his personality mingled -with her gratitude for his work. It was a keener interest than had -been stirred in her by any other pen; she even fancied that she must -understand him better than any other of his readers. She would have -given much to hear him talk, and though it was impossible--though -she knew that few things were more unlikely than that she would ever -meet him--she winced in reflecting that the very deformity which -intensified her appreciation of his genius would make her appreciation a -still poorer thing in his regard. - -She was not reading now. The present pause had lasted so long that the -fear that Hilda must divine spurred her to the next line guiltily, and -she glanced across at Hilda as she read it; but Hilda was asleep. She -was glad. She did not want to read any more just yet, or rather she did -not want to read any further. She wanted to turn back, and read some -of the stanzas again. There was the page that had brought before her -eyes so vividly a view of the Little Tester churchyard from the hill. -It had made her wonder if he had ever been there when the poplars were -blackening against the sky, and all was vague suggestion but the lamplit -windows of the cottagers, and the ghostly gravestones of their dead. She -had often meant to paint an impression there, and when she had found -the page, the desire to do so flamed in her again, fiercer for her -admiration of the verse. - -If she could have expressed the feelings that the scene aroused in -her, the woman would have been a great painter, for she felt deeply -and originally, in spite of the local art-school where the tuition--as -in almost every English art-school--tended to crush the instinctive -feeling of the students. Her brush had provided her only happiness, -just as the school--where she had begun to study when she was about -fifteen--had provided her only training, but she paid for the hours of -happiness with days of dumb despair. She could not stand before this or -any other scene, and express clearly what it meant to her, and, baffled, -she knew it. She painted very pretty pictures of average merit, poetical -things with considerable charm, but further she could not go. She felt -that her pictures lied about her almost as basely as her body lied. She -tried to believe that they maligned her because she was still young; -she reminded herself often that the greatest of our landscape painters -had not accomplished the work that made them famous until they were -nearly forty--in Constable's case not till later. She did not know that -her stumbling-block was that while she had heard a great deal about the -virtues of Rossetti, and Burne-Jones, and Ford Madox Brown, a great -deal about the eighteenth-century masterpieces and the technique of -Reynolds, and Gainsborough, and Romney, she had heard nothing at all -about the virtue of going to Nature direct for her impressions--had -never been told that her own likings were as valuable as Rembrandt's, or -Velazquez', if she would only set them down with sufficient sincerity -and courage. - -She was one of many--one of the crowd of artists possessing a certain -amount of talent and individuality--who are born in England, but whom -England cannot teach. And for lack of the guidance that is not to be had -in their own country they are for ever stultifying themselves, instead -of doing what was promised by their natural gifts. They learn to imitate -the work of the painter who has scored the biggest success of the year; -to try to imitate the old masters; to treat deliberately a commonplace -subject in a commonplace way, with a view to pleasing the Powers of the -Royal Academy. What they do not learn is to stand with an open mind, -receptive and emotional, in a scene of the every-day life about them, -forgetting all the pictures they have seen, and all the juries, and the -ignorance of the British picture-buying public, until they know that the -thing they are feeling and wanting to convey isn't a mere memory of the -work of someone else, but a true impression of life or nature drawn from -their inner selves. If Hebe Sorrenford could have studied in Paris for -four or five years, she would have been, a better painter, and a happier -woman. But she did not realise it. And, as the Professor could not have -spared her, it was perhaps as well that she did not. - -The servant entered to lay the supper, the pork-pie crowned by parsley -on the dish. She said the master had complained that the beer from the -new barrel was thick, and inquired if she should draw some for him, or -bring up a bottle of stout. Bee replied that her father would rather -have the stout. - -He came home soon afterwards, a man with mild manners, and a dejected -back, who had written several songs that had never been published, and -one song that had been successful--under another composer's name. He -had also a sanguine temperament, which had survived the corrections of -thirty years. A musician who had never learnt to blow his own trumpet, -he had failed for want of audacity; and because he was always eager to -persuade himself that it was policy to accept injustice rather than face -an unpleasant interview, he was inclined, like most men who yield in the -wrong places, to be exacting and consequential at home. - -"Worn out, father?" - -"Eh?" He bent to their caresses, and sank into a chair. - -"Worn out?" - -He sighed, stretching his feet for slippers. - -Bee brought them to him, and moved the footstool. - -"What news?" he asked. "How's the invalid?" - -"The invalid has trimmed a hat," Hilda answered. "How did you get on -to-day, dear?" - -He sighed again. "Young Simpson isn't coming back next term. So much for -Simpson!" - -"So much the less for us," she said. "Why not?" - -"Because he's a curate and puffed with vanity, and I let him choose 'The -Charge of the Light Brigade' last lesson and pretended he didn't squeak. -He's so highly satisfied with his elocutionary graces that he thinks he -has nothing more to learn. That's the worst of the elocution pupils; if -you encourage them, they get conceited and give you up; and if you don't -encourage them, they get disheartened and give you up. Pupils----" He -spread his hands seeking epithets to stigmatise pupils. - -"And the Mayor?" said Bee. "It was the Mayor's morning with you, wasn't -it?" - -"The Mayor, my dear, was, if possible, more hopeless than ever. He talks -through his teeth, and as to his finals, you never get even a _g_. Half -the forty minutes go in grammar lessons--not to be mentioned of course. -I've been working on his Address with him now for a fortnight, and he -still says 'Gentlemen, you was.'" - -She laughed. "There's nothing like leather," she said. The Mayor had -made his fortune out of boots. "It seems only the other day we used to -see his wife scrubbing her doorstep when we went through Hippodrome -Place." - -"Anyhow his wife carries the position better than he does," Hilda put -in. "You might almost take her for a lady if you looked at her in a -hurry." - -"And if you didn't hear her speak," added the Professor. His gaze -wandered to the dish, rested on the pie, and gladdened. "A Perrin's?" -he exclaimed. "Good children! I'm hungry." He rubbed his hands, and -shuffled to the table. "Let's sit down. Yes," he went on--but he spoke -slowly now, because to cut a Perrin's was a rite--"yes, young Simpson is -leaving. And Miss Kimber's class--well, you know about Miss Kimber's -class! Only seven piano thumpers now, as against twelve at midsummer. -If it weren't for the private lessons at the room, it would hardly pay -to go over to Great Hunby on Mondays and Thursdays any more. Hilda, my -dear, did I give you a piece of the jelly?" - -She bent her stately head to see. The grace of her slender figure had -been apparent when she moved from the couch, the length of limb. At the -mean table, laid with a soiled cloth, she looked a goddess to whom men -might offer worship, sacrifices, for the recompense of her regard. To -offer her pork-pie seemed a profanation--until she smiled. - -"The school advertises your name in _The Herald_," said Bee. "There's -that." - -"Yes," he admitted, "there's the ad., and of course it means -recommendations to other schools, too. Still the fees are not high, and -the little girls are not interesting." - -"Wait till the opera is produced!" she said. "It will be taken some day, -and then----" - -"Ah, yes," echoed Hilda, "wait till the opera is produced! Father -conducting, and us--'we,' which is it?--in a private box. Has any -manager got it now, Dad?" - -Years ago, so many years ago that they told falsehoods to one another -about its age, pretending that the poor dear was less ancient than -it was, the man had written a light opera, the librettist being a -friend even unluckier than he. By half the theatres in London, and -many in the provinces, this opera had been rejected. Its leaves were -tattered, and the librettist had long since renounced his pen in favour -of auctioneering in the North. But the Professor nursed his illusion -still, still wove dreams around his opera over his evening pipe. It -was the family fetich. They played its airs, and sang its lyrics, and -laughed--still laughed--at the auctioneer's familiar jokes. When their -best friends supped with them, the piano was opened and "Father's -opera", was the feature of the entertainment. When it happened, as -it sometimes did, that the receipt of the discoloured bundle was -acknowledged by a curt managerial note, the composer, who had so little -to encourage him, was uplifted by that--in fancy felt the baton in his -fingers and foretasted all the rapture of his First Night. At such -times he paid visits; his eyes twinkled, and his stoop had nearly gone. -"They're nibbling, my boy!" he would say. And then again, with a beam -and a toss of the head, "The managers are nibbling!" But when it is -added that the score was musicianly and the airs were tuneful, and that -the rejected work would have been performed long before puns went out -of fashion if Sorrenford had only been a well-known name, there remains -less humour in the pathos than his acquaintances enjoyed. - -The old man looked up from his plate and smiled roguishly. - -"It's odd you should mention the opera just now," he said. "Because -there's a prospect! I told you all the bad news first, and was keeping -that for the end. Wait till we've finished supper, and I will"--he -chuckled--"I will a tale unfold!" - -They were all eagerness, but they knew his idiosyncrasies too well to -demur at the delay. Until the moment arrived which, for no good reason, -he had fixed upon to tell his tale, questions would be useless. They -exchanged glances, wondering how good the news really was, and recalling -past "prospects," that they might not be disappointed when the facts -came out. - -Presently they rose and went back to the hearth. He filled his pipe -carefully, extinguished the spill, and placed it with deliberation -on the mantelpiece. Next he made himself comfortable in the only -comfortable chair. - -"Ha!" he said. - -"Well, Dad?" - -"Well, my dears, it has been whispered to me----Mind, this is to go no -further; you mustn't mention this. I was told in confidence." - -"Yes, father, yes? We won't breathe a word." - -"Well, I was told in confidence"--he puffed placidly--"that the Theatre -Royal is--changing hands!" - -They were a little slow. "Changing hands?" - -"I'm told that Mobsby is likely to give it up. I hear that in a few -months' time the Royal may be run by some other manager--a manager -who, one may say without being unduly sanguine, is sure to be more -enterprising, for new brooms sweep clean." - -"Ah!" said Bee, "you think the opera will have another chance there?" - -"Oh, oh!" cried Hilda. - -"Think?" His expression was gay, his manner important, there was even -a tremor of triumph in his tone. "Think? Don't you see for yourself -what it means? My dear, women are very dense in practical matters, -really--your poor mother, God bless her, was just the same. Don't you -see that it is one of the best things that could have happened for the -opera? I'm not sure, I'm not by any means sure, that it isn't quite the -best thing. Remember who I am. I'm somebody here; not rich, far from it, -but in my way--in the little world of Beckenhampton-a personage. I may -say that, I think?--I don't want to flatter myself, but 'in my way, in -the little world of Beckenhampton, a personage'?" - -"Yes, yes, Dad--a personage; of course you are!" - -"Good! So far so good. Well, what follows?" He took three slow whiffs of -the pipe again. "The new manager wants to ingratiate himself with the -Beckenhampton public. He says to himself, 'I could hardly do a cleverer -stroke of business than open my campaign with the work of one of the -oldest and most respected of the residents.' It's as good for him to -get the opera as for me to give it to him. Our interests are identical; -we--so to speak--we link arms!" - -They caught a little of his confidence, and affected more. - -"But won't the touring companies stand in the way?" they asked. - -"Tschut! Let him give it a production, that's all I want--a fortnight, -a week, even a night will be enough to make it known. Once it is heard, -there will be offers from London. It will get about how the audience -received it; the managers will see the criticisms--I shall post them to -all the principal theatres myself. I think, I really do think, that the -poor opera has got its chance at last!" - -He mixed some whisky and water, and dilated on the subject till his -daughters' bedtime. At eleven o'clock they kissed him and went upstairs. -In their hearts they felt a little ashamed, because they had pretended -to more enthusiasm than the great tidings aroused. The Professor hummed -snatches of the overture, and lay back, seeing visions in the fire. - -"Do you think it's really of any consequence that the theatre is -changing hands?" inquired Hilda on the landing. - -"Oh, I don't know," said Bee drearily. "Poor father! Let's hope it is, -as long as we can!" - -They had occupied separate rooms since there had been rooms to spare, -and when Bee went into hers she took David Lee's book with her. She -sat under the gas bracket, reading--a little crooked figure with rapt -eyes--until the clock of St. Sepulchre's boomed her to her feet, -dismayed. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -She was standing in her studio, in front of her Academy picture, -wondering lazily when it would be finished, and if it would get in. -She had exhibited several times at Birmingham and Manchester, and last -spring her "The Grove is all a Pale Frail Mist" in the Leeds Exhibition -had sold for thirty guineas, but she had had nothing hung yet in the -Royal Academy, though she had sent there more than once. - -Her studio was an attic. On the discoloured walls, and stacked in -corners on the floor, were early works--a record to the investigator of -the various stages she had passed. They were all there--the pictures -that one would have expected to find. There were the usual attempts -at family portraits, the usual still-life groups of ginger-jars, -Japanese fans, and bowls of flowers; there were the more ambitious -canvases depicting lackadaisical females posturing in medieval -landscapes--painstaking exaggerations of a famous man's most obvious -faults. There were the subjects with silver beeches and willowy -streams, painted after she had given her heart to landscape for good and -all, and had returned to Beckenhampton entranced by the work of Corot. -Compared with those early insincerities the picture on the easel was a -masterpiece; but she was not looking at them for encouragement--indeed -not many of them were in a position to be observed--nor was she at work, -though the colours on the palette were freshly set. Although her gaze -wandered constantly from the picture to the study beside it--showing in -miniature the same stretch of gorse-grown common, the same sunk wayfarer -upon a bench--her brush was motionless, and presently she tossed it to -the table with a gesture of impatience. - -She was thinking of _A Celibate's Love Songs_. A fortnight had passed -since she bought it, and the volume haunted her. She had been filled by -an intense desire to write to the author, to tell him of the effect his -poetry had had on her, also to ask him one or two questions about it. -Such impulses are obeyed by a thousand women every day in the year, but -to this woman, remote, unfashionable, the desire seemed so romantic, and -even immodest, that she blushed at the temptation. She wondered again -if such things were done, wondered if the appreciation of an obscure, -bent, plain little artist would excite his ridicule. - -It was the latter doubt that deterred her most strongly, the fear -that he might scoff. The sensitiveness to her deformity which made it -an ordeal to her to confront a stranger, which made her ashamed of -her Christian name, rendered her shy even in correspondence, and she -shrank as much from revealing herself on paper as in speech. Still this -correspondent would not know that she was bent, or plain, or an obscure -artist, so there would be nothing for him to scoff at, excepting, -perhaps, the way she expressed her ideas. She reflected for a moment -that the "H. Sorrenford," which was her usual signature, might even -conceal her sex. - -That fancy faded almost as it rose. Since her object in writing would -be to obtain an answer, she ought to enclose an envelope stamped and -addressed. Yes, he was bound to know that the appreciation was a -woman's. She faltered again, and wished that the poet were not a man. - -In one respect she resembled all the readers who want autographs or -information; she was supported by the remembrance that she meant to -spare him the expense of the penny stamp. It emboldened her to begin -the letter. She had not a sentence in her mind when she sat down, and -her opening lines were the lines that popular authors have come to know -by heart--the lines with which even less favoured authors are familiar. -Before long, though, the knowledge that she was free to destroy the -letter when it was finished made her spontaneous, and she ceased to -consider the propriety of her action, forgot to question whether he -would sneer or not. - -She was not a literary woman and she did not write literary English, -but she was an unhappy woman, who for the first time in her life had -experienced the joy of finding herself understood; and she came nearer -to uttering what she meant with her untutored pen than she had ever done -with her misguided brush. Because she was not literary, she believed -that when she suppressed the pronoun "I" she stilled the personal note, -and the true value of the letter lay in its suggestiveness. The pleasure -of expressing her love, her gratitude for the verse was very great, and -though she chose to ignore the fact that the pages were destined to meet -his eyes, the inward consciousness of it remained forceful. - -When the letter was written, she read it slowly through, and twice she -made as if to tear it up. But she did not tear it up; she put it away -irresolutely. It occurred to her now that she could direct it only to -the office of the publisher, and several times during the day she -wondered if the publisher would forward it. Once in recalling something -that she had said, she regretted a word that had been used, and she -wished she could substitute a weaker one. She went to the studio and -took the letter out and examined it. She wrote with a "J," and the -word was thick and black; the alteration would be noticeable. She did -not like the thought of that, was averse from giving to an unaffected -letter an air of artifice, and she was reluctant to copy it. She stood -hesitating a long while. But how foolish she was! She had not decided -yet that she meant to post it at all. - -The same on the morrow; she vacillated hourly. She wanted so much to -post it, but it seemed such a preposterous thing to do; the more she -reflected, the more certain she was that she would feel ashamed if she -yielded to the desire. Still she would put the letter in the pocket of -her jacket! She could determine whether it should go into the pillar-box -or the fire while she was out. - -Beckenhampton itself is not picturesque, though the outskirts are -pretty enough. The visitor finds nothing to admire in the town save the -factory-girls, some of whom are beautiful--excepting on Sunday when -they wear their best clothes and mock pearl necklaces. She was tired -to death of the long, dull, stuccoed roads that offered nothing to the -imagination. She crossed the market-place and passed a post-office and -made her way towards London Street. In London Street the Misses Simpson -nodded to her without stopping. They agreed that she was "beginning to -look old, poor girl," as they went on. In her hand were the letter, -and the cheesemonger's bill, which she was about to pay. The fancy did -not strike her, but the two things that she held were typical of her -existence. - -She paid the bill and turned homeward. Now she walked more slowly, and -when she reached the post-office again, she paused. She moved a step -closer to it--and wavered. The thought came, to embarrass her, that she -was making herself more ridiculous still by so much hesitation. At the -worst the man would throw the thing aside and forget it. She wished that -it had been sent at once, or that she had never written it at all. The -whole incident seemed to her intolerably stupid. She pushed the letter -hastily into the box. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -Yes, David's success had come. It had not been won so easily as was -imagined by the readers who had never heard of him till now, for he had -written for many papers--verse and articles too--before _A Celibate's -Love Songs_ appeared. It had not come so soon that success intoxicated -him; but it had come a decade earlier than it comes as a rule even to -the fortunate. - -It was the pity of it, that the recognition he had wooed so ardently -found his embrace at last a little passionless. "A humbug" his friends, -if he had had any, would have called him when he hinted as much, but -some of Fame's fairness had faded in the courtship, or the wooer had -lost some of his capacity for rapture. - -The "interviews" and the introductions that might have been his were -not forthcoming because nobody had met him yet, but he was conscious -of no sacrifice in waiving them; on the contrary, he shrank distressed -from the thought of thrusting his negro face? between the public and -their appreciation of his verse. Mr. Norton, his publisher, might have -intimated suavely that his personality had a distinct commercial value, -but David had even excused himself from calling on his publisher. - -Few things are more circumscribed than "widespread literary fame"; -and David's was only spreading. Though _A Celibate's Love Songs_ was -in brisk demand, and a second edition, the author's mother in her -boarding-house at Regent's Park had not heard of it yet; Vivian was -travelling, as business-manager of a dramatic company; and at present -the poet's parentage had not transpired. At Panzetta's somebody might -have given the kick-off to a ball of personal gossip, remembering the -whisper of the ex-clerk's tendencies, but before a volume of poems -penetrated to Panzetta's it would have to see, not two, but twenty -editions. - -In solitude as complete as when he saw his first sonnet printed, or -when--as an unattached journalist--he bade the clerkship good-bye, -David lived to-day. The residence of the "new poet whom Mr. Norton had -discovered"--there are always paragraphists who talk naively of the -publisher or manager "discovering" a writer who has been pealing at -the bell for years--was a philistine and even shabby first-floor in -an undesirable street shadowed by Gray's Inn Road. On his notepaper -he ignored Gray's Inn Road, and flaunted Mecklenburgh Square. When he -worked, his eyes rested now on an oleograph of Romeo and Juliet in a -gilt frame, instead of on a washhand-stand, and his meals were laid -by a domestic who removed her curling-pins by noon, and was clean by -tea-time. One does not attain distinction as a poet without acquiring -certain luxuries. - -He was not writing this morning; he seldom did much good until the gas -was lighted--until the bawl of hawkers, and the riot of children, and -the clatter and crash of milk-cans had ceased. In the evening there were -only piano-organs to prevent his earning a living, and by ten or eleven -o'clock even these finished. He was not writing; when the second post -was delivered, he had his overcoat spread on the table, and was trying -to expunge a grease-spot with a rag soaked in turpentine. There was a -letter for him. Though the servant was slow in coming upstairs, the -grease spot was still slower in yielding to his treatment, and when she -thudded across the room, he was still rubbing vigorously. - -His publisher's name was on the envelope, so he put the rag down, -wondering if there was any important news. At the sight of an enclosure, -and a printed slip conveying Mr. Norton's compliments, he said "damn," -for enclosures usually proved to be circulars from Press-cutting -agencies. He opened Bee's letter with little interest, and fingers that -smelt of turpentine. - -The feeling roused in him by the first lines was a very commonplace -one--the gratified flutter of a young artist who is praised--but after a -few seconds the letter affected him more subtly. It was not merely that -"Miss H. Sorrenford," who desired a reply, admired his work; so did more -authoritative critics. Nor was it simply that he was thankful to her for -owning it; he had been thankful to them too. It wasn't only that her -appreciation was intelligent; a few of the criticisms had been more than -that. The arresting fact was that he was stirred by curiosity about her. -For once a woman permitted him a glimpse of her soul, and the loneliness -of his life made the strange event more fascinating. He wondered who she -was, and how she looked, and was humiliated to reflect how disenchanted -she would be if she could see him. He read the letter twice before -he put it in his pocket, and smiled again at the diffidence of her -beginning. What was the picture in her mind--the seclusion of a study, a -secretary sorting the poet's morning mail? He regarded his surroundings -ruefully. - -He thought he would reply to her on the morrow, but the curiosity she -had wakened in him did not subside; on the contrary, her letter kept -recurring to him during the day, and he pondered what he should say. He -was young enough to quake lest his response should dethrone him. Because -the matter was engrossing he sat down to answer her the same afternoon, -and he found himself writing at much greater length than he had intended. - -As he took the second sheet of paper, the doubt arose whether such -prolixity would not cheapen him in her view. Unaccustomed to a crown, -he was of course afraid of its slipping off. He left the table, and -revolved a polite and colourless note that seemed more consistent with -the position to which she elevated him; but he wasn't satisfied with it. -To assist his meditations he re-read her letter, and now he realised -that at the back of his mind lay the desire to hear from her again. The -note would frustrate it. He returned to the table, and went on with the -fifth page. By dint of squeezing his wisdom a good deal he contrived to -avoid encroaching on page six. - -Late on the next day but one, he received a few lines of acknowledgment -from her. They were grateful, but they provided no reason for his -addressing her any more. He was chagrined, and it would have astonished -Bee much to know how often David Lee's thoughts turned to her. - -At the end of a week she was sufficiently astonished; she recognised -the writing on the envelope and the package a shade incredulously. He -begged her acceptance of his first book, which he hoped she would like -as well as his second. He even hinted that he awaited her opinion of it -with considerable eagerness. She thanked him by return of post, and when -another week had gone by, her opinion was expressed. She had written -with a faltering pen this time, because she did not like his first book -so well as his second, and was perturbed by the necessity for saying so. - -David put down the letter discomfited. He had been looking for it -every day, and the knowledge that he had been impatient made him -angrier still. He was incensed with himself for having provoked the -disappointment. Why had he sent her the book? The tepidity of her -praise! Never a superlative. Besides, in parts she failed to see his -meaning. After all, she was less spiritual than he had thought her! - -If her earliest letter had stirred his imagination less deeply, the -correspondence which he had rescued once would now have been allowed -to die; as it was, he wrote to her not long afterwards, defending -himself from her criticism, and explaining a passage which he -said she misunderstood. It was manifest that he was wounded. She -replied--evidently abased by his displeasure--that she had not presumed -to "criticise." So does humility juggle with words. The poet was -appeased; and then mortified to feel that he had been a churl. He -scribbled a line of deprecation. Also, angling for further favours, he -tied an inquiry to the end of it. - -Thus the correspondence entered upon its second stage. In its second -stage they exchanged letters at longer intervals, but he ceased to -invent pretexts for asking her to reply, and she signed herself, -"Sincerely yours, H. Sorrenford," instead of "Yours very truly." When -the spring came, he complained: "It is nearly a month since I heard from -you--the bareness of the breakfast-table affronts me every morning," and -Bee, who had been the prey of scruples, put them from her, and wrote -again. - -They were wholly natural, the letters that had begun to mean so much; -they would have seemed unnatural only if they had been published, with -an editor's "Foreword" proclaiming that the writers were strangers to -each other. David wrote on impulse in the hours when he was loneliest; -Bee responded gladly when the temptation to confess herself was too -strong to be denied. There was no news in the letters; hers especially -were poor in facts--her thoughts about a book he had recommended to -her, the impression of a ramble through the fields, seldom more. He was -surprised sometimes to reflect how little he knew about the woman whom -at other times he seemed to know so well. It surprised the woman that -she could unveil her soul with such audacity to a man she had not met. - -Only in moments she realised that she was able to write without -constraint because they had not met. He didn't know her, and unknown, -she was unembarrassed; the disparity between her body and her mind -ceased to oppress her until the envelope was sealed. She would not even -tell him she was an artist, lest he should make inquiries, and discover -that she was deformed. In their sensitiveness to their exteriors, as -well as in their hunger for love, these two were akin. Often when the -man wrote to her, he shivered in imagining her aversion if she could see -her correspondent's face. Often when the woman posted her answers, she -was ashamed, conjecturing his fancy-portrait of her and cowering before -her crooked shadow on the road. - -And his fancy sketched a score of portraits of her. She had youth--he -was sure of that--yet she was not so young that her outlook was a -girl's. She had beauty--manlike, he clung to that, although he had so -good a cause to know that lovely thoughts may inhabit unlovely homes. -But after it was said, how little had been told! He craved the definite. -Was she fair, or was she dark? Were her eyes brown or blue? What colour -was her hair? Was she small, or queenly? At once he longed to see her, -and trembled at the thought of revealing himself to her astounded gaze. -Frequently he was harassed by the thought that an opportunity for their -meeting would occur, and he wondered what excuse he could offer for -avoiding it. Her letters were friendly, frank; one day he might open -one to learn that she was coming to town. How could he dare to greet -her? "I am David Lee." He foresaw her start, the colour falling from -her face, the effort with which she put out her hand after the shock. -And then? Yes, they would talk together for a little while unhappily; -she would be painstakingly polite and struggle to conceal the dismay -that he read in her every tone and gesture. And afterwards there would -be a difference in her letters; and by degrees they would grow shorter, -and presently they would cease--and the woman who had given him a new -interest in life would be lost. While he could retain this sweet and -strange companionship he swore he would retain it. The shock must come -to her some time, he supposed, from a newspaper paragraph; for the -present----But cowardice could not quiet his curiosity, and again and -again he wished that he could see her once; always he wondered how she -looked. - -Bee's dread of his suggesting a visit to her was deepened by the fact -that if she seemed reluctant to receive him, her correspondence would -assume a clandestine air. Into the woman's life as well had come a new -and eager fascination; she, too, desired and feared together. She wanted -to hear him talk; she did not ask herself if he was handsome, but she -wanted to hear him talk. What joy to have a presence that he would -approve! To be able to tear open his welcome letters with no misgiving; -one day to read that he was coming, and go down to the drawing-room, -a graceful figure in a becoming frock, without the terror of reading -consternation in his gaze. She pictured her entrance as it must be: his -blank astonishment as she appeared on the threshold; their perfunctory -conversation, with a lump in her throat; his pitiful pretence that he -was pleased that he had come. How her letters would shrivel in his -remembrance! She bowed her head. - -Each was fast falling in love with an individuality; each was -frightened at the thought of meeting the other's eyes. The man said -bitterly, "She would shrink from a mulatto!" The woman sighed, "No doubt -he thinks me beautiful!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -April was drawing to a close, and every evening the Professor said, -"Have you heard from the Academy, my dear?" and sighed when she answered -"No." She had begun to conclude that "The Sun's Last Rays" was rejected, -and it distressed her to think of the money that she had laid out on the -frame. Before the order for that frame was given, the price had been -exhaustively debated at the supper-table; she knew that a good frame was -a recommendation to a hanging committee--her father had argued that "an -artist's work ought to stand on its own merits." In his demeanour now -she read a reproach of her extravagance, and each time that he asked her -if she had heard yet, it was a greater effort to her to reply. - -At last, however--one evening when hope had almost died in her--the -servant entered the room with a letter. The Professor lolled in the -armchair smoking his pipe; Hilda was engrossed in a "new novel" from -Turlington's--published in the previous spring--and Bee herself was -sitting idle. Her thoughts flew to David Lee as she watched the girl -advance towards her. She had withheld from her family the fact of her -correspondence with the poet--withheld it, not because they would regard -her friendship with him as an impropriety, but because they would -consider she was making herself ridiculous--and she prayed that her -father would not ask from whom the letter came. The handwriting relieved -her anxiety, and the crest on the flap excited her. The next moment she -pulled her varnishing ticket from the envelope. - -"From the Academy, my dear?" - -"Yes," she exclaimed, "I've got in!" - -"What's that?" said Hilda, glancing up from the book. "Got in? Oh, have -you--how nice!" - -"What do they say?" inquired the old man. "Let me see!" - -"It's a ticket for varnishing day," she said. "I wonder how I'm hung." - -"Very odd," he remarked, "that they didn't send it you before." He read -the ticket attentively, pursing his lips, and turned it over, as if a -clue to the delay might be discovered at the back. "What did I tell you? -I knew it would be all right. A pity you wasted such a lot on the frame -now, eh, my dear?" - -She could not perceive that the mistake was demonstrated, but his -legitimate triumphs were so few that it would have been petty of her to -grudge him an illusory one. "It must have been among the doubtfuls," -she explained--"the pictures they didn't make up their minds about at -once--that's why I didn't hear before." - -"Of course," he said, "there are pictures that are put away to be -examined again; the committee can't decide about them right off. Whether -they are, taken eventually depends--er--depends on circumstances. They -are called the 'doubtfuls.'" He returned her information to her with the -air of letting her into a secret. "I expect they thought it a bit dull, -you know--a bit dull. It's pretty--it's a pretty thing--but it wants -more sunshine. It isn't bright enough. You haven't got the blaze of the -gorse into it; that's what you've failed in--you haven't got the blaze -of the gorse." - -"It's eight o'clock in the evening," she said. "The title is 'The Sun's -Last Rays.'" - -The sunshine was paling from her spirits too. Extraordinary, she -reflected, that it was possible for those who always meant well always -to miss saying the things one wanted to hear. Both he and Hilda were -genuinely pleased--she knew it--yet how flat the news had fallen! And -neither of them had cried, "I wonder how you're hung!" - -"Y-e-s, you don't convey the glory of summer, unfortunately; the thing -isn't gay enough; there's no heat in it, no glare. That's what's the -matter with it, my dear--there isn't the glare there should be. Now, -to do justice to that scene, to paint it to advantage, you should have -shown it on a scorching afternoon, under a vivid sky. The tramp on the -seat should have been hot--mopping his forehead. There might even have -been a touch of humour in the figure of the tramp. As it is, he only -looks tired. You understand what I mean?" - -"Oh yes," she murmured, "I understand. But that isn't the picture I -wanted to do. I meant the wayfarer to look tired. I wanted to get what -George Eliot called 'the sadness of a summer's evening' into it." - -"Mopping his forehead with a red handkerchief, now, would be natural; -and the red would liven the picture up. You might paint a red -handkerchief in before the Academy opens, mightn't you? Think it over, -my dear. A red handkerchief and a brighter light on the gorse would -improve the thing wonderfully. It's a pity the man isn't more to the -front, more important. He isn't prominent enough. That's where the fault -lies really--the tramp isn't prominent enough." - -Though it exasperated him to hear the ignorant try to criticise music, -he never hesitated to dogmatise about the arts of which he knew nothing -himself; and as she listened to him, the elation that had been born -within her faded into lassitude. The fact that good news had come -appeared to be already forgotten; her sister, having said, "How nice," -was again immersed in the novel, and while her father discoursed -didactically without once speculating how her picture had been hung, it -seemed to Bee that her successes were always made an opportunity for -homilies in her home rather than for rejoicing. - -How her work had been hung, and how it would look, were doubts that -filled her mind when she travelled to town on varnishing day. It was -only in moments she even remembered that she was nearing the city that -held David Lee. She knew the change that removal from the studio wrought -in the aspect of a picture, and she crossed the great courtyard--as an -exhibitor for the first time--with increasing nervousness. She went -upstairs, and for a quarter of an hour wandered through the rooms in -an unavailing search. Then she discovered her work, high in a corner, -beside a picture of a child in a bright blue frock, playing with a puppy -on a Brussels carpet. She stopped with a heart-quake. Though she had -prepared herself to be disappointed, the shock sickened her. Surrounded -by other pictures, also clashing with it in subject and treatment, and -viewed in the harsh light of the Academy, her quiet landscape appeared -to her insignificant and unfamiliar. She marvelled that there could have -been hours when she was pleased with it; she stood rooted there, seeking -the qualities that had endeared it to her. They had gone--everything -had gone! It was the ghost of the landscape that she had painted that -appalled her from the Academy walls. The ghost of it. She drooped -drearily to a step-ladder and sat down. When she had recovered -sufficiently to return to the picture, she put on a light varnish, which -brought up the colour of the parts that had sunk in; but varnish could -not brighten her mood, and she had little hope that "No. 790" would ever -find a purchaser. - -She had often reflected with a tremor that when David Lee went to -the Academy, he might observe her work and recognise her name in the -catalogue. In the novels that Hilda borrowed from Tuffington's the -Academy was always revealing somebody's identity to someone else. "He -moved to where the crowd was densest, and a minute later a half-cry -escaped his lips. The scene that had never faded from his memory--the -scene of their farewell--glowed upon the canvas. He knew that only one -hand could have portrayed it--knew that the artist who had leapt to fame -must be the trustful girl whom he had loved and lost!" Now that there -was no danger of the work attracting Mr. Lee's notice, she wondered -why she had feared its doing so; her misgiving that it might lead to -his finding out the truth about her seemed ridiculous. She even parted -regretfully with the prospect of arousing his admiration. - -In the train, her despondence was deepened by the thought of having -to give an account of the day's experiences when she arrived. While -she could imagine nothing sweeter than to be approaching a home where -affection was interpreted by tact, her soul fainted before the ordeal -of detailing the disappointment to her father and Hilda. She knew that -she would feel worse in the parlour than she did in the train, that, -besides being dejected, she would be incensed. Whether things went well, -or whether they went badly, she mused, it was an equal effort to have to -talk about them if the listeners seized upon the trivial, and ignored -the point--if they put faith in what they were meant to smile at, and -were sceptical where they were asked to believe. How often she had gone -home brimming with news, and no sooner imparted the first item than she -wished fervently that she hadn't any at all! - -The porters bawled "Becken'ampton," and she got out with a sigh, and -made her way--dusty, unwilling, tired--towards the house. When she -entered it, there were some letters lying on the hall table, and she -saw one among them for herself from David. She picked it up, rejoicing; -a flush warmed the whiteness of her cheeks, and she forgot she was -fatigued. Her home-coming had been happier than she expected after all. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -In June she went to Surrey for a month. She generally managed to make -studies in the country during a few weeks in the year, and more often -than not took Hilda with her, the Professor agreeing to their departure -with as generous an air as if he were paying the expenses. Hilda went -with her again this time. They had the luck to light on Godstone, where -they found surprisingly attractive quarters, and--what was stranger -still--a sufficiency of simple food, the typical village consisting -chiefly of drawbacks and public-houses. - -Godstone was quite exceptional. Although it was the very quintessence -of the country--all cows, and clover, and quietude--the milk there was -not watered with an audacity that would have startled a dairyman of -the London slums. Fresh butter could actually be obtained without much -difficulty, at a price only a little higher than it was sold at in -the cities. Crowning marvel in the country, they were not bowed under -a burden of obligation in securing green vegetables, though that was -certainly because the Kemps grew such luxuries in the garden. Village -tradesmen never "supply" what the customer orders--they occasionally -"oblige him" with it. To foster a fine spirit of indifferentism there is -nothing like the knowledge that your competitors are as bad as yourself. -Laundresses and village tradesmen are the only truly independent classes -in England. - -Of course there were drawbacks even here. There were, for instance, a -butcher's and a grocer's opposite Daisymead, and this meant flies and -wasps investigating Daisymead in large numbers. The butcher threw the -onus of the wasps on the grocer's sugar, and the grocer said, that wasps -were harmless things if you hadn't no fear of 'em, and was bitter about -the butcher's flies. Panics were frequent in the lodgers' parlour, and -as the window faced the shops, it became a question whether it was -better to be stifled or stung. - -In the morning, while the artist worked, Hilda loitered under the -apple-trees, and languished in basket-chairs and light frocks where the -shade lay deepest in the landlord's field. One could see the railway -from the field, and many a young fellow in the trains saw Hilda, and -regretted that Godstone wasn't his destination. In the afternoon there -was the tangle of the woods to wander through--so close that it was a -constant temptation to get lost there. And there was the way that began -with wild strawberry blossom, and rose to wooded heights, below which -the county spread like a green tablecloth decked with a box of toys; -and then, after avenues of giant firs where darkness fell, no matter -how fierce the sun, there were the surprises of lichened glades where -one tiptoed among the ferns in hope of fairies. With her easel, and her -canvases, and her camera, Bee found the days all too short. She found -the days too short, but there was a charm in the evenings too. The final -saunter along the still white road before supper, just as far as the -gate where the rabbits scampered, or the bridge by the water-mill where -strange birds sometimes flashed among the boughs; the hush of the little -lamplit room with a book afterwards; if one liked, a glimpse of the -stars from the garden-path, a breath of the flowers--and then to bed. - -She had written to David a few days after her arrival, and his first -letter to Surrey came when she had been installed in Daisymead about a -fortnight. She opened it by the little stack of hay which was all that -the field had granted this year. - -He wrote that her description of her surroundings made London still more -loathsome to him, that he wished vainly he could escape from it. A -somewhat laboured reference to his journalistic work followed--a plaint -that though they had become such good friends, it seemed unlikely they -would meet. A pucker crept between her brows as she read; she wondered -why he said that, wondered why he found it necessary all at once to harp -upon the difficulties of taking a short journey to see her. It was as if -he were warning her not to expect him. Had he interpreted her enthusiasm -for the place as a hint to him to come? She tried, discomfited, to -remember what her words had been. After a minute she went on reading, -and then she saw that all this had been the prelude to a request--a none -too skilful prelude; but that she did not see. "So I have been summoning -my courage to ask you----" She scanned the next lines rapidly, and the -letter quivered in her hand. He asked her for her photograph. - -She leant against the fence, dismayed. Her first thought--to explain -that she hadn't a likeness of herself to send--forsook her under the -fear of his thinking her ungracious if she did not promise to be -photographed when she went home. Confused, she sought an excuse that -would sound natural. Never had she exaggerated her disfigurement more -morbidly, never had her face appeared uglier to her, her shoulders -higher, her back more bent. To send him her photograph? She felt that it -demanded the courage of a heroine. - -His petition darkened the day to her; it threatened her in the night; -she woke to be harassed by it again. To send him her photograph--to -show him what she was? Again and again she asked herself if her hold -on him was strong enough to withstand the revelation. Momentarily she -wished she were a man; it was woman's mission to be beautiful. And he, -he shrank from ugliness, she could read it in his work. To him "woman" -meant "beauty"-- - - "Beauty of worshipped form and face ... - Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, - sweet mouth, - Each singly wooed and won." - -The lines of Rossetti's that had flouted her insignificance since she -was a girl, jeered at her now. She found no comfort in the next:-- - - "Yet most with the sweet soul - Shall love's espousals then be knit." - -Yes, "then"--after the rest was wooed! "Woman" meant features to inspire -men, and a form to make them mad. In a transport of imagination she -imagined almost with a man's desires, and hung before her glass, abased. - -But, after all, how could confession rob her of her happiness? She had -woven the tie between them of her thoughts, her spirit; it was her mind -that pleased him--how could the knowledge that she was misshapen destroy -his interest in her mind? She insisted that it could not--and deep in -her heart was hurt to feel that his interest in her was this purely -intellectual thing. He cared too little for her hand-clasp even to -travel to see her. Then she was a fool to hesitate--she would write him -the truth! Next, resentment scorched her that, caring so little, he had -put this humiliation upon her. A whim, a spasm of curiosity, and he had -made her suffer so. Her misery cried that he was not worth it, but tears -sprang to her eyes at the same moment. She would write to him before her -courage failed her. She would write as soon as Hilda was settled in the -field for the morning; her folly should end to-day! - -She was eager to write at once, fearful that if she waited long, -her mood would change. When she saw the landlady's daughter in the -passage, she asked her to come to the parlour before she went out and -take a letter to the post. The girl said she wouldn't forget, and the -arrangement, trivial though it was, gave to the woman a sense of -something accomplished. She was dimly aware, too, that it would shorten -her ordeal. - -On the breakfast-table there was another letter for her, redirected by -the Professor. Hilda called her attention to it. - -"For you," she piped in her thin voice. "What hours you've been -dressing! I began to think you were never coming down. Do pour the tea -out, or it will be cold; it has been standing there ten minutes." - -"You shouldn't have waited for me." She poured the tea, and picked up -the letter absently. It was an invitation to exhibit "The Sun's Last -Rays" in Liverpool, and at any other time the request would have excited -her; now she was too preoccupied to find it interesting. - -"Oh," she murmured. - -"'Oh,' what?" - -"They want 'The Sun's Last Rays' at the Walker Art Gallery when the -Academy closes, that's all." - -"Where's that? Pass me the salt, will you?" - -"Liverpool." - -"Shall you let them have it?" - -"Oh yes," she said, "I suppose so. Why not?" - -"The carriage will cost a lot, won't it?" - -"No, it won't cost anything. They'll send for the picture, and return -it to me free of charge, if it isn't sold." Her lips tightened, and she -looked away through the window. Engrossed as she was, she noticed that -her sister did not say "How jolly for you!" but "Won't the carriage cost -a lot?" In the course of the summer Hilda would refer to the invitation -casually as "That nice letter you had from Liverpool," quite unconscious -that she had shown no perception of its being "nice" when it came. - -"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" she asked now, having exhausted the -subject of the picture. - -"I don't want it," said Bee. "You can have this egg too, if you like." - -When the table was cleared, and she was left alone, she sat down to -her task. What should she say? Now that the pen was in her hand her -eagerness deserted her, and the thought of dispelling his delusion -made her tremble again. Her arguments of a while ago recurred to her -vainly--she was as sure that he imagined her what she would like to -be as she was sure that ugliness repelled him. She set her teeth, and -dipped the pen in the ink. - -She could find no words. Presently she addressed the envelope, but the -notepaper was still blank. In the kitchen the mother and the girl were -talking; she could hear them quite distinctly: "And don't forget to call -in about the bread as you come back!" She glanced at the clock, and -wrote desperately. - -"I cannot do as you wish," she scrawled, "because I have never been -photographed in my life. I have never been photographed because I am -deformed, and----" - -No! not like that, she couldn't say it like that. She sat motionless -again, hearing the loud ticking of the clock, and hating herself. The -clock struck insistently. She pushed the sheet of paper aside, and -searched through the blotting-book for another. There was no other in -it, so she went to the chiffonnier and opened the drawer. In the drawer -there were several things besides the stationery: a sketch-book, some -unmounted photographs that she had taken last week in Penshurst, some -unmounted photographs that she had taken last week of Hilda. She picked -one of them up mechanically, and stood looking at it; stood looking at -the photograph of Hilda--a study in sunlight and shadow, dreaming in a -garden chair under the boughs. - -There was a knock at the door, and Miss Kemp came in. - -"I'm just going, Miss," she said. "Have you got your letter ready?" - -"What?" said Bee huskily, without turning. - -"I'm just going. Is your letter ready?" - -"Yes," muttered the woman. She ran back to the table, and thrust the -photograph in the envelope, and put it in the girl's hand. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -David sat hunched in a chair, the likeness on his knees. He had risen -determinedly and put it from him twice--lodged it against one of the -eyesores on the mantelpiece that were referred to as the "ornaments -"--but after intervals of abstraction he had found that he was nursing -it again. He had a lurking consciousness that if he put it from him half -a dozen times, it would be back on his lap before five minutes had gone -by. - -It surpassed all his dream-pictures of her. The situation confused him; -he could not realise it quite, with the photograph under his eyes. He -had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. Though he had vaguely -imagined her beautiful, the definite was bewildering; his letters seemed -suddenly audacious to him--there was a breath of the incredible in the -thought that he had written them to her. And hers! still more wonderful -the thought of hers. His correspondent was this daughter of the gods, -serene, imperial, proud--the girl who wrote to him was like this! - -He had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. For a "friend"? -His manhood abjured the word. Was she not his by a subtler, stronger -bond than friendship? If the community between them could be called -friendship, what was love? She had yielded herself to him--her spiritual -self--surrendered to his keeping thoughts more sacred than her body. -He craved to go to her, and trembled with the dread of effacing by his -personality the impression that he had made upon her by his art. To let -his looks destroy the love his soul was waking in her? No, he could -not go, he must be strong. But if he dared--if only it were possible! -She lived--it was no vision conjured up by loneliness--she lived. She -was smiling, speaking, thinking of him not thirty miles away. He was -fevered by the idea of their meeting as it might have been--as it would -have been if he had had a white skin. He found her here where she was -sitting; the sunlight touched her just as now--"Your friend has come -to you!" The eyes in the portrait shone to him, and he saw gladness -in their gaze.... The trees had darkened, and the stars were lit. How -long a time had passed? In his fancy there was no calendar, but the -photograph had magic powers. He was telling her he loved her. The eyes -looked tenderer, the bosom swelled; the lips----Oh, madman! the thing -was only paper after all. If the delusion had lasted a second longer! - -Then a new idea possessed him. He might see her at least--he might see -her without her knowing who he was. It must be easy to catch a glimpse -of her in such a place as she had described, easier by far than it would -be when she was at home. He would go to Godstone on the first fair -morning and discover Daisymead, and linger in its neighbourhood till -she came out.... Perhaps when he arrived it would be wet? Then he must -obtain a bedroom for the night. He might even stay a week; why shouldn't -he? He might stay a week and see her every day. His thoughts spun -exultantly. She and her sister themselves were in lodgings--there was -nothing to prevent his seeking rooms in the same house. But his name? -Well, he could assume a name for the week; he would go as "Tremlett." By -no earthly chance could "Mr. Tremlett," looking as he looked, suggest -David Lee to her mind. He might stroll round the field when she was in -it, sit near her under the trees; he might even speak to her after a -day or two. By degrees she would grow used to his appearance. In the -circumstances, in the solitude, she might not disdain his company. One -evening he might avow himself, talk to her of his work, tell her all -that was in his heart for her--on an evening when the moon was hidden -and she couldn't see his face. Elisha had once said to him: "When I -was in love with your mother I used to sing to her--in the dusk." The -dead man's words came back to him, and he shivered. He thought: "_I am -following in my father's way!_" - -Awe fell upon him. He heard his father's warnings again--was walking -with him on the lawn. For an instant the past had swept so near that the -present seemed unreal. The scent of the trite flower-beds, the scenes -of jealousy, the taunts of the languid woman toying with her rings, the -sound of her sneering laugh, even the rustle of her dress, all these -things were close, close upon him. He thought of his childhood, and -it ached in him anew. His own child would not escape! Wouldn't it be -cruel, wouldn't it be monstrous, to bring a child into the world to -suffer as he had suffered himself? Human nature pleaded that his own -child would know a different kind of mother; and memory answered: "We -always think a woman 'so different' before we've got her." But she _was_ -different! Yes, he affirmed it to the dead; his father would have owned -that she was different.... She was different, but the world was the -same. The recollection of his schooldays, the consciousness of all his -dull, empty, years of passionate rebellion, menaced him. It would be a -cowardice, it would be a crime, to snatch a joy of which his child must -pay the cost. - -Awe had fallen on him, and of awe was born an ardent wish to pin the -thought to paper, to capture it for verse. It was a gruesome thought, -that even his will was leagued against him; but while half his -consciousness shrank from it appalled, the artist in him, allured by the -thought's poetical promise, darted to it admiringly, tremulous with the -fear that it might escape. With the verbal artificer whose servitude is -complete it is always so, this instinctive, inevitable appraisement of -the spirit. It is the penalty of his degrading craft. He has surrendered -to a power which holds nothing sacred, not a son's remembrance, nor -a father's love, nor a husband's agony--not death, nor devotion, nor -despair, and the power is inexorable and remorseless. He may forget in -hours and rejoice and suffer simply, like a free man, but the clash of -his chains will jangle on the divinest melodies of his life, forcing him -to scrutinise, and analyse, and define, when he were worthier merely to -feel. He shall register the heart-beats of his passion, and whittle an -aphorism with his head on the breast of his bride. His mind is for ever -alert to estimate the literary value of his soul. When he fondles his -child his idolatry cannot save him from seeking copy in his emotions, -and when he sorrows by a grave his tears shall not blind him to the -virtues of a lament that has not been written before. - -The morrow was fine, but David did not go to Godstone. Just to -ascertain how long it took to get there, however, he bought an "A B -C," a fascinating book with the breeze of the moors, and the splash -of the sea in it, and the suggestiveness of old townlets with quaint -names. The toss of a Channel crossing, and the lights of the Boulevard -are in it; and the luxury of ideal hotels in English gardens, and the -aroma of after-dinner coffee under the trees. The reader may arrive in -imagination at a thousand delightful places for sixpence. - -And he did not go on the next day either, though he had half a mind -to do so during the afternoon, and only stayed at home because he -vacillated until it was too late to catch the train. He succumbed on the -third day. An omnibus jolted him to Charing Cross with his bag behind -his legs, and he bought a copy of a weekly journal with an essay by him -in it, and was fortunate enough to secure a corner seat. - -Exhilaration was in his veins as he saw the flag waved; he would even -have forgotten his colour if a lady who had entered the compartment -while he was reading his essay had not looked affronted when he -displayed his face. The train loitered about the city in so exasperating -a fashion that he began to think it would never get any further than -London Bridge; but after about twenty minutes it dragged itself -away, and puffed Surreyward with a hundred shrieks. At the shout of -"Godstone" he threw the paper down, and made haste to disencumber -himself of the bag. A spirit of adventure possessed him as he turned -from the cloak-room and strode into the pebbled yard. He did not -inquire for Daisymead at once; it was enough that he was here. He saw -the receding train glide far along the line, watched the smoke trail -across the distance and dissolve. The roar came to him more faintly--was -not unpleasant, and was still. His eagerness melted into peace; he -crossed the pebbles, and walked along the winding road. The perfume of -honeysuckle was blown across his nostrils; the hedges were gemmed with -the pink of bachelor's buttons, and the blue of bird's-eye; meadows -sloped graciously. It was the country. - -His soul gave thanks for that sweet and rare thing, silence. At first -he thought it silence. Then as his hearing became attuned to the -surroundings, he grew conscious that the air was indeed alive with -sound--with a twittering and trilling, with the hum of bees, and the -whisper of long grass running in silver wavelets before the wind. It -must also be said that he was aware of the buzzing of a fly which -accompanied him for nearly half a mile, and kept alighting on his neck. - -He picked some wild-flowers that caught his glance, and stuck them in -his coat; they were beautiful, and he wondered what they were. Presently -he met a band of village children, and inquired the flowers' names. -The youngest of the party perhaps was twelve: they stared and did not -know. The notes of a storm-cock held him, calling in an elm; again he -wondered. A woman came down the road with a basket on her arm, and he -spoke to her, and asked, "What bird is that?" She was old and bent, and -had lived here all her life: she stared and did not know. - -"I've never took no heed o' birds," she answered. It was the country. - -He trusted that information would be easier to acquire when he sought -the house. A stile suggested a pipe, and, smoking, he noticed a -hedge-gap, and found himself at the entrance to a wood. It must be the -wood of which he had heard, the wood that _she_ had pictured to him in -her letters. He always thought of her as "She"; the formality of "Miss -Sorrenford" as impossible in meditation, and he could hardly think of -her as "H." She had said that she came here constantly; it might be -that she would come while he lingered--it might be that the bushes hid -her from him now! In the sadden fancy it appeared to him that the wood -was the scene where he desired most fervidly to find her--that it was -here that he must first behold her in order to complete the joy. He -parted the brambles, and pushed eagerly into the depths. - -He pressed into the labyrinth as ardently as if he could hope to speak -to her if they met. How dark it was with the sky shut out! The foliage -sighed a little overhead; the tangle was so low that often he had to -stoop. His feet crushed the litter of dry dead leaves; the branches -of the wild-rose clung to his clothes. He attained to light. Solitude -engulfed him, and the bracken was as high as his knees; in the cool, -moist hush he could hear a twig drop upon the moss. He stood reflecting -that it was not a place for a girl to roam in unprotected--the nearest -habitation might have been miles away. Near as it was, no scream could -reach it, no cry for help was likely to penetrate even to the road. His -mind was now less occupied with agreeable visions of discovering her -than with solicitude for her safety every day. At this moment he was -startled by a stealthy tread. - -A rough figure was creeping cautiously between the trees. He did not -see David; but for an instant David saw nothing but him, nothing but -the cruel eyes, the avid face, the upraised arm. For an instant. In the -next, he saw--trusting itself to earth a few yards off--a starling; and -the lad stole towards it greedily, the only thought quickened in him by -its loveliness, the idea of smashing it with a stone. It was the country. - -The bird's plumage gleamed like satin; the little creature was so -confident, so fragile, so happy that the hellishness of the thing turned -the man's heart sick. He flung his pipe, and the starling flew upward, -saved, a second before the stone was hurled. The lad was both aggrieved -and contemptuous: viewed as a missile, the pipe argued the man a fool. -Then David, who burned to thrash him, explained himself with heat; but -the other showed such dull amazement at his indignation, such utter lack -of understanding, that wrath gave place to misery in the poet. It even -seemed to him, as he moved away, that he had been unjust. A little later -in the year cultured men and graceful women would also murder birds -for fun. One bird, or another, with a gun, or a stone--? To the yokel, -too, his shame was "sport." The difference in the barbarism was only a -difference of class. - -David had had enough of the wood. Having recovered his pipe among the -ferns, he made his way out, and sauntered back along the high-road. -Overtaking a large sack, slung across the shoulder of a small boy, who -at close quarters revealed the peaked cap and uniform of a postman, he -asked to be directed to Daisymead, and learnt that he had not far to go. - -It was a low white house, with stiff white curtains hanging in the -windows, and full white roses climbing on the walls. The sight of it -disappointed him rather, and it seemed to him to be on the wrong side -of the way, though he had never preconceived its situation consciously. -A flight of steps led to a white gate and a patch of front-garden -wonderfully abloom--a revel of pinks and canterbury-bells, and the -velvet of sweetwilliam. He gave a knock, questioning a little how to -account for his application, for he saw no card with the familiar London -legend, "Furnished Apartments," over the door. - -It was opened by a strapping woman, drying her hands on her apron. She -was not a peasant--her eyes were alert, her face was mobile; and, though -she had grey hair, she bore herself erect. Her gaze widened at him; -there was even a tinge of apprehension in it. - -"Good morning," he said; "I'm looking for rooms--or for one room if I -can't get any more. Have you any to let?" - -"Y-e-s," answered the woman, hesitatingly. "Can I see them?" - -"Well, I'm not quite sure," she faltered. He understood that it was his -appearance that made her doubtful. "I don't know whether--Might I ask -'oo it was that recommended you?" - -He pointed airily. "The postman directed me here. I've just come down -from town; my luggage is at the station." - -"I'm not sure whether my husband 'd care to take in any more people this -year. We've got two ladies staying with us already, and If you'll wait a -minute I'll see what 'e says about it." - -He waited in suspense. She returned after a consultation in the kitchen, -her husband with her. Though the man came fully informed of what was -wanted, David felt sure that it would be necessary to begin at the -beginning again, and in this he wasn't mistaken. The couple stood -contemplating him curiously, waiting for him to speak. - -"Good morning," he said. "I'm looking for two rooms, or for one room if -I can't get any more. Have you any to let?" - -"Well, we '_ave_ got two rooms," admitted the man. - -"Can I see them?" - -The householder scratched his head. "Well, I don't know," he said -slowly. "My wife 'ere she's not quite sure whether she could manage with -anybody else this summer. Are you, Emma? There's two ladies staying 'ere -now, and it makes a bit o' work for her. Don't it, Emma? You might get a -room a bit lower down, very likely. What was it you were wanting?" - -"Oh, anything would suit me!" exclaimed David, with an ingratiating -smile, and suppressed rage. "I'm not particular at all--only I should -have liked to go to a house where I could be sure of being comfortable. -Yours looks so pretty, and so clean; it's the only place I've seen -round here that I should care to pay much in." He had been struggling -to recall their name--trying to see it mentally in one of Bee's -letters--and it flashed upon him now. "Cold meat and cleanliness, Mrs. -Kemp----It is 'Mrs. Kemp,' I think?" He made her a bow. "Cold meat and -cleanliness are worth more than late dinners and--er----" The sentence -would not round itself; he forced another smile for climax. - -"You might eat off any floor in this 'ouse!" she declared, deciding he -was human. - -"I'm sure you might," he replied. "In London we don't often see a house -like it, I can tell you!" - -"You've not been in London long, I suppose?" she said. "You come from -abroad, don't you?" - -"No, I've lived in London all my life--my business is there. That's why -I go to the country when I get a holiday." - -"Ah," said Mr. Kemp reflectively, "it's a great place, London--room for -all sorts in it!" - -"Yes," said David. "What lovely roses you have, Mrs. Kemp, and how sweet -the pinks smell! What flowers are those in the corner--the high, purple -flowers against the wall?" - -"Them?" she said. "Lor! I'm a poor one at flowers. What do you call 'em, -John?" - -"_I_ dunno," said John. - -"Well, I don't wonder you think twice about taking lodgers, but I"--he -laughed feebly--"I'm a very honest person; I wouldn't steal so much as a -leaf." - -There was a pause. They all looked at one another. - -"What do you say, John?" she murmured. "We might manage to take the -young man in, perhaps, eh?" - -"You won't find me any trouble if you do. You'll give me a first-rate -character when I leave you!" cried David with geniality that exhausted -him. - -"About rent," said Mr. Kemp. "What did you think of paying?" - -"What do you want?" - -The couple exchanged anxious glances. Mr. Kemp breathed heavily. - -"Well, we have had as much as a pound for those two rooms, for a lady -and three children through the summer," he said. - -"Of course," added the woman, "for only one person----" - -"Call it a pound!" said David, whipping out his purse. "And I suppose -it's fairest to pay in advance. My name is Tremlett. I'll just look -round, and then I'll go to the station, and get my bag." - -And so it was accomplished. The same roof sheltered him and Her! He -smiled now naturally in savouring the fact. His little sitting-room was -at the back, overlooking the cabbages and a red, rose-bordered path -that led to the hennery and the field. Its old-fashioned shabbiness was -not without a charm, and, having yielded consent, Mrs. Kemp adopted -a solicitous manner with a strong flavour of wondering compassion in -it. She still seemed to him in moments to be marvelling silently that -he was able to talk her language. When he came in from the station -he found that she had brightened his table with a bowl of poppies -and elder-blossom. Gathering the poppies had robbed them of their -sprightliness, and they hung shrivelled, like pricked airballs, but the -delicacy of the elder-blossom was exquisite, and he liked the tone of -what she called the old "crock." Because wild-flowers pleased him less -in his coat than anywhere else, he put those that he was wearing into a -mug preserved on the mantelshelf. On the front of the mug he saw a view -described as "Rickmansworth Church from the East," and on the base he -saw the inscription "Made in Germany." - -His mind began to misgive him about the sister--perhaps she would prove -a dragon, in the way? He half hoped that Mrs. Kemp would let fall some -particulars when she brought in his chop. She said nothing to the -point, however, nor did he hear any voice about the premises to wake -sensations. When his dinner was eaten he went out to the path, and threw -eager-glances round the field; but the two chairs under the trees were -empty, and there was nobody in sight; so he came back and smoked a pipe -on the sofa. - -A young girl entered with his tea; he judged her rightly to be the -Kemps' daughter. She evidently came to ascertain how a mulatto looked, -and she was not disinclined to hear one talk. He felt that he was -enlarging his circle of acquaintances amazingly; in a day here he had -spoken to more people than he addressed at home in a month. From Miss -Kemp he learnt in conversation that she had just been getting tea ready -for "the ladies" too. She coupled the information with a reference to -"one pair of hands"; he waited for her to add the companion phrase about -"her head never saving her legs," but she did not. - -She was a nice girl, and not uneducated, though she did say "one pair -of hands" when she meant "one person"; and when he bewailed the fact -that it had begun to rain, and she brought him some novels to pass the -time, he was surprised to find what novels she read. However, they -entertained him very little. His soul was divided between dejection at -the weather and gratitude for her kindness. He was so unused to kindness -that the landlady's daughter offering to lend him books seemed to him a -tender and a touching thing. The chairs had been brought indoors; the -rain rattled on the laurels, and strewed the petals of the roses on the -path. Through the long twilight a pair of heavy hands in a neighbouring -cottage laboured a hymn--the village pianist always chooses hymns--with -mournful persistence. David stood at the window, recognising -despondently that "the ladies" would remain in their parlour all the -evening. The field of his expectations would be void and profitless--it -might even be too wet for them to-morrow. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -But it was not. When he woke, the day was radiant. A guileless sky -denied its misdemeanour merrily. Mrs. Kemp, in clattering the china, -asked him "how he lay last night." He thanked her, and took a mental -note of the locution, inquiring in his turn when the rain had ceased. -For answer she snorted "Rain?" and frowned reproof at the sunshine, and -he attributed her manner to crops. - -His pouch was empty. She told him that tobacco could be obtained at the -grocer's; so he went across the road presently and bought some at a -little shop that proclaimed itself "Renowned for its breakfast-eggs," -and "Celebrated for its bacon." As he came out, a woman passed him, -laden with a canvas, and a sketching box, a camp-stool, and what looked -like a bunch of rods. She was pale and slight. He saw that she was -deformed as he hurried by. He didn't take much notice of her. - -A chair had been put back in the shade of the boughs, and he waited -feverishly where it was well in view. Soon a girl strolled down the -path between the roses. She wore a white frock, and had a book in her -hand. Her face dazzled him; his heart leapt to greet her. She entered -the field, and sat down under the tree. The photograph had come to life. -He leant, gazing at her, unnoticed. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -This was the event of his second day here. This was all. He had seen -her; the knowledge sang in his senses. Momentarily he felt that if his -visit yielded no more, it would have been bountiful enough. When her -glance lighted on him, he read her thought in it, and drew back ashamed. -He turned away ashamed, and afraid of seeming to intrude. In town he -had dared to picture himself sitting near her, watching her movements, -breaking the ice. In Godstone self-consciousness confounded him. She -appeared to him unapproachable; he had even been humiliated by her look. - -Hilda said to Bee that afternoon: "There's another lodger here; he's -a nigger--or something of the sort. Isn't it a nuisance? I wonder the -Kemps take that kind of people in, with us in the house!" - -"Oh, is he staying here?" said Bee; "I saw him coming out of Peters'. -Perhaps he is only down for the week-end. I don't suppose he'll be in -our way. If he does make himself objectionable, you had better come out -with me in the morning while he stops." - -"I think I could keep him at a distance without that," returned Hilda -scornfully. "Besides, he would never have the impudence. What horrid -luck, though! If it had been a man come to stay here now, it would have -been rather nice." - -But they had no reason to complain of his being "in their way"; the new -lodger did not attempt to scrape acquaintance with them, although in the -next two days they often passed him, idling in the garden, or sauntering -along the road. He refrained so punctiliously from staring at them, that -they were able to steal a few glances themselves. Bee observed that he -looked unhappy, and was fond of flowers; and Hilda remarked that he wore -a well-cut suit, and had a nice taste in neckties. "Evidently not a -common 'nigger,'" she said; "a medical student, or something!" She was -not concerned, though it was clear that he had come for longer than the -week-end. - -On Tuesday she was obliged to acknowledge his existence. It was a stupid -incident--to happen with a "nigger." It might as easily have happened -with somebody worth meeting; say, with one of the young men who bowled -into the station-yard in dog-carts and looked as if they wished they -knew her. She had gone out to get a daily paper, and the lodger was in -the shop buying foolscap. She was told that the last of the newspapers -had just been sold to him. As soon as he heard that, he stammered -something about "not depriving" her of it. He stood before her with -his straw-hat in one hand, and the paper extended in the other. She -thanked him, but said that it really had no interest for her at all. He -persisted. She was firm--and left him overwhelmed by his gaucherie in -not persuading her to take it. - -_Ten minutes later--Mrs. Kemp to Miss Hilda Sorrenford_: "Mr. Tremlett -has done with this paper, so 'e says you can 'ave it now if you like." - -_Miss Hilda Sorrenford, understanding that the message has suffered in -delivery_: "Tell Mr. Tremlett I am much obliged to him." And in the -evening, when she saw him in the garden, she bowed and said that she -thought the weather was a little cooler. - -David went back to his foolscap, having discovered that it is sometimes -much easier to write poetry about a girl than to talk to her. And -already he was reconciled to her voice because it was hers. - -Prose was still a crutch that he couldn't afford to drop, and he had -hoped to transfer some of an essay from his head to the foolscap -by bedtime. His subject was before him, nothing less than an acorn, -sprouting a slender stem and a handful of leaves, in a tumbler of water. -Spying it in the woods, he had brought it home, and given it honour, to -Mrs. Kemp's diversion. He had enthroned it on the table, that little -acorn bursting with the ambition to be a tree, and as he sat wondering -at it, the slip of a stalk had grown to be gnarled and old, and the -bunch of leaves had towered above the centuries. Children came to play -beneath it who were chided for forgetting whether Elizabeth or Victoria -had reigned first over England in the long ago, and generations of -lovers had flitted past its shade, prattling of eternity. The story of -the acorn had clamoured in him to be written, but now he was too excited -and unhappy to work. Besides, how could he say it all in two or three -thousand words? It asked to be a book. - -How clumsy he had been in the shop, stuttering and blundering like a -schoolboy; how absurd in the garden, with his fatuous mono-syllable! -Why couldn't he disguise his shyness? he had disguised it well enough -from the landlady when he paid her compliments on the doorstep; nobody -would have suspected how turbulent his nerves were then. At the time -he had been proud of his fluency--are not shy people always proud of -being fluent, even when they hear themselves saying things they don't -mean?--now he remembered it wistfully, jealous of himself. And his -letters! his letters mocked him. To write to a girl like that, and be -tongue-tied in her presence. The thing was laughable. - -But he had learnt her name at last, for when he made Mrs. Kemp his -messenger, she had said: "Oh! you mean Miss 'Ilda." - -Estimated by emotion it was ages before it happened, before their -relations advanced beyond "good-morning," or "good-evening," with a -platitude dropped in passing, and a commonplace returned with the -lifting of his hat. Yes, estimated by emotion it was ages before it -happened, but according to the almanac he had been here exactly nine -days. She was under the same tree, in the same chair. He had seen her -settle herself there half an hour ago, and for half an hour he had been -questioning how she would receive him if he joined her. What should he -say first; could he give to the indulgence a sufficiently casual air; in -fine, what sort of figure would he cut? - -He ruffled his manuscript irresolutely. In a yard close by somebody was -hammering at a fence. It appeared to him that somebody began to hammer -at a fence as often as he tried to work. There was no possibility of his -writing even if he made another attempt, and inclination pulled him hard -towards the field. He gathered the papers up, and put them cautiously -away, as a criminal removes clues. - -When he gained the path, she had risen from the chair, and was running -bareheaded in his direction. He did not for an instant see more than -that, more than that she was running; and he wondered. Then he saw her -face, and her voice reached him, and he realised that she was running -for help. - -So they ran towards each other for five, perhaps ten seconds, she as if -pursued, and he seeking the cause. - -"A wasp," she panted, "in my hair! A wasp! Get it out!" - -"A wasp?" Why must one always echo in emergencies? He called himself a -fool. "Don't be frightened. Keep still. I'll get it out in a minute." - -"Quick, quick!" she said, pulling at her hair frantically; "I shall go -mad!" - -"Keep still," he repeated. "Take your hands down--it'll sting you." - -He could hear the angry buzzing of the thing, but it was entangled, -hidden, and her hair dizzied him. She found the diffidence of his -touches exasperating. - -"Take the pins out," she cried; "yes, yes, take them out. Oh! not like -that, be quick!" - -Her impatience showed his breathlessness the way. He fought reverence -down, and tore them out as fast as she. Her hair rained over his hands, -and swept his arms. The wasp gave a last buzz venomously. "Oh, thank you -so much! I hope, I do hope, you aren't stung?" she said. - -"Stung?" He was faint, shaken by a hurricane of new and strange emotion. -"It's all right, thanks." - -"I've given you a lot of trouble," she said apologetically. "It was -silly of me to make such a fuss, I suppose; but I can't tell you what it -felt like." - -"I can imagine." - -"I've always been afraid it would happen one day; the place swarms with -them, doesn't it?" - -"They come from the shops across the road," he said. - -He was being stupid; he felt it. His little minute of authority was -over, and he was self-conscious again. - -She began to pick up the hairpins from the grass. David stooped too. As -she looked at his hands she thought of the service they had rendered, -and shuddered slightly. Absorbed, he watched her lift her hair, and -twist it in a hasty coil, and stab it thrice with unconcern. In "The -People of the Dream Street" there is a line that was born at this -moment, though it was not written till long afterwards. - -"You have been staying here for some time, haven't you?" he blurted. - -"Yes, nearly a month," she said. - -"How pretty it is!" - -"Isn't it? We came here for my sister's work--she paints, you know." - -"Yes, I know; I saw her before I saw you, though I didn't know she was -your sister then. She seems to work hard--I mean she is out a great -deal." - -"Yes, it's just the sort of country she likes; I think she's sorry we're -going. She talks about coming back in the autumn to make some more -studies here." - -"You're going?" he said blankly. "Are you? When?" - -"Our month is up the day after to-morrow; we only came for a month." - -There was the slightest pause, while he cursed himself for wasted weeks. - -"And you," he asked, "do you paint too?" - -"I? Oh no." She smiled her foolish smile, complacent in the -consciousness of youth and a profile. His eyes allayed her misgivings -about her hair. "I don't do anything; I'm quite ordinary," she said. - -David smiled with her. There was a fascination in pretending to know -nothing of her mind when he believed he knew so much. - -"It's original to be ordinary now that everybody is a genius." - -"Is everybody a genius?" She looked a shade vacant. "Perhaps you live in -London? Our home is in Beckenhampton; in the provinces, I am afraid, we -are rather out of it." - -"Oh, one can be quite as much out of it in London. What can be more -'provincial' than the life of the average Londoner? He goes to his -business after breakfast, and he goes back to his villa after tea. The -few friends he makes are, naturally, in the same groove, and talk about -the same things. Why," he went on, overjoyed to have found his tongue, -"he has no more acquaintance with artistic London, or political London, -or fashionable London than the people with businesses and villas in -the other towns. I don't understand the average Londoner's idea that, -because his own particular hencoop is in the capital, he must have a -wider range of vision than all the other hens in the kingdom; I don't -know what it's based on. One would suppose that the sight of the General -Post Office from the top of a bus every day converted people into a kind -of intellectual aristocracy. The suburbs snigger at the provinces, and -Bloomsbury sneers at the suburbs, and the truth is that, outside a few -exclusive circles, Londoners get all their knowledge of London from the -newspapers--which the provincials are reading at the same time." - -She was not interested in the subject; it struck her only as a strange -one for him to discuss. - -"I suppose so," she said. "Still in London one sees things and one can -get books to read. It's as difficult to get a new book in Beckenhampton -as it is to get cream in the country." - -"Is that difficult?" he asked, thinking of Keats's "tight little fairy." - -"Oh, you don't know the country very well. Try! They look at you amazed -when you ask for it." She laughed. "Last year when we went away we took -a new American tinned thing in the shape of a breakfast food with us. -I forget what it was called; a sort of porridge. They told you on the -tin that it was to be eaten with cream. Carelessly, 'cream'! I believe -in America cream isn't a curiosity. Our efforts to get threepennyworth! -There was only one place for miles round where there was the slightest -chance of it--a dairy belonging to a great lady who supplied the -public with milk as a favour. I don't mean that she didn't take their -money, but that the customers had to call for the milk and carry it -away. We used to go there two or three times a week and kow-tow to a -consequential dairy woman. We almost thought at first she must be the -great lady, but when she accepted our tips we concluded she wasn't. She -unbent so far as to promise 'to try to manage it for us one morning.' -After about a fortnight we reckoned it would have cost us two shillings -by the time it was 'managed.' I daresay it would have cost more, but we -decided that we couldn't afford the price of threepennyworth of cream -in the country, and we never got any. I can't say I'm very fond of the -country on the whole." - -"Why, I imagined you loved it. That is"--he corrected himself -hastily--"you've the air of being so contented out here." - -"Have I? Oh, I do gush about it sometimes, but"--she shrugged her -shoulders--"country walks are rather tiresome after you've got used to -them, don't you think so?" - -He hesitated. "I think they must have been pleasanter before bicycles -were invented," he said; "it's difficult to enjoy a stroll along a -country lane when you have to keep skipping into a hedge to save -yourself from being cut in halves. Men who drive realise their -responsibility, but every counter-jumper seems to ride a bicycle, and -the cad in power is always dangerous. The most exasperating thing about -the country to me is the blindness and deafness of the people to all the -beauties round them. I'll except Mr. Kemp because I've discovered that -he notices the birds--they steal his grain, and he shoots them--but I've -been trying to learn the names of the wild-flowers ever since I've been -here, and it's impossible; one might as well inquire at Bethnal Green." - -"I didn't know that," she said; "I haven't tried to find out. But -certainly everybody is very stupid." - -There was a moment's silence. His glance wandered, and reverted to her. -She made a delightful picture; she was as lovely a philistine as ever -looked to the main chance with the gaze of a goddess, and for him she -had the magic of letters that she had never written, the seduction of -thoughts that she had never known. He would not admit to himself that a -shade of disappointment was clouding his mood. - -Her name was cried before he spoke again. - -"Hilda! where are you?" - -"Hark! my sister's calling," she said; "I expect dinner's ready." - -She moved towards the house, David beside her, and met Bee coming down -the path. - -"Mr. Tremlett has been saving my life, Bee! I've been attacked while you -were out." - -"Mr. Tremlett was very kind," answered Bee, smiling. "How did he do it?" - -The three loitered in the doorway, talking, and she thanked him -seriously when she understood what had happened. He noted that her tones -were grave and sweet, and pitied her; and his gaze kept straying to the -beautiful face. After a minute he turned away, and the sisters went -inside. - -"He's quite a gentleman," said the girl; "and I'm sure he must have been -stung, though he pretended he wasn't. It would have been quite romantic -if he had been another colour." - -"She loved me for the dangers I had--averted," murmured Bee. - -"What's that--a quotation?" asked Hilda, - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -The rest of the day was barren, and in the knowledge that their visit -was so near its end, David chafed at each empty hour. He had seen Hilda -for a moment only since the morning. Standing aside as she came down the -stairs, he had asked her if she was going to the field again, and she -shook her head, saying that she had a letter to write. He thrilled with -the fancy that it might be a letter to himself. - -How queer to think that she might even give it to him to post! Still -queerer to reflect that the thoughts which had so often held him -captive, and the blithesome chatter that had rung so false were coin -from the same mint. If they had been the strangers to each other that -she believed, he would never have divined the gold beneath the small -change. For that matter he too had been commonplace; the soul wasn't a -jack-in-the-box to jump to order. "Oh, Mr. Thackeray, don't!" breathed -Charlotte Bronte disillusioned, when he helped himself again to -potatoes; and probably he had said nothing to justify her homage by the -time the cheese came. He, David Lee, had _talked_ potatoes. More than -likely the girl whom he had found trivial had found him trite. - -Ever recurring, and overthrowing his reverie, was a gust of -sensation--in part a perfume, in part a sickness, in which it seemed to -him that the scent of her hair was in his throat. - -Before he left town he had scribbled a few lines expressing his -gratitude for the photograph, and now it occurred to him that an answer -might be lying at his lodging already. He wished he could read it; he -wished he could re-read all the letters here while he was seeing her. -He felt that to do so would help him. Without defining his need he felt -that the letters, tangible, familiar, would lessen the vague sense of -unreality that blew across his mind. During a few seconds he craved more -to re-read the letters than to find himself alone with her. - -Not so in the morning. He rose eagerly. While he dressed, it seemed -to him that he had been unreasonable yesterday; he accused himself of -having resented circumstances, of having all unconsciously expected her -to accord to Tremlett the confidences she made to Lee. That was absurd. -Ostensibly a stranger, a mulatto thrown in her path by chance, how -could he hope for her to lift her veil? But let her keep it down--it -couldn't hide her from him. Let her yield a finger-tip, after she had -bared her heart--he knew her even as she knew herself. He smiled to -think that by a word he could transfigure her. It was too soon, he was -afraid to speak it; the complexity of the emotion that he foresaw in her -warned him back; but the idea of power was sweet to him. He could tear -the veil aside and call the real woman breathless to his view, he the -stranger! There was a throb of triumph in his delusion. - -The day was Sunday, and when he joined her, he found the sisters -together. He regretted that the elder had remained at home, although he -knew that he had had nothing to hope from a tete-a-tete. - -"You don't paint to-day, Miss Sorrenford?" - -"No," she said, "I don't paint on Sunday." - -"Good gracious!" exclaimed Hilda, "I should think she didn't. What -do you suppose the Kemps would say to her? We should be turned out, -shouldn't we, Bee?" - -"Oh yes, I forgot the Kemps," he said; "it would shock them, of -course."--"Bee," he assumed, was a diminutive of "Beatrice." "I've only -spent one Sunday here. It was rather depressing; everybody looked so out -of place--all the villagers seemed to have gone. Why do they dress up -and spoil themselves on Sunday? It was as if a lot of supers in a play -had come on in the wrong scene." - -Hilda smiled. "They'd think you had very bad taste if they heard you say -so. You might as well try to persuade a servant that she looks smarter -in a frilled cap and a muslin apron than when she goes out to meet her -young man. Poor people always make frights of themselves on Sunday--and -they pride themselves on their boots creaking." - -"Poor people!" he answered. "And the little children--that was worse -still. It made me wretched to see the children; my heart ached for them -whenever I went to the door." - -"Oh, you noticed them," said Bee, "did you? Yes, it's painful. Their -hushed voices, and their sad eyes! They mustn't play; they're forbidden -to be happy. They sit in solemn groups, talking in whispers--cursing -Sunday I often think. If one of them forgets and laughs, its mother -comes out and shakes it--to teach it to love God." - -"Bee, don't get on the platform, or we might as well have gone to -church. We do go to church, Mr. Tremlett; don't think we never do any -better than this, please! But one doesn't feel so religious in the -country on Sunday as one does in a town. It must be something in the -air." - -"Perhaps it's because in the country one feels so much more religious -every other day of the week," said David. Bee had frowned, discomfited; -she sat silent. In her silence David was sorry for the Beauty--her -banter had been so innocent; the frown, the tightened lips seemed to him -an undeserved reproach. - -Then he talked to the wrong woman while the right woman listened, and he -was even a little piqued that his earnestness couldn't rouse the wrong -woman to permit him a glimpse of the poetry that was not in her. But -once, when her skirt fluttered against his hand, it was not the thought -of the poetry in her that sent a shiver up his arm; and it was not the -thought of her sensibility that made his heart gallop, as imagination -gave him back the tingle of her hair. That was herself, her pretty -flesh-and-blood, the potent pink-and-white reality of her. - -Something he said, some chance remark, brought a line of "A Celibate's -Love Songs" to Bee's mind. Her thoughts darted again to the photograph, -and for the thousandth time she wished she could recall her stupid -act; for the thousandth time she sought the courage to acknowledge -it. The confession from which she had shrunk at the beginning looked -by comparison easy: "I am deformed." Well, at least, no one could -laugh at that. But "I sent my sister's likeness instead of my own." -That was ridiculous, contemptible. And how could she explain the -impulse? Wouldn't the man put his own construction on it? Wouldn't he -think--wouldn't it be tacitly to admit--that she was in love with him? - -Still, did the folly she had committed matter very much? He would never -see her, never see her or Hilda either. If he had meant to come, surely -he would have come already? Sooner or later the correspondence would -die, and she would be alone again. Was it necessary to degrade herself -in his sight? - -He would think she was in love with him! Once more the question that -she was always trying to evade flared through her brain. Did it really -mean that--in love with a man she had not met? She said the thing was -impossible, and felt it was indecent, and knew it was true. The man -had needed an appeal to the senses before he repudiated the term of -"friendship"; the woman had no such need. She knew that she loved him, -although she refused to own it. She loved him for his mind, for all -that was herself in him, for all that was kin to her, but beyond her -reach. And now, while her reverie might have borne her far from the -conversation at her side, she was forced to listen to him, though she -had no suspicion that it was he who talked. The mind that she loved -compelled her to listen--for David was striving to make the dainty Hilda -lift a corner of the veil. - -And there being no veil, she could not lift it; but the woman, whose -presence he had half forgotten, felt her sympathies stirred within her -strongly, and could have given him thought for thought, and note for -note, while she sat there silent and unheeded. There was no veil. He -was straining to clutch a phantasm, surrendering to the temptations of -his fancied power. And, whilst the poet, pluming himself on power, put -forth his intellect to master the girl that there was not, the indolent -pink-and-white girl that there was, was mastering him. - -"He talks too much, now he has got over his shyness," she murmured, as -he moved away. "I'm glad he has gone." - -"Are you?" said Bee. "Why? I'm not; he interested me." - -"Really? Well, I wish you had joined in, then, instead of sitting there -mum. Why didn't you?" - -"I don't think he would have been very grateful; he didn't want to talk -to me." - -Hilda's admirable eyebrows rose just a shade higher than they would have -risen if she had been surprised. Because she knew what was meant, she -said, "What do you mean?" - -"I could see he wanted to talk to _you_. He always does. I think it's -rather a good thing we're going home to-morrow." - -"Good heavens! don't be so idiotic. Do you suppose for a single moment I -could----" - -"No; I was thinking of _him_, poor fellow!" said Bee. "I daresay he is -unhappy enough without any other trouble." - -It was not unpleasant to hear that she was esteemed so dangerous. The -girl essayed the languid tone of her favourite heroines. - -"What an imagination you have!" she drawled. "Now, he only struck _me_ -as a dull person who didn't know when to get up. When a man looks like -that, he ought to be very careful what he talks about; so few subjects -go with his complexion." - -Bee thought--"Oh, the arrogance of beauty! It would even deny to the -others the right to have beautiful minds." - -In the afternoon a thunderstorm broke over Godstone, and rain fell -with more or less violence all the evening. It saved Hilda from being -bored by him again, for their train next day was an early one, and -after breakfast she was upstairs a good deal, watching the trunks being -packed. Once or twice as she tripped to Bee from the sitting-room with -a book, or a work-basket, or a packet of labels, he met her in the -passage, and she threw him the brave smile of one who was sunny in -fatigue; but there was no opportunity for conversation. - -To David the shadow of her departure had fallen across Daisymead -already. Already he felt desolate in anticipating its emptiness when she -had gone. It seemed to him quite a month ago that he had arrived here, -and the few scenes of their brief association, now that the end had -come, were as dear to his regret as close companionship. Even the period -of his bashfulness and despondence had a tender charm in looking back -at it. He was eager to flee with his memories to town, instinctively -conscious that in no place would he be so forlorn as in the place where -she had been; but there would be heavy hours before he was able to go, -poignant hours in which to miss her first. - -It had been in his mind to walk to the station with them both, but she -did not seem to wish it, so he bade them good-bye in the front garden -while the porter was making the luggage fast on the truck. The landlady -and her daughter had come out too, and at the last minute Mr. Kemp -appeared. He had a dead bird in his hand; Hilda uttered an exclamation -of pity as she saw it, and Bee was mute. - -"Oh, the dear! What bird is it, Mr. Kemp?" - -"A green linnet, Miss," he said. "Mischeevious things!" - -"A linnet? I thought linnets were always brown; I'd no idea they were -ever so pretty as this. Why, it's perfectly lovely! What a shame they -aren't all made green." - -"Yes, it's a showy thing," admitted Mr. Kemp; "the brown 'un ain't much -to look at alongside it, that's a fact." He rubbed his hand on his coat, -and put it out to her in farewell. "But the green linnet has got no -song." - -The sisters went slowly up the road; and David followed the "showy" -figure with his eyes until the road swerved. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -"Well, my dears," said the Professor, "and how are you, eh? Got nice and -sunburnt, and done yourselves good, have you? Bee, my dear, you might -just touch the bell--I told the girl not to make the tea until we rang. -Let me have a look at you both now!" He looked at Hilda. "Come, come, -that's first rate! And what's the news?" - -"Oh, we're splendid," she replied. "I don't think there's any news; we -just did nothing. That is, I did nothing, and Bee worked. You might have -come down to us, Dad, if only for a day! We were always expecting a wire -to tell us you were coming." - -"Yes, I know, my dear," he said, "I know; you wrote me. When I read your -letter I thought I really would go down; I made up my mind to. 'Now I -know what I'll do,' I thought; 'I won't answer her--I'll say nothing -about it--and on Saturday I'll pack my bag, and take her by surprise.' -But God bless my soul! when Saturday came I couldn't get away, my dear, -I couldn't get away." His glance wandered to his other daughter, and -rested on her doubtfully. "Or perhaps it was you who wrote, Bee? One of -you did, I know; it's all the same." - -"Just the same, father," she said, "all the same; we both wanted you." - -The teapot was brought in presently, and half a dozen words were uttered -which did more to make her feel at home again than anything that had -happened yet. The servant knocked a cup over, put a forefinger inside -it, in setting it right, and said in a hoarse whisper, "Can I speak to -you, Miss?" - -When the conference with the servant was over, Bee carried her father's -cup to the armchair, and took Hilda's to the sofa; and the Professor -murmured in the tone that belongs to after-thoughts: - -"And did you make your studies, Bee?" - -"Yes, thanks, father." - -"That's right. Many?" - -"Oh, just as many as I hoped to do. I'm rather pleased with one of them." - -"_That's_ right." - -"Anything new here, father?" - -"In a way, my dear, in a way; the new man has taken over the Theatre -Royal. Mobsby has left the town; I hear he has gone to Nottingham. You -might give me another piece of sugar, a very small piece--or break a -lump in halves." - -"The new man taken over the theatre?" said Hilda. "Have you written to -him about the opera?" - -"Have you, father?" asked Bee, searching the sugar-basin. - -"Yes," he said, "yes, I did write to him. I'm afraid he's not a -gentleman. I dropped him a line, explaining matters, and offering to -call on him one day when he had an hour to spare, if he would suggest an -appointment, and he--er--I got no answer." - -"Perhaps the letter didn't reach him, dear." - -"I fancied that might be the reason," said the Professor; "the same idea -occurred to me. So I wrote to him again, but----No, I'm afraid both -letters reached him. Now Mobsby used to answer--I'll give him credit -for that. He wasn't enterprising, but he was civil, at all events; he -made excuses for declining my work. This Mr. Jordan seems to have no -enterprise, and no politeness either. We don't go to the Royal any more, -my dears! I put my foot down about that. For the future when we take -tickets for a theatre, they shall be for the Grand." - -"The Royal always has the best companies, though," pouted Hilda; "and -the audience at the Grand is so dirty." - -"For all that we shall go to the Grand," repeated the Professor; "it's -the only dignified protest I can make. While the Royal remains under -this fellow's management it will see no money of mine. I am quite firm -on that point--unless of course diplomacy effects anything," he added, -"unless diplomacy effects anything." - -"Diplomacy can't effect much with a man who doesn't answer your -letters," said Hilda. Her voice was tart. - -"What more do you think of doing, then, father?" inquired Bee. "Have you -a plan?" - -"I never let the grass grow under my feet, you know; when there is an -opportunity, I make the most of it. A friend at court may do a great -deal, and the other afternoon----" He sipped slowly, and spread his -handkerchief across his knee. "It seemed almost providential; I don't -do such a thing once in two months, but it was a very hot day, and -I was tired and thirsty; it was on my way home from Great Hunby. I -turned into the 'George' for something to drink, my dear, and I made -the acquaintance of Mr. Jordan's business manager. The thin edge of the -wedge, perhaps! though I am never sanguine. Of course I did no more than -mention the opera--the merest word--but he seemed interested. The next -time we meet I shall refer to it again. It may lead to something. He was -intelligent. He may pull the strings. I'm never sanguine, but it stands -to reason that the business manager of a theatre has a lot to say in -the conduct of affairs. If I cultivate him----" He looked about him -impatiently. "You might pass me the tobacco-jar, my dear." - -She got up, and took it from the mantelpiece, and gave it to him. - -"Here it is, father. If you cultivate him, you think he might use his -influence with Mr. Jordan?" - -"Just so. But _festina lente_, my dear--hasten slowly. Don't look too -far ahead. It's because people look too far ahead that they trip in -reading aloud. The same principle, exactly! The eye travels too fast, -and the tongue stumbles. Half the mistakes that the pupils make in -reading blank verse are due to the fact that they look too far ahead. -In life, as in reading, we should clearly enunciate one word at a -time. What was I going to say?... Yes, having made his acquaintance, -there's no telling what it may lead to if I show the young man a -little hospitality. It's quite on the cards that Mr. Jordan may sing a -different tune and ask me to let him hear the opera. If he should do -that, I--I am not vindictive--if he should do that, and give the work -his honest consideration, we would certainly go to the Royal as usual." - -The prospect of his showing a new young man a little hospitality -smoothed the frown from Hilda's brow. The young men of Beckenhampton -were mercenary, and girls who had been her schoolfellows and knew her -age--girls who had no other attraction than their fathers' incomes--had -married in their teens. She was not without a lurking fear of being -"left on the shelf," as she phrased it; in which misgiving she -resembled a multitude of girls who look equally superior to the fear -and the phrase. It is, indeed, an unpleasant comment on our method of -bringing up the maiden that in the minds of even the most modest girls, -the eagerness to marry should precede the wish to marry any man in -particular. To the blunter and less refined sensibilities of the male -there seems something a little indelicate in this impartial eagerness. - -The Professor's intention commended itself to Hilda so warmly, that -during the next few days she introduced the subject of the opera more -than once. It was not until she had been back from Godstone a week, -however, that the growth of the grass to which he had made reference -was in any way checked. And then chance was the mower. She had gone but -with him, ostensibly to help him to choose a hat, and of a truth to -prevent his choosing one, for the years during which man is free to -exercise his own judgment about his own clothes are few. As they turned -into Market Street, he gave her a nudge, so hard that it hurt her, and -waving his hand to a stranger, slackened his pace. The stranger, who -had been hurrying past, saw that the elderly bore was accompanied by a -bewilderingly pretty girl, and came promptly to a standstill--in his -bearing all the deference which a young man can yield to old age under -the eyes of beauty. - -"Oh, how do you do, Professor Sorrenford?" - -"Ah, pleased to meet you again," exclaimed the Professor. "Let -me--er--my daughter; Mr. Harris--my daughter." - -Vivian made another bow--one far different from the shamefaced bob -of the local swains, Hilda thought. It was, indeed, modelled on the -obeisance he saw the lovers make to the heroines when he was counting -the house in the dress-circle. - -"Mr. Harris is a new-comer to the town," said the Professor blandly. - -"I am afraid Mr. Harris must find it very dull?" murmured the girl. - -The jeune premier was his exemplar still: "It reveals new attractions -every day!" he declared. He looked at her significantly. Her eyelids -drooped. The father saw nothing but the opera in his desk.-- - -"Yes, I think, myself, there are many attractions to be found in the -place," he said; "though, as an old resident--one of the very oldest -residents, in fact--I may be too partial, perhaps. I have been in -Beckenhampton now--how many years? I begin to lose count. People will -tell you that the name of 'Sorrenford' is as well known here as the -name of--ha, ha--the name of the Theatre Royal, itself. Mr. Harris is -interested in the Theatre Royal, my dear--the scene of so many of our -pleasant evenings." - -"Oh, indeed?" She was gently surprised. "You're at the theatre, Mr. -Harris?" - -"In the front," he said. "I hope we shall give you some pleasanter -evenings still under the new regime, Miss Sorrenford. We mean to make -the house one of the most go-ahead theatres in the provinces." His tone -was bright, inspiriting. He struck her as likely to succeed in anything -that he undertook. - -"We shall not fail to sample the--er--the bill of fare," said the -Professor; "ha, ha, the bill of fare! We shall pay you an early visit. -I hope you'll return it. A composer's time is not his own, but we are -always glad to see our friends on Sunday nights. If you have nothing -better to do one Sunday----" - -"I shall be charmed." - -"Mr. Harris is busy on week nights like yourself," put in Hilda with a -smile. - -"To be sure!--like myself. Sunday is really the only day a professional -man has a chance to be sociable, isn't it? We have a bond in common. -Take us as we are, Mr. Harris. Drop in. Pot luck, and a little music, -and a hearty welcome. Now don't forget. Let us be among the first in -Beckenhampton to--to make you feel at home in it." - -"I shall be charmed," repeated Vivian, gazing undisguised admiration -at Hilda. She gave him her hand. He crossed the road victoriously; the -father and daughter continued their way to the hatter's. - -For some seconds the old man was silent, wrapt in ecstatic reverie. Then -he broke out: - -"Well? Eh? Not bad--what do you think? Did you notice how glad he was -I invited him? He's been asking about me since I saw him; he's been -turning the opera over in his mind. That's the plain English of it. Very -cordial, but he can't take _me_ in! There's the pounds, shillings, and -pence interest underneath, my dear! _I_ saw through him." He chuckled. -"He's nibbling--the business manager is nibbling! It won't be long -before he comes, you'll see!... We'd better have a Perrin's for supper -next Sunday, my dear, on the chance of his turning up." - -Vivian was much pleased to have somewhere to go, and he made no longer -delay in presenting himself than he considered that appearances -required. Sunday had been dismal enough while he was with a company -on tour; here in his new post, without even a game of napoleon on a -railway journey to mitigate the tedium, he had found it drearier still. -The opportunity for talking to a girl who wasn't a barmaid would have -tempted him had the girl been plain; when she was admitted to be the -prettiest girl in Beckenhampton--or, as the landlord of the "George" had -it, "the belle of our town"--he felt that it was really a matter for -rejoicing. - -And his host's greeting was as warm as his invitation. Certainly his -performance on the 'cello after supper was rather a nuisance, but "the -belle" made a delightful picture as an accompanist; and when she sang -an entirely new ballad about Dead Days and a Garden, with a tune that a -fellow could catch, to take away the taste of the classics commanded by -her papa, the visitor felt quite a stir of sentiment. - -And he was given another whisky-and-soda, and another of the six cigars -which the Professor had arranged in a cigar-box that had lain empty for -years. Even when "Father" had been persuaded to let Mr. Harris hear -"something from the opera" and Mr. Harris began to realise that the -garrulous old gentleman wanted more from him than compliments, the -evening was not a disappointment; the younger girl was so enchanting, -and the atmosphere of a home was such a novelty. It was impossible for -Vivian to be sorry he had come, though he perceived that it would be -unwise to define the boundaries of his position in the theatre if he -wished to come often. - -"Do you play or sing yourself, Mr. Harris?" Bee inquired. - -"No," he said; "no, I'm not musical." In this musical family he -regretted to acknowledge it. - -"Sure?" asked Hilda, swinging round on the stool. - -"Oh yes, unfortunately--quite sure." He was at the point of adding: -"Though I was, brought up in the thick of it all," but to explain that -his mother's second husband had been a negro was never agreeable to him. -"I'm awfully fond of it, though! I could listen to singing all night. -Won't you give us something else? Do, please; don't get up!" - -"I really don't know what there is." She ruffled the stack beside her -listlessly. "I'm afraid there's nothing else for me to sing." - -"Let me help you find something." - -"If you can. If you really haven't had enough?" - -He went across to her, and they bent their heads over the heap together; -and he hung at the piano while she sang another entirely new ballad -about Days that were No More, and a Stream. - -When she finished he murmured "Thank you," and threw into his manner the -suggestion of being too much moved to say anything more lengthy. - -"It's rather pretty, isn't it?" she said, lifting her eyes in the -candle-light. - -"Yes; and your voice----" he sighed expressively. - -"Oh!" she looked down again, affording him a good view of her lashes, -and stroked the keys. "My voice is really as small as a voice can be." - -"I've never heard one that carried me away as yours does. Do you -know--I suppose you'll be shocked--but I like the drawing-room -ballad--sometimes--nearly as well as the classical things." - -"I like them better," she said archly. - -"Do you?" He was delighted. "So do I. I hadn't the courage to own that." - -"I daren't let my father hear. It would be high treason." - -They both laughed. The pretence of having a secret together was quite -charming. - -"I see there is a concert announced for Thursday fortnight at the Town -Hall," remarked the Professor. "Those are pleasures you're unable to -enjoy, Mr. Harris, eh? I suppose you can't leave the theatre? But there -is a big bill. We shall have some fine artists. We shall have a treat, -quite a rare treat." - -"Yes," said Vivian. "I know. I'm afraid it'll spoil our Thursday night's -house; I wish they had fixed it for another evening. Thursday is our -best night in the dress-circle as a rule." - -"How lovely it must be," exclaimed Hilda, "to go to the theatre every -evening! Though I suppose you get tired of it, too?" - -"I should think it was nicer in the country than in London," said Bee, -"isn't it? You do see a different piece here every week." - -"Yes," he answered. "One gets a change. But I never see a piece right -through, you know. There's so much to do in front." - -"The business of a theatre," observed the Professor ponderously, -"is naturally enormous. The outsider has no conception of -the--er--intricacies of theatrical management. These young ladies look -at the stage in the limelight, they know nothing of the commercial -element of the enterprise. The sea of figures in which the manager wades -is to them of course a _terra incognita_." - -Vivian stroked his moustache, and hid a smile. - -"Yes, the figures are a bit of a bore," he said. "I was acting manager -to a company on tour before I joined Jordan. That was more bother still, -you know." - -"Acting manager?" said Hilda. "To manage the acting I should have -thought was jolly?" - -"Oh, I had nothing to do with the stage! 'Acting manager' and 'business -manager' mean the same thing." - -"How curious!" - -"Yes, it is rather odd. No, I had nothing to do with the stage, but -there were the journeys to arrange then, and there are always people in -a company who grumble at the train call, whatever time it's for. If you -take them early they complain because they have to get up so soon; and -if you take them late, they say they've never known a tour on which they -had to make so many journeys at night. And of course it's always the -poor acting manager's fault!" - -"Why not take them in the afternoon? Wouldn't that get over the -difficulty?" - -"Well, you can't travel from Bristol to Yarmouth in an afternoon, and -that was one of the journeys we had to make. The train call was for -twelve o'clock Saturday night, after the show, and we didn't get into -Yarmouth till the next evening. How cross some of them were!" - -"So should _I_ have been!" - -He tried to look as if he couldn't imagine her cross. "It wasn't very -pleasant certainly. At four in the morning we were at a standstill. -Black dark. And we had to stick in the station till half-past seven. -There was no refreshment room open, of course; we all sat shivering in -the train. And it rained. Oh! how it rained! About six o'clock, one -of the ladies asked two or three of us into her compartment, and made -tea with a little spirit-lamp that she had brought. I think I enjoyed -that tea more than any I've ever drunk, but we didn't get a solid meal -till we reached Peterborough--three hours more to wait. It had stopped -raining by then, and we had roast mutton at an hotel, and yawned at the -cathedral." - -"I hope you took the good Samaritan who had given you the tea?" said the -Professor. - -"We did, yes. As a matter of fact, the leading man proposed to her -during the wait at Peterborough. It was the tea that had done it--he -said he hadn't believed any woman could look so nice at 6 A.M. Of course -the other ladies declared she had curled her hair before she invited -us into the compartment, but that was jealousy; he was a good-looking -chap, and getting ten pounds a week.... They were engaged all the tour." - -"Do you mean that they married then?" Bee asked. - -"No, they didn't marry, but they were engaged all the tour. They -quarrelled at the Grand, Islington. Her father had been a celebrated -wit, and she used to say awfully insulting things and think they were -funny." - -It was nearly midnight when he rose to go. He was perhaps less -impressionable than most young men of his age, less addicted to wasting -time in flirtations that promised nothing more satisfactory than a kiss -and a keepsake; but as he strode down the silent road to his apartments -he was not quite fancy-free in the moonlight, his reverie was not quite -so practical as usual. He resolved to send a box to the Professor at the -earliest date that it was desirable to "put a little paper out"; and as -he foresaw himself welcoming the party in the foyer, he was gratified -to reflect that he looked his best in an evening suit. He was also -gratified to reflect that "the belle" must go for walks, and examine the -windows in the High Street, and that her sister couldn't be always with -her. - -After he had gone the Professor said-- - -"Well, he was taken by what he heard of the opera, I think? He'll -mention it to Jordan if I'm not very much mistaken. Rome wasn't built in -a day, but I've laid the foundation stone. We're getting on!" - -"Yes, I'm sure he liked it," answered Bee. "I wish it had been Mr. -Jordan himself, though. Don't you think Mr. Harris is rather young to -have much authority, father?" - -"Tut, tut," replied the composer tetchily, "what nonsense! He's shrewd, -he's a smart fellow. What do you suppose he came for--to smoke a cigar -with me? Business men don't run after strangers for nothing. You talk -without considering. There's always a motive for these friendly actions, -my dear. Women don't look beneath the surface; I could never teach your -poor mother, God bless her! to look beneath the surface. I daresay he'll -drop in next Sunday again; it wouldn't surprise me at all." - -He turned to Hilda, as he generally did when he wasn't in trouble. And -Hilda nodded--and smiled. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -The following morning there came to "Miss H. Sorrenford" a letter from -David Lee--an urgent letter because he had been so long impatient, -demanding an explanation of her silence. The explanation was that -each time she had re-read the note of thanks he had written before -leaving town her imposture had looked to her more shameful; but after -considering a great deal how to say as much in her answer, she did -not say it at all. She told him instead something of her feelings in -returning to the house that was called her home. - -It was very sweet, very strange, to David to receive the first of her -confessions breathing a familiar presence. Hilda had never seemed so -close to him as she did in the hour when he pored over these pages of -her sister's. He heard Hilda's voice while he welcomed Bee's thoughts; -when he replied to Bee, he saw Hilda's face. And it was the face, not -the thoughts, that maddened him with longing. It was the face that was -dizzying him as he paltered with his conscience and offered prayers to -the future. Though he did not discriminate, though he associated the -soul of the woman with the form of the girl, the triumph was to the -physical. The form, not the soul, tempted him to renounce his father's -gospel, even while he proclaimed the soul his justification. The charm -of the woman's letters lay no longer in what she said, but in his belief -that the girl said it. - -Hilda's fairness, not Bee's mind, held his love; and in his confidences -to Bee there was a cadence that there had not been, a difference -which she strove to persuade herself was imaginary, because to admit -that it existed would be to realise that the photograph had wrought -mischief. There was nothing tangible, no word to point to, but beneath -the intimate record of his doings, and the references to his work, -underlying the intuition which enabled him to respond, as always, to -more than she had spelt, she felt something in her friend's letters that -was new, something--she was conscious of it only in moments--something -that made them now a man's letters to a woman. - -When September was nearing its end, David received a few lines from -Ownie. She wrote: - -"I have been meaning to congratulate you oh the success of the book of -poems that people are talking about. So you have made a hit? Well, I -am very glad. I was always sure when you were a child you would do well -at writing--you have all my poor father's talent. Well, I am very glad. -Though I haven't had a chance to read it, and never seen anything of -you, I am delighted to hear you have done so well. I hope you are well, -and don't forget I like to see you whenever you have time to spare." She -remained, on paper, his "Affectionate Mother." - -His conscience pricked him, for his last visit had been paid in the -spring. When he sent a copy of the book, which he knew would bore her to -the verge of extinction, he promised to call on her the next Sunday. - -He went in the afternoon. The latest of the Swiss lads to be described -in the advertisements as "man servant" opened the door while struggling -into his coat. His English was as unintelligible as his predecessors', -and David had doubts whether she was at home while he waited in the -hall. Dinner was over, but the smell of it lingered; she was unlikely -to be out, he thought. The Swiss sped back, and delivering himself of -strange syllables, led the way to the drawing-room. It was empty, and -the smell of dinner was less strong here. After some minutes Ownie came -in. - -Her hair was yellow still, but the yellow of a "restorer," not the -yellow of her youth, and under this piteous travesty of the past her -aged face looked older. The years had caricatured her defects, and -her business had stamped its mark upon her. Ownie was a bulky woman -with a long upper lip and a fretful, vulgar mouth. In conversation -she had the restless eye and mechanical smile of the boarding-house -keeper, who during three meals every day makes an effort at cheerful -small-talk--illustrating the advantages of the district in which her -boarding-house is situated--while she listens suspensive to the -servant inquiring behind a chair whether the occupant will "take any -more." Of the girl who had once smiled victoriously in the mirror of -a theatre vestibule nothing was left; in her stead was all the pathos -of a lifetime. Only to the bulky woman it was given still to discern a -likeness to the girl. Nature had yielded that; she did not see herself -as she was. To her the rouge on her cheeks was not so palpable, the -wrinkles were not so deep. Dyed, painted, dreary, she sank into a chair, -and yawned widely, with her hands in her lap. - -"I thought you were never coming again," she said. - -He pleaded stress of work: "And I've been in the country since I saw -you. Well, how are you, mother?" - -"Oh, nothing to brag about; the heat has been killing, hasn't it? _I_ -should have liked a change too.... I haven't been able to read your book -yet--I can't read for long, it tries my eyes so; I must get some new -glasses. Well, are you making a fortune out of it?" - -"It's selling splendidly--for poetry. Yes, I shall make a good deal by -it, strange to say. If you want a change, why not go to Brighton for a -week or two? I"--he was embarrassed--"I can give you the money." - -"Oh, it isn't that," she explained with another gape; "I can't leave -the house. Who's going to look after it while I'm gone? It's an awful -drag if you haven't got a house-keeper. And if you have, you can't go -away and leave everything to her! Fancy you with money to spare, though! -Well, you've got to thank _me_ for that, David--your cleverness comes -from _my_ side. You didn't have your father's voice, you know; if you -hadn't written, I don't know what you'd have done." - -He did not know either; his life would have been insupportable if he -hadn't written. He looked beyond her vaguely, and nodded. "Is the house -full?" he asked. - -"Pretty full. They're most of them new now--Americans, and people -up for a few weeks; the others 'll be coming back at the end of the -month.... There's another boarding-house opened round the corner; they -keep the gas full up in every room all the evening." - -"As an advertisement?" - -"Yes; it's stupid. Not enough people pass here in the evening to make it -pay. It isn't as if it were at the seaside. Would you like a cup o' tea -or anything?" - -"No, thanks," he said. - -"You may as well. I want a cup o' tea myself; it'll wake me up--I was -just going to have forty winks when the man told me you were here." - -"I'm sorry." He rang the bell. "I wish I'd come at another time." - -"Oh, it doesn't matter," she returned; "there's always something.... I -suppose you haven't heard from Vivian?" - -"I never hear from him. I think it's nearly a year since I saw him. What -is he doing?" - -"He's got a first-rate berth. He left the company at the end of the -last tour; you knew he was on tour with a theatrical company, didn't -you? He's settled in one place now--much nicer for him than travelling -all the time, a great improvement in every way." She roused herself to -boast feebly about Vivian. "Not many young men of his age get into such -a thing; it's a very responsible position, to be business manager of a -theatre. And there's the salary all the year round--every week he's -sure of so much. That's an advantage you can't hope for, eh? You may -be comfortably off one year, and have nothing the next. Writing is so -precarious--you never know where you are." - -"I jog along," said David amiably. - -"Oh yes," she allowed, "I'm sure it's wonderful, your keeping yourself -as you have. And it's nice to have your book talked about. But of course -there's no certainty about your profession--you can't depend on that -sort of thing." She tittered. "Fame is all very well, but I'm afraid -Vivian would say 'Give _me_ a regular income.' ... He'll be up on -Sunday, if you'd like to see him." - -"Yes, I'll come in," he answered. "What town has he gone to?" - -"Beckenhampton," she said; "the Theatre Royal." - -"Beckenhampton?" He looked at her wide-eyed. - -"Do you know it?" - -"N-no," he said; "no, I don't know it exactly. How long has he been -there?" - -"Oh, two or three months. He's having great times, I believe--he's so -popular wherever he goes; he gets asked out to supper parties, and -all that." She hesitated, toying with the keeper on her finger, as he -remembered her toying in his childhood with rings that flashed. But now -the ring no longer turned. "I rather fancy there's an attraction," she -went on more slowly; "I hope to goodness it isn't serious! Don't let out -that I said anything when you meet him; I didn't mean to mention it." - -"An attraction?" - -She lifted her fat shoulders impatiently. "There may be nothing in it, -but young men are so soft; any girl can catch the smartest of them. It -wouldn't astonish me a bit when he comes up, to hear that he's engaged. -I had a gushing letter from him a few weeks ago, telling me he'd met the -prettiest girl he'd ever seen. I know what that means! He wouldn't have -written about her if he hadn't lost his head. And he doesn't answer my -questions. It looks as if he's making an idiot of himself." - -"Who is she?" asked David, in a low voice. - -"He didn't say. What's the difference who she is? You may be sure she -hasn't got a sixpence to bless herself with. A nice mess he'll make of -his life if he doesn't take care. It's a lucky thing for you that you -haven't got that sort of risk to run. 'A young man married is a man -that's marred,' as Ouida says." - -"Shakespeare," he said, in the same dull tone; "not Ouida." - -"Was it? It's at the beginning of one of Ouida's books, I know. If your -brother gets married at his age, he might as well hang himself at once." - -The tremor was in his pulses still. But Beckenhampton was not a -village--the coincidence was so unlikely; he kept repeating that it -couldn't be. - -"If his salary is such a good one, and he's fond of her----" he demurred. - -"'Such a good one'? Well"--she was a shade confused--"it's good enough -for him as he is; it wouldn't go far with a wife and family to keep. -Besides, a man's always better off single than married; only he's so -soft as soon as a pretty face comes along. Some artful minx who wants -a home makes up to him, and all of a sudden he imagines he can't go -through life without her. Good Lord! if a man could see into a girl's -head while she's gushing about the view and pretending she's an angel. -Men are taken in by every girl they meet, the fools!" Her scorn of the -fools was in no wise restrained by the fact that she had captured two -husbands herself. She was thinking of her son. When a woman lives to see -the arts by which she gained her husband practised to ensnare her son, -candour can reveal no more. Nor in the badly constructed tragedy of life -is there any other situation that comes so close to poetical justice. - -David found the afternoon the most irksome that he had spent at -Regent's Park. Though he told himself that his misgiving was fantastic, -it continued to disturb him, and while he sipped weak tea, and made -perfunctory responses, he was trying to define Hilda's feeling for him, -questioning whether it was in woman's nature for Hilda to write to him -as he believed she wrote, and yet to be susceptible to the courtship -of another man. Vivian was handsome, debonair, "so popular wherever he -went." Yes, Vivian had always been popular, he remembered bitterly. -Might not the passion of a lover at her side prove a stronger force than -the worship of a correspondent which had never been confessed? Could she -not say--might she not be happy to say--that by never a word had her -letters to himself been more than the letters of a friend? Then Vivian -would take her from him. Vivian, who it seemed to him in a burst of fear -and jealousy had always taken everything, would rob him of her too!... -But, again, the coincidence was so improbable. Besides, his mother might -be wrong; she might be exaggerating the idlest fancy; perhaps Vivian had -no desire to marry anyone! - -He was relieved when the clock gave him an excuse to rise. - -"Well, good-bye, mother." He avoided her complexion and dropped a kiss -on her dyed fringe. - -"Must you go?" she said. "Er--David, if you're really sure you can spare -a few pounds, I'd be very glad of the money to get a new dress with. -I haven't got a decent thing to put on for dinner. This blouse is so -shabby I'm ashamed to sit at the table in it." - -He promised to send what she wanted, and took up his hat. When his hand -was on the door-knob, she asked him if he would stay to supper; but he -declined the invitation. As he made his way home, he repeated more than -once that his tremor was ridiculous, and assured himself that he was -much amused at his folly. He smiled stiffly, to prove his amusement.... -Still he wished that the week were past and Vivian had come to town. He -would feel easier when he had seen Vivian. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -Ownie's conjectures were not misleading her; the business manager's -views of life had been deranged. To dress well and have a "good time" -now appeared to him less dazzling a prospect than to clothe Hilda and -have a home. Confronted by temptation he had been no stronger than the -multitude; he was prepared to travel the course handicapped, and like -every other young man at the inevitable crisis, persuaded himself that a -pair of arms round his neck would accelerate the pace. Hilda, too, was -in love. Moreover, she was in love with the idea of being married. She -had, passed the stage at which the Beauty of every family looks forward -to wedding a millionaire, and although she had gathered something of -Vivian's position by now, she meant to accept him when he asked her. -One of the greatest sacrifices for love that a girl in the provinces -can make is to marry and remove to local lodgings. There were perfervid -moments when Hilda felt equal even to this, but in moods less head-long -it was her intention to remain engaged to him until he secured a -similar appointment in another town. Meanwhile Vivian wondered whether -she would be startled if he confessed his feelings thus early. - -Fearful that he might "lose it all," he resolved to be discreet; so he -confided to her facts of which she was unaware, and withheld the one -that she knew. It was a vast relief to him to settle the matter of the -opera between them. Of late the opera had seemed to darken his future; -and when he had intimated nervously that her father overestimated his -influence with Mr. Jordan, he thanked Heaven to see that she did not -find the news an overwhelming shock. - -One afternoon--it was on the Friday after Ownie unbosomed herself to -David--Hilda exclaimed-- - -"What do you think, Bee? The man who wrote _A Celibate's Love Songs_ is -Mr. Harris's half-brother. He has just gone." - -The colour left Bee's face; her heart thudded. - -"Who?" she faltered. "David Lee?" - -"No, Mr. Harris. He dropped in just now to return a book. Isn't it -strange? His mother married twice; she married Elisha Lee, the black -tenor--I don't know how she could have done it. The poet is their son--a -mulatto. Fancy!" - -The woman stood stone-still.... She moved by a blind instinct to a -chair. It seemed to her a long time before she could reach chair. - -"A mulatto?" she said faintly. - -"Yes--almost a nigger, Mr. Harris says. He's ashamed--I could tell, -though he tried to sound casual. Of course it isn't nice for him to have -a half-brother like that, is it? And then his mother doing such a thing! -I was awfully sorry for him, poor fellow--he did look so uncomfortable -while he was talking. Of course he hung on to his brother's cleverness -and all that, but----Well, he can't be very proud, can he?" - -Bee made no answer; she did not hear. "A mulatto--almost a nigger." For -an instant her mind was dwarfed by it. She could not think beyond it, -could see no further than the monstrous personality that seemed to close -upon her. "Almost a nigger." The instant was heavy, affrighting with his -presence. In the next, her thoughts flashed to the mulatto who had gone -to Godstone--and she knew that he was the man. - -"He must look rather like that Mr. Tremlett, I suppose," Hilda was -saying. - -She nodded. "Yes." - -"Fancy a nigger writing poetry! You don't seem very interested? I -thought you'd gasp when I told you--you liked his book so much." - -"Did you? Oh, I _am_ interested. Yes, fancy his writing poetry.'" - -She felt sick, stupefied; she could not talk. David Lee was a mulatto; -was the poor young man with the swarthy skin and the negro features whom -she had pitied condescendingly, whom she had passed, and repassed, and -addressed with no emotion. She sat struggling with the thing. She did -not doubt it, she never questioned it for a moment; it was so obvious -now that she even wondered that she had not suspected it then; but -anomalously David seemed for the first time strange to her, remote. The -association dazed her, and before the physical impression all the sense -of familiarity receded. - -"Tremlett" was David Lee. He had been to seek her. As the cloud of her -confusion lifted, she saw the reason of his long delay, saw why, at -last, he had assumed a name. Light was shed upon his work; its sorrow -was illumined, she understood the secret of its intimate appeal. Like -herself, he suffered and was despised. - -He had been to seek her, afraid to tell her who he was. Her? No, not -her--_Hilda!_ She stared across the room at her sister blankly: Hilda -had renounced the effort at conversation, and was in a love-reverie -over a novelette. It was Hilda he had been to seek, attracted by her -photograph! He had gone at last not to find the writer of the letters, -but the girl whose likeness he had seen. Only when the likeness reached -him had he cared to go! And he had followed Hilda about the garden, -looked at her with his heart in his eyes--he was fond of her. Yes, it -was to Hilda that his letters were really written now--and Hilda would -probably marry his half-brother! - -Her misery and shame were profound; she did not define the vague, pained -stir of another feeling in her breast. She was engulfed by the knowledge -that she had brought a new grief into his life, had given him still more -to bear. She hated herself, and she felt that when he learned the truth -he too would hate her--that he must; that he would curse the misshapen -fool who had cheated him into loving the girl who would be his brother's -wife. - -When hours had passed, she untied the letters that had come to her since -her return from Surrey, and read them in her bedroom slowly by the light -of recognition. The sore stir of the subtle feeling within her was -stronger as she read them, realising that they were meant for Hilda. But -compassion for him swept her like a flood. The spirit of the man spoke -to her again; she found herself again sensitive to his spirit--less -dominated by his face. - -They were meant for Hilda! Always her mind reverted to this. It became -her ascendant thought. She locked the letters in their drawer, and tried -to consider the one that she must write; and now she shuddered before -confession, not so much in dread of the throes that she would suffer, as -of the blow that she would deal. His confidences were meant for Hilda, -and he must be told that Hilda had never heard from him, had never -responded by a line. She perceived dismayed that the words explaining -it would sound to him the words of a stranger--of a little woman with a -crooked back, claiming her sister's qualities. Yes, the very qualities -that had first pleased him he attributed to Hilda now! And in herself, -when he understood, they would fall to nothingness. Her sympathies were -abstractions, shadows; the realities were Hilda's lips and eyes, and -lithe, straight form. While she sat there, Hilda came to the room with -a message; Bee did not look at her as she answered. She tried to think -it was because she had been crying; but there was another reason which -she would not see, which she shunned because the inborn prejudices of a -white woman feared to own it--in her heart there was a jealousy of Hilda. - -Sunday came before she had written to David. He went to Regent's Park -uneasily. Vivian and his mother were in the little room, half-parlour, -half-office, in which she made out the bills, and received applicants -for "board residence." It was clear that he had interrupted an -altercation. Vivian's smile of greeting was an obvious effort, and Ownie -was frankly discomposed. For two or three minutes, while the young men -exchanged remarks, she kept silent, breathing quickly, her nostrils -dilated, her mouth compressed. Then she broke out-- - -"Why don't you tell David your news? Your brother's going to be married, -David. Don't you congratulate him on his luck?" - -"Is that so?" said David, turning to him. - -"So the mater says," muttered Vivian. "I didn't know it myself--I'm not -engaged yet." - -She sniggered: "Oh, it doesn't take long to get engaged; you can soon do -that if you want to!" - -"Well, I do want to, and I mean to marry her if she'll have me!" he -exclaimed. "And now you've got it, so we needn't say any more." - -"How pretty," she said between a sneer and a sob. "She has a beautiful -influence over you, I must say--to make you rude to your mother." - -"Oh, of course," he returned, "it's all _her_ fault that you take it -badly, isn't it? It's all _her_ fault that you quarrel with me when I -confide in you? That's rich! It strikes me I've behaved about as well -as a fellow could, in telling you how things stand; I needn't have said -anything till it was settled. I think you might pretend to be glad even -if you aren't." - -"'Glad'?" - -"Yes, glad. What's to prevent your being glad? One would imagine I was -doing you some infernal injury by the way you talk." - -"I'm talking for your own good; you're too young to get married. Before -you've been----" - -"Oh, I know all about that!" he cried; "I should always be too young, -according to you. I tell you what it is: you're not thinking of my -good at all--you're thinking of yourself. You don't like the idea of -my marrying; you've got it in your head that you'll 'lose' me if I -marry--you said so at the beginning--and so you call me names, and run -her down--a girl you've never seen--and try to persuade yourself it's -holy affection for me. But it isn't, it isn't anything of the kind. It's -just selfishness; and as you've used such very plain English, I'll use -some too and tell you so. It's sheer selfishness, to want me to spoil -my life to please you. What have you ever done for me, that you should -expect me to sacrifice myself for you? I think it's disgusting." - -His handsome face was flushed, his manner insolent. The girl to -whom his attachment presented him at his best would scarcely have -recognised her lover here at his worst. He stirred in Ownie memories -of his father, memories of scenes in the Liverpool villa when the fur -business had become involved. She did not speak; her lips twitched. -Although her objections appeared to David unreasonable, he felt sorry -for her. Whatever her faults towards others, she had always been fond of -Vivian--it jarred that Vivian reproached her for selfishness. - -After a little pause she said wistfully: "If that's the way you feel, -I'm afraid I can't expect to see much of you in future whether you marry -or not?" - -"You don't see much of me now; I don't live here." - -"But you belong to me still," she pleaded. - -He looked towards David with an air of triumph. "You see what I say is -quite true: it isn't for my sake that she's against my marrying, but for -her own--I'm to sacrifice myself because she's jealous." - -David lit a cigarette, without replying. All this time his pulses were -impatient for the sound of the girl's name. - -Ownie's humility deserted her; her temper flamed, though there were -still tears in her voice. - -"'Sacrifice'?" she retorted. "It's a fine sacrifice, to keep your -comfort! The sacrifice'll come in if you throw yourself away for the -first pretty face you meet. I thought you had more sense--you talk like -a sentimental boy. 'Sacrifice yourself'? In a year's time you'd have -forgotten you ever wanted her, and she'd be engaged to somebody else! -Any young man can get spoony on any girl if he sees enough of her. Why -don't you pick up a girl of a different sort? You must have plenty of -opportunities. If you want to play the fool, choose a girl who doesn't -aim at getting married!" - -Vivian rose with fury in his veins. He made a desperate effort to -disguise it, to answer her with dignity. - -"I must decline to discuss the matter. If you can compare the love of my -life with--with that kind of thing, there's no more to be said." - -"Oh!" she exclaimed, exasperated, "what an idiot you are! Marry her -then, and drag uphill with a wife and a family on your back, and see how -you like it. Make haste before the bargain has gone; I daresay she'll -jump at any man who asks her." - -"Ah, it isn't _every_ woman who'll jump at any man who asks her," he -said savagely. "You're not a fair judge on that point, you know!" - -The blood swept up to her forehead, and then she blanched, and the -rouge stains looked grotesque. She trembled as if the blow had been -struck with his fists. Her dyed head went down in her hands, and she -began to sob--unrestrainedly, hysterically, in an abandonment of -wretchedness. - -He watched her, discomfited. His anger dwindled in view of her defeat, -and already he repented his taunt. He decided, ashamed, to pretend that -he did not understand what she was crying about. - -David went over to her, murmuring encouragement. - -"Let me alone," she quavered. "Go away, both of you; I don't want -anyone." - -"I don't know what has upset you," Vivian stammered. "I didn't mean -anything particular." - -"You did," she gasped; "you insulted me--you tried to! You said I was -too low to judge her--your mother was too low to judge her! I'll never -talk about your marriage again as long as I live. I don't want to hear -about it." She dabbed her eyes and cheeks impetuously, and moved to the -door. "I hope you'll be happy ... that's all. I'm going; I've nothing -more to say." - -The door closed, and there was a moment's pause. Her sons looked at each -other. - -"Damned nonsense!" said Vivian, scowling. - -"I didn't mean any harm. I wish I hadn't come." - -"She has gone up to her bedroom," said David constrainedly. "You'd -better run up after her." - -"What for--to have another scene? No, thank you; I've had enough.... -Well, I suppose we may as well go." - -"I think I'll just say a word to her first. Will you wait for me? I -won't be long. You will wait, won't you? I want to talk to you." - -Vivian nodded. "All right; but don't tell her that _I_ want to come -up, because I don't. It's beastly, this sort of thing. Good Lord! one -would think I was dependent on her; one would think she was making me an -allowance.... Give me a cigarette." - -David found a servant to point "Madam's" room out to him, and tapped -timidly. Ownie had thrown herself on the bed, and at his entrance she -turned, in the hope that it was his brother's. - -"Oh, it's you," she said. "Has he gone?" - -"No, he's downstairs. He--I'm sure he's sorry he hurt you, mother." - -"He's hard," she faltered, "hard as nails. He doesn't care; he doesn't -care for me a bit. You heard how he talked to me. 'What have I ever done -for him?' he asked. What have I ever done for him? You know, you know -very well how good I've always been to Vivian. When he was a child I -never refused him anything--I studied him in every way--he was always -first to me. And this is how he treats me. He talks to me as if I were a -stranger. It wouldn't trouble him for a minute if he never saw me again." - -"Oh, you shouldn't say that," he murmured; "it isn't true. He's got a -rough tongue, but his heart is good. He doesn't show what he feels. He's -just as unhappy now as you are, but he--it isn't easy for him to find -the right words. You understand that really, only you're too sore to -remember it yet." - -"He only thinks of that girl," she sobbed. "'Jealous,' he called me. -If I _am_ jealous, what of it? He's all I've got, and she's taking him -away from me. I'm not young any more, I haven't the interests that I -used to have; I don't want to be left alone. He doesn't care a snap of -his fingers for me now. He never cared much, but I wouldn't see it, and -now he cares nothing. Nobody cares for me; there's not a soul to mind -whether I live or die. Oh, it was nice of you to come up--it's more -than _he_ did--but you're not fond of me, David; you never were. I'm -not blaming you--I'm not unjust--it's my own fault, that. But it isn't -my fault with him, God knows it isn't! If I deserve anything I deserve -to be loved by Vivie. I don't ask for much, I don't expect miracles; -but I did expect to be treated well by Vivie when I was old, when I was -lonely, and I had nobody else to turn to." - -The tears had streaked the rouge on her quivering face; her yellow hair, -disordered by the pillow, showed the lines of age that it was trained -to hide. Timeworn and desolate, she lay huddled on the bed, making her -moan while he sought pityingly to comfort her; and it pained him that he -could not speak of his own affection for her--that she could not believe -him if he did. - -When she was more tranquil he left her. She had not asked for her elder -son to be sent to her, nor did he inquire whether he was wanted. - -"You've been long enough!" he said. "Well, is she better?" - -"Yes," David answered coldly, "she is better. Have you anything to do? -What time do you go back?" - -Vivian explained that he was not returning to Beckenhampton till -the morrow: "I've business here; that's why I came up. No, I've -nothing to do till eight o'clock--then I've got to see a man at the -Eccentric." They descended the steps, and, after a furtive glance at his -half-brother, he added deprecatingly: "It has been going on for an hour -pretty nearly--you only heard the fag-end of it. I can tell you that -what I've had to listen to would have tried the patience of a saint!" -It embarrassed him to walk in the streets with David, and he signed to -a passing hansom. "Where shall I tell him to drive? I'll come to your -place with you if you like." - -His contrition by no means abated his sense of being ill-used, nor did -his indifference to his companion extend to his companion's disapproval. -That David should be presuming to censure him was a situation not -the less annoying because it seemed to him anomalous, and they were -no sooner in the cab than he began vehemently to expatiate upon his -grievance. David waited with rising eagerness for an opportunity to -frame the question that again engrossed him. - -"If I had guessed how she'd take the news, there'd have been none of -this confounded row at all--I'd have left her in the dark. It's an -encouraging thing, upon my soul it is, to be bullied when you make a -confidant of your mother! What's it to do with her, anyhow? It won't -cost her anything. How does it affect her if I marry? It's not as if I -had to keep her--she's in no need of my assistance; I've never given -her a pound in my life." He seemed to regard this as conclusive, and -repeated it. "On my honour, I've never given her a pound in my life; -she'd be every bit as well off if I were married, as she is now I'm -single! There isn't a grain of logic in her objection; it isn't even -as if I were living at home. Hang it, I scarcely ever see her! It's -a regular dog-in-the-manger attitude she adopts--she hasn't got me -herself, and she grudges me to anybody else." - -"That isn't the way she looks at it," said David; "while you're single -she feels she _has_ still got you. Who is the girl?" - -"She's beautiful--she's absolutely the most beautiful girl I ever -met. She--she's the top stair of the highest flight of an artist's -imagination. You should see the people turn round after her wherever -she goes. And she's as clever as she's good-looking. I never believed I -should meet a woman who'd understand me as she does. 'Jump at the first -man who asks her'? Ha, ha! You can take your oath she's had proposals -enough, young as she is.... I didn't come up with the intention of -talking about it at all; it was the mater pumped me. I thought she was -entering into it at the start--she was smiling, she seemed interested; I -gave myself away before I dreamt she was going to make a fuss. Then it -began. A bit of a sneer, a little ridicule, pretending it was all too -silly to talk seriously about--after she'd led me on, after she'd made -me think she was sympathising! Then when she saw that didn't work, she -got nasty; she began to show her claws--I was a 'fool' in every other -sentence. A man is the best judge of his own life; I know what I want, -without anybody telling me. I'd have proposed long ago if I were sure it -would be all right. I haven't much to offer, unfortunately. 'Throwing -myself away'? I'm no catch for a girl like that. And then, of course ... -I don't know; I think she does, but ... I can't swear she cares for me. -Perhaps when it came to the point--she may only like me as a friend." - -"What's her name?" said David. "How did you meet her?" - -"I met her father first, and then he asked me up to the house. I'd seen -her already then, or I daresay I shouldn't have gone. I might have -missed everything if she hadn't been with him that afternoon. Funny, eh? -Did it ever strike you how a fellow's life is often altered by things -that don't seem anything at the time? I mean how the biggest things turn -up from things that you'd think don't matter. There's a new idea for -your poetry--you go in for original fancies like that, don't you? I read -somewhere that your book's full of 'em. Her father is very amiable to -me, but--he's not very wide awake--I don't think he sees how the land -lies. He mayn't be keen on giving his daughter to me when I spring it -on him, even if she accepts me. I wish she hadn't got a father. If she -were on her own in the profession, the running would be easier for me; -they marry in the profession on nothing--some of them--live in lodgings, -and carry the babies down to the station on Sunday mornings. It's -different with a girl like her. And the town is full of Johnnies who -are in their governors' businesses and could offer her a decent home--a -villa on the Hunby Road, and a couple of servants. It makes one a bit -shaky about one's chances, you know." - -The cab stopped before David could obtain the answer that he sought, -and he opened the door with his latchkey, and led the way upstairs. His -restlessness under the flood of discourse loosed upon him had heightened -his misgiving. There had been nothing to justify his fear except -enthusiasm--no word to suggest that it was Hilda who was referred to; -he kept telling himself so. But, fluttering in his senses, there was a -nervous, inexplicable conviction that it _was_ Hilda. Reason could not -still it. He even dreaded to repeat his question, feeling that with -insistence the bolt would fall. - -He took the whisky and a syphon out of the miniature sideboard, and -called on the landing for tumblers. Vivian dropped into the armchair on -the hearth. - -"Yes, it doesn't make a fellow sanguine, to remember how much better -she might do," he went on. "I don't mean that she's mercenary--nothing -of the sort--but I daresay her family will be against it. Not that -they're particularly well off themselves, as far as that goes--rather -the reverse. Still, they have got a house. It's not being able to -take a house that makes a fellow look so hard up. It doesn't show -while he's single--I might have a thousand a year now, for all anybody -can tell--but if I stop in diggings after I'm married, it'll be a -different pair of shoes. There's no doubt that when a fellow marries, he -advertises his position for all the world to see. I'm sick of diggings." - -"So am I," said David. - -The drudge had burst in with the glasses. Vivian got up, and lounged -about the room. "Is that where you write?" he asked. He wandered to the -smaller table in a corner, on which some manuscript lay, and swung round -with an ejaculation: - -"Good heavens! How did you get this?" He held up Hilda's photograph. - -The answer to David's question had come. It reverberated as if he had -been unprepared. Almost he felt that he _had_ been unprepared. He stared -at his brother mutely. - -"This is her likeness.... _Isn't_ this Hilda Sorrenford? How did you get -it?" - -"She sent it to me," replied David, dragging out his voice. - -"Sent it to you? ... Sent it to you? Why, she doesn't know you!" - -"Oh yes, she knows me. That is, she writes to me." - -"Writes to you?" - -"Yes." - -"What about?" - -"I must explain to you. It's difficult to say. We have written to each -other for a long time. She wrote first about my work--she liked it--and -then somehow we began to correspond regularly.... She doesn't know that -we're related; I haven't spoken of you--I didn't know she had ever seen -you." - -"I don't understand. I've spoken of _you:_ she didn't say she knew you. -Why did she make a secret of it?" - -"I can't think why." - -"Have you ever met her?" - -"Yes." - -"It's the most extraordinary----Where?" - -"She was in the country this summer with her sister." - -"Bee?" - -"Yes, 'Bee.' I went down there. That was after she sent me the likeness. -I wanted to see her. I had rooms in the same house for a few days." - -"Upon my soul!... And she let me think--why, she seemed astonished to -hear you were a----She knew nothing about you except your name!" - -There was silence for an instant. - -"Do you mean she was astonished to hear I was a mulatto?" asked David. -"You told her?" - -"Yes." - -"How long ago?" - -"The other day." - -"When? ... Last week? This week?" - -"This week." - -David turned aside. It was a week since he had received Bee's last -letter. "What did she say?" he faltered. - -"She was astonished." - -"Horrified?" - -"N--no, she wasn't so interested as all that. But I don't understand!" -he exclaimed again; "you said just now that you had met her?" - -"She doesn't know I've met her---she doesn't know it was I. I took -another name; I called myself 'Tremlett.'" - -"You called, yourself 'Tremlett'? Why? What the devil is all this -about--what did you take another name for?" - -"I didn't want her to discover I--I wasn't a white man; not then, not so -soon. I was afraid." - -"'Afraid'?" - -"Afraid she might stop writing to me if she knew." - -"So help me God! it sounds as if you're telling me you are in love with -her?" - -"Yes," said David quietly, "that is what I have to tell you. I am in -love with her." - -They stood looking into each other's eyes for several seconds, neither -of them moving. - -"Is this a joke?" asked Vivian harshly. - -"Oh no, it's true, it's perfectly true. I'm sorry, very sorry, to hear -you're fond of her; but I loved her before I heard it--you mustn't -forget that. It oughtn't to make bad blood between us, whatever happens. -I've told you as soon as I could; I've been quite open with you." - -"I--I'm hanged if I'm quite sure now what you're driving at," said -Vivian after another pause. "You're 'sorry'--'whatever happens'?... What -is it you're doing--warning me? Do you mean----You don't mean to say you -think she'll marry you?" - -"I hope and pray she will. If she cares more for _you_, of course she -won't." - -"What?" He forced a laugh. "Are you out of your mind? Why, the thing's -preposterous! It's an insult to her to imagine it.... Look here, I don't -want a row with you. You must see very well that it's no good. We don't -make ourselves, it's not your fault that you're not the same as other -fellows, it's your misfortune--but you can't expect a decent girl to -marry a coloured man; it's against nature." - -"Our mother did," said David. - -"I've had quite enough about that!... Besides, we all know she -was wretched. And I've told you Hilda belongs to _me_. Don't come -interfering; it has gone too far already, with the correspondence and -the likeness. I can't make it out." - -"She doesn't belong to you; if she belonged to you, I'd say nothing. She -belongs to neither of us--she can choose the one she likes best. Well, -let her choose! If my love is preposterous, if it's an insult to her, -why are you frightened for me to go and plead?" - -"Frightened?" Vivian blazed; "do you think I'm jealous of _you_? You -know better. You're frightened yourself--you said so. When you went -to her, it was like a coward; by your own showing, you've hung about -her under a false name. I suppose that was 'open,' was it? You've been -trying to get round her by your poetry, haven't you? trying to sneak her -fancy before she knew what you were like! Go and plead--and be damned to -you--and hear what she'll say, now she knows what you are!" - -He waited for an answer, affected another laugh, and then turned to the -table and picked up his hat. David drew close to him, shaking. - -"_You_ make the quarrel," he panted, "do you? _You_ complain?... By -what right? She was dear to me before you had ever seen her, before you -had ever heard of her, before you'd set foot in the town she lives in. -_You_ complain? It's for me to resent, not you. All our lives since -we were children, you've had everything I was denied because you were -good-looking and I was hideous; when we were boys your good looks made -things harder for me; as men, all the pleasure of life has been for you, -while I've had nothing but contempt. And at last when a girl has come to -care for me--to care for what I am, my work, my thoughts, my feelings, -the things that _are_ myself--_you_ must blunder in the way, and want to -take _her_ from me too. You taunt me with my colour? It ought to remind -you of what I've had to bear; it ought to shame you for asking me to -give up to you the only chance of happiness I've ever had! If I've been -a coward, I was what the intolerance of minds like yours has made me. -Show your own courage--take your appeals to the girl you love, don't -beg me to stand aside for you! You taunt me with my colour? Wait till -_she_ does! Talk to her as best you can--and so will I. For once I'm not -afraid of your good looks--she has seen deeper than my skin. _Tell_ her -that you love her, and find which has more power to move her heart--your -face, or _the words in me!_" - -And while he boasted, he believed in the power of words, not knowing -that he had preferred a face himself. - -When he was alone, he cried, looking uglier still. - -And late in the evening he wrote his first love-letter. - -It was a very long letter. He wrote of the joy that the correspondence -had brought him, of the years of loneliness and suffering that had made -him afraid to own the truth. He wrote of the day the portrait came, his -temptation, his weakness--of his longing to confess himself at Godstone, -and of the fear that had still held him back. He poured out the story -of his life, the story of his childhood, of his youth, and of his love. -He prayed to her for pity, for tenderness, for "Heaven." He said that -on the morrow he would go to her to hear her answer. And because the -need for pretending ignorance of the name was past now, he addressed the -letter to "Miss Hilda Sorrenford" in full. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -It reached her early the next afternoon. She was sitting before the -dining-room fire, with a shilling manicure set in her lap, polishing -her finger-nails. There was no one else in the room; Bee had gone back -to the studio, and the Professor was at Great Hunby. The handwriting -was unfamiliar, and she opened the envelope with as much interest as -was natural in a girl whose letters were few. Astonishment laid hold of -her at the first lines. She glanced instinctively at the address again, -and then found the last page, and looked at the signature. Her lovely -eyes dilated, her brows climbed high; truth to tell, she had a rather -stupid air as she sat deciphering David's declaration, with her mouth -ajar, and the file, and the rubber, and the little powder-box lying in -her lap. Only two points were intelligible to her: the "Mr. Tremlett" -she had met was David Lee, and he adored her. It can never be unpleasant -to be adored; she by no means shared the opinion that his adoration -was an insult, though she did not regard it seriously; but she was too -bewildered even to simper. "Her photograph, their correspondence?" -At every reference to these things she felt more dazed. By what -extraordinary mistake could a man from whom she had never heard till now -imagine that he had been corresponding with her? - -After she had stared at the fire, and smiled at herself in the glass, -she mounted to the studio, her eyes still wide, a glimmer of amusement -in them. - -"Just look at this! Read it through!" she exclaimed, holding the letter -out. - -Bee was writing, and rose confused. - -"What is it?" - -"A proposal!" She giggled. "I mean it From David Lee! It's a mystery." - -Bee started. Her gaze wandered from the letter in Hilda's hand to the -letter on the table. She did not speak. - -"Read it," repeated Hilda. - -"I'd rather not," she answered painfully; "it's written to _you_." - -"What rubbish! Well, listen, then. You'd better sit down again, my -dear--he worships me at great length." - -She dropped into a chair herself, and began to declaim the pages with -zest. In moments she looked up, with a comment or grimace. The woman sat -passive, never meeting her glance. She listened to David's avowal of -devotion to her sister dumbly--line after line, to the end--her hands -hanging at her sides, her chin sunk. Only her meagre bosom showed that -she was listening. For the first time it heaved to love words that were -not ordered for the ears of all--for the first time in her life she -heard a man's passion crying out to flesh and blood. When she raised her -head at last, she was white to the lips. - -"What's the matter?" - -Contrition, love and pity surged in her. In the distorted body all the -forces of womanhood beat at his appeal. She yearned over the story of -his childish years like a mother, she trembled to his passion like a -wife. The thin hands strained across the lifting bosom; she found her -voice. - -"There's something I must tell you. I--I ought to have told you -before.... It's _I_ who have been writing to him," she said. - -"You?... It's you who have been What do you mean? Why does he write to -_me_ then?" - -"He doesn't know. I always signed myself 'H,' of course, and one day he -asked for my photograph. I----" She hesitated. She drooped before the -girl abjectly. - -"You sent him mine?" cried Hilda. - -Bee nodded, her eyes to the ground.... The pause was broken by Hilda's -giggle. - -"Whatever did you do that for?" she said. - -The deformed woman spoke by a gesture. "Then he came to Godstone, and -fell in love with you," she went on huskily. "I didn't know it was he -when we were there; I only guessed when I heard he was--when I heard -what his brother had told you about him. I was writing to him when you -came in, to say that I had deceived him. It's too late, the harm is -done, but I was writing!" - -"It was an awful shame," exclaimed Hilda with sudden heat. "Supposing he -has talked to Vivian--I mean 'Mr. Harris'--about it? I expect he has--he -seems to know his brother's here. Why, what a liar I shall look! It was -a beastly thing to do, Bee. What will his brother think of me?" - -"You're fond of Mr. Harris, aren't you?" inquired Bee humbly. - -"Perhaps. Anyhow, I don't want him to imagine I'm such a hateful liar -as to pretend I don't know a fellow I've been corresponding with for -months." - -"That can soon be put right; I wish I'd done no worse harm than that." - -"What else have you done, for goodness' sake?" - -Bee's lips tightened. She pointed to David's letter, which had fallen to -the floor. - -"Have you forgotten he loves you?" she asked. - -"Oh!" Hilda was relieved. "Well, you'll have to own up to everybody, -that's all," she said; "I hope you'll like it. But carrying on a -correspondence with a man you've never seen--you! That's what gets over -me. What on earth did you find to say to him?" - -"I wrote about his work." - -"And why should you have minded his knowing about your accident--what -difference did that make? Really"--her vexation melted into -amusement--"it may have been all about poetry and the fine arts, but it -was going rather far, wasn't it? If _I_ had done such a thing---A secret -correspondence with a strange man! I'd never have believed it of you. -I'm appalled. I shouldn't like to call you 'fast,' but----And he turns -out to be a nigger!" Her laughter pealed. "Oh, it's funny! it is, it is, -it's screaming!" - -"He loves you," said the woman again, flushing to the temples; "try to -remember it." - -The ridicule in the girl's stare shamed her through and through. -She picked the scattered pages up, and folded them. Hilda took them -negligently, and stood struggling to control her mouth. Smiles still -played hide-and-seek with the dimple in her cheek. - -"Which likeness has he got of me?" she said after a minute. - -"It was the one I took at Godstone." - -"You might as well have sent the one you took of me in the tucked -chiffon, while you were about it. That thing at Godstone didn't show the -best side of my face." - -"He loves you," cried Bee passionately. "Are you made of wood? You're -the world to him, he thinks you understand him, he's coming to you -to-day, praying for your answer! Have you got no feeling in you; can't -you pity him?" - -"Good Lord!" said Hilda, "don't go on at me like that. Of course I -pity him; I'm very sorry for him indeed, I'm sure. I think I shall -write him a very nice note after he has got over the shock," she added -complacently, "hoping he'll soon forget me, and 'find comfort in his -work.' I might do that, mightn't I? Something very kind." - -"And when he comes to-day?" - -"What, when he comes? You don't expect _me_ to explain matters to him, -do you?" - -"No, _I_ must do that, I know; it serves me right for not having told -him before. But he'll ask to see you afterwards--to say good-bye to you. -You'll go down and speak to him?" - -"I shan't do anything of the sort, it isn't likely. To say 'good-bye' -to me? Why, the man's a stranger to me, it would be most horribly -embarrassing--I should feel a perfect idiot. You can tell him I had to -go out--or that I'm not well. Besides, I shouldn't think he _would_ ask -to see me when he hears he has been taken in; why should he?" - -"'Why should he'? Because he loves you, because he's hungry for you, mad -for you. Because you're pretty and soft, and made for men to admire, and -he'll want to look at your face, and touch your hand, and hold it for a -second longer than he ought to. And if you let him, would it kill you? -Would it be so much to give him? Can you read that letter--can you hear -his life--and smirk and talk of your 'embarrassment'? To him it'll be -worse than embarrassment, it'll be despair." - -"You're very rude," said Hilda, paling. "I think you're in love with him -yourself, upon my word I do!" - -"Do you? It would be very strange, wouldn't it? I'm not pretty like you, -and I've got a crooked spine--so I'm not a woman. You can hardly believe -that _I_ could be in love, can you?" - -"I really don't know what to believe," stammered Hilda, "when you talk -like that. I should have thought you'd have respected yourself more than -to fall in love with a ni--with a mulatto, at any rate." - -"I respect myself because I do love him--I love him better than it's in -you to love anybody. You fool, you doll, you'll write him something very -'kind,' and think you're condescending? If that letter had been written -to me, I'd have thanked God for it on my knees--God knows it's true! -Yes, I love him--with all my body and all my soul, and if he had wanted -me, instead of you, and I had looked no further than my own joy, I'd -have given myself to him body and soul, and been proud." - -"Ah, ssh!" the girl faltered, "you don't know what you're saying." - -"And been proud!" she sobbed. "Yes, I do know, I mean it!... Without -fear--it would have been my honour. Body and soul--his and mine--one -mind, one life, one flesh!... I'd have gloried. That's love, that's -human!" She shrank against the wall, and bowed her head there under the -failures of her art. "Go away from me, don't stare at me! I'm a cripple, -no one ever cared for me--I wish I were dead!" - -In the hush of the next instant a bell rang. Their gaze met, startled. -Neither spoke. Both listened intently. - -The servant came up the stairs with slow, heavy feet. She said: "Mr. Lee -to see Miss Hilda." - -"Where is he?" murmured the girl. - -"In the drawing-room, Miss." - -The attic was still again after the servant went. Her footsteps struck -the oilcloth of the top stairs harshly, and fell duller on the carpet, -and subsided in the hall. In the silence the sisters sat looking away -from each other, as strangers look. - -"One of us must go down to him!" said Hilda at last in a nervous gasp. - -"I'll go down as soon as I can," Bee answered. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -He waited restlessly. The suspense that had shivered in him on the -journey--that sickened him as the fly rattled through the town--had -culminated with the sight of the house in which she lived. He was in -her home. There was nothing gracious in the shabby, formal room where -the music and the elocution lessons were given. No flowers lent a touch -of nature to the early Victorian vases on the mantelpiece; no piece of -fancy-work had been forgotten, to humanise the asperity of the clumsy -furniture with the hint of a woman's presence. But he was in her home ---and everything in the room spoke to him. Things quite trivial, quite -trite, woke emotion in him because they were familiar to her; they took -unto their inanimate ugliness some of the fascination of her life. - -He stood on the faded hearthrug, watching the door. After the servant's -feet had clattered to the basement all was quiet except the clock, which -ticked behind him sadly. He became acutely conscious of its tick in the -long waiting; it stole into his nerves, and heightened his misgiving. -At last he caught a sound outside the door; the handle stirred. For an -instant it was as if Hilda were before him; he knew that upheaval of -the chest with which a man sees the woman of whom he is despairing turn -the corner. He moved a step towards the door breathlessly--and then -blankness fell and Bee came slowly in. - -"How do you do, Mr. Lee?" she murmured. - -"How do you do, Miss Sorrenford?" - -She did not offer him her hand--she felt that it would be unfair to make -him take her hand before he knew what she had to say; she did not ask -him to sit--she did not think of it. In the pause, the significant tick -of the clock vibrated in him. - -"You expected to see my sister," she began monotonously, reciting -the sentence she had prepared; "I have come instead, because I have -something to tell you." - -"She won't see me?" asked David in a whisper. - -She made an effort to swallow. "When she got your letter, I was writing -to you. I--I have behaved very badly. I had no idea--I did not think of -the consequences. Hilda has never--the letters you've received haven't -come from Hilda.... All the letters have come from _me_." - -He did not start. Only his eyes showed that he had heard. He stood -gazing at her--and she knew that she had killed something in him. The -dark lips moved. Watching them, she understood that he said "From you?" - -"Yes," she muttered. "It was I who wrote about your poems. I've written -all the letters. Hilda hasn't written. Hilda has never heard from you -before.... She didn't send you her likeness--I sent it. You wanted mine; -I'm deformed--I didn't like to tell you--I sent Hilda's.... I didn't -think it would matter--I didn't think long enough--it was an impulse. -I shall never forgive myself as long as I live; nothing can tell you -how ashamed I am!... You're a stranger to Hilda; she doesn't--it's -impossible--you're a stranger to her." - -She was trembling violently. She put out a hand to a chair, and sat -down. David still stood motionless, his gaze fixed. - -"A stranger to her," he echoed. - -"She only met you at Godstone. There was nothing at Godstone to--to make -you hope she might care for you, was there? Was there?" - -"No," he said dully; "no, there was nothing at Godstone to make me hope -she might care for me. It was at Godstone I began to love her, that's -all.... Your name is 'Bee '?" - -"My name is 'Hebe,'" she answered bitterly. "I am called 'Bee' for--for -short." - -"I understand; Hilda has never written to me--she has never heard from -me before. I understand, of course; you've explained it, and--and I do -understand, I think. But all the same ... I have believed she----Oh, -God!" he broke out, "it was a cruel thing to do. _Why_? What for? Wasn't -I wretched enough? To do this to me--for nothing! to spare your petty -pride." - -She twisted her hands in agony. "All my life I shall be sorry." - -"Sorry! Thank you. All mine I shall be sorry, too. If you had wished -to torture me--if you had tried! I love her. She's more to me than all -the world, than the only soul I think of in the next. I love her! do -you know what it means? To say I'd die for her says nothing--my life is -empty; but the one joy I have had has been my work, and I would give all -the work I've done, and all the power to do any more--I'd give it gladly ---just to kiss her once.... If she knew--if I could tell her what I feel -for her, there might--mightn't there be hope for me yet?" - -"No," she said; the tears were running down her face; "she's fond of -someone else." - -"Of Vivian?... Oh, she is fond of him, is she? Don't cry, I didn't mean -to make you cry. It can't be helped now." - -"Forgive me," she sobbed. "Don't hate me! Say that you forgive me!" - -"May God make her happy with him," murmured the man, deaf and blind. - -"Forgive me, forgive me," she moaned. "It was cruel, what you said was -true, I've tortured you--to spare my pride, to spare my vanity, but -forgive me. Say you forgive me what I've done!" - -"I forgive you," he said. "After all, you were no more cowardly than I -was. You might have told me so; you didn't." - -It was some minutes before either of them spoke another word. - -"If she had loved me!" cried David, suddenly. He fell on to the couch, -and hid his face in his hands. "If she had loved me!" - -"If she had loved you," said Bee's pitying voice, "it would have been -worse for you to bear; you would have had a harder trial. She couldn't -have married you. It would have been wrong." - -He raised his head. "Because I'm what I am?" he asked. - -"No," she said--and her wet eyes did not fall before him--"because of -what your child would be.... Had you ever thought of that?" - -"Yes. For my own childhood seems the other day." - -"I know--I've heard your letter; don't grudge me having heard it. Your -child would suffer too, not so deeply, perhaps, but the world wouldn't -be kind to him; if your child were a girl, God knows the world wouldn't -be kind to her.... It is a very barren world for some of us, but we -oughtn't to steal our joy, ought we? We oughtn't to make others pay for -it. You know that; Hilda would know it. She couldn't have been your -wife." - -"If she had loved me," he said, brokenly, "she wouldn't have argued so." - -"The woman who loved you with all her heart and soul would have argued -so," affirmed the woman.... "And you would have suffered more in knowing -that she loved you, when you had to lose her. The knowledge that she -loved you would have brought no light into your life; it would have made -your loneliness lonelier." - -"How can you say?" - -"Because you are a man." - -"And a woman? Would it be different with a woman?" - -"Yes," she answered, out of her longing. "A woman's loneliness would be -less for knowing she was loved." - -"What is my sin?" he cried out. "Why should the freedom of other men be -always denied to me? I have the same feelings, the same heeds, the same -God put them in me. You are so righteous, you teach me my duty; have -_you_ no duty towards _me_? The world mouths the Scriptures that tell us -all men are brothers, and persecutes me while it cants. From the time I -can remember, it has been so. My own mother was ashamed of me. At school -they prayed God to pardon the Jews and the infidels--'Take from them all -hardness of heart'--and came out from the Service and beat the 'nigger.' -As a man, I have never had a friend. Is it charity, is it justice, to -make a pariah of me? Why should I be shunned? I was given life, I didn't -ask for it." - -"No," she said gently, "but could you bear to have your child say that -to you? It is a brutal world, a merciless world. When they tell us it is -a beautiful world, they tell a lie. They speak with their eyes shut to -everything that is painful to see. When Browning wrote, 'God's in His -heaven, all's right with the world,' I think God must have shuddered. I -know you believe in a life afterwards where all the crookedness down -here will be put straight--all the crooked backs, and things: try to be -strong, and wait for the Explanation--and the soul you spoke of. And -you've your work to help you; if I could only work like you! I am not -'righteous,' I am not very patient, I have rebelled as passionately as -you do; if it can comfort you to know it, I suffer as you do. We are -alike, we two--you and I weren't made for happiness." - -"Forgive me," said David; "I might have remembered that you suffer. -You can understand me.... But you always _have_ understood me." It -recurred to him with surprise that from her came the letters that he had -treasured. It was difficult to realise that the mind within the bent -little woman who seemed a stranger was indeed the one so near to him. -Even, as yet, their affinity left him desolate. It was still to Hilda -that his spirit turned--Hilda despoiled of all the qualities by which he -had justified his love, but sovereign still, still Hilda. "How strange -it is," he murmured. "Your letters used to make me very happy. And the -letters are real, aren't they? I think I was ready to love her for what -she wrote, only----" - -"Only then you loved her for herself?" - -"Yes.... Vivian will marry her now. Vivian would be glad to know what -_I_ know; he is afraid she doesn't care for him. If--if, she wonders -whether he loves her, you might tell her that I know he does. I boasted -to him yesterday. How he might laugh at me to-day!" - -"I'm so sorry for you. It's a worn-out word; it seemed an insult to -you when I used it just now, but what other is there? The relief will -come. You'll pour your pain into your poetry; you'll write something -beautiful and great because of what you're suffering, and know that it -is beautiful and great. The pain will fade a little because you'll feel -you utter it so well." - -He looked beyond her thoughtfully. "Yes," he said.... "It sounds paltry, -doesn't it? But it's true. Are we so shallow?" - -"We?" she sighed. "I'm not an artist, I am dumb. I used to think--but -what has that to do with it!" - -"Tell me," he said. - -"I used to think I must have genius; I didn't think a little gift like -mine could cry so loud. If people knew some of the things I have done -in my life, they would laugh, because--because one has no right to feel -like that and be mediocre; it is silly.... Did you know as a child that -you had power?" - -"I always longed.... I remember telling my father once that it was in -me. I lost hope afterwards.... I've been so miserable." - -"I could hear it in your work; you seemed to be speaking for me -sometimes.... I wanted to thank you for such a long while before I found -the courage to do it. If I had guessed what was to come of it! I did -nearly tear the letter up--so nearly!" - -"I used to ask myself what you'd say if you could see me. I was -frightened I shouldn't hear from you any more if you knew what I was -like.... I _should_ have heard from you, shouldn't I?" - -"Yes." - -"Shall I hear from you still?" - -Her gaze rose to him wonderingly. "Do you mean that?" she faltered. "Do -you want to?" - -"I don't know," he said. - -"It would keep the pain alive. You wouldn't be able to bear it." - -He was silent a moment, pondering. "Your letters made me happy," he -repeated, "they have been all I've had--I shall be poorer without them. -Yes, I must have them. I'll try not to think of her when I read them. -I'll read them for what they are--what they were to me before I saw -her.... This isn't the end?" - -"If you are sure you wish it, write to me; I will always answer," she -promised. - -The poignancy was fading from their tones, as the anger against her had -already faded from his heart. By degrees they talked more freely. She -lost the bearing of a penitent before her judge; the weakness was all -the man's, and it became her part to comfort. A slow thankfulness that -she had been revealed to him began to tinge the greyness of his outlook; -in him, and in her, a sense was dawning that they could never again be -so utterly alone. When she went to the door with him not an hour had -passed since he uttered his reproaches--and upon the threshold he took -both her hands, and she said, "It's not 'good-bye.'" - -On the morning when David's father followed a blonde in crape along the -Brighton sea-front, the band was playing "La Fille de Madame Angot": -when David held Bee's hands, and she said, "It's not good-bye," the -present century was born. So far as the lives of David Lee and Hebe -Sorrenford are lived, the story of their lives is told. Where it ends, -another is beginning, and to some of us it must seem that the story -of their friendship can end only when the man or woman dies. For the -sympathy between these two who in spirit are one cannot die. That must -last longer than their youth, and longer than their passions; I who -have said what has been, believe it must last longer than the bodies -that belie their souls. The pages of the story are blank, and we can do -no more than guess how Time will write it. But after Hilda has become -Vivian's wife, and when the music-room is silent, it cannot be rash -to think that Bee will make her new home close to David's, and, since -Nature calls to both, that through some village street the figures of -the quaint companions will pass together every day--and pass together -for so many days that at last the rustics cease to point at them. Alike -in their ideals, in their feeling for beauty, alike even in their -weaknesses, how can they drift apart? Far on in the unwritten story I -see no separation but the night. I see them working together, hoping -together--hopeful of an immortality for David's verse which perhaps it -will not win--but both happier, both braver, each of them fortified by -the other's love. When the name of Ownie is unspoken and she rests as -"Lilian Augusta, Widow of Elisha Lee," I see them together still, and I -think there is no knowledge in his comrade's heart that David does not -share, excepting that his history has held such love as women give to -men where children sing. If I am not wrong, one day he will know that -too, but he will learn it only where there is a fuller charity, and a -clearer light--in a World where a hue of the skin cannot ostracise, and -a crook of the body cannot ban. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Quaint Companions, by Leonard Merrick - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUAINT COMPANIONS *** - -***** This file should be named 43616.txt or 43616.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/1/43616/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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