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diff --git a/4603-0.txt b/4603-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd98590 --- /dev/null +++ b/4603-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28696 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Wilderness, by Robert Hichens + +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: In the Wilderness + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4603] +Last Updated: September 24, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WILDERNESS *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger + + + + + +IN THE WILDERNESS + + +By Robert Hichens + + + + +BOOK I--HERMES AND THE CHILD + + + +CHAPTER I + +Amedeo Dorini, the hall porter of the Hotel Cavour in Milan, stood on +the pavement before the hotel one autumn afternoon in the year 1894, +waiting for the omnibus, which had gone to the station, and which was +now due to return, bearing--Amedeo hoped--a load of generously inclined +travelers. During the years of his not unpleasant servitude Amedeo had +become a student of human nature. He had learnt to judge shrewdly and +soundly, to sum up quickly, to deliver verdicts which were not unjust. +And now, as he saw the omnibus, with its two fat brown horses, coming +slowly along by the cab rank, and turning into the Piazza that is +presided over by Cavour’s statue, he prepared almost mechanically to +measure and weigh evidence, to criticize and come to a conclusion. + +He glanced first at the roof of the omnibus to take stock of the luggage +pile there. There was plenty of it, and a good deal of it was leather +and reassuring. Amedeo had a horror of tin trunks--they usually gave +such small tips. Having examined the luggage he sent a searching glance +to two rows of heads which were visible inside the vehicle. The brawny +porters hurried out, the luggage chute was placed in position, the +omnibus door was opened, and the first traveler stepped forth. + +A German of the most economical type, large, red and wary, with a mouth +like a buttoned-up pocket, was followed by a broad-waisted wife, with +dragged hair and a looped-up gown. Amedeo’s smile tightened. A Frenchman +followed them, pale and elaborate, a “one-nighter,” as Amedeo instantly +decided in his mind. Such Frenchmen are seldom extravagant in hotels. +This gentleman would want a good room for a small price, would be +extremely critical about the cooking, and have a wandering eye and a +short memory for all servants in the morning. + +An elderly Englishwoman was the fourth personage to appear. She was +badly dressed in black, wore a tam-o’-shanter with a huge black-headed +pin thrust through it, clung to a bag, smiled with amiable patronage as +she emerged, and at once, without reason, began to address Amedeo and +the porters in fluent, incorrect, and too carefully pronounced Italian. +Amedeo knew her--the Tabby who haunts Swiss and Italian hotels, the +eternal Tabby drastically complete. + +A gay Italian is gaiety in flight, a human lark with a song. But a +gloomy Italian is oppressive and almost terrible. Despite the training +of years Amedeo’s smile flickered and died out. A ferocious expression +surged up in his dark eyes as he turned rather bruskly to scrutinize +without hope the few remaining clients. But suddenly his face cleared as +he heard a buoyant voice say in English: + +“I’ll get out first, Godfather, and give you a hand.” + +On the last word, a tall and lithe figure stepped swiftly, and with a +sort of athletic certainty, out of the omnibus, turned at once towards +it, and, with a movement eloquent of affection and almost tender +reverence, stretched forth an arm and open hand. + +A spare man of middle height, elderly, with thick gray hair, and a +clean-shaven, much-lined face, wearing a large loose overcoat and soft +brown hat, took the hand as he emerged. He did not need it; Amedeo +realized that, realized also that he was glad to take it, enjoyed +receiving this kind and unnecessary help. + +“And now for Beatrice!” he said. + +And he gave in his turn a hand to the girl who followed him. + +There were still two people in the omnibus, the elderly man’s Italian +valet and an Englishman. As the latter got out, and stretched his limbs +cramped with much sitting, he saw Amedeo, with genuine smiles, escorting +the two girls and the elderly man towards the glass-roofed hall, on the +left of which was the lift. The figure of the girl who had stepped out +first was about to disappear. As the Englishman looked she vanished. +But he had time to realize that a gait, the carriage of a head and its +movement in turning, can produce on an observer a moral effect. A joyous +sanity came to him from this unknown girl and made him feel joyously +sane. It seemed to sweep over him, like a cool and fresh breeze of the +sea falling through pine woods, to lift from him some of the dust of +his journey. He resolved to give the remainder of the dust to the public +garden, told his name, Dion Leith, to the manager, learnt that the room +he had ordered was ready for him, had his luggage sent up to it, and +then made his way to the trees on the far side of the broad road which +skirts the hotel. When he was among them he took off his hat, kept it +in his hand, and, so, strolled on down the almost deserted paths. As +he walked he tasted the autumn, not with any sadness, but with an +appreciation that was almost voluptuous. He was at a time of life and +experience, when, if the body is healthy, the soul is untroubled by +care, each season of the year holds its thrill for the strongly beating +heart, its tonic gift for the mind. Falling leaves were handfuls of gold +for this man. The faint chill in the air as evening drew on turned his +thoughts to the brightness and warmth of English fires burning on the +hearths of houses that sheltered dear and protected lives. The far-off +voices of calling children, coming to him from hidden places among the +trees, did not make him pensive because of their contrast with things +that were dying. He hailed them as voices of the youth which lasts in +the world, though the world may seem to be old to those who are old. + +Dion Leith had a powerful grip on life and good things. He was young, +just twenty-six, strong and healthy, though slim-built in body, +alert and vigorous in mind, unperturbed in soul, buoyant and warmly +imaginative. Just at that moment the joy of life was almost at full +flood in him, for he had recently been reveling in a new and glorious +experience, and now carried it with him, a precious memory. + +He had been traveling, and his wanderings had given him glimpses of two +worlds. In one of these worlds he had looked into the depths, had felt +as if he realized fully for the first time the violence of the angry and +ugly passions that deform life; in the other he had scaled the heights, +had tasted the still purity, the freshness, the exquisite calm, which +are also to be found in life. + +He had visited Constantinople and had sailed from it to Greece. From +Greece he had taken ship to Brindisi, and was now on his way home to +England. + +What he had thought at the time to be an ill chance had sent him on his +way alone. Guy Daventry, his great friend, who was to go with him, had +been seized by an illness. It was too late then to find another man +free. So, reluctantly, and inclined to grumble a little at fate, Dion +had set off in solitude. + +He knew now that his solitude had given him keen sensations, which +he could scarcely have felt with the best of friends. Never, in any +company, had he been so repelled, enticed, disgusted, deeply enchanted, +as on these lonely wanderings which were now a part of his life. + +How he had hated Constantinople, and how he had loved Greece! His +expectation had been betrayed by the event. He had not known himself +when he left England, or the part of himself which he had known had been +the lesser part, and he had taken it for the greater. For he had set out +on his journey with his hopes mainly fixed on Constantinople. Its road +of wildness and tumult, its barbaric glitter, its crude mixture of +races, even its passions and crimes--a legend in history, a solid fact +of to-day--had allured his mind. The art of Greece had beckoned to him; +its ancient shrines had had their strong summons for his brain; but +he had scarcely expected to love the country. He had imagined it as +certainly beautiful but with an austere and desolate beauty that would +be, perhaps, almost repellent to his nature. He had conceived of it as +probably sad in its naked calm, a country weary with the weight of a +glorious past. + +But he had been deceived, and he was glad of that. Because he had been +able to love Greece so much he felt a greater confidence in himself. +Without any ugly pride he said to himself: “Perhaps my nature is a +little bit better, a little bit purer than I had supposed.” + +As the breeze in the public garden touched his bare head, slightly +lifting his thick dark hair, he remembered the winds of Greece; he +remembered his secret name for Greece, “the land of the early morning.” + It was good to be able to delight in the early morning--pure, delicate, +marvelously fresh. + +He at down on a bench under a chestnut tree. The children’s voices had +died away. Silence seemed to be drawing near to the garden. He saw a +few moving figures in the shadows, but at a distance, fading towards the +city. + +The line of the figure, the poise of the head of that girl with whom he +had driven from the station, came before Dion’s eyes. + + + +CHAPTER II + +One winter day in 1895--it was a Sunday--when fog lay thickly over +London, Rosamund Everard sat alone in a house in Great Cumberland Place, +reading Dante’s “Paradiso.” Her sister, Beatrice, a pale, delicate +and sensitive shadow who adored her, and her guardian, Bruce Evelin, a +well-known Q.C. now retired from practice, had gone into the country to +visit some friends. Rosamund had also been invited, and much wanted, for +there was a party in the house, and her gaiety, her beauty, and her fine +singing made her a desirable guest; but she had “got out of it.” On this +particular Sunday she specially wished to be in London. At a church not +far from Great Cumberland Place--St. Mary’s, Welby Street--a man was +going to preach that evening whom she very much wanted to hear. Her +guardian’s friend, Canon Wilton, had spoken to her about him, and had +said to her once, “I should particularly like _you_ to hear him.” And +somehow the simple words had impressed themselves upon her. So, when +she heard that Mr. Robertson was coming from his church in Liverpool to +preach at St. Mary’s, she gave up the country visit to hear him. + +Beatrice and Bruce Evelin had no scruples in leaving her alone for a +couple of days. They knew that she, who had such an exceptional faculty +for getting on with all sorts and conditions of men and women, and +who always shed sunshine around her, had within her a great love of, +sometimes almost a thirst for, solitude. + +“I need to be alone now and then,” they had heard her say; “it’s like +drinking water to me.” + +Sitting quietly by the fire with her delightful edition of Dante, her +left hand under her head, her tall figure stretched out in a low chair, +Rosamund heard a bell ring below. It called her from the “Paradiso.” She +sprang up, remembering that she had given the butler no orders about not +wishing to be disturbed. At lunch-time the fog had been so dense that +she had not thought about possible visitors; she hurried to the head of +the staircase. + +“Lurby! Lurby! I’m not at--” + +It was too late. The butler must have been in the hall. She heard the +street door open and a man’s voice murmuring something. Then the door +shut and she heard steps. She retreated into the drawing-room, pulling +down her brows and shaking her head. No more “Paradiso,” and she loved +it so! A moment before she had been far away. + +The book was lying open on the arm-chair in which she had been sitting. +She went to close it and put it on a table. For an instant she looked +down on the page, and immediately her dream returned. Then Lurby’s dry, +soft voice said behind her: + +“Mr. Leith, ma’am.” + +“Oh!” She turned, leaving the book. + +Directly she looked at Dion Leith she knew why he had come. + +“I’m all alone,” Rosamund said. “I stayed here, instead of going to +Sherrington with Beattie and my guardian, because I wanted to hear a +sermon this evening. Come and sit down by the fire.” + +“What church are you going to?” + +“St. Mary’s, Welby Street.” + +“Shall I go with you?” + +Rosamund had taken up the “Paradiso” and was shutting it. + +“I think I’ll go alone,” she said gently but quite firmly. + +“What are you reading?” + +“Dante’s ‘Paradiso.’” + +She put the book down on a table at her elbow. + +“I don’t believe you meant me to be let in,” he said bluntly. + +“I didn’t know it was you. How could I know?” + +“And if you had known?” + +She hesitated. His brows contracted till he looked almost fierce. + +“I’m not sure. Honestly I’m not sure. I’ve been quite alone since +Friday, when they went. And I’d got it into my head that I wasn’t going +to see any one till to-morrow, except, of course, at the church.” + +Dion felt chilled almost to the bone. + +“I can’t understand,” he almost burst out, in an uncontrolled way that +surprised himself. “Are you completely self-sufficing then? But it isn’t +natural. Could you live alone?” + +“I didn’t say that.” + +She looked at him steadily and calmly, without a hint of anger. + +“But could you?” + +“I don’t know. Probably not. I’ve never tried.” + +“But you don’t hate the idea?” + +His voice was almost violent. + +“No; if--if I were living in a certain way.” + +“What way?” + +But she did not answer his question. + +“I dare say I might dislike living alone. I’ve never done such a thing, +therefore I can’t tell.” + +“You’re an enigma,” he exclaimed. “And you seem so--so--you have this +extraordinary, this abnormal power of attracting people to you. You are +friends with everybody.” + +“Indeed I’m not.” + +“I mean you’re so cordial, so friendly with everybody. Don’t you care +for anybody?” + +“I care very much for some people.” + +“And yet you could live alone! Shut in here for days with a book”--at +that moment he was positively jealous of old Dante, gone to his rest +five hundred and seventy-four years ago--“you’re perfectly happy.” + +“The ‘Paradiso’ isn’t an ordinary book,” she said, very gently, +and looking at him with a kind, almost beaming expression in her +yellow-brown eyes. + +“I don’t believe you ever read an ordinary book.” + +“I like to feed on fine things. I’m half afraid of the second-rate.” + +“I love you for that. Oh, Rosamund, I love you for so many things!” + +He got up and stood by the fire, turning his back to her for a moment. +When he swung round his face was earnest but he looked calmer. She +saw that he was making a strong effort to hold himself in, that he was +reaching out after self-control. + +“I can’t tell you all the things I love you for,” he said, “but your +independence of spirit frightens me. From the very first, from that +evening when I saw you in the omnibus at the Milan Station over a year +ago, I felt your independence.” + +“Did I manifest it in the omnibus to poor Beattie and my guardian?” she +asked, smiling, and in a lighter tone. + +“I don’t know,” he said gravely. “But when I saw you the same evening +walking with your sister in the public garden I felt it more strongly. +Even the way you held your head and moved--you reminded me of the +maidens of the Porch on the Acropolis. I connected you with Greece and +all my--my dreams of Greece.” + +“Perhaps if you hadn’t just come from Greece--” + +“Wasn’t it strange,” he said, interrupting her but quite unconscious +that he did so, “that almost the first words I heard you speak were +about Greece? You were telling your sister abut the Greek divers who +come to Portofino to find coral under the sea. I was sitting alone in +the garden, and you passed and I heard just a few words. They made me +think of the first Greek Island I ever saw, rising out of the sunset +as I voyaged from Constantinople to the Piraeus. It was wonderfully +beautiful and wonderfully calm. It was like a herald of all the beauty +and purity I found in Greece. It was--like you.” + +“How you hated Constantinople!” she said. “I remember you denouncing its +noise and its dirt, and the mongrel horrors of Pera, to my guardian in +the hotel where we made friends. And he put in a plea for Stamboul.” + +“Yes, I exaggerated. But Constantinople stood to me for all the uproar +of life, and Greece for the calm and beauty and happiness, the great +Sanity of the true happiness.” + +He looked at her with yearning in his dark eyes. + +“For all I want in my own life,” he added. + +He paused; then an expression of strong, almost hard resolution made his +face look suddenly older. + +“You told me at Burstal, on the Chilton Downs, after your debut in +‘Elijah,’ that you would give me an answer soon. I have waited a good +while--some weeks----” + +“Why did you ask me just that day, after ‘Woe unto them’?” + +“I felt I must,” he answered, but with a slight awkwardness, as if he +were evading something and felt half-guilty. “To-day I decided I would +ask you again, for the last time.” + +“You would never----” + +“No, never. If you say ‘Wait, and come later on and ask me,’ I shall not +come.” + +She got up restlessly. She was obviously moved. + +“Dion, I can’t tell you to-day.” + +“Why not?” + +“I don’t know. I just feel I can’t. It’s no use.” + +“When did you mean to tell me?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Did you mean ever to allude to the matter again, if I hadn’t?” + +“Yes, I should have told you, because I knew you were waiting. +I--I--often I have thought that I shall never marry any one.” + +She looked into the fire. Her face had become almost mysterious. + +“Some women don’t need--that,” she murmured. + +The fire played over her pale yellow hair. + +“Abnormal women!” he exclaimed violently. + +She turned. + +“Hush! You don’t know what you are saying. It isn’t abnormal to wish to +dedicate----” + +She stopped. + +“What?” he said. + +“Don’t let us talk of these things. But you must not judge any woman +without knowing what is in her heart. Even your own mother, with whom +you have lived alone ever since your father’s death--do you know very +much of her? We can’t always show ourselves plainly as we are. It may +not be our fault.” + +“You will marry. You must marry.” + +“Why--must?” + +He gazed at her. As she met his eyes she reddened slightly, +understanding his thought, that such a woman as she was ought not to +avoid the great vocation of woman. But there was another vocation, and +perhaps it was hers. She felt confused. Two desires were struggling +within her. It was as if her nature contained two necessities which were +wholly irreconcilable the one with the other. + +“You can’t tell me?” he said, at last. + +“Not now.” + +“Then I am going, and I shall never ask you again. But I shall never be +able to love any one but you.” + +He said nothing more, and went away without touching her hand. + +Words of Dante ran in Rosamund’s head, and she repeated them to herself +after Dion had gone. + +“_La divina volontate_!” She believed in it; she said to herself that +she trusted it absolutely. But how was she to know exactly what it +was? And yet, could she escape from it even if she wished to? Could she +wander away into any path where the Divine Will did not mean her to set +foot? Predestination--free will. “If only I were not so ignorant,” she +thought. + +Soon after six she went up to her bedroom to put on her things for +church. + +Her bedroom was very simple, and showed plainly an indifference to +luxury, a dislike of show and of ostentation in its owner. The walls and +ceiling were white. The bed, which stood against the wall in one corner, +was exceptionally long. This fact, perhaps, made it look exceptionally +narrow. It was quite plain, had a white wooden bedstead, and was covered +with a white bedspread of a very ordinary type. There was one arm-chair +in the room made of wickerwork with a rather hard cushion on the seat, +the sort of cushion that resolutely refuses to “give” when one sits +down on it. On the small dressing-table there was no array of glittering +silver bottles, boxes and brushes. A straw flagon of eau-de-Cologne was +Rosamund’s sole possession of perfume. She did not own a box of powder +or a puff. But it must be acknowledged that she never looked “shiny.” + She had some ivory hair-brushes given to her one Christmas by Bruce +Evelin. Beside them was placed a hideous receptacle for--well, for +anything--pins, perhaps, buttons, small tiresomenesses of that kind. +It was made of some glistening black material, and at its center there +bloomed a fearful red cabbage rose, a rose all vulgarity, ostentation +and importance. This monstrosity had been given to Rosamund as a +thank-offering by a poor charwoman to whom she had been kind. It had +been in constant use now for over three years. The charwoman knew this +with grateful pride. + +Upon the mantelpiece there were other gifts of a similar kind: a +photograph frame made of curly shells, a mug with “A present from +Greenwich” written across it in gold letters, a flesh-colored glass +vase with yellow trimmings, a china cow with its vermilion ears cocked +forward, lying down in a green meadow which just held it, and a toy +trombone with a cord and tassels. There were also several photographs of +poor people in their Sunday clothes. On the walls hung a photograph of +Cardinal Newman, a good copy of a Luini Madonna, two drawings of heads +by Burne-Jones, a small painting--signed “G. F. Watts”--of an old tree +trunk around which ivy was lovingly growing, and one or two prints. + +The floor was polished and partially covered by three good-sized mats. +There was a writing-table on one side of the room with an ebony-and-gold +crucifix standing upon it. Opposite to it, on the other side of the +room near the fireplace, was a bookcase. On the shelves were volumes of +Shakespeare, Dante, Emerson, Wordsworth, Browning, Christina Rossetti, +Newman’s “Dream of Gerontius” and “Apologia,” Thomas a Kempis, several +works on mystics and mysticism, a life of St. Catherine of Genoa, +another of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Spiritual +Exercises,” Pascal’s “Letters,” etc., etc. Over the windows hung +gray-blue curtains. + +Into this room Rosamund came that evening; she went to a wardrobe and +began to take down a long sealskin coat. Just then her maid appeared--an +Italian girl whom she had taken into her service in Milan when she had +studied singing there. + +“Shan’t I come with you, Signorina?” she asked, as she took the jacket +from her mistress and held it for Rosamund to put on. + +“No, thank you, Maria. I’m going to church, the Protestant church.” + +“I could wait outside or come back to fetch you.” + +“It’s not far. I shall be all right.” + +“But the fog is terrible. It’s like a wall about the house.” + +“Is it as bad as that?” + +She went to one of the windows, pulled aside the curtains, lifted the +blind and tried to look out. But she could not, for the fog pressed +against the window panes and hid the street and the houses opposite. + +“It is bad.” + +She dropped the blind, let the curtains fall into place and turned +round. + +“But I’d rather go alone. I can’t miss the way, and I’m not a nervous +person. You’d be far more frightened than I.” She smiled at the girl. + +Apparently reassured, or perhaps merely glad that her unselfishness was +not going to be tested, Maria accompanied her mistress downstairs and +let her out. It was Lurby’s “evening off,” and for once he was not +discreetly on hand. + +Church bells were chiming faintly in this City of dreadful night as +Rosamund almost felt her way onward. She heard them and thought they +were sad, and their melancholy seemed to be one with the melancholy of +the atmosphere. Some one passed by her. She just heard a muffled sound +of steps, just discerned a shadow--that was all. + +To-morrow she must give an answer to Dion Leith. She went on slowly in +the fog, thinking, thinking. Two vertical lines showed in her usually +smooth forehead. + +It was nearly half-past six when she turned into Welby Street. The +church was not a large one and there was no parish attached to it. It +was a proprietary chapel. The income of the incumbent came from pew +rents. His name was Limer, and he was a first-rate preacher of the +sensational type, a pulpit dealer in “actualities.” He was also an +excellent musician, and took great pains with his choir. In consequence +of these talents, and of his diligent application of them, St. Mary’s +was generally full, and all its pews were let at a high figure. +To-night, however, because of the fog, Rosamund expected to find few +people. + +One bell was mournfully ringing as she drew near and presently saw a +faint gleaming of light through long narrow windows of painted glass. +“Ping, ping, ping!” It was a thin little summons to prayer. She passed +through a gateway in some railings of wrought ironwork, crossed a +slippery pavement and entered the church. + +It was already more than three parts full, and there was a large +proportion of men in the congregation. A smart-looking young man, +evidently a gentleman, who was standing close to the door, nodded to +Rosamund and whispered: + +“I’ll put you into Lady Millingham’s seat. You’ll find Mrs. Chetwinde +and Mr. Darlington there.” + +“Oh, I’d rather--” began Rosamund. + +But he had already begun to move up the aisle, and she was obliged to +follow him to a pew close to the pulpit, in which were seated a smartly +dressed woman with a vague and yet acute expression, pale eyes and +a Burne-Jones throat; and a thin, lanky and immensely tall man of +uncertain age, with pale brown, very straight hair, large white ears, +thick ragged eyebrows, a carefully disarranged beard and mustache, and +an irregular refined face decorated with a discreet but kind expression. +These were Mrs. Willie Chetwinde, who had a wonderful house in Lowndes +Square, and Mr. Esme Darlington, bachelor, of St. James’s Square, who +was everybody’s friend including his own. + +Rosamund just recognized them gravely; then she knelt down and prayed +earnestly, with her face hidden against her muff. She still heard the +little bell’s insistent “Ping, ping, ping!” She pressed her shut eyes +so hard against the muff that rings of yellow light floated up in her +darkness, forming, retreating, melting away. + +The bell ceased; the first notes of the organ sounded in a voluntary by +Mendelssohn, amiable and charming; the choir filed in as Rosamund rose +from her knees. In the procession the two last figures were Mr. Limer +and Mr.--or, as he was always called in Liverpool, Father--Robertson. + +Mr. Limer was a short, squat, clean-shaven but hairy dark man, with +coal-black hair sweeping round a big forehead, a determined face and +large, indignant brown eyes. The Liverpool clergyman was of middle +height, very thin, with snow-white hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a +young almost boyish face, with straight, small features, and a luminous, +gentle and yet intense look. He seemed almost to glow, quietly, +definitely, like a lamp set in a dark place, and one felt that his glow +could not easily be extinguished. He walked tranquilly by the side of +Mr. Limer, and looked absolutely unselfconscious, quietly dignified and +simple. + +When he went into the pulpit the lights were lowered and a pleasant +twilight prevailed. But the preacher’s face was strongly illuminated. + +Mr. Robertson preached on the sin of egoism, and took as the motto of +his sermon the words--“_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_.” His method +of preaching was quiet, but intense; again the glow of the lamp. Often +there were passages which suggested a meditation--a soul communing with +itself fearlessly, with an unyielding, but never violent, determination +to arrive at the truth. And Rosamund, listening, felt as if nothing +could keep this man with the snow-white hair and the young face away +from the truth. + +He ranged over a wide field--egoism being wide as the world--he exposed +many of the larger evils brought about by egoism, in connexion with the +Arts, with politics, with charity, with religious work in great cities, +with missionary enterprises abroad; he touched on some of the more +subtle forms of egoism, which may poison even the sources of love; and +finally he discussed the gains and the losses of egoism. “For,” he said, +“let us be honest and acknowledge that we often gain, in the worldly +sense, by our sins, and sometimes lose by our virtues.” Power of a kind +can be, and very often is, obtained by egoists through their egoism. +He discussed that power, showed its value and the glory of it. Then +he contrasted with it the power which is only obtained by those who, +completely unselfish, know not how to think of themselves. He enlarged +on this theme, on the Kingdom which can belong only to those who are +selfless. And then he drew to the end of his sermon. + +“One of the best means I know,” he said, “for getting rid of egoism is +this: whenever you have to take some big decision between two courses +of action--perhaps between two life courses--ask yourself, ‘Which can I +share?’--which of these two paths is wide enough to admit of my treading +it with a companion, whose steps I can help, whose journey I can +enliven, whose weariness I can solace, and whose burden I can now and +then bear for a little while? And if only one of the paths is wide +enough, then choose that in preference to the other. I believe +profoundly in ‘sharing terms.’” + +He paused, gazing at the congregation with his soft and luminous eyes. +Then he added: + +“_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_. When the insistent _I_ sleeps, only +then perhaps can the heart be truly awake, be really watchful. Then let +us send the insistent I to sleep, and let us keep it slumbering.” + +He half-smiled as he finished. There had been something slightly +whimsical about his final words, about his manner and himself when he +said them. + +Silence and the fog, and Rosamund walking homewards with her hands deep +in her muff. All those bodies and minds and souls which had been in the +church had evaporated into the night. Mrs. Chetwinde and Esme Darlington +had wanted to speak to Rosamund, but she had slipped out of the church +quickly. She did not wish to talk to any one. + +“_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_.” + +What an odd little turn, or twist, the preacher had given to the meaning +of those words! “Whenever you have to take some big decision between +two life courses, ask yourself, ‘Which can I share?’ and if you can only +share one, choose that.” + +Very slowly Rosamund walked on, bending a little above the big muff, +like one pulled forward by a weight of heavy thoughts. She turned a +corner. Presently she turned another corner and traversed a square, +which could not be seen to be a square. And then, quite suddenly, she +realized that she had not been thinking about her way home and that she +was lost in the impenetrable fog. + +She stood still and listened. She heard nothing. Traffic seemed stopped +in this region. On her left there were three steps. She went up them and +was under the porch of a house. Light shone dully from within, and by it +she could just make out on the door the number “8.” At least it seemed +to her that probably it was an “8.” She hesitated, came down the steps, +and walked on. It was impossible to see the names of the streets and +squares. But presently she would come across a policeman. She went on +and on, but no policeman bulked shadowy against the background of night +and of the fog which at last seemed almost terrible to her. + +Rosamund was not timid. She was constitutionally incapable of timidity. +Nor was she actively alarmed in a strong and definite way. But gradually +there seemed to permeate her a cold, almost numbing sensation of +loneliness and of desolation. For the first time in her life she felt +not merely alone but solitary, and not merely solitary but as if she +were condemned to be so by some power that was hostile to her. + +It was a hideous feeling. Something in the fog and in the night made +an assault upon her imagination. Abruptly she was numbered among the +derelict women whom nobody wants, whom no man thinks of or wishes to be +with, whom no child calls mother. She felt physically and morally, “I +am solitary,” and it was horrible to her. She saw herself old and alone, +and she shuddered. + +How long she walked on she did not know, but when at last she heard +a step shuffling along somewhere in front of her, she had almost--she +thought--realized Eternity. + +The step was not coming towards her but was going onwards slowly before +her. She hastened, and presently came up with an old man, poorly dressed +in a dreadful frock-coat and disgraceful trousers, wearing on his long +gray locks a desperado of a top hat, and carrying, in a bloated and +almost purple hand, a large empty jug. + +“Please!” said Rosamund. + +The old gentleman shuffled on. + +“Could you tell me--_please_--can you tell me where we are?” + +She had grasped his left coat-sleeve. He turned and, bending, she peered +into the face of a drunkard. + +“Close to the ‘Daniel Lambert,’” said an almost refined old voice. + +And a pair of pathetic gray eyes peered up at her above a nose that was +like a conflagration. + +“Where’s that? What is it?” + +“Don’t you know the ‘Daniel Lambert’?” + +The voice sounded very surprised and almost suspicious. + +“No.” + +“It’s well known, very well known. I’m just popping round there to get a +little something--eh!” + +The voice died away. + +“I want to find Great Cumberland Place.” + +“Well, you’re pretty close to it. The ‘Daniel Lambert’s’ in the Edgware +Road.” + +“Could you find it?--Great Cumberland Place, I mean?” + +“Certainly.” + +“I wish you would. I should be so grateful.” + +The gray eyes became more pathetic. + +“Grateful to me--would you, miss? I’ll go with you and very glad to do +it.” + +The old gentleman took Rosamund home and talked to her on the way. +When they parted she asked for his name and address. He hesitated for +a moment and then gave it: “Mr. Thrush, 2 Albingdon Buildings, John’s +Court, near Edgware Road.” + +“Thank you. You’ve done me a good turn.” + +At this moment the front door was opened by the housemaid. + +“Oh--miss!” she said. + +Her eyes left Rosamund and fastened themselves, like weapons, on the +old gentleman’s nose. He lifted his desperado of a hat and immediately +turned away, trying to conceal his jug under his left arm, but +inadvertently letting it protrude. + +“Good night, and thank you very much indeed!” Rosamund called after him +with warm cordiality. + +“I’m glad you’ve got back, miss. We were in a way. It’s ever so late.” + +“I got lost in the fog. That dear old man rescued me.” + +“I’m very thankful, miss, I’m sure.” + +The girl seemed stiffened with astonishment. She shut the street door +automatically. + +“He used to be a chemist once.” + +“Did he, miss?” + +“Yes, quite a successful one too; just off Hanover Square, he told me. +He was going round to get something for his supper when we met.” + +“Indeed, miss?” + +Rosamund went upstairs. + +“Yes, poor old man,” she said, as she ascended. + +Like most people in perfect health Rosamund slept well; but that night +she lay awake. She did not want to sleep. She had something to decide, +something of vital importance to her. Two courses lay open to her. She +might marry Dion Leith, or she might resolve never to marry. Like most +girls she had had dreams, but unlike most girls, she had often dreamed +of a life in which men had no place. She had recently entered upon the +career of a public singer, not because she was obliged to earn money but +because she had a fine voice and a strong temperament, and longed for +self-expression. But she had always believed that her public career +would be a short one. She loved fine music and enjoyed bringing its +message home to people, but she had little or no personal vanity, and +the life of a public performer entailed a great deal which she already +found herself disliking. Recently, too, her successful career had +received a slight check. She had made her festival debut at Burstal in +“Elijah,” and no engagements for oratorio had followed upon it. Some +day, while she was still young, she meant to retire, and then---- + +If she married Dion Leith she would have to give up an old dream. On the +other hand, if she married him, perhaps some day she would be a mother. +She felt certain--she did not know why--that if she did not marry Dion +Leith she would never marry at all. + +She thought, she prayed, she thought again. Sometimes in the dark hours +of that night the memory of her sensation of loneliness in the fog +returned to her. Sometimes Mr. Robertson’s “Which can I share?” echoed +within her, in the resonant chamber of her soul. He had been very quiet, +but he had made an enormous impression upon her; he had made her hate +egoism much more than she had hated it hitherto. + +Even into the innermost sanctuary of religion egoism can perhaps find +a way. The thought of that troubled Rosamund in the dark. But when the +hour of dawn grew near she fell asleep. She had made up her mind, or, +rather, it had surely been made up for her. For a conviction had come +upon her that for good or for evil it was meant that her life should +be linked with Dion Leith’s. He possessed something which she valued +highly, and which, she thought, was possessed by very few men. He +offered it to her. If she refused it, such an offering would probably +never be made to her again. + +To be a lonely woman; to be a subtle and profound egoist; to be loved, +cherished, worshiped; to be a mother. + +Many lives of women seemed to float before her eyes. + +Just before she lost consciousness it seemed to her, for a moment, that +she was looking into the pathetic eyes of the old man whom she had met +in the fog. + +“Poor old man!” she murmured. + +She slept. + +On the following morning she sent this note to Dion Leith: + + +“MY DEAR DION,--I will marry you. + +“ROSAMUND.” + + + +CHAPTER III + +In the following spring, Rosamund and Dion were married, and Dion took +Rosamund “to the land of the early morning.” + +They arrived in Greece at the beginning of May, when the rains were over +and the heats of summer were at hand. The bed of Ilissus was empty. Dust +lay white in the streets of Athens and along the road to Phaleron and +the sea. The low-lying tracts of country were desert-dry, and about +Athens the world was arrayed in the garb of the East. Nevertheless there +was still a delicate freshness in the winds that blew to the little city +from the purple Aegean or from the mountains of Argolis; stirring the +dust into spiral dances among the pale houses upon which Lycabettos +looks down; shaking the tiny leaves of the tressy pepper trees near the +Royal Palace; whispering the antique secrets of the ages into the ears +of the maidens who, unwearied and happily submissive, bear up the Porch +of the Erechtheion; stealing across the vast spaces and between the +mighty columns of the Parthenon. The dawns and the twilights had not +lost the pure savor of their almost frail vitality. The deepness of +slumber still came with the nights. + +Greece was, perhaps, at her loveliest. And Greece was almost deserted by +travelers. They had come and gone with the spring, leaving the land to +its own, and to those two who had come there to drink deep at the wells +of happiness. And, a little selfish as lovers are, Rosamund and Dion +took everything wonderful and beautiful as their possession. + +The yellow-green pines near the convent of Daphni threw patches of shade +on the warm earth because they wanted to rest there; the kingfisher +rose in low and arrow-like flight from the banks of Khephissus to make a +sweet diversion for them; they longed for brilliance, and the lagoons of +Salamis were dyed with a wonder of emerald; they asked for twilight, and +the deep and deserted glades of Academe gave it them in full measure. +All these possessions, and many others, they enjoyed almost as children +enjoy a meadow full of flowers when they have climbed over the gate +that bars it from the high road. But the Acropolis was the stronghold +of their joy. Only when their feet pressed its silvery grasses, and trod +its warm marble pavements, did they hold the world within their grasp. + +For some days after their arrival in Greece they almost lived among the +ruins. The long-coated guardians smiled at them, at first with a sort +of faint amusement, at last with a friendly pleasure. And they smiled +at themselves. Each evening they said, “To-morrow we will do this--or +that,” and each morning they said nothing, just looked at each other +after breakfast, read in each other’s eyes the repetition of desire, and +set out on the dear dusty road with which they were already so familiar. + +Had there ever before been a honeymoon bounded by the precipices of the +Acropolis? They sometimes discussed that important question, and always +decided against the impertinent possibility. “What we are doing has +never been done before.” Dion went further than this, to “What I am +feeling has never been felt before.” His youth asserted itself in +silent, determined statements which seemed to him to ring with authentic +truth. + +It was a far cry from the downs of Chilton to the summit of the +Acropolis. Dion remembered the crowd assembled to hear “Elijah”; he felt +the ugly heat, the press of humanity. And all that was but the prelude +to this! Even the voice crying “Woe unto them!” had been the prelude +to the wonderful silence of Greece. He felt marvelously changed. And +Rosamund often seemed to him changed, too, because she was his own. That +wonderful fact gave her new values, spread about her new mysteries. And +some of these mysteries Dion did not attempt to fathom at first. Perhaps +he felt that some silences of love are like certain ceremony with a +friend--a mark of the delicacy which is the sign-manual of the things +that endure. In the beginning of that honeymoon there was a beautiful +restraint which was surely of good augury for the future. Not all +the doors were set violently open, not all the rooms were ruthlessly +visited. + +Dion found that he was able to reverence the woman who had given herself +to him more after he had received the gift than before. And this was +very wonderful to him, was even, somehow, perplexing. For Rosamund +had the royal way of bestowing. She was capable of refusal, but not of +half-measures or of niggardliness. There was something primitive in +her which spoke truth with a voice that was fearless; and yet that +very primitiveness seemed closely allied with her purity. Dion only +understood what that purity was when he was married to her. It was like +the radiant atmosphere of Greece to him. Had not Greece led him to it, +made him desire it with all that was best in his nature? Now he had +brought it to Greece. Actually, day after day, he trod the Acropolis +with Rosamund. + +Greece had already, he believed, put out a hand and drawn them more +closely together. + +“Love me, love the land I love.” + +Laughingly, yet half-anxiously too, Dion had said that to Rosamund when +they left Brindisi and set sail for Greece. With her usual sincerity she +had answered: + +“I want to love it. Do you wish me to say more than that, to make +promises I may not be able to keep?” + +“No,” he had answered. “I only want truth from you.” And after a moment +he had added, “I shall never want anything from you but your truth.” + +She had looked at him rather strangely, like one moved by conflicting +feelings, and after a slight hesitation she had said: + +“Dion, do you realize all the meaning in those words of yours?” + +“Of course I do.” + +“Then if you really mean them you must be one of the most daring of +human beings. But I shall try a compromise with you. I shall try to give +you my best truth, never my worst. You deserve that, I think. Indeed, I +know you do.” + +And he had left it to her. Was he not wise to do that? Already he +trusted her absolutely, as he had never thought to trust any one. + +“I could face any storm with you,” he once said to Rosamund. + +Rosamund had wanted to love Greece, and from the first moment of seeing +the land she had loved it. + +In the beginning of their stay she had scarcely been able to believe +that she was really in Athens. A great name had aroused in her +imagination a conception of a great city. The soft familiarity, the +almost rustic simplicity and intimacy, the absolutely unpretentious +brightness and homely cheerfulness of the small capital of this unique +land had surprised, had almost confused her. + +“Is this really Athens?” she had said, wondering, as they had driven +into what seemed a village set in bright bareness, sparsely shaded here +and there by small pepper-trees. + +And the question had persisted in her mind, had almost trembled upon +her lips, for two or three days. But then had come a mysterious change, +brought about, perhaps, by affection. Quickly she had learnt to love +Athens, and then she had the feeling that if it had been in any way +different from what it was she could not have loved it. Its very +smallness delighted her, and she would not permit its faults to be +mentioned in her presence. Once, when Dion said that it was a great pity +the Athenians did not plant more trees, and a greater pity they so often +lopped off branches from the few trees they had, she exclaimed: + +“You mustn’t run down my Athens. It likes to give itself to the sun +generously. It’s grateful, as it well may be, for all the sun has done +for it. Look at the color of that marble.” + +And Dion looked at the honey color, and the wonderful reddish-gold, and, +laughing, said: + +“Athens is the one faultless city, and the dogs tell us so every night +and all night long.” + +“Dogs always bark when the moon is up,” she answered, with a +semi-humorous gravity. + +“As they bark in Athens?” he queried. + +“Yes, of course.” + +“If I am ever criticized,” he asked, “will you be my defender?” + +“I shan’t hear you criticized.” + +“How do you know that?” + +“I do know it,” she said, looking at him with her honest brown eyes; +“nobody will criticize you when I am there.” + +He caught hold of her hand. + +“And you? Don’t you often criticize me silently? I’m sure you do. Why +did you marry me, Rosamund?” + +They were sitting on the Acropolis when he put that question. It was +a shining day. The far-off seas gleamed. There was a golden pathway to +Aegina. The brilliant clearness, not European but Eastern, did not +make the great view spread out beneath and around them hard. Greece +lay wrapped in a mystery of sunlight, different from, yet scarcely less +magical than, the mystery of shadows and the moon. Rosamund looked out +on the glory. She had taken off her hat, and given her yellow hair +to the sunlight. Without any head-covering she always looked more +beautiful, and, to Dion, more Greek than when her hair was concealed. +He saw in her then more clearly than at other times the woman of all the +ages rather than the woman of an epoch subject to certain fashions. +As he looked at her now, resting on a block of warm marble above the +precipice which is dominated by the little temple of Athena Nike, he +wondered, with the concealed humility of the great lover, how it was +that she had ever chosen to give herself to him. He had sworn to marry +her. He had not been weak in his wooing, had not been one of those men +who will linger on indefinitely at a woman’s feet, ready to submit to +unnumbered refusals. But now there rose up in the depths of him the cry, +“What am I?” and the answer, “Only a man like thousands of other men, in +no way remarkable, in no way more worthy than thousands of others of the +gift of great happiness.” + +Rosamund turned from the shining view. There was in her eyes an unusual +vagueness. + +“Why did you?” + +“Why did I marry you, Dion?” + +“Yes. When I found you with your ‘Paradise’ I don’t think you meant ever +to marry me.” + +“I always liked you. But at first I didn’t think of you in that way.” + +“But you had known for ages before Burstal----” + +“Yes, of course. I knew the day I sang at Mr. Darlington’s, at that +party he gave to introduce me as a singer. I knew first from your +mother. She told me.” + +“My mother?” + +“By the look she gave me when you introduced me to her.” + +“Was it an----How d’you mean?” + +“I can scarcely explain. But it was a look that asked a great many +questions. And they wouldn’t have been asked if you hadn’t cared for me, +and if she hadn’t known it.” + +“What did you think when you knew?” + +“That it was kind of you to care for me.” + +“Kind?” + +“Yes. I always feel that about people who like me very much.” + +“And did you just go on thinking me kind until that day at Burstal?” + +“I suppose so. But I felt very much at home with you.” + +“I don’t know whether that’s a compliment to a man who’s still young, or +not?” + +“Nor do I. But that’s just how it was.” + +He said nothing for a little while. When he spoke again it was with some +hesitation, and his manner was almost diffident. + +“Rosamund, that day at Burstal, were you at all inclined to accept me?” + +“Yes; I think, perhaps, I was. Why?” + +“Sometimes I have fancied there was a moment when----” + +He looked at her and then, for once, his eyes fell before hers almost +guiltily. They sat in silence for a moment. Behind them, on a bench set +in the shadow of a mighty wall, was a guardian of the Acropolis, a thin +brown man with very large ears sticking out from his head. He had been +dozing, but now stirred, shuffled his feet, and suddenly cleared his +throat. Then he sighed heavily. + +“And if there was, why did you think it came, Dion?” said Rosamund +suddenly, with an almost startling swiftness of decision. + +Dion reddened. + +“Why don’t you like to tell me?” + +“Oh, well--things go through the mind without our wishing them to. You +must know that, Rosamund. They are often like absurd little intruders. +One kicks them out if one can.” + +“What kind of intruder did you kick out, or try to kick out, at +Burstal?” + +She spoke half-laughingly, but half-challengingly. + +He drew a little nearer to her. + +“Sometimes I have fancied that perhaps, that day at Burstal, you +suddenly realized that love might be a more powerful upholder of life +than ambition ever could be.” + +“Sometimes? And you thought it first on the downs, or at any rate after +the concert?” + +“I think I did.” + +“Do you realize,” she said slowly, and as if with an effort, “that you +and I have never discussed my singing in ‘Elijah’?” + +“I know we never have.” + +“Let us do it now,” she continued, still seeming to make a strong +effort. + +“But why should we?” + +“I want to. Didn’t I sing well?” + +“I thought you sang wonderfully well.” + +“Then what was it that went wrong? I’ve never understood.” + +“Why should you think anything went wrong? The critics said it was a +remarkable performance. You made a great effect.” + +“I believe I did. But I felt for the first time that day that I was out +of sympathy with my audience. And then”--she paused, but presently added +with a certain dryness--“I was never offered any engagement to sing in +oratorio after Burstal.” + +“I believe a good many people thought your talent would show at its best +in opera.” + +“I shall never go on the stage. The idea is hateful to me, and always +has been. Would you like me to sing on the stage?” + +“No.” + +“Dion, why don’t you tell me what happened that day at Burstal?” + +“I scarcely could.” + +“I wish you would try.” + +“Well--I think it was a mistake for you to begin your public career in +oratorio by singing ‘Woe unto them.’” + +“Why?” + +“It’s an unsympathetic thing. It’s a cruel sort of thing.” + +“Cruel? But it’s one of the best-known things in oratorio.” + +“You made it quite new.” + +“How?” + +“It sounded fanatical when you sang it. I never heard it sound like that +before.” + +“Fanatical?” she said, and her voice was rather cold. + +“Rosamund,” he said, quickly and anxiously, “you asked me to tell you +exactly what I meant, what I felt, that is----” + +“Yes, I know. Go on, Dion. Well? It sounded fanatical----” + +“To me. I’m only telling you my impression. When I’ve heard ‘Woe unto +them’ before it has always sounded sad, piteous if you like, a sort of +wailing. When you sang it, somehow it was like a curse, a tremendous +summoning of vengeance.” + +“Why not? Are not the words ‘Destruction shall fall upon them’?” + +“I know. But you made it sound--to me, I mean--almost as if you were +rejoicing personally at the thought of the destruction, as if you were +longing almost eagerly for it to overwhelm the faithless.” + +“I see. That is what you meant by fanatical?” + +“Yes, I suppose so.” + +After a long pause she said: + +“Nobody has told me that till now.” + +“Perhaps others didn’t feel it as I did.” + +“I don’t know. What does one know about other people? Not even my +guardian said anything. I never could understand----” + +She broke off, then continued steadily: + +“So you think I repelled people that day?” + +“It seems impossible that you--” + +But she interrupted him. + +“No, Dion, it isn’t at all impossible. I think if we are absolutely +sincere we repel people very often.” + +“But you are the most sincere person I have ever seen, and you must know +how beloved you are, how popular you are wherever you go.” + +“When I’m being sincere with the part of me that’s feeling kind or +affectionate. Let us go to the Parthenon.” + +She got up, opened her white sun-umbrella and turned round, keeping her +hat in her left hand. As she stood there in that setting of marble, with +the sun caught in her hair, and the mighty view below and beyond her, +she looked wonderfully beautiful, Dion thought, but almost stern. He +feared perhaps he had hurt her. But was it his fault? She had told him +to speak. + +Rosamund did not return to the subject of her debut at Burstal, but +in the late afternoon of that day she spoke of her singing, and of the +place it might have in their married life. Dion believed she did this +because of their conversation near the Temple of Nike. + +They had spent most of the day on the Acropolis. Both had brought books: +she, Mahaffy’s “History of Greek Literature”; he, a volume of poems +written by a young diplomat who loved Greece and knew her well. Neither +of them had read many pages, but as the strong radiance began to soften +about them on the height, and the breeze from the Saronic Gulf came to +them with a more feathery warmth and freshness over the smiling bareness +of the Attic Plain, Dion, who had been half-dreamily turning the leaves +of his little book, said: + +“Rosamund.” + +“Yes?” + +“Look at the sea and the mountains of Trigania, those far-off +mountains”--he pointed--“and the outpost of Hydra.” + +She looked and said nothing. Then he read to her these lines of the +young diplomat-poet: + + “A crescent sail upon the sea, + So calm and fair and ripple free + You wonder storms can ever be; + + A shore with deep indented bays, + And o’er the gleaming water-ways + A glimpse of Islands in the haze; + + A face bronzed dark to red and gold, + With mountain eyes that seem to hold + The freshness of the world of old; + + A shepherd’s crook, a coat of fleece, + A grazing flock;--the sense of peace, + The long sweet silence,--this is Greece!” + +Rosamund gazed before her at Greece in the evening light. + +“‘The freshness of the world of old,’” she repeated, and her voice had +a thrill in it. “‘The sense of peace, the long sweet silence,--this is +Greece.’ If there was music with the music of those words I should love +to sing them.” + +“And how you could sing them. Like no other.” + +“At any rate my heart would be in them. ‘The freshness of the world of +old--the sense of peace, the long sweet silence.’” + +She was standing now near the edge of the sacred rock, looking out over +the tawny plain flanked by gray Hymettos, and away to the sea. There +were no voices rising from below. There was no sound of traffic on +the white road which wound away down the slope to the hidden city. Her +contralto voice lingered on the words; her lips drew them out softly, +lengthening the sounds they loved. + +“Freshness, that which belonged to the early world, long sweet silence, +peace. Oh, Dion, if you know how something in me cares for freshness and +for peace!” + +Her glad energies were strangely stilled; yet there was a kind of force +in her stillness, the force that is in all deep truths of whatever +nature they may be. He felt that he was near to perhaps the most +essential part of her, to that which was perhaps more truly her than +even the radiant and buoyant humanity by means of which she drew people +to her. + +“Could you live always out of the world?” he asked her. + +“But it wouldn’t be out of the world.” + +“Away from people--with me?” + +“With you?” + +She looked at him for a moment almost as if startled. Then there came +into her brown eyes a scrutiny that seemed half-inward, as if it were +partially applied to herself. + +“It’s difficult to be certain what one could do. I suppose one has +several sides.” + +“Ah! And your singing side?” + +“I want to speak about that.” + +Her voice was suddenly more practical, and her whole look and manner +changed, losing in romance and strangeness, gaining in directness and +energy. + +“We’ve never discussed it.” + +She sat down on a slab of rock at the edge of the precipice, and went +on: + +“You don’t mind your wife being a public singer, do you, Dion?” + +“Suppose I do?” + +“Do you?” + +“You’re so energetic I doubt if you could be happy in idleness.” + +“I couldn’t in England.” + +“And in Greece? But we are only here for such a short time.” + +He took her hand in his. + +“Learning the lessons of happiness.” + +“Good lessons for us!” she said, smiling. + +“The best there are. I believe in the education of joy. It opens the +heart, calls up all the generous things. But your singing; can I bear +your traveling about perpetually all over England?” + +“If I get engagements.” + +“You will. You had a good many for concerts last winter. You’ve got +several for June and July. You’ll get many more. But who’s to go with +you on your travels?” + +“Beattie, of course. Why do you look at me like that?” + +“How do we know Beatrice won’t marry?” + +Rosamund looked grave. + +“Why shouldn’t she?” asked Dion. + +“She may, of course.” + +“D’you think she’ll remain your apanage now?” he asked, with a hint of +smiling sarcasm that could not hurt her. + +“My apanage?” + +“Hasn’t she been something like that?” + +“Perhaps she has. But Beattie always sinks herself in others. She +wouldn’t be happy if she didn’t do that. Of course, your friend Guy +Daventry’s in love with Beattie.” + +“Deeply.” + +“But I’m not at all sure that Beattie--” + +She paused abruptly. After a moment she continued: + +“You asked me to-day why I married you. I didn’t answer you and I’m not +going to answer you now--entirely. But you’re not like other men, most +other men.” + +“In what way?” + +“A way that means very much to me,” she answered, with a delicious +purity and directness. “Women feel such things very soon when they know +men. I could easily have never married, but I could never, never have +married a man who had lived, as I believe most men have lived.” + +“I think I always knew that from the first moment I saw you.” + +“Did you? I’m glad. I care tremendously for _that_ in you, Dion--more +than you will ever know.” + +“That’s my great, too great reward,” he said soberly, almost with a +touch of deep awe. Then, reddening and looking away, he added, “You were +the very first.” + +“Was I?” + +“Yes, but--but you mustn’t think that it was a religious feeling, +anything of that kind, which kept me back from--from certain things. It +was more the desire to be strong, healthy, to have the sane mind in the +sane body, I think. I was mad about athletics, all that sort of thing. +Anyhow, you know now. You were the first. You will be the only one in my +life.” + +There was a long silence between them. Then Rosamund said, with a change +of manner to practical briskness: + +“If Beattie ever should marry, I could take a maid about with me.” + +“Yes. An hotel in Liverpool with a maid! In Blackpool, in Huddersfield, +in Wolverhampton, in Glasgow, when there’s a heavy thaw on, with a maid! +Oh, how delightful it will be! Manchester on a wet day in early spring +with a--” + +“Hush!” she put one hand on his lips gently, and looked at him with a +sort of smiling challenge in her eyes. “Do you mean to forbid me?” + +“I don’t think I could ever forbid you to do anything.” + +“We shall see in England.” + +“But, Rosamund”--there was no one in sight, and he slipped one arm round +her--“if something came to fill your life, both our lives, to the brim?” + +“Ah, then,”--a very remote expression came into her eyes,--“then it +would all be different.” + +“All?” + +“Yes. Everything would be quite different then.” + +“Not our relation to each other?” + +“Yes, even that. Perhaps that most of all.” + +“I--I hardly like to hear you say that,” he said, struggling against +a perhaps stupid, or even hateful, feeling of depression mingled with +something else. + +“But wouldn’t it? Think!” + +“I don’t want that to change. I should hate any change in that.” + +“What we want, and what we hate, doesn’t affect what has to be. And I +expect at the end we shall be thankful for that. But, Dion, yes, _if_ +what you say, I could give it all up. Public singing! What would it +matter then? I’m a woman, not a singer. But perhaps it will never come.” + +“Who knows?” he said. + +And he sighed. + +She turned towards him, leaned one hand on the stone and looked at him +almost anxiously. + +“What is the matter, Dion?” + +“Why? There is nothing the matter.” + +“Would you rather we never had that in our lives?” + +“A child?” + +“Yes, a child.” + +“I thought I longed for that,” he answered. + +“Do you meant that you have changed and don’t long any more?” + +“I suppose it’s like this. When a man’s very happy, perfectly happy, he +doesn’t--perhaps he can’t--want any change to come. If you’re perfectly +happy instinctively you almost fear any change. Till to-day, till this +very minute perhaps, I thought I wanted to have a child--some day. +Perhaps I still do really, or perhaps I shall. But--you must forgive me, +I can’t help it!--this evening, sitting here, I don’t want anything to +come between us. It seems to me that even a child of ours would take +some of you away from me. Don’t you see that?” + +She shook her head. + +“That’s a man’s feeling. I can’t share it.” + +“But think--all the attention you would have to give to a child, all the +thoughts you would fasten on it, all the anxieties you’d have about it!” + +“Well?” + +“One only has a certain amount of time. You’d have to take away a good +deal, a great deal, of the time you can now give to me. Oh, it sounds +too beastly, I know! Perhaps I scarcely mean it! But surely you can see +how a man who loves a woman very much might, without being the least +bit unnatural, think, ‘I’d like to keep every bit of her for myself. +I’d like to have her all to myself!’ I dare say this feeling will pass. +Remember, Rose, we’re only just married, and we’re in Greece, right away +from every one. Don’t think me morbidly jealous, or a beast. I’m not. I +expect lots of men have felt as I do, perhaps even till the first child +came.” + +“Ah, then it would be all right,” she said. “The natural things, the +things nature intends, are always all right.” + +“How blessedly sane and central you are!” + +“If we had a child--Dion, you must believe me!--we should be drawn ever +so much nearer together by it. If we ever do have one, we shall look +back on this time--you will--and think ‘We were much farther apart then +than we are now.’” + +“I don’t like to hear you say that,” he said gravely, almost with pain. + +Could a woman like Rosamund be driven by an instinct blindly? She +was such a perfect type of womanhood. It would be almost a tragedy if +she--such a woman--died childless. Perhaps instinct had obscurely warned +her of that, had taught her where to look for a mate. He, Dion, had +always lived purely. That day she had acknowledged that she had divined +it. Was that, perhaps, her real, her instinctive reason for marrying +him? But a man wants to be married for one thing only, because the +woman longs for him. And Dion was just an ordinary man with very strong +feelings. + +“Let’s take one more stroll before we go down,” he said. + +“Yes, to the maidens,” she answered. + +Her voice sounded relieved. She pushed her arm gently through his as +they moved away, and he felt all his body thrill. The mystery of love +was almost painful to him at that moment. He realized that a great love +might grow to have an affinity with a disease. “I must be careful. I +must take great care with this love of mine,” he thought. + +They went slowly over the slabs of marble and the gray rocks and passed +before the west front of the Parthenon. Dion felt slight resistance in +Rosamund’s arm, and stopped. In the changing light the marble was full +of warm color, was in places mysterious and translucent almost as amber. +The immense power, the gigantic calm of the temple, a sort of still +breathing of Eternity upon Time, confronted a glory which was beginning +to change in the face of its changelessness. Soon the seas that held +their dream under the precipices of Sunion, and along the shores of +Aegina, where the tall shepherd boys in their fleeces of white lead home +the flocks in the twilight, would lose the wonder of their shining, and +the skies the rapture of their diffused light. In the quietly austere +Attic Plain, through the whispering groves of Academe, and along the +sacred way to Eleusis, a very delicate vagueness was beginning to +travel, like a wanderer setting forth to greet the coming of the night. +The ranges of hills and mountains, Hymettos and Pentelicus, Parnes +stretching to the far distance, Mount Corydallus, the peak of Salamis, +the exquisitely long mountains of Trigania--“the greyhounds of their +tribe,” Rosamund loved to call them--were changing almost from moment +to moment, becoming a little softer, a little more tender, putting off +their distinct hues of the day for the colors of sleep and forgetting. +But the great Doric columns fronting them, the core of the heart of this +evening splendor, seemed not to defy, but to ignore, all the processes +of change. In its ruin the Parthenon seemed to say, “I have not +changed.” And it was true. For the same soul which had confronted +Pericles confronted the two lovers who now stood at the foot of the +temple. + +“I wonder how many thousands of people of all nations have learnt the +same lesson here,” Rosamund said at last. + +“The Doric lesson, you mean?” + +“Yes, of strength, simplicity, endurance, calmness.” + +“And I wonder how many thousands have forgotten the lesson.” + +“Why do you say that, Dion?” + +“I don’t know. Great art is a moral teacher, I’m sure of that. But men +are very light-minded as a rule, I think. If they lived before these +columns they might learn a great deal, they might even develop in a +splendid direction, I believe. But an hour, even a few hours, is that +enough? Impressions fade very quickly in most people.” + +“Not in you. You never forget the Parthenon, and I shall never forget +it.” + +She stood for some minutes quite still gazing steadily up at the +temple, gaining--it seemed to her--her own stillness from its tremendous +immobility. + +“The greatest strength is in silence,” she thought. “The greatest power +is in motionlessness.” + +She thought of the raging of the great sea. But no! There was more of +the essence of strength, of the stern inwardness of power, in that which +confronted life and Time in absolute stillness; in a mountain, in +this temple. And the temple spoke to something far down within her; to +something which desired long silences and deep retirement, to something +mystic which she did not understand. The temple was Pagan and she knew +that. But that in her to which it spoke was not Pagan. Before she left +Athens she meant to realize that the soul of man, when it speaks through +mighty and pure effort, of whatever kind, always speaks to the same +Listener, to but one, though man may not know it. + +“Doric!” she said at last. “I have always known that for me that would +be the greatest. The simplest thing is the most sublime thing. That +temple is like the Sermon on the Mount to me. Didn’t you bring me here +because it meant so much to you?” + +“Not entirely. No, Rosamund, I think I brought you here because I felt +that you belonged here.” + +“This satisfies me.” + +She sighed deeply, still gazing at the temple. + +“You aren’t only in Greece, you are of Greece. Come to the maidens.” + +As they went on slowly the acid voices of the little birds which fly +perpetually among the columns of the Parthenon followed them, bidding +them good night. + +They descended over the uneven ground and came to the famous Porch of +the Caryatides, jutting out from the little Ionic temple which is the +handmaid of the Parthenon. Not far from the Porch, and immediately +before it, was a wooden bench. Already Rosamund and Dion had spent many +hours here, sometimes sitting on the bench, more often resting on the +warm ground in the sunshine, among the fragments of ruin and the speary, +silver-green grasses. Now Rosamund sat down and Dion stood by her side. + +“Rosamund, those maidens are my ideal of womanhood shown in marble,” he +said. + +“They are almost miraculously beautiful. And one scarcely knows why. But +I know that every time I see them the mystery of their beauty seems more +ineffable to me, and the meaning of it seems more profound. How did men +get so much meaning into marble?” + +“By caring so much for what is beautiful in womanhood, I suppose.” + +He sat down close beside her. + +“I sometimes wonder whether women have any idea what some men, many men, +I believe, seek in women.” + +“What do they seek?” + +“What do those maidens that hold up the Porch suggest to you?” + +“All that’s calm without a touch of coldness, and strong without a touch +of hardness, and noble without a touch of pride, and obedient without a +touch of servility.” + +“Brave sweetness, too, and protectiveness. They are wonderful, and so +are some women. When I saw you in the omnibus at Milan I thought of +these maidens immediately.” + +“How strange!” + +“Why strange?” + +“Isn’t it?” she said, gazing at the six maidens in their flowering +draperies of marble, who, upon their uncovered heads, bore tranquillity +up the marble architrave. “How wonderfully simple and unpretending they +are!” + +“Are not you?” + +“I don’t know. I don’t believe I think about it.” + +“I do. Rosamund, sometimes I feel that I am an unique man--just think of +a fellow in a firm on the Stock Exchange being unique!--because I have +had an ideal, and I have attainted to it. When I was here alone, I +conceived for the first time an ideal of woman. I said to myself, ‘In +the days of ancient Greece there must have been such women in the flesh +as these maidens in marble. If I could have lived and loved then!’ And I +came away from Greece carrying a sort of romantic dream with me. And now +I sit here with you; I can’t think why I, a quite ordinary man, should +be picked out for perfect happiness.” + +“Is it really perfect?” she asked, turning to him. + +“I think so. In such a place with you!” + +As the evening drew on, a little wind came and went over the rocky +height, but it had no breath of cold in it. Two Greek soldiers passed +by slowly behind them--short young men with skins almost as dark as +the skins of Arabs of the South, black eyes and faces full of active +mentality. They were talking eagerly, but stopped for a moment to look +at the English, and beyond them at the six maidens on their platform of +marble. Then they went on talking again, but presently hesitated, came +back, and stood not far off, gazing at the Porch with a mixture of +reverence and quiet wistfulness. Dion drew Rosamund’s attention to them. + +“They feel the beauty,” he said. + +“Yes, I like that.” + +She looked at the two young men with a smile. One of them noticed it, +and smiled back at her almost boyishly, and with a sort of confidential +simplicity. + +The light began to fail. The six maidens were less clearly seen, but the +deep meaning of them did not lessen. In the gathering darkness they and +their sweet effort became more touching, more lovable. Their persistence +was exquisite now that they confronted with serenity the night. + +“They are beautiful by day, but at night they are adorable,” said +Rosamund. + +“Don’t you know why I thought of them when I met you?” he whispered. + +She got up slowly. The Greek soldiers moved, turned, and went down the +slope towards the Propylae. Their quick voices were heard again. Then +there was the sound of a bell. + +“Time to go,” said Rosamund. + +As they followed the soldiers she again put her arm through her young +husband’s. + +“Dion,” she said, “I think I’m a little afraid of your ideals. I +understand them. I have ideals too. But I think perhaps mine are less in +danger of ever being shattered than yours are.” + +“Why? But I know mine are not in danger.” + +“How can you say that?” + +“It’s no use trying to frighten me. But what about your ideals? What is +the nature of the difference between yours and mine, which makes yours +so much less vulnerable than mine?” + +But she only said: + +“I don’t believe I could explain it. But I feel it, and I shall go on +feeling it.” + +They went down the steep marble steps, gave the guardian at the foot of +them good night, and walked almost in silence to Athens. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +After that day Rosamund and Dion often talked of the child who might +eventually come into their lives to change them. Rosamund indeed, now +that such a possibility had been discussed between them, returned to it +with an eagerness which she did not seek to conceal. She was wonderfully +frank, and her frankness seemed to belong naturally to her transparent +purity, to be an essential part of it. Dion’s momentary depression that +evening on the Acropolis had evidently stirred something in her which +would not let her rest until it had expressed itself. She had detected +for the first time in her husband a hint of something connected with his +love for her which seemed to her morbid. She could not forget it and she +was resolved to destroy it if possible. When they next stood together on +their beloved height she said to him: + +“Dion, don’t you hate anything morbid?” + +“Yes, loathe it!” he answered, with hearty conviction. “But surely you +know that. Why d’you ask me such a thing? How dare you?” + +And he turned to her his brown face, bright this morning with good +spirits, his dark eyes sparkling with hopefulness and energy. + +It was a pale morning, such as often comes to Athens even at the edge +of the summer. They were standing on the little terrace near to the +Acropolis Museum, looking down over the city and to helmet-shaped +Lycabettos. The wind, too fond of the Attic Plain, was blowing, not +wildly, but with sufficient force to send the dust whirling in light +clouds over the pale houses and the little Byzantine churches. Long +and narrow rivulets of dust marked the positions of the few roads +which stretched out along the plain. The darkness of the groves which +sheltered the course of the Kephisos contrasted strongly with the flying +pallors and seemed at enmity with them. The sky was milky white and +gray, broken up in places by clouds of fantastic shapes, along the +ruffled edges of which ran thin gleams of sunshine like things half +timorous and ashamed. Upon the flat shores near Phaleron the purple +seas broke in spray, and the salty drops were caught up by the wind and +mingled with the hurrying grains of dust. It was not exactly a sad day, +but there was an uneasiness abroad. The delicate calm of Greece was +disturbed. Nevertheless Dion was feeling gay and light-hearted, inclined +to enjoy everything the world about him offered to him. Even the +restlessness beneath and around them accorded with his springing +spirits. The whirling spirals of dust suggested to him the gaiety of a +dance. The voice of the wind was a joyous music in his ears. + +“How dare you?” he repeated with a happy pretense of indignation. + +“Because I think you were almost morbid yesterday.” + +“I? When?” + +“When we spoke of the possibility of our some day having a child.” + +“I had a moment of thinking that too,” he agreed. “Yes, Rose, the +thought went through my mind that a great love, such as mine for you, +might become almost a disease if one didn’t watch it, hold it in.” + +“If it ever did become like that, do you know what would happen?” + +“What, Rose?” + +“Instead of rejoicing in it I should shrink from it.” + +“That’s enough for me!” + +He spoke gaily, confidently. + +“Besides, I don’t really believe I’m a man to love like that. I +only imagined I might for a moment, perhaps because it was twilight. +Imaginings come with the twilight.” + +“I could never bear to think, if a child came, that you didn’t want it, +that you wished it out of the way.” + +“I never should. But I expect lots of young married people have queer +thoughts and feelings which they keep entirely to themselves--I blurted +mine out. You’ve got a dangerously sincere husband, Rose. The whole +matter lies in your own hands. If we ever have a child, love it, but +don’t love it more than me.” + +“I should love it so differently! How could maternal love interfere with +the love of woman for man?” + +“No, I don’t suppose it could.” + +“Of course it never could.” + +“Then that’s settled. Where shall we go to get out of the wind? It seems +to be rising.” + +After searching for a place of shelter in vain they eventually took +refuge in the Parthenon, under the shadow of the great western wall. +Perhaps in consequence of the wind the Acropolis was entirely deserted. +Only the guardians were hidden somewhere, behind columns, in the Porch +of the Museum, under the roof of their little dwelling at the foot of +the marble staircase which leads up to the Propylae. The huge wall of +the Parthenon kept off the wind from the sea, and as Rosamund and Dion +no longer saw the whirling dust clouds in the plain they had, for the +moment, almost an illusion of peace. They sat down on the guardian’s +bench, just beneath some faint fragments of paintings which dated +from the time when the temple was made use of as a church by Greek +Christians; and immediately Rosamund went on talking about the child. +She spoke very quietly and earnestly, with the greatest simplicity, and +by degrees Dion came to see her as a mother, to feel that perhaps only +as a mother could she fulfil herself. The whole of her beauty would +never be revealed unless she were seen with a child of her own. Hitherto +he had thought of her chiefly in relation to himself, as the girl he +longed to win, then as the girl he most wonderfully had succeeded in +winning. She put herself before him now in a different light, and he +saw in her new and beautiful possibilities. While she was talking his +imagination began to play about the child, and presently he realized +that he was thinking of it as a boy. Then, in a moment, he realized that +on the previous evening he had thought of a male, not of a female child. +With this in his mind he said abruptly: + +“What sort of a child do you wish to have, Rosamund?” + +“What sort?” she said, looking at him with surprise in her brown eyes. + +“Yes.” + +“What do you mean? A beautiful, strong, healthy child, of course, the +sort of child every married woman longs to have, and imagines having +till it comes.” + +“Beautiful, strong, healthy!” he repeated, returning her look. “Of +course it could only be that--your child. But I meant, do you want it to +be a boy or a girl?” + +“Oh!” + +She paused, and looked away from him and down at the uncemented marble +blocks which form the pavement of the Parthenon. + +“Well?” he said, as she kept silence. + +“If it were to be a girl I should love it.” + +“You wish it to be a girl?” + +“I didn’t say that. The fact is, Dion”--and now she again looked at him, +“I have always thought of our child as a boy. That’s why your question +almost startled me. I have never even once thought of having a girl. I +don’t know why.” + +“I think I do.” + +“Why then?” + +“The thought was born of the desire. You wanted our child to be a son +and so you thought of it as a son.” + +“Perhaps that was it.” + +“Wasn’t it?” + +He spoke with a certain pressure. She remained silent for a moment, and +two little vertical lines appeared in her forehead. Then she said: + +“Yes, I believe it was. And you?” + +“I confess that when yesterday we spoke of a child I was thinking all +the time about a boy.” + +She gazed at him with something visionary in her eyes, which made them +look for a moment like the eyes of a woman whom he had not seen till +now. Then she said quietly: + +“It will be a boy, I think. Indeed, if it weren’t perhaps absurd, I +should say that I know it will be a boy.” + +He said nothing more just then, but at that moment he felt as if he, +too, knew, not merely hoped, or guessed, something about their joint +future, knew in the depths of him that a boy-child would some day be +sent to Rosamund and to him, to influence and to change their lives. + +The wind began to fail almost suddenly, the sky grew brighter, a shaft +of sun lay on the marble at their feet. + +“It’s going to be fine,” Dion said. “Let’s be active for once. The wind +has made me restless. Suppose we get a couple of horses and ride out to +the convent of Daphni!” + +She got up at once. + +“Yes. I’ve brought my habit, and haven’t had it on once.” + +As they left the Great Temple she looked up at the mighty columns and +said; + +“Doric! If we have a boy let us bring him up to be Doric.” + +“Yes, Rosamund,” he said quietly and strongly. “We will.” + +Afterward he believed that it was then, and only then, that he caught +something of her deep longing to have a child. He began to see how a +man’s child might influence him and affect his life, might even send him +upwards by innocently looking up to him. It would be bad, very bad, to +fail as a husband, but, by Jove! it would be one of the great tragedies +to fail as a father. Mentally Dion measured the respective heights +of himself and a very small boy; saw the boy’s trusting eyes looking, +almost peering, up at him. Such eyes could change, could become very +attentive. “It wouldn’t do to be adversely criticized by your boy,” he +thought. And one day he said to Rosamund, but in almost a casual way: + +“If we ever do have a boy, Rose, and want him to be Doric, we shall have +to start in by being Doric ourselves, eh?” + +“Yes,” she answered, “I’ve thought that, too.” + +“D’you think I could ever learn to be that?” + +“I know you could. You are on the way already, I think. I noticed +in London that you were never influenced by all the affectations and +absurdities, or worse, that seem to have taken hold of so many people +lately.” + +“There has been a wave of something rather beastly passing over London +certainly. But I almost wonder you knew it.” + +“Why?” + +“Can your eyes see anything that isn’t good?” + +“Yes. But I don’t want ever to look long on what I hate.” + +“You aren’t afraid you might cease from hating it!” + +“Oh, no. But I believe in feeding always on wholesome food.” + +“Modern London doesn’t.” + +“I shall never be modern, I’m afraid,” she said, half laughing, and with +a soft touch of apparently genuine deprecation. + +“Be eternal, that’s better!” he almost whispered. “Listen to that +nightingale. It’s singing a song of all the ages. You have a message +like that for me.” + +They had strolled out after dinner in the warm May night, and had walked +a little way up the steep flank of Lycabettos till they reached a wooden +bench near which were a few small fir trees. Somewhere among these trees +there was hidden a nightingale, which sang with intensity to Athens +spread out below, a small maze of mellow lights and of many not +inharmonious voices. Even in the night, and at a distance, they felt the +smiling intimacy of the little city they loved. Its history was like +a living thing dwelling among the shadows, hallowed and hallowing, its +treasures, like night flowers, breathed out a mysterious message to +them. They received it, and felt that they understood it. Had the +nightingale been singing to any city its song must have seemed to them +beautiful. But it was singing to Athens, and that fact gave to its +voice, in their ears, a magical meaning. + +They sat for a while in silence. Nobody passed on the winding path. +Their impulse to solitude was unshared by the dwellers in Athens. +Neither knew exactly what thoughts were passing through the other’s +mind, what aspirations were flaming up in the heart of the other. But +they knew that they were close bound in sympathy just then, voyaging +towards a common future. That future lay over the sea in gray England. +Their time in Greece was but an interlude. But in it they were +gathering up impressions, were laying in stores for their journey. The +nightingale’s song was part of their provision. It had to sing to just +them for some hidden reason. And to Dion it seemed that the nightingale +knew the reason while they did not, that it comprehended all the under +things of love and of sorrow of which they were ignorant. When he spoke +again he said: + +“A bird’s song always makes me feel very unlearned. Do you know what I +mean?” + +“Yes. We’ve got to learn so much.” + +“Together.” + +“Yes--partly.” + +“Partly?” he said quickly. + +“I think there’s a great deal that can only be learnt quite alone.” + +Again, as sometimes before, Dion trod on the verges of mystery, felt as +if something in Rosamund chided him, and was chilled for a moment. + +“I dare say you are right,” he said. “But I believe I could learn any +lesson more easily with you to help me.” + +“No, I don’t think so.” + +“Perhaps we shall know which is right, you or I, when we’ve been much +longer together,” he said, with an effort to speak lightly. + +“Yes.” + +“Rosamund, sometimes you make me feel as if you thought I didn’t know +you, I mean didn’t know you thoroughly.” + +“Do I?” + +“Yes.” + +Again silence fell between them. As Dion listened once more to the +persistent nightingale he felt that there was pain somewhere at the back +of its ecstasy. He looked down at the soft lights of little Athens, and +suddenly knew that much sorrow lay in the shadows of all the cities of +the earth. There was surely a great reserve in the girl who had given +herself to him. That was natural, perhaps. But to-night he felt that she +was aware of this reserve and was consciously guarding it like a sacred +thing. Presently they got up and went slowly down the hill. + +“Suppose you had never married,” he said, as they drew near to the city, +“how would you have lived, do you think?” + +“Perhaps for my singing, at first,” she answered. + +“And afterwards?” + +“Afterwards? Very quietly, I think.” + +“You won’t tell me.” + +“I don’t know for certain, and what does it matter? I have married. If I +hadn’t, perhaps I should have been very selfish and thought myself very +self-sacrificing.” + +“I wonder in what way selfish.” + +“There are so many ways. I heard a sermon once on a foggy night in +London.” + +“Ah--that evening I called on you.” + +“I didn’t say so. It made me understand egoism better than I had +understood it before. Perhaps it’s the unpardonable sin.” + +“Then it could never be your sin.” + +“Hush!” + +They no longer heard the nightingale. The voices and the houses of +Athens were about them. + +As the days slipped by, Dion felt that Rosamund and he grew closer +together. He knew, though he could not perhaps have said how, that he +would be the only man in her intimate life. Even if he died she would +never--he felt sure of this--yield herself to another man. The tie +between them was to her a bond for eternity. Her body would never be +given twice. That he knew. But sometimes he asked himself whether her +whole soul would ever be given even once. The insatiable greed of a +great and exclusive love was alive within him, needing always something +more than it had. At first, after their marriage, he had not been aware +of this greed, had not realized that nothing great is content to +remain just as it is at a given moment. His love had to progress, and +gradually, in Greece, he became conscious of this fact. + +His inner certainty, quite unshakable, that Rosamund would never belong +to another man in the physical sense made jealousy of an ordinary kind +impossible to him. The lowness, the hideous vulgarity of the jealousy +which tortures the writhing flesh would never be his. Yet he wanted more +than he had sometimes, stretched out arms to something which did not +come to nestle against him. + +There was a great independence in Rosamund, he thought, which set +her apart from other women, Not only could she bear to be alone, she +sometimes wished to be alone. Dion, on the contrary, never wished to be +away from her. It might be necessary for him to leave her. He was not +a young doting fool who could not detach himself even for a moment from +his wife’s apron strings. But he knew very well that at all times he +preferred to be with her, close to her, that he relished everything +more when he was in her company than when he was alone. She added to his +power of enjoyment, to his faculty of appreciation, by being beside +him. The Parthenon even was made more sublime to him by her. That was +a mystery. And the mystery of her human power to increase penetrated +everywhere through their life in common, like a percolating flood that +could not be gainsaid. She manifested her influence upon him subtly +through the maidens of the Porch, through the almost neat perfection +of the Theseion, through the detached grandeur of those columns in the +waste place, that golden and carved Olympieion which acts as an outpost +to Athens. It was as if she had the power to put something of herself +into everything that he cared for so that he might care for it more, +whether it were a golden sunset on the sea over which they drifted in +a sailing-boat off the coast of old Phaleron, or a marble figure in a +museum. She dwelt in the stones of a ruined temple; she set her feet +upon the dream of the distant mountains; she was in the dawn, the +twilight, and in all the ways of the moon, because he loved her and +found her in all things when they were together. + +He did not know whether she, in a similar mysterious way, found him in +all that she enjoyed. He did not ask her the question. Perhaps, really, +in that truth of apprehension which lives very far down in a man, he had +divined the answer, although he told himself that he did not know. + +He found always something new to enjoy and to worship in Rosamund. + +They had many tastes in common. At first, of deliberate choice, they had +bounded their honeymoon with the precipices of the Acropolis, learning +the Doric lesson on that height above the world. Then one day they had +made a great sacrifice and gone to pass their hours in the pine woods +of Kephissia. They had returned to the Acropolis quite athirst. But by +degrees the instinct to wander a little farther afield took greater hold +upon them, their love of physical exercise asserted itself. They began +to take long rides on horseback, carrying food in their saddle-bags. The +gently wild charm of Greece laid its spell upon them. They both loved +Athens, but now they began to love, too, escaping from Athens. + +Directly they were out of the city they were in a freedom that appealed +to the gipsy in both. Dion’s strong boyishness, which had never yet +been cast off, was met and countered by the best of good fellowship +in Rosamund. Though she could be very serious, and even what he called +“strange,” she was never depressed or sad. Her good spirits were +unfailing and infectious. She reveled in a “jaunt” or a “day out,” and +her physical strength kept fatigue far from her. She could ride for many +hours without losing her freshness and zest. Every little episode of the +wayside interested and entertained her. Everything comic made her laugh. +She showed an ardor almost like an intelligent child’s in getting to +understand all she saw. Scenery, buildings, animal life, people, every +offering of Greece was eagerly accepted, examined and discussed by her. +She was the perfect comrade for the wilds. Their common joy in the wilds +drew her and Dion more closely together. Never before had Rosamund been +quite away from civilization, from the hitherto easily borne trammels of +modern complicated life. She “found herself” in the adventure. The pure +remoteness of Greece came to her like natal air. She breathed it in with +a sort of rapture. It was as Dion had said. She was not merely in, she +was of, Greece. + +They rode one day to Eleusis; on another day to Tatoi, buried in +oak-woods on the slope of Parnes; on another through noisy and mongrel +Piraeus, and over undulating wrinkled ground, burnt up by the sun and +covered with low scrub and bushes of myrtle, to the shore of the gulf +opposite to Salamis; on yet another to Marathon, where they lunched on +the famous mound beneath which the bodies of the Athenians who fell in +the battle were buried. They took no companion with them. Dion carried +a revolver in his hip pocket, but never had reason to show or to use +it. When they dismounted they tethered the horses to a bush or tree, or +sometimes hobbled their forelegs, and turned them loose for a while. + +Such days were pure joy to them both. In them they went back to the +early world. They did not make the hard and self-conscious imaginative +effort of the prig to hurl themselves into an historic past. They just +let the land and its memories take them. As, sitting on the warm ground +among the wild myrtle bushes, they looked across the emerald green +unruffled waters to Salamis, that very long isle with its calm gray and +orange hills and its indented shores, perhaps for a moment they talked +of the Queen of Halicarnassus, and of the deception of Xerxes watching +from his throne on Mount Aegaleos. But the waters were now so solitary, +the peace about them was so profound, that the memory of battles soon +faded away in the sunshine. Terror and death had been here once. A queen +had destroyed her own people in that jeweled sea, a king had fled from +those delicate mountains. But now sea and land were for lovers. A fly +with shining wings journeyed among the leaves of the myrtles, a beetle +crept over the hot sandy ground leaving a minute pattern behind it; +and Rosamund and Dion forgot all about Artemisia, as they brooded, +wide-eyed, over the activities of the dwellers in the waste. At such +moments they realized the magic of life, as they had never realized it +in the turmoil of London. The insect with its wings that caught the +sun, the intent and preoccupied little traveler whose course could be +deflected by a twig, revealed the wonder that is lost and forgotten in +the crowded highways of men. + +It was when they were at Marathon that Rosamund told Dion she loved +Greece partly because of its emptiness. The country was not only rather +bare of vegetation, despite its groves of glorious old olives, its woods +of oaks round Tatoi, its delicious curly forests of yellow-green pines, +which looked, Rosamund declared, as if they had just had their dainty +heads perfectly dressed by an accomplished coiffeur, it was also almost +strangely bare of men. + +“Where are the Greeks?” Rosamund had often asked during their first few +rides, as they cantered on and on, scarcely ever meeting a human being. + +“In the towns to be sure!” Dion had answered. + +“And where are the towns?” + +“Ah! That’s more than I can tell you!” he had said, laughing. + +To one hitherto accustomed to England, the emptiness of the country, +even quite near to Athens, was at first surprising. Soon it became +enchanting. + +“This is a country I can thoroughly trust,” Rosamund declared at +Marathon. + +Dion had just finished hobbling the two horses, and now lifted himself +up. His brown face was flushed from bending. His thin riding-clothes +were white with dust, which he beat off with hands that looked almost as +if they wore gloves, so deeply were they dyed by the sun. As the cloud +dispersed he emerged carrying their lunch in a straw pannier. + +“Why trust--specially?” he said. “Ah,” he threw himself down by her +side with a sigh of happiness, “this is good! The historic mound, and +we think of it merely as a resting-place, vandals that we are. But--why +trust?” + +“I mean that Greece never keeps any unpleasant surprises up her sleeve, +surprises such as other countries have of noisy, intruding people. It’s +terrible how accustomed I’m getting to having everything all to myself, +and how I simply love it.” + +He began slowly unpacking the pannier, and laying its contents out on +the mound. + +“You’re a puzzle, Rosamund,” he said. + +“Why?” + +“You have a greater faculty for making yourself delightful to all sorts +of people than I have found in any other person, woman or man. And yet +you are developing a perfect passion for solitude.” + +“Do you want people here?” + +“No.” + +“Then you agree with me.” + +“But you have an absolute lust for an empty world.” + +“Look!” + +She stretched out her right arm--she was leaning on the other with her +cheek in her hand--and pointed to the crescent-shaped plain which +lay beyond them, bounded by a sea which was a wonder of sparkling and +intense blue, and guarded by a curving line of low hills. There were +some clouds in the sky, but the winds were at rest, and the clouds were +just white things dreaming. In the plain there were no trees. Here and +there some vague crops hinted at the languid labors of men. No human +beings were visible, but in the distance, not very far from the sea +edge, a few oxen were feeding. Their dark slow-moving bodies intersected +the blue. There were no ships or boats upon the stretch of sea which +Rosamund and Dion gazed at. Behind them the bare hills showed no sign of +life. The solitude was profound but not startling. It seemed in place, +necessary and beautiful. In the emptiness there was something touching, +something reticently satisfying. It was a land and seascape delicately +purged. + +“Greece and solitude,” said Rosamund. “I shall always connect them +together. I shall always love each for the other’s sake.” + +In the silence which followed the words the far-off lowing of oxen came +to them over the flats. Rosamund shut her eyes, Dion half shut his, and +the empty world was a shining dream. + +When they had lunched, Rosamund said: + +“I am going to climb up into that house. The owner will never come, I’m +sure.” + +Near them upon the mound was a dwelling of Arcady, in which surely a +shepherd sometimes lay and piped to the sun and the sea god. It was +lifted upon a tripod of poles, and was deftly made of brushwood, with +roof, floor and two walls all complete. A ladder of wood, from which the +bark had been stripped, led up to it. + +“You want to sleep?” Dion asked. + +She looked at him. + +“Perhaps.” + +He helped her up to her feet. Quickly she mounted the ladder and stepped +into the room. + +“Good-by!” she said, looking down at him and smiling. + +“Good-by!” he answered, looking up. + +She made a pretense of shutting a door and withdrawing into privacy. He +lit his pipe, hesitated a moment, then went to lie down under her room. +Now he no longer saw her, but he heard her movements overhead. The dry +brushwood crackled as she lay down, as she settled herself. She was +lying surely at full length. He guessed that she had stretched out her +arms and put her two hands under her head. She sighed. Below he echoed +her sigh with a long breath of contentment. Then they both lay very +still. + +Marathon! + +He remembered his schoolbooks. He remembered beginning Greek. He had +never been very good at Greek. His mother, if she had been a man and had +gone to Oxford or Cambridge, would have made a far better classic than +he. She had helped him sometimes during the holidays when he was +quite small. He remembered exactly how she had looked when he had been +conjugating--half-loving and half-satirical. He had made a good many +mistakes. Later he had read Greek history with his mother, he had read +about the battle of Marathon. + +“Marathon”--it was written in his school history, “became a magic +word at Athens . . . the one hundred and ninety-two Athenians who had +perished in the battle were buried on the field, and over their remains +a tumulus or mound was erected, which may still be seen about half +a mile from the sea.” As a small boy he had read that with a certain +inevitable detachment. And now here he lay, a man, on that very tumulus, +and the brushwood creaked above his head with the movement of the woman +he loved. + +How wonderful was the weaving of the Fates! + +And if some day he should sit in the place of his mother, and should +hear a small boy, his small boy, conjugating. By Jove! He would have to +rub up his classics! Not for ten years old; he wasn’t so bad as that; +but for twenty, when the small boy would be going up to Oxford, and +would, perhaps, be turning out alarmingly learned. + +Rosamund the mother of a young man! + +But Dion shied away from that. He could imagine her as the mother of a +child, beautiful mother of a child almost as beautiful; but he could not +conceive of her as the “mater” of a person with a mustache. + +Their youth, their youth--must it go? + +Again she moved slightly above him. The twigs crackled, making an almost +irritable music of dryness. Again the lowing of cattle came over that +old battlefield from the edge of the sea. And just then, at that very +moment, Dion knew that his great love could not stand still, that, like +all great things, it must progress. And the cry, that intense human cry, +“Whither?” echoed in the deep places of his soul. Whither were he and +his great love going? To what end were they journeying? For a moment +sadness invaded him, the sadness of one who thinks and is very ignorant. +Why cannot a man think deeply without thinking of an end? “All things +come to an end!” That cruel saying went through his mind like footsteps +echoing on iron, and a sense of fear encompassed him. There is something +terrible in a great love, set in the little life of a man like a vast +light in a tiny attic. + +Did Rosamund ever have such thoughts? Dion longed to ask her. Was she +sleeping perhaps now? She was lying very still. If they ever had a child +its coming would mark a great step onwards along the road, the closing +of a very beautiful chapter in their book of life. It would be over, +their loneliness in love, man and woman in solitude. Even the sexual tie +would be changed. All the world would be changed. + +He lay flat on the ground, stretched out, his elbows firmly planted, his +chin in his palms, his face set towards the plain and the sea. + +What he looked at seemed gently to chide him. There were such a +brightness and simplicity and such a delicious freedom from all +complication in this Grecian landscape edged by the wide frankness of +the sea that he felt reassured. Edging the mound there were wild aloes +and the wild oleander. A river intersected the plain which in many +places was tawny yellow. Along the river bank grew tall reeds, sedges +and rushes. Beyond the plain, and beyond the blue waters, rose the +Island of Euboea, and ranges of mountains, those mountains of Greece +which are so characteristic in their unpretentious bareness, which +neither overwhelm nor entice, but which are unfailingly delicate, +unfailing beautiful, quietly, almost gently, noble. In the distance, +when he turned his head, Dion could see the little Albanian village of +Marathon, a huddle of tiny houses far off under the hills. He looked at +it for a moment, then again looked out over the plain, rejoicing in +its emptiness. Along the sea edge the cattle were straying, but their +movements were almost imperceptible. Still they were living things and +drew Dion’s eyes. The life in them sent out its message to the life in +him, and he earnestly watched them grazing. Their vague and ruminating +movements really emphasized the profound peace which lay around Rosamund +and him. To watch them thus was a savoring of peace. For every contented +animal is a bearer of peaceful tidings. In the Garden of Eden with the +Two there were happy animals. And Dion recalled the great battle which +had dyed red this serene wilderness, a battle which was great because +it had been gently sung, lifted up by the music of poets, set on high +by the lips of orators. He looked over the land and thought: “Here +Miltiades won the name which has resounded through history. To that +shore, where I see the cattle, the Persians were driven.” And it +seemed to him that the battle of Marathon had been fought in order that +Rosamund and he, in the nineteenth century, might be drawn to this place +to meet the shining afternoon. Yes, it was fought for that, and to make +this place the more wonderful for them. It was their Garden of Eden +consecrated by History. + +What a very small animal that was which had strayed away from its kind +over the tawny ground where surely there was nothing to feed upon! The +little dark body of it looked oddly detached as it moved along. And +now another animal was following it quickly. The arrival of the second +darkness, running, made Dion know that the first was human, the guardian +of the beasts, no doubt. + +So Eden was invaded already! He smiled as he thought of the serpent. The +human being came on slowly, always moving in the direction of the mound, +and always accompanied by its attendant animal--a dog, of course. Soon +Dion knew that both were making for the mound. It occurred to him +that Rosamund was in the private room of him who was approaching, was +possibly sound asleep there. + +“Rosamund!” he almost whispered. + +There was no answer. + +“Rosamund!” he murmured, looking upward to his roof, which was her +floor. + +“Hush!” came down to him through the brushwood. “I’m willing it to come +to us.” + +“What--the guardian of the cattle?” + +“Guardian of the ----! It’s a child!” + +“How do you know?” + +“I do know. Now you’re not to frighten it.” + +“Of course not!” + +He lay very still, his chin in his palms, watching the on-comers. How +had she known? And then, seeing suddenly through her eyes, he knew that +of course it was a child, that it could not be anything else. All its +movements now proclaimed to him its childishness, and he watched it with +a sort of fascination. + +For he had never seen Rosamund with a child. That would be for him a new +experience with something, perhaps, prophetic in it. + +Child and animal approached steadily, keeping an undeviating course, and +presently Dion saw a very small, but sturdy, Greek boy of perhaps ten +years old, wearing a collarless shirt, open at a deep brown throat, +leggings of some thin material, boots, and a funny little patched brown +coat and pointed hood made all in one, and hanging down with a fulness +almost of skirts about the small determined legs. The accompanying dog +was a very sympathetic, blunt-nosed, round-headed, curly-coated type, +whose whiteness, which positively invited the stroking hand, was broken +by two great black blotches set all askew on the back, and by a black +patch which ringed the left eye and completely smothered the cocked-up +left ear. The child carried a stick, which nearly reached to his +shoulder, and which ended in a long and narrow crook. The happy dog, +like its master, had no collar. + +When these two reached the foot of the tumulus they stood still and +stared upwards. The dog uttered a short gruff bark, looked at the boy, +wagged a fat tail, barked again, abruptly depressed the fore part of its +body till its chin was against the ground between its paws, then jumped +into the air with a sudden demeanor of ludicrously young, and rather +uncouth, waggishness, which made Dion laugh. + +The small boy replied with a smile almost as sturdy as his legs, which +he now permitted to convey him with decisive firmness through the wild +aloes and oleanders to the summit of the tumulus. He stood before Dion, +holding his crooked staff tightly in his right hand, but his large dark +eyes were directed upwards. Evidently his attention was not to be +given to Dion. His dog, on the contrary, after a stare and two muffled +attempts at a menacing bark, came to make friends with Dion in a way +devoid of all dignity, full of curves, wrigglings, tail waggings and +grins which exposed rows of smiling teeth. + +“Dion!” came Rosamund’s voice from above. + +“Yes?” + +“Do show him the way up. He wants to come up.” + +Dion got up, took the little Greek’s hand firmly, led him to the foot +of the ladder, and pointed to Rosamund who leaned from her brushwood +chamber and held out inviting hands, smiling, and looking at the child +with shining eyes. He understood that he was very much wanted, gravely +placed his staff on the ground, laid hold of the ladder, and slowly +clambered up, with the skirts of his coat sticking out behind him. His +dog set up a loud barking, scrambled at the ladder, and made desperate +efforts to follow him. + +“Help him up, Dion!” came the commanding voice from above. + +Dion seized the curly coat of the dog--picked up handfuls of dog. There +was a struggle. The dog made fierce motions as if swimming, and whined +in a thin and desperate soprano. Its body heaved upwards, its forepaws +clutched the edge of the brushwood floor, and it arrived. + +“Bravo!” cried Rosamund, as she proceeded to settle down with her +guests. “But why don’t I know Greek?” + +“It doesn’t matter,” Dion murmured, standing with his hands on the +ladder. “You know their language.” + +Rosamund was sitting now, half-curled up, with her back against the +brushwood wall. Her light sun-helmet lay on the floor. In her ruffled +hair were caught two or three thin brown leaves, their brittle edges +curled inwards. The little boy, slightly smiling, yet essentially +serious, as are children tested by a great new experience, squatted +close to her and facing her, with one leg under him, the other leg +stretched out confidentially, as much as to say, “Here it is!” The dog +lay close by panting, smiling, showing as much tongue and teeth as +was caninely possible in the ardor of feeling tremendously uplifted, +important, one of the very few. + +And Rosamund proceeded to entertain her guests. + +What did she do? Sometimes, long afterwards in England, Dion, recalling +that day--a very memorable day in his life--asked himself the question. +And he could never remember very much. But he knew that Rosamund showed +him new aspects of tenderness and fun. What do women who love and +understand little boys do to put them at their ease, to break down their +small shynesses? Rosamund did absurd things with deep earnestness and +complete concentration. She invented games, played with twigs and straws +which she drew from the walls of her chamber. She changed the dog’s +appearance by rearrangements of his ears, to which he submitted with +a slobbering ecstasy, gazing at her with yellow eyes which looked +flattened in his head. Turned quite back, their pink insides exposed +to view, the ears changed him into a brand-new dog, at which his master +stared with an amazement which soon was merged in gratification. With a +pocket-handkerchief she performed marvels of impersonation which the boy +watched with an almost severe intentness, even putting out his tongue +slowly, and developing a slight squint, when the magician rose to the +top of her powers. She conjured with a silver coin, and of course let +the child play with her watch. She had realized at a glance that those +things which would be considered as baby nonsense by an English boy of +ten, to this small dweller on the plain of Marathon were full of the +magic of the unknown. And at last: + +“Throw me up an orange, Dion!” she cried. “I know there are two or three +left in the pannier.” + +Dion bent down eagerly, rummaged and found an orange. + +“Here!” he said. “Catch!” + +He threw it up. She caught it with elaboration to astonish the boy. + +“What are you going to do?” asked Dion. + +“Throw me up your pocket-knife and you’ll see.” + +Again he threw and she caught, while the boy’s mouth gaped. + +“Now then!” cried Rosamund. + +She set to work, and almost directly had introduced her astounded guest +of the Greek kingdom to the famous “Crossing the Channel” tragedy. + +So great was the effect of this upon little Miltiades,--so they both +always called the boy when talking of him in after times,--that he began +to perspire, and drops of saliva fell from the corners of his small and +pouting mouth in imitation of the dreadfully human orange by which he +was confronted. Thereupon Rosamund threw off all ceremony and frankly +played the mother. She drew the boy, smiling, sideways to her, wiped his +mouth with her handkerchief, gently blew his small nose and gave him a +warm kiss. + +“There!” she said. + +And upon this the child made a remark. + +Neither of them ever knew what it meant. It was long, and sounded +like an explanation. Having spoken, Miltiades suddenly looked shy. He +wriggled towards the top of the ladder. Dion thought that Rosamund would +try to stop him from leaving her, but she did not. On the contrary, +she drew up her legs and made way for him, carefully. The child deftly +descended, picked up his staff and turned. The dog, barking joyously, +had leaped after him, and now gamboled around him. For a moment the +child hesitated, and in that moment Dion popped the remains of their +lunch into his coat pockets; then slowly he walked to the side of the +tumulus by which he had come up. There he stood for two or three minutes +staring once more up at Rosamund. She waved a friendly hand to him, +boyishly, Dion thought. He smiled cautiously, then confidentially, +suddenly turned and bolted down the slope uttering little cries--and so +away once more to the far-off cattle on the old battlefield, followed by +his curly dog. + +When Dion had watched him into the distance, beyond which lay the +shining glory of the sea, and looked up to Rosamund again, she was +pulling the little dry leaves from her undulating hair. + +“I’m all brushwood,” she said, “and I love it.” + +“So do I.” + +“I ought to have been born a shepherdess. Why do you look at me like +that?” + +“Perhaps because I’m seeing a new girl who’s got even more woman in her +than I knew till to-day.” + +“Most women are like that, Dion, when they get the chance.” + +“To think you knew all those tricks and never told me!” + +“Help me down.” + +He stretched out his arms to her. When she was on the ground he still +held her for a moment. + +“You darling!” he whispered. “Never shall I forget this day at Marathon, +the shining, the child, and you--you!” + +They did not talk much on the long ride homeward. The heat was great, +but they were not afraid of it, for the shining fires of this land on +the edge of the east cherished and did not burn them. The white dust lay +deep on the road, and flew in light clouds from under the feet of their +horses as they rode slowly upwards, leaving the blue of their pastoral +behind them, and coming into the yellow of the pine woods. Later, as +they drew nearer to Athens, the ancient groves of the olives, touched +with a gentle solemnity, would give them greeting; the fig trees and +mulberry trees would be about them, and the long vineyards watched over +by the aristocratic cypress lifting its dark spire to the sun. But now +the kingdom of the pine trees joyously held them. They were in the happy +woods in which even to breathe was sheer happiness. Now and then they +pulled up and looked back to the crescent-shaped plain which held a +child instead of armies. They traced the course of the river marked +out by the reeds and sedges. They saw the tiny dark specks, which were +cattle grazing, with the wonder of blue beyond them. In these moments, +half-unconsciously, they were telling memory to lay in its provision +for the future. Perhaps they would never come back; never again would +Rosamund rest in her brushwood chamber, never again would Dion hear the +dry music above him, and feel the growth of his love, the urgency of +its progress just as he had felt them that day. They might be intensely +happy, but exactly the same happiness would probably not be theirs again +through all the years that were coming. The little boy and his dog had +doubtless gone out of their lives for ever. Their good-by to Marathon +might well be final. They looked back again and again, till the blue +of the sea was lost to them. Then they rode on, faster. The horses +knew they were going homeward, and showed a new liveliness, sharing the +friskiness of the little graceful trees about them. Now and then the +riders saw some dusty peasants--brown and sun-dried men wearing the +fustanella, and shoes with turned-up toes ornamented with big black +tassels; women with dingy handkerchiefs tied over their heads; +children who looked almost like the spawn of the sun in their healthy, +bright-eyed brownness. And these people had cheerful faces. Their rustic +lot seemed enviable. Who would not shed his sorrows under these pine +trees, in the country where the solitudes radiated happiness, and even +bareness was like music? Here was none of the heavy and exotic passion, +none of the lustrous and almost morbid romance of the true and distant +East, drowsy with voluptuous memories. That setting was not for +Rosamund. Here were a lightness, a purity and sweetness of Arcadia, and +people who looked both intelligent and simple. + +At a turn of the road they met some Vlachs--rascally wanderers, lean as +greyhounds, chicken-stealers and robbers in the night, yet with a sort +of consecration of careless cheerfulness upon them. They called out. +In their cries there was the sound of a lively malice. Their brown feet +stirred up the dust and set it dancing in the sunshine, a symbol surely +of their wayward, unfettered spirits. A little way off, on a slope among +the trees, their dark tents could be partially seen. + +“Lucky beggars!” murmured Dion, as he threw them a few small coins, +while Rosamund smiled at them and waved her hand in answer to their +greetings. “I believe it’s the ideal life to dwell in the tents.” + +“It seems so to-day.” + +“Won’t it to-morrow? Won’t it when we are in London?” + +“Perhaps more than ever then.” + +Was she gently evading an answer? They had reached the brow of the hill +and put their horses to a canter. The white dust settled over them. They +were like millers on horseback as they left the pine woods behind them. +But the touch of the dust was as the touch of nature upon their faces +and hands. They would not have been free of it as they rode towards +Athens, and came to the region of the vineyards, of the olive groves and +the cypresses. Now and then they passed ramshackle cafes made of boards +roughly nailed together anyhow, with a straggle of vine sprawling over +them, and the earth for a flooring. Tables were set out before them, +or in their shadows; a few bottles were visible within; on benches or +stools were grouped Greeks, old and young, busily talking, no doubt +about politics. Carts occasionally passed by the riders, sending out +dust to mingle with theirs. Turkeys gobbled at them, dogs barked in +front of one-storied houses. They saw peasants sitting sideways on +pattering donkeys, and now and then a man on horseback. By thin runlets +of water were women, chattering as they washed the clothes of their +households. Then again, the horses came into the bright and solitary +places where the cheerful loneliness of Greece held sway. + +And so, at last they cantered into the outskirts of Athens when the +evening was falling. Another day had slipped from them. But both felt it +was a day which they had known very well, had realized with an unusual +fulness. + +“It’s been a day of days!” Dion said that evening. + +And Rosamund nodded assent. + +A child had been in that day, and, with a child’s irresistible might, +had altered everything for them. Now Dion knew how Rosamund would be +with a child of her own, and Rosamund knew that Dion loved her more +deeply because he had seen her with a child. A little messenger had +come to them over the sun-dried plain of Marathon bearing a gift of +knowledge. + +The next day they spent quietly. In the morning they visited the +National Museum, and in the late afternoon they returned to the +Acropolis. + +In the Museum Rosamund was fascinated by the tombs. She, who always +seemed so remote from sorrow, who, to Dion, was the personification of +vitality and joyousness, was deeply moved by the record of death, by +the wonderfully restrained, and yet wonderfully frank, suggestion of the +grief of those who, centuries ago, had mingled their dust with the dust +of the relations, the lovers, the friends, whom they had mourned for. + +“What a lesson this is for me!” she murmured at last, after standing for +a long while wrapped in silence and contemplation. + +“Why for you, specially?” he asked. + +She looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes. He believed she +was hesitating, undecided whether to let him into a new chamber of her +being, or whether to close a half-opened door against him. + +“It’s very difficult to submit, I think, for some of us,” she answered, +after a pause, slowly. “Those old Greeks must have known how to do it.” + +“To submit to sorrow?” + +“Yes, to a great sorrow. Such a thing is like an attack in the dark. If +I am attacked I want to strike back and hurt.” + +“But whom could you reasonably hurt on account of a death that came in +the course of nature? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” + +“Yes.” + +After a slight hesitation she said: + +“Do you mean that you don’t think we can hurt God?” + +“I wonder,” Dion answered. + +“I don’t. I know we can.” + +She looked again at the tomb before which they were standing. It showed +a woman seated and stretching out her right arm, which a woman friend +was touching. In the background was another, contemplative, woman and +a man wearing a chaplet of leaves, his hand lifted to his face. For +epitaph there was one word cut in marble. + +“It means farewell, doesn’t it?” asked Rosamund. + +“Yes.” + +“Perhaps you’ll smile, but I think these tombs are the most beautiful +things I have seen in Greece. It’s a miracle--their lack of violence. +What a noble thing grief could be. That little simple word. It’s great +to be able to give up the dearest thing with that one little word. But I +couldn’t--I couldn’t.” + +“How do you know?” + +“I know, because I didn’t.” + +She said nothing more on the subject that morning, but when they were +on the Acropolis waiting, as so often before, for the approach of the +evening, she returned to it. Evidently it was haunting her that day. + +“I believe giving up nobly is a much finer thing than attaining nobly,” + she said. “And yet attaining wins all the applause, and giving up, if it +gets anything, only gets that ugly thing--pity.” + +“But is pity an ugly thing?” said Dion. + +He had a little stone in his hand, and, as he spoke, he threw it gently +towards the precipice, taking care not to send it over the edge. + +“I think I would rather have anything on earth from people than their +pity.” + +“Suppose I were to pity you because I loved you?” + +He picked up another stone and held it in his hand. + +“I should hate it.” + +He had lifted his hand for the throw, but he kept hold of the stone. + +“What, pity that came straight out of love?” + +“Any sort of pity.” + +“You must be very proud--much prouder than I am then. If I were unhappy +I should wish to have pity from you.” + +“Perhaps you have never been really unhappy.” + +Dion laid the stone down. He thought hard for a moment. + +“Without any hope at all of a change back to happiness--no, actually I +never have.” + +“Ah, then you’ve never had to brace up and see if you could find a +strong voice to utter your ‘farewell’!” + +She spoke with firmness, a firmness that rang like true metal struck +with a hammer and giving back sincerity. + +“That sounds tremendously Doric,” he said. + +His lips were smiling, but there was an almost surprised expression in +his eyes. + +“Dion, do you know you’re intuitive to-day?” + +“Ah, your training--your training!” + +“Didn’t you say we should have to be Doric ourselves if----?” + +“Come, Rosamund, it’s time for the Parthenon.” + +Once more they went over the uneven ground to stand before its solemn +splendor. + +“Shall we have learnt before we go?” said Dion. + +“It’s strange, but I think the tombs teach me more. They’re more within +my reach. This is so tremendous that it’s remote. Perhaps a man, or--or +a boy----” + +She looked at him. + +“A boy?” + +“Yes.” + +He drew her down. She clasped her hands, that looked to him so capable +and so pure, round her knees. + +“A boy? Go on, Rose.” + +“He might learn his lesson here, with a man to help him. The Parthenon’s +tremendously masculine. Perhaps women have to learn from the gentleness +of those dear tombs.” + +Never before had she seemed to him so soft, so utterly soft of nature. + +“You’ve been thinking a great deal to-day of our boy, haven’t you?” he +said. + +“Yes.” + +“Suppose we did have a boy and lost him?” + +“Lost him?” + +Her voice sounded suddenly almost hostile. + +“Such a thing has happened to parents. It might happen to us.” + +“I don’t believe it would happen to me,” Rosamund said, with a sort of +curious, almost cold decision. + +“But why not?” + +“What made you think of such a thing?” + +“I don’t know. Perhaps it was because of what you said this morning +about grief, and then about bracing up and finding a firm voice to utter +one’s ‘farewell.’” + +“You don’t understand what a woman would feel who lost her child.” + +“Are you sure that you do?” + +“Partly. Quite enough to----Don’t let us speak about it any more.” + +“No. There’s nothing more futile than imagining horrors that are never +coming upon us.” + +“I never do it,” she said, with resolute cheerfulness. “But we shall +very soon have to say one ‘farewell.’” + +“To the Parthenon?” + +“Yes.” + +“Say it to-night!” + +She turned round to face him. + +“To-night? Why?” + +“For a little while.” + +A sudden happy idea had come to him. A shadow had fallen over her for +a moment. He wanted to drive it away, to set her again in the full +sunshine for which she was born, and in which, if he could have his +will, she should always dwell. + +“You wanted to take me away somewhere.” + +“Yes. You must see a little more of Greece before we go home. Say your +‘farewell,’ Rosamund.” + +She did not know what was in his mind, but she obeyed him, and, looking +up at the great marble columns, glowing with honey-color and gold in the +afternoon light, she murmured: + +“Farewell.” + +On the following day they left Athens and set out on the journey to +Olympia. + + + +CHAPTER V + +“Why are you bringing me to Olympia?” + +That question, unuttered by her lips, was often in Rosamund’s eyes as +they drew near to the green wilds of Elis. Of course they had always +meant to visit Olympia before they sailed away to England, but she knew +very well that Dion had some special purpose in his mind, and that it +was closely connected with his great love of her. She had understood +that on the Acropolis, and her “farewell” had been an act of submission +to his will not wholly unselfish. Her curiosity was awake. + +What was the secret of Olympia? + +They had gone by train to Patras, slept there, and thence rode +on horseback to Pyrgos through the vast vineyards of the +Peloponnesus--vineyards that stretched down to the sea and were dotted +with sentinel cypresses. The heat was much greater than it had been in +Athens. Enormous aloes hedged gardens from which came scents that seemed +warm. The sandy soil, turned up by the horses’ feet, was hot to the +touch. The air quivered, and was shot with a music of insects faint but +pervasive. + +Pyrgos was suffocating and noisy, but Rosamund was amused by democracy +at close quarters, showing its naked love of liberty. Her strong +humanity rose to the occasion, and she gave herself with a smiling +willingness to the streets, in which men, women, children and animals, +with lungs of leather, sent forth their ultimate music. Nevertheless, +she was glad when she and Dion set out again, and followed the banks of +the Alpheus, leaving the cries of the city behind them. It seemed to her +that they were traveling to some hidden treasure, secluded in the folds +of a green valley where the feet of men seldom, if ever, came. Dion’s +eyes told her that they were drawing nearer and nearer to the secret he +knew of, and was going to reveal to her. She often caught him looking +at her with an almost boyish expression of loving anticipation; and more +than once he laughed happily when he saw her question, but he would not +give her an answer. + +Peasants worked in the vineyards, shoulder-high in the plants, brown and +sweating in the glare. Swarthy children, with intelligent eyes, often +with delicate noses, and those pouting lips which are characteristic of +many Greek statues, ran to stare at them, and sometimes followed them a +little way, but without asking for alms. Then the solitudes took them, +and they wound on and on, with their guide as their only companion. + +He was a gentle, even languid-looking youth, called Nicholas Agathoulos, +who was a native of Patras, but who had lived a good deal in Athens, +who spoke a few words of English and French, and who professed a deep +passion for Lord Byron. Nicholas rode on a mule, leading, or not leading +as the case might be--for he was a charmingly careless person--a +second mule on which was fastened Rosamund’s and Dion’s scanty luggage. +Rosamund, like a born vagabond, was content to travel in this glorious +climate with scarcely any impedimenta. When Nicholas was looked at he +smiled peacefully under his quiet and unpretending black mustache. When +he was not looked at he seemed to sleep with open eyes. He never sang +or whistled, had no music at all in him; but he could quote stanzas from +“Don Juan” in Greek, and, when he did that, he woke up, sparks of fire +glowed in his eyes, and his employers realized that he shared to the +full the patriotism of his countrymen. + +Did he know the secret of Olympia which Dion was concealing so +carefully, and enjoying so much, as the little train of pilgrims wound +onwards among fruit trees and shrubs of arbutus, penetrating farther and +ever farther into a region sweet and remote? Of course he must know it. + +“I shall ask Nicholas,” Rosamund said once to Dion, perversely. + +“What?” + +“You know perfectly well what.” + +His face was a map of innocence as he touched his thin horse with the +whip and rode forward a little faster. + +“What is there to see at Olympia, Nicholas?” she said, speaking rather +loudly in order that Dion might hear. + +Nicholas woke up, and hastily, in a melodious voice, quoted some scraps +of guide-book. Rosamund did not find what she wanted among them. She +knew already about the ruins, about the Nike of Paeonius and the Hermes +of Praxiteles. So she left the young Greek to his waking dream, and +possessed her soul in a patience that was not difficult. She liked to +dwell in anticipation. And she felt that any secret this land was about +to reveal to her would be, must be, beautiful. She trusted Greece. + +“We aren’t far off now,” said Dion presently, as they rode up the +valley--a valley secluded from the world, pastoral and remote, shaded by +Judas trees. + +“How peaceful and lovely it is.” + +“And full of the echoes of the Pagan feet which once trod here.” + +“I don’t hear them,” said Rosamund, “and I am listening.” + +“Perhaps you could never hear Pagan echoes. And yet you love Greece.” + +“Yes. But I have nothing Pagan in me. I know that.” + +“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You are the ideal woman to be in Greece +with. If I don’t come back to Greece with you, I shall never come back.” + +They rode on. Her horse was following his along the windings of the +river. Presently she said: + +“Where are we going to sleep? Surely there isn’t a possible inn in +this remoteness?--or have they build one for travelers who come here in +winter and spring?” + +“Our inn will be a little above Olympia.” + +The green valley seemed closing about them, as if anxious to take them +to itself, to keep them in its closest intimacy, with a gentle jealousy. +Rosamund had a sensation, almost voluptuous, of yielding to the pastoral +greenness, to the warm stillness, to the hush of the delicate wilds. + +“Elis! Elis!” she whispered to herself. “I am riding up into Elis, where +once the processions passed to the games, where Nero built himself a +mansion. And there’s a secret here for me.” + +Then suddenly there came into her mind the words in the “Paradiso” which +she had been dreaming over in London on the foggy day when Dion had +asked her to marry him. + +The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence from warm love and living hope +which conquereth the Divine will. + +It was strange that the words should come to her just then. She could +not think why they came. But, repeating them to herself, she felt how +very far off she was from Paganism. Yet she had within her warm love +surely and living hope. Could such things, as they were within her, ever +do violence to the Kingdom of Heaven? She looked between her horse’s +perpetually moving ears at the hollow athletic back of her young +husband. If she had not married she would have given rein to deep +impulses within her which now would never be indulged. They would not +have led her to Greece. If she had been governed by them she would never +have been drawn on by the secret of Olympia. How strange it was that, +within the compass of one human being, should be contained two widely +differing characters. Well, she had chosen, and henceforth she must live +according to the choice she had made. But how would she have been in +the other life of which she had dreamed so often, and so deeply, in her +hours of solitude? She would never know that. She had chosen the warm +love and the living hope, but the Kingdom of Heaven should never suffer +violence from anything she had chosen. There are doubtless many ways of +consecrating a life, of rendering service. + +They came into a scattered and dingy hamlet. Hills rose about it, but +the narrowing valley still wound on. + +“We are close to the ruins,” said Dion. + +“Already! Where are we going to sleep?” + +“Up there!” + +He pointed to a steep hill that was set sheer above the valley. + +“Go on with the mules, Nicholas.” + +Nicholas rode on, smiling. + +“What’s that building on the hump?” + +“The Museum.” + +“I wonder why they put the inn so far away.” + +“It isn’t really very far, not many minutes from here. But the way’s +pretty steep. Now then, Rosamund!” + +They set their horses to the task. Nicholas and the mules were out of +sight. A bend of the little track had hidden them. + +“Why, there’s a village up here!” said Rosamund, as they came to a +small collection of houses with yards and rough gardens and scattered +outbuildings. + +“Yes--Drouva. Our inn is just beyond it, but quite separated from it.” + +“I’m glad of that. They don’t bother very much about cleanliness here, I +should think.” + +He was smiling at her now. His lips were twitching under his mustache, +and his eyes seemed trying not to tell something to her. + +“Surely the secret isn’t up here?” + +He shook his head, still smiling, almost laughing. + +They were now beyond the village, and emerged on a plateau of rough +short grass which seemed to dominate the world. + +“This is the top of the hill of Drouva,” said Dion, with a ring of joy, +and almost of pride, in his voice. “And there’s our inn, the Inn of +Drouva.” + +Rosamund pulled up her horse. She did not say a word. She just looked, +while her horse lowered his head and sniffed the air in through his +twitching nostrils. Then he sent forth a quivering neigh, his welcome to +the Inn of Drouva. The view was immense, but Rosamund was not looking +at it. A small dark object not far off in the foreground of this great +picture held her eyes. For the moment she saw little or nothing else. + +She saw a dark, peaked tent pitched in the middle of the plateau. Smoke +from a fire curled up behind it. Two or three figures moved near it. +Beyond, Nicholas was unloading the mules. + +She dropped the cord by which she had been guiding her horse and slipped +down to the ground. Her legs were rather stiff from riding. She held on +to the saddle for a moment. + +“A camp?” she said at last. + +Dion was beside her. + +“An awfully rough one.” + +“How jolly!” + +She said the words almost solemnly. + +“Dion, you are a brick!” she added, after a pause. “I’ve never stayed in +camp before. A real brick! But you always are.” + +“Aren’t you coming into the camp?” + +She put her hand on his arm and kept him back. + +“No--wait! What did you mean by shaking your head when I asked you if +the secret was up here?” + +“This isn’t the real secret. It wasn’t because of this that I asked you +suddenly on the Acropolis to say ‘farewell’ to the Parthenon.” + +“There’s another secret?” + +“There’s another reason, the real reason, why I hurried you to Olympia. +But I’m going to let you find it out for yourself. I shan’t tell you +anything.” + +“But how shall I know when----?” + +“You will know.” + +“To-day?” + +“Don’t you think we might stay on our hill-top till to-morrow?” + +“Yes, all right. It’s glorious here; I won’t be impatient. But how could +you manage to get the tent here before we came?” + +“We’ve been two nights on the way, Patras and Pyrgos. That gave plenty +of time to the magician to work the spell. Come along.” + +This time she did not hold him back. Her eagerness was as great as his. +Certainly it was a very ordinary camp, scarcely, in fact, a camp at all. +The tent was small and of the roughest kind, but there were two neat +little camp-beds within it, with their toes planted on the short dry +grass. In the iron washhand stand were a shining white basin and a jug +filled with clear water. There was a cake of remarkable pink soap with a +strange and piercing scent; there was a “tooth glass”; there was a straw +mat. + +“What isn’t there?” cried Rosamund, who was almost as delighted as a +child. + +A grave and very handsome gentleman from Athens, Achilles Stavros +by name, received her congratulations with a classical smile of +satisfaction. + +“He’s even got a genuine Greek nose for the occasion!” Rosamund said +delightedly to Dion, when Achilles retired for a moment to give some +instructions about tea to the cook. “Where did you find him?” + +“That’s my secret.” + +“I never realised how delicious a camp was before. My wildest dreams are +surpassed.” + +As they looked at the two small, hard chairs with straw bottoms which +were solemnly set out side by side facing the view, and upon which +Achilles expected them to sink voluptuously for the ritual of tea, they +broke into laughter at Rosamund’s exaggerated expressions of +delight. But directly she was able to stop laughing she affirmed with +determination: + +“I don’t care what anybody says, or thinks; I repeat it”--she glanced +from the straw mat to the cake of anemic pink soap--“my wildest dreams +are surpassed. To think”--she spread out her hands--“only to think of +finding a tooth glass here! It’s--it’s admirable!” + +She turned upon him an almost fanatical eye, daring contradiction; and +they both laughed again, long and loud like two children who, suddenly +aware of a keen physical pleasure, prolong it beyond all reasonable +bounds. + +“What are we going to have for tea?” she asked. + +“Tea,” Dion cried. + +“You ridiculous creature!” + +From a short distance, Achilles gazed upon the merriment of theses +newly-married English travelers. Nobody had told him they were newly +married; he just knew it, had known it at a glance. As he watched, the +laughter presently died away, and he saw the two walk forward to the +edge of the small plateau, then stand still to gaze at the view. + +The prospect from the hill of Drouva above Olympia is very great, and +all Rosamund’s inclination to merriment died out of her as she looked +upon it. Even her joy in the camp was forgotten for a moment. + +Upon their plateau, sole guests of the bareness, stood two small olive +trees, not distorted by winds. Rosamund leaned against one of them +as she gazed, put her arms round it with a sort of affectionate +carelessness that was half-protective, that seemed to say, “You dear +little tree! How nice of you to be here. But you almost want taking care +of.” Then the tree was forgotten, and the Hellenic beauty reigned over +her spirit, as she gazed upon the immense pastoral bounded by mountains +and the sea; a green wilderness threaded by a serpentine river of +silver--a far-flung river which lingered on its way, journeying hither +and thither, making great curves as if it loved the wilderness +and wished to know it well, to know all of it before being merged +irrevocably with the sea. + +“Those are the valleys of the Kladeos and the Alpheios.” + +“Yes.” + +“And that far-off Isle is the Island of Zante.” + +“Of Zante,” she repeated. + +After a long pause she said: + +“You know those words somewhere in the Bible--‘the wilderness and the +solitary places’?” + +“Yes.” + +“I’ve always loved them, just those words. Even when I was quite a +child I liked to say them. And I remember once, when I was staying at +Sherrington, we drove over to the cathedral. Canon Wilton took us into +the stalls. It was a week-day and there were very few people. The anthem +was Wesley’s ‘The Wilderness.’ I had never heard it before, and when I +heard those words--my words--being sung, I had such a queer thrill. I +wanted to cry and I was startled. To most people, I suppose, the word +wilderness suggests something dreary and parched, ugly desolation.” + +“Yes. The scapegoat was driven out into the wilderness.” + +“I think I’d rather take _my_ sin into the wilderness than anywhere +else. Purification might be found there.” + +“_Your_ sin!” he said. “As if----” He was silent. + +Zante seemed sleeping in the distance of the Ionian Sea, far away as +the dream from which one has waked, touched with a dream’s mystic +remoteness. The great plain, stretching to mountains and sea, vast and +green and lonely--but with the loneliness that smiles, desiring nothing +else--seemed uninhabited. Perhaps there were men in it, laboring among +the vineyards or toiling among the crops, women bending over the earth +by which they lived, or washing clothes on the banks of the river. +Rosamund did not look for them and did not see them. In the green +landscape, over which from a distance the mountains kept their quiet and +deeply reserved watch, she detected no movement. Even the silver of +the river seemed immobile, as if its journeyings were now stilled by an +afternoon spell. + +“It’s as empty as the plain of Marathon, but how much greater!” she said +at last. + +“At Marathon there was the child.” + +“Yes, and here there’s not even a child.” + +She sighed. + +“I wonder what one would learn to be if one lived on the hill of +Drouva?” she said. + +“It will be much more beautiful at sunset. We are looking due west. Soon +we shall have the moon rising behind us.” + +“What memories I shall carry away!” + +“And I.” + +“You were here before alone?” + +“Yes. I walked up from the village just before sunset after a long day +among the ruins. I--I didn’t know then of your existence. That seems +strange.” + +But she was gazing at the view, and now with an earnestness in which +there seemed to him to be a hint of effort, as if she were, perhaps, +urging imagination to take her away and to make her one with that on +which she looked. It struck him just then that, since they had been +married, she had changed a good deal, or developed. A new dreaminess had +been added to her power and her buoyancy which, at times, made her very +different from the radiant girl he had won. + +“The Island of Zante!” she said once more, with a last look at the sea, +as they turned away in answer to the grave summons of Achilles. “Ah, +what those miss who never travel!” + +“And yet I remember your saying once that you had very little of the +normal in you, and even something about the cat’s instinct.” + +“Probably I meant the cat’s instinct to say nasty things. Every woman--” + +“No, what you meant--” + +He began actually to explain, but her “Puss, Puss, Puss!” stopped him. +Her dream was over and her laugh rang out infectiously as they returned +to the tent. + +The tea was fairly bad, but she defended its merits with energy, and +munched biscuits with an excellent appetite. Afterwards she smoked a +cigarette and Dion his pipe, sitting on the ground and leaning against +the tent wall. In vain Achilles drew her attention to the chairs. +Rosamund stretched out her long limbs luxuriously and shook her head. + +“I’m not a school-teacher, Achilles,” she said. + +And Dion had to explain what she meant perhaps--only perhaps, for he +wasn’t sure about it himself,--to that classical personage. + +“These chairs fight against the whole thing,” she said, when Achilles +was gone. + +“I’ll hide them,” said Dion. + +He was up in a moment, caught hold of the chairs, gripping one in each +hand, and marched off with them. When he came back Rosamund was no +longer sitting on the ground by the tent wall. She had slipped away. He +looked round. She must have gone beyond the brow of the hill, for she +was not on the plateau. He hesitated, pulling hard at his pipe. He knew +her curious independence, knew that sometimes she wanted to be alone. +No doubt she had gone to look at the great view from some hidden place. +Well, then, he ought not to try to find her, he ought to respect her +wish to be by herself. But this evening it hurt him. As he stood there +he felt wounded, for he remembered telling her that the great view would +be much more beautiful at sunset when the moon would be rising behind +them. The implication of course had been, “Wait a little and I’ll +show you.” It was he who had chosen the place for the camp, he who had +prepared the surprise. Perhaps foolishly, he had thought of the whole +thing, even of the plain, the river, the mountains, the sea and the +Island of Zante, as a sort of possession which he was going gloriously +to share with her. And now----! He felt deprived, almost wronged. The +sky was changing. He turned and looked to the east. Above Olympia, in +a clear and tremulous sky, a great silver moon was rising. It was his +hour, and she had hidden herself. + +Again, at that moment, Dion felt almost afraid of his love. + +His pipe had gone out. He took it from his lips, bent, and knocked out +the tobacco against the heel of his boot. He was horribly disappointed, +but he was not going to search for Rosamund; nor was he ever going to +let her know of his disappointment. Perhaps by concealing it he would +kill it. He thrust his pipe into his pocket, hesitated, then walked a +little way from the camp and sat down on the side of the hill. What rot +it was his always wanting to share everything now. Till he met Rosamund +he had always thought only women could never be happy unless they shared +their pleasures, and preferably with a man. Love apparently could +play the very devil, bridge the gulf between sexes, make a man who was +thoroughly masculine in all his tastes and habits have “little feelings” + which belonged properly only to women. + +Doric! Suddenly the word jumped up in his mind, and a vision of the +Parthenon columns rose before his imagination, sternly glorious, almost +with the strength of a menace. He set his teeth together and cursed +himself for a fool and a backslider. + +Rosamund and he were to be Doric. Well, this evening he didn’t know +exactly what he was, but he certainly was not Doric. + +Just then he heard the sound of a shot. He did not know what direction +it came from, but, fantastically enough, it seemed to be a comment on +his thought, a brusk, decisive exclamation flung at him from out of the +silent evening. “Sentimentalist! Take that, and get out of your mush +of feeling!” As he recognized it--he now forced himself to that +sticking-point--to be a mush, the shot’s comment fell in, of course, +with his own view of the matter. + +He sat still for a moment, thinking of the shot, and probably expecting +it to be repeated. It was not repeated. A great silence prevailed, the +silence of the Hellenic wild held in the hand of evening. And abruptly, +perhaps, from that large and pervasive silence, Dion caught a coldness +of fear. All his perceptions rushed upon him, an acute crowd. He sprang +up, put his hand to his revolver. Rosamund out alone somewhere in the +loneliness of Greece--evening--a shot! + +He was over the brow of the hill towards the west in a moment. All +respect for Rosamund’s evening whim, all remembrance of his own proper +pride, was gone from him. + +“Rosamund!” he called; “Rosamund!” + +“Here!” replied her strong voice from somewhere a little way below him. + +And he saw her standing on the hillside and looking downwards. He thrust +his revolver back into his pocket quickly. Already his pride was pushing +its head up again. He stood still, looking down on her. + +“It’s all right, it is?” + +This time she lifted her head and turned her face up to him. + +“All right?” + +“I heard a shot.” + +He saw laughter dawning in her face. + +“You don’t mean to say----?” + +She laughed frankly. + +“Come down here!” + +He joined her. + +“What was it?” + +“Did you, or didn’t you, think I’d been attacked by Greek brigands?” + +“Of course not! But I heard a shot, and it just struck me----” + +At that moment he was almost ashamed of loving her so much. + +“Well, there’s the brigand, and I do believe he’s going to shoot again. +The ruffian! Yes, he’s taking aim! Oh, Dion, let’s seek cover.” + +Still laughing, she shrank against him. He put one arm round her +shoulder bruskly, and his hand closed on her tightly. A little way below +them, relieved with a strange and romantic distinctness against the +evening light, in which now there was a strong suggestion of gold, was +a small figure, straight, active--a figure of the open air and the wide +spaces--with a gun to its right shoulder. A shot rang out. + +“He’s got it,” said Rosamund. + +And there was a note of admiring praise in her voice. + +“That child’s a dead shot,” she added. “It’s quail he’s after, I +believe. Look! He’s picking it up.” + +The small black figure bent quickly down, after running forward a little +way. + +“He retrieves as well as he shoots. Shall we go to him and see whether +it’s quail?” + +“Another child,” said Dion. + +He still had his arm round her shoulder. + +“Why did you come here?” he asked. + +“To look at the evening coming to me over the wilderness. But he made me +forget it for a moment.” + +Dion was staring at her now. + +“I believe a child could make you forget anything,” he said. + +“Let’s go to him.” + +The gold of the evening was strengthening and deepening. The vast view, +which was the background to the child’s little figure, was losing its +robe of green and of blue, green of the land, blue of the sea, was +putting on velvety darkness and gold. The serpentine river was a long +band of gold flung out, as if by a careless enchanter, towards the +golden sea in which Zante was dreaming. Remote and immense this land +had seemed in the full daytime, a tremendous pastoral deserted by +men, sufficient to itself and existing only for its own beauty. Now it +existed for a child. The human element had caused nature, as it were, +to recede, to take the second place. A child, bending down to pick up a +shot quail, then straightening up victoriously, held the vast panorama +in submission, as if he had quietly given out the order, “Make me +significant.” And Rosamund, who had stolen away to meet the evening, was +now only intent on knowing whether the shot bird was a quail or not. + +It was a quail, and a fat one. + +When they came to the boy they found him a barefooted urchin, with +tattered coarse clothes and densely thick, uncovered black hair growing +down almost to his fiery young eyes, which stared at them proudly. There +was a wild look in those eyes never to be found in the eyes of a dweller +in cities, a wild grace in his figure, and a complete self-possession in +his whole bearing. The quail just shot he had in his hand. Another was +stuffed into the large pocket of his jacket. He pulled it out and showed +it to them, reading at a glance the admiration in Rosamund’s eyes. Dion +held out a hand to the boy’s gun, but at this his manner changed, he +clutched it tightly, moved a step or two back, and scowled. + +“He’s a regular young savage,” said Dion. + +“I like him as he is. Besides, why should he give his gun to a stranger? +He knows nothing about us.” + +“You’re immense!” said Dion, laughing. + +“Let’s have the quail for our dinner.” + +“D’you expect him to give them to us without a stand-up fight and +probably bloodshed? For he’s armed, unfortunately!” + +“Don’t be ridiculous. Look here, Dion, you go off for a minute, and +leave him with me. I think you get on his nerves.” + +“Well, I’m----!” + +But he went. He left the two figures together, and presently saw them +both from a distance against the vastness of the gold. Bushes and +shrubs, and two or three giant pine trees, between the summit of Drouva +and the plain, showed black, and the figures of woman and child were +almost ebon. Dion watched them. He could not see any features. The +two were now like carved things which could move, and only by their +movements could they tell him anything. The gun over the boy’s shoulder +was like a long finger pointing to the west where a redness was creeping +among the gold. The great moon climbed above Drouva. Bluish-gray smoke +came from the camp-fire at a little distance. It ascended without +wavering straight up in the windless evening. Far down in the hidden +valley, behind Dion and below the small village, shadows were stealing +through quiet Elis, shadows were coming to shroud the secret that was +held in the shrine of Olympia. A slight sound of bells stole up on the +stillness from somewhere below, somewhere not far from those two ebon +figures. And this sound, suggestive of moving animals coming from +pasture to protected places for the night, put a heart in the breast of +this pastoral. Thin was the sound and delicate, fit music for Greece +in the fragile evening. As Dion listened to it, he looked at that black +finger below him pointing to the redness in the west. Then he remembered +it was a gun, and, for an instant, looking at the red, he thought of the +color of fresh blood. + +At this moment the tall figure, Rosamund, took hold of the gun, and the +two figures moved away slowly down the winding track in the hill, and +were hidden at a turning of the path. + +Almost directly a third shot rang out. The young dweller in the +wilderness was allowing Rosamund to give a taste of her skill with the +gun. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Rosamund came back to the camp that evening with Dirmikis,--so the boy +of the wilderness was called,--and five quail, three of them to her gun. +She was radiant, and indeed had an air almost of triumph. Her eyes +were sparkling, her cheeks were glowing; she looked like a beautiful +schoolgirl as she walked in over the plateau with the sunset flushing +scarlet behind her, and the big moon coming to meet her. Dirmikis, at +her side, carried the quail upside down in his brown hands. Rosamund had +the gun under her right arm. + +“It’s a capital gun,” she called out to Dion. “I got three. Here, +Dirmikis,”--she turned to the boy,--“show them.” + +“Does he understand English?” + +“No, but he understands me!” she retorted with pride. “Look there!” + +Dirmikis held up the birds, smiling a savage smile. + +“Aren’t they fat? Feel them, Dion! The three fattest ones fell to my +gun, but don’t tell _him_.” + +She sketched a delicious wink, looking about sixteen. + +“I really have a good eye,” she added, praising herself with gusto. +“It’s no use being over-modest, is it? If one has a gift, well one just +has it. Here, Dirmikis!” + +She gave his gun carefully to the barefooted child. + +“He’s a little stunner, and so chivalrous. I never met a boy I liked +more. Do give him a nice present, Dion, and let him feed in the camp if +he likes.” + +“Well, what next? What am I to give him?” + +“Nothing dressy. He isn’t a manikin, he’s a real Doric boy.” + +She slapped Dirmikis on the back with a generous hand. He smiled +radiantly, this time without any savagery. + +“The sort of boy who’ll be of some use in the world.” + +“I’ll give him a tip.” + +Rosamund seemed about to assent when an idea struck her, as she +afterwards said, “with the force of a bomb.” + +“I know what he’ll like better than anything.” + +“Well?” + +“Your revolver, to be sure!” + +“My revolver to be suren’t!” exclaimed Dion passionately, inventing a +negative. “I bought it at great cost to defend you with, not for the +endowment of a half-naked varmint from the wilderness under Drouva.” + +“Be careful, Dion; you’re insulting a Doric boy!” + +“Here--I’ll insult him with a ten-lepta piece.” + +“Don’t be mean. Bribe him thoroughly if you’re going to bribe him. We go +shooting together again to-morrow evening.” + +“Do you indeed?” + +“Yes, directly after tea. It’s all arranged. Dirmikis suggested it with +the most charming chivalry, and I gave yes for an answer. So we must +keep on good terms with him at whatever cost.” + +She cocked up her chin and walked exultantly into the tent. A minute +afterwards there rang out to the evening a warm contralto voice singing. + +Dirmikis looked at the tent and then at Dion with an air of profound +astonishment. The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not even +snatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he could +not doubt, flowed from his Amazon. His brows came down over his fiery +eyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinated +and half-suspicious. The voice died away and was followed by a sound of +pouring water. Then Dirmikis accepted two ten-lepta pieces and picked up +the quail. Dion introduced him to the cook, and it was understood that +he should be fed in the camp, and that the quail should form part of the +evening meal. + +Very good they proved to be, cooked in leaves with the addition of +some fried slices of fat ham. Rosamund exulted again as she ate them, +recognizing the birds she had shot “by the taste.” + +“This is one! Aren’t mine different from Dirmikis’s?” she exclaimed. “So +much more succulent!” + +“Naturally, you great baby!” + +“Life is glorious!” she exclaimed resonantly. “To eat one’s own bag on +the top of Drouva under the moon! Oh!” + +She looked at the moon, then bent over her plate of metal-ware which +was set on the tiny folding-table. In her joy she was exactly like a big +child. + +“I wonder how many I shall get to-morrow. I got my eye in at the very +start. Really, Dion, you know, I’m a gifted creature. It isn’t every +one----” + +And she ran on, laughing at herself, reveling in her whimsical pretense +of conceit till dinner was over. + +“Now a cigarette! Never have I enjoyed any meal so much as this! It’s +only out of doors that one gets hold of the real _joie de vivre_.” + +“You’re never without it, thank God,” returned Dion, striking a match +for her. + +So still was the evening that the flame burned steadily even upon that +height facing immensities. Rosamund leaned to it with the cigarette +between her lips. Her face was browned to the sun. She looked rather +like a splendid blonde gipsy, with loose yellow hair and the careless +eyes of those who dwell under smiling heavens. She sent out a puff of +cigarette smoke, directing it with ardor to the moon which now rode high +above them. + +“I’d like to catch up nature in my arms to-night,” she said. “Come, +Dion, let’s go a little way.” + +She was up, and put her arm through his like a comrade. He squeezed her +arm against his side and, strolling there in the night on the edge of +the hill, she talked at first with almost tumultuous energy, with an +energy as of an Amazon who cared for the things of the soul as much as +for the things of the body. To-night her body and soul seemed on the +same high level of intensity. + +At first she talked of the present, of their life in Greece and of what +it had meant to her, what it had done for her; and then, always with her +arm through Dion’s, she began to talk of the future. + +“We’ve got to go away from all this, but let us carry it with us; you +know, as one can carry things that one has really gathered up, really +got hold of. It will mean a lot to us afterwards in England, in our +regular humdrum life. Not that life’s ever humdrum. We must take Drouva +to England, and Marathon, and the view from the Acropolis, and the +columns of the Parthenon above all those, and the tombs.” + +“But they’re sad.” + +“We must take them. I’m quite sure the way to make life splendid, noble, +what it is meant to be to each of us, is to press close against +one’s heart all that is sent to one, the sorrows as well as the joys. +Everything one tries to keep at arm’s length hurts one.” + +“Sins?” + +“Sins, Dion? I said what is sent to us.” + +“Don’t you think----?” + +“Sins are never sent to us, we always have to go and fetch them. It’s +like that poor old chemist going round the corner in the fog with a jug +for what is ruining his life.” + +“What poor old chemist?” he asked. + +“A great friend of mine in London--Mr. Thrush. You shall know him some +day. Oh--but London! Now, Dion, can we, you and I, live perpetually in +London after all this?” + +“Well, dearest, I must stick close to business.” + +“I know that. And we’ve got the little house. But later on?” + +“And your singing, your traveling all over the place with a maid!” + +“I wonder if I shall. To-night I don’t feel as if I shall.” + +She stood still abruptly, and was silent for a minute. + +“Don’t you think,” she said, in a different and less exuberant voice, +and with a changed and less physical manner--“don’t you think sometimes, +in exceptional hours, one can feel what is to come, what is laid up for +one? I do. This is an exceptional hour. We are on the heights and it’s +very wonderful. Well, perhaps to-night we can feel what is coming. Let’s +try.” + +“How?” + +“Let’s just be quiet, and give ourselves up to the hill of Drouva, and +Greece, and the night, and--and what surrounds and permeates us and all +this.” + +With a big and noble gesture she indicated the sleeping world far below +them, breathless under the moon; the imperceptible valleys merged in the +great plain through which the river, silver once more, moved unsleeping +between its low-lying banks to the sea; the ranges of mountains which +held themselves apart in the night, a great company, reserved and almost +austere, yet trodden with confidence by the feet of those fairies who +haunt the ancient lands; the sea which drew down the moon as a lover +draws down his mistress; Zante riding the sea like a shadow in harbor. + +And they were silent. Dion had a sensation of consciously giving +himself, almost as a bather, to the sea. Did he feel what was coming to +him and to this girl at his side, who was part of him, and yet who was +alone, whose arm clasped his, yet whose soul dwelt far off in its own +remoteness? Would the years draw them closer and closer together, knit +them together, through greater knowledge, through custom, through shared +joys and beliefs, through common beliefs, through children, till they +were as branches growing out of one stem firmly rooted? + +He gave himself and gave himself, or tried to give himself in the +silence. Yet he could not have said truly that any mystical knowledge +came to him. Only one thing he seemed strangely to know, that they would +never have children. The sleeping world and the sea, and, as Rosamund +had said, “what surrounds and permeates us and all this” seemed to +permit him mysteriously to get at that one bit of foreknowledge. +Something seemed to say to him, “You will be the father of one child.” + And yet, when he came to think of it, he realized how probable, how +indeed almost certain it was that the silent voice issued from within +himself. Rosamund and he had talked about a child, a boy, had begun +almost to sketch out mental plans for that boy’s upbringing; they had +never talked about children. He believed that he had penetrated to the +secret of the voice. He said to himself, “All that sort of thing comes +out of one’s self. It doesn’t reach one from the outside.” And yet, when +he looked out over the world, which seemed wrapped in ethereal garments, +garments woven by spirit on looms no hand of woman or man might ever +touch, he was vaguely conscious that all within him which was of any +real value was there too. Surely he did not possess. Rather was he +possessed of. + +He looked at Rosamund at last. + +“Have you got anything?” + +But she did not answer him. There was a great stillness in her big +eyes. All the vital exuberance of body and spirit mingled together had +vanished from her abruptly. Nothing of the Amazon who had captured the +heart of Dirmikis remained. As Dion looked at her now, he simply could +not see the beautiful schoolgirl of sixteen, the blonde gipsy who had +bent forward, cigarette in mouth, to his match, who had leaned back and +blown rings to the moon above Drouva. Had she ever set the butt of a gun +against her shoulder? Something in this woman’s eyes made him suddenly +feel as if he ought to leave her alone. Yet her arm still lay on his, +and she was his. + +Against the silver of the moon the twisted trunks of the two small +olive trees showed black and significant. The red of the dying camp-fire +glowed not far from the tent. Dogs were barking in the hamlet of Drouva. +She neither saw details nor heard ugly sounds in the night. He knew +that. And the rest? It seemed to him that something of her, the spirit +of her, perhaps, or some part of it with which his had never yet had any +close contact, was awake and at work in the night. But though he held +her arm in his she was a long way from him. And there came to him this +thought: + +“I felt as if I ought to leave her alone. But she has left me alone.” + +Almost mechanically, and slowly, he straightened his arm, thus letting +hers slip. She did not seem to notice his action. She gazed out towards +Zante over a world that now looked very mystical. In the daylight it had +been a green pastoral. Now there was over it, and even surely in it, a +dim whiteness, a something pure and hushed, like the sound, remote and +curiously final, of a quiet sleeper. + +That night, when they went to bed, Rosamund was full of the delight of +a new experience. She insisted that the flap of the tent should not be +kept shut down. She had never slept in a tent before, and was resolved +to look out and see the stars from her pillow. + +“And my olive tree,” she added. + +Obediently, as soon as she was in her camp-bed, Dion lifted the flap. +A candle was still burning, set on a chair between the two beds. As the +moonlight came in, Rosamund lifted herself on one arm, leaned over and +blew it out. + +“How horrible moonlight makes candlelight,” she said. + +Dion, in his pyjamas, was outside fastening back the flap, his bare feet +on the short dry grass. + +“I can see the Pleiades!” she added earnestly. + +“There!” said Dion. + +He looked up at the sky. + +“The Pleiades, the Great Bear, Mars.” + +“Oh!” she drew in her breath. “A shooting star!” + +She pressed her lips together and half-shut her eyes. By her contracted +forehead Dion saw that she was wishing almost fiercely. He believed he +read her wish. He had not seen the traveling star, and did not try to +wish with her, lest he should cross the path of the Fates and throw his +shadow on her desire. + +He came softly into the tent which was full of the whiteness of the +moon. Sleeping thus with Rosamund in the bosom of nature was very +wonderful to him. It was like a sort of re-marriage. The moon and the +stars looking in made his relation to her quite new and more beautiful. + +“I shall never forget Olympia,” he whispered, leaning over her. + +He kissed her very gently, not with any passion. He had the feeling that +she would almost resent passion just then. + +He got into his bed and lay with his arm crooked, his cheek in his hand. +Part of the Milky Way was visible to him, that dust of little stars +powdering the deep of the sky. If he, too, should see a falling star +to-night, dropping down towards the hidden sea, vanishing below the line +of the hill! Would he echo her wish? + +“Are you sleepy, Rosamund?” he asked presently. + +“No I don’t want to sleep. It would make me miss all the stars.” + +“And if you’re tired to-morrow?” + +“I shan’t be. I shan’t be tired while we are in camp. I should like +never to go to bed in a room again. I should like always to dwell in the +wilderness.” + +He longed for the addition of just two words. They did not come. But +of course they were to be understood. There is no need to state things +known. The fact that she had let him bring her to the wilderness was +enough. The last words he heard Rosamund say that night were these, +almost whispered slowly to herself and to the stars: + +“The wilderness--and--the solitary places.” + +Very early in the morning she awoke while Dion was sleeping. She slipped +softly out of the little camp-bed, wrapped a cloak around her, and went +out to gaze at the dawn. + +When they sat at breakfast she said: + +“And now are you going to tell me the secret?” + +“No. I’m going to let you find it out for yourself.” + +“But if I can’t?” + +“You will.” + +They set off, about ten, down the hill on foot. The morning was very +still and already very hot. As they descended towards the basin in which +lies Olympia, heat ascended to meet them and to give them a welcome--a +soft and almost enticing heat like a breath from some green fastness +where strange marvels were secluded. + +“Elis even smells remote,” Rosamund said. + +“Are you sorry to leave the hill-top?” he asked. + +“I was, but already I’m beginning to feel drawn on. There’s something +here--what is it?” + +She looked at him. + +“Something for you.” + +“Specially for me?” + +“Specially for you.” + +“Hidden in the folds of the green. Where are we going first?” + +“To the ruins.” + +He was carrying their lunch in a straw pannier slung over his shoulder. + +“We’ll lunch in the house of Nero, and rest there.” + +“That sounds rather dreadful, Dion.” + +“Wait till you see it.” + +“I can’t imagine that monster in Elis.” + +“He was a very artistic monster, you remember.” + +“Like some of the decadents in London. Why is it that those who hate +moral beauty so often worship all the other beauties?” + +“D’you think in their hearts they actually hate moral beauty?” + +“Well, despise it, laugh at it, try to tarnish it.” + +“Paganism!” + +“Good heavens, no!” + +And they both laughed as they went down the narrow path to the soft +green valley that awaited them, hushed in the breathless morning, +withdrawn among the hills, holding its memories of the athletic triumphs +of past ages. Near the Museum they stopped for a moment to look down on +the valley. + +“Is the Hermes in there?” Rosamund asked, glancing at the closed and +deserted building. + +“Yes.” + +“What a strange and delicious home for him.” + +“You shall visit him presently. There are jackals in this valley.” + +“I didn’t hear any last night.” + +She looked again at the closed door of the Museum. + +“When do they open it?” + +“Probably the guardian’s in there. That’s where he lives.” + +He pointed to a small dwelling close to the museum. Just then a tiny +murmur of some far-away wind stirred the umbrella pines which stood +sentinel over the valley. + +“Oh, Dion, what an exquisite sound!” she said. + +She held up one hand like a listening child. There was awe in her eyes. + +“This is a shrine,” she said, when the murmur failed. “Dion, I know you +planned to go first to the ruins.” + +“Yes. They’re just below us. Look--by the river!” + +“Let me see the Hermes first, just for a moment.” + +Their eyes met. He thought she was reading his mind, though he tried to +keep it closed against her just then. + +“Why are you in such a hurry?” he asked. + +“I feel I must see it,” she answered, with a sort of sweet obstinacy. + +He hesitated. + +“Well, then--I’ll see if I can find the guardian.” + +In a moment he came back with a smiling Greek who was holding a key. As +the man went to open the door, Dion said: + +“Rose, will you follow my directions?” + +“When?” + +“Now, when you go into the Museum.” + +“But aren’t you coming too?” + +“Not now. I will when we’ve seen the ruins. When you go into the Museum +go straight through the vestibule where the Roman Emperors are. Don’t +turn to the right. In front of you you’ll see a hall with a wooden roof +and red walls. The ‘Victory’ is there. But don’t stay there. Go into the +small room beyond, the last room, and you mustn’t let the guardian go +with you.” + +From behind came the sound of the big door being opened. + +“Then that is the secret, and I knew about it all the time!” + +“Knew about it--yes.” + +She looked down on the green cup surrounded by hills, with its little +river where now two half-naked men were dragging with a hand-net for +fish. Again the tiny breath from the far-away wind stirred in the pine +trees, evoking soft sounds of Eternity. She turned away and went into +the Museum. + +Left alone, Dion lifted the lunch-pannier from his shoulder and laid it +down on the ground. Then he sat down under one of the pine trees. A wild +olive grew very near it. He thought of the crown of wild olive which the +victors received in days when the valley resounded with voices and the +trampling of the feet of horses. He took off his hat and laid it beside +him on the ground by the lunch-pannier. One of the men in the river +cried out to his companion. Sheep-bells sounded softly down the valley. +Some peasants went by with a small train of donkeys on a path which +wound away at the foot of the hill of Kronos. + +Dion was being unselfish. In staying where he was, beyond the outer +door of the house of Hermes, he was taking the first firm step on a path +which might lead him on very far. He had slept in the dawn when Rosamund +slipped out of the tent, but till the stars waned he had been awake, and +in the white light of the moon he had seen the beginning of the path. +Men were said to be selfish. People, especially women, often talked +as if selfishness were bred in the very fiber of men, as if it were +ineradicable, and must be accepted by women. He meant to prove to one +woman that even a man could be unselfish, moved by something greater +than himself. Up there on Drouva he had definitely dedicated himself +to Rosamund. His acute pain when, coming back to the place where he +had left her by the tent before sunset, he had not found her, his +sense almost of smoldering anger, had startled him. In the night he had +thought things over, and then he had come to the beginning of the path. +A really great love, if it is to be worthy to carry the torch, must +tread in the way of unselfishness. He would conform to the needs, +doubtless imperious, of Rosamund’s nature, even when they conflicted +with his. + +So now he sat outside under the pine tree, and she was within alone. A +first step was taken on the path. + +Would she presently come through the hall of the Victory to call him in? + +He heard the guardian cough in the vestibule of the Emperors; the cough +was that of a man securely alone with his bodily manifestations. The +train of peasants had vanished. Still the sheep-bells sounded, but the +chime seemed to come to him now from a greater distance. + +The morning was wearing on. When would she come back to him from the +secret of Olympia? + +He heard again above his head the eternities whispering in the pine +branches. The calmness and heat of the valley mingled together, and rose +to him, and wanted to take him to themselves. But he was detached from +them, terribly detached by his virtue--his virtue, which involved him in +a struggle, pushed them off. + +Surely an hour had passed, perhaps even more. He began to tingle with +impatience. The sound of the sheep-bells had died away beyond the +colonnade of the echoes. A living silence was now about him. + +At last he put on his hat and got up. The Hermes was proving his power +too mercilessly, was stealing the hours like a thief at work in the +dark. The knowledge that Rosamund was his own for life did not help Dion +at all at this moment. He had planned out this day as if they were never +to have another. Their time in Greece was nearly over, and they could +not linger for very long anywhere. Anyhow, just this day, once gone, +could never be recaptured. + +He looked towards the doorway of the Museum, hesitating. He was devoured +by impatience. Nevertheless he did not wish to step out of that path, +the beginning of which he had seen in the night. Determined not to seek +Rosamund, yet driven by restlessness, he did one of those meaningless +things which, bringing hurt to nature, are expected by man to bring him +at least a momentary solace. His eyes happened to rest on the olive tree +which stood not far from the Museum. One branch of it was stretched out +beyond the others. He walked up to the tree, pulled at the branch, and +finally snapped it off, stripped it of its leaves and threw it on the +ground. + +As he finished this stupid and useless act, Rosamund came out of the +Museum, looking almost angry. + +“Oh, Dion, was it you?” she asked. “What could make you do such a +thing?” + +“But--what do you mean?” he asked. + +She looked down at the massacred branch at his feet. + +“A branch of wild olive! If you only knew how it hurt me.” + +“Oh--that! But how could you know?” + +She still looked at him with a sort of shining of anger in her eyes. + +“I saw from the room of the Hermes. The doorway of the Museum is the +frame for such a picture of Elis! It’s almost, in its way, as dream-like +and lovely as the distant country one sees through the temple door in +Raphael’s ‘Marriage of the Virgin’ in Milan. And hanging partly across +it was that branch of wild olive. I was looking at it and loving it in +the room of the Hermes when a man’s arm, your arm, was thrust into the +picture, and the poor branch was torn away.” + +She had spoken quite excitedly, still evidently under the impulse of +something like anger. Now she suddenly pulled herself up with a little +forced laugh. + +“Of course you didn’t know; you couldn’t. I suppose I was dreaming, +and it--it looked like a sort of murder. But still I don’t see why you +should tear the branch off, and all the leaves too.” + +“I’m sorry, I’m very sorry, Rosamund. It was idiotic. Of course I hadn’t +an idea what you were doing, I mean, that you were looking at it. One +does senseless little things sometimes.” + +“It looked so angry.” + +“What did?” + +“Your hand, your arm. You can have no idea how----” + +She broke off again. + +“Let me come in with you. Let’s go to the Hermes.” + +“Oh no, not now.” + +She spoke with almost brusk decision. + +“Very well, then, I’ll just pay the man something, and we’ll be off to +the ruins.” + +“Yes.” + +Dion went to pay the guardian, whom he found standing up among the Roman +Emperors in a dignified and receptive attitude. When he came back he +picked up the lunch-basket, slung it over his shoulder, and they walked +down the small hill and towards the ruins in silence. He felt involved +in a tragedy, pained and discomforted. Yet it was all rather absurd, +too. He did not know what to say, how to take it, and he looked straight +ahead, seeking instinctively for some diversion. When they were on the +river bank he found it in the fishermen who were wading in the shallows +with their nets. + +“I wonder what they catch here,” he said. “There’s not much water.” + +Rosamund took up the remark with her usual readiness and sympathetic +cordiality, and soon they were chattering again much as usual. + +The great heat of the hour after noontide found them lunching among the +ruins of Nero’s house. By this time the spell of the place had fast +hold of them both. Nature had long since taken the ruins to her gentle +breast; she took Rosamund and Dion with them. In her green lap she +sheltered them; with her green hills and her groves of pine trees she +wrapped them round; with her tall grasses, her bushes, her wild flowers +and her leaves she caught at and caressed them. A jackal whined in its +lair near the huge limestone blocks of the temple of Zeus. Green lizards +basked on the pavements which still showed the little ruts constructed +to save the feet of contending athletes from slipping. All along the +green valley the birds flew and sang; blackberry bushes climbed over +the broken walls of the mansion of Nero, and red and white daisies and +silvery grasses grew in every cranny where the kindly earth found a +foothold. + +“Look at those butterflies, Dion!” Rosamund said. + +Two snow-white butterflies, wandering among the ruins, had found their +way to the house of Nero, and seemed inclined to make it their home. +Keeping close together, as if guided by some sweet and whimsical +purpose, they flew from stone to stone, from daisy to daisy, often +alighting, as if bent on a thorough investigation of this ancient +precinct, then fluttering forward again, with quivering wings, not quite +satisfied, in an airy search for the thing or place desired. Several +times they seemed about to abandon the ruins of Nero’s house, but, +though they fluttered away, they always returned. And at last they +alighted side by side on a piece of uneven wall, and rested, as if +asleep in the sun, with folded wings. + +“That’s the finishing touch,” said Rosamund. “White butterflies asleep +in the house of Nero.” + +She looked round over the ruins, poetic and beautiful in their +prostration, as if they had fallen to kiss the vale which, in return, +had folded them in an eternal embrace. + +“Don’t take me to Delphi this time, Dion; don’t take me anywhere else,” + she said. + +“I was thinking only to-day that our time’s very short now. We lingered +so long in Athens.” + +“We’ll say our good-by to Greece from the Acropolis. That’s--of course! +The grandeur and wonder are there. But the dream of Greece--that’s here. +This is a shrine.” + +“For Pan?” + +“Oh no, not for Pan, though I dare say he often comes here.” + +From the Kronos Hill, covered with little pines, came the mystical voice +of the breeze, speaking to them in long and remote murmurs. + +“That’s the most exquisite sound in the world,” Rosamund continued. “But +it has nothing to do with Pan. You remember that day we went into the +Russian church in Athens, Dion?” + +“Yes.” + +“There was the same sort of sound in those Russian voices when they were +singing very softly. It could never come from a Pagan world.” + +“You find belief behind it?” + +“No--knowledge.” + +He did not ask her to define exactly what she meant. It was not an hour +for definition, but for dreaming, and he was happy again; the cloud of +the morning had passed away; he had his love with untroubled eyes among +the ruins. Thinking of that, realizing that with a sudden intensity, he +took her warm hand from the warm stone on which it was resting, and held +it closely in his. + +“Oh, Rosamund, shall I ever have another hour as happy as this?” he +said. + +A little way off, in that long meadow in the breast of which the Stadium +lay hidden, the sheep-bells sounded almost pathetically; a flock was +there happily at pasture. + +“It’s as if all the green doors were closing upon us to keep us in Elis +forever, isn’t it?” she said. “But----” + +She looked at him with a sort of smiling reproach: + +“You wouldn’t be allowed to stay.” + +“Why not?” + +“You committed a crime this morning. Nature’s taken possession of +Olympia, and you struck at her.” + +“D’you know why I did that?” + +“No.” + +But she did not again ask him why, and he never told her. When the heat +had lessened a little, they wandered once more through that garden of +ruins, where scarcely a column is standing, where convulsions of nature +have helped the hands of man to overthrow man’s work, and where nature +has healed every wound, and made every scar tender and beautiful. And +presently Rosamund said: + +“I want to know exactly where Hermes was found.” + +“Come, and I’ll show you.” + +He led her on among the wild flowers and the grasses, till they came to +the clearly marked base of the Heraeon, the most ancient known temple +of Greece. Two of its columns were standing, tremendously massive Doric +columns of a warm golden-brown color. + +“The Hermes was found in this temple. It stood between two of the +columns, but I believe it was lying down when it was found.” + +“It’s difficult to imagine him between such columns as these.” + +“Yet you love Doric.” + +“Yes, but I don’t know----” + +She looked at the columns, even put her hands on them as if trying to +clasp them. + +“It must have been right. The Greeks knew. Strength and grace, power and +delicacy, that’s the bodily ideal. So the Hermes stood actually here.” + +She looked all round, she listened to the distant sheep-bells, she drew +into her nostrils the green scents of the valley. + +“And left his influence here for ever,” she added. “His quiet +influence.” + +“Let me come to see him with you on the way home.” + +And this time she said, “Yes.” + + + +At a little after four they left the sweet valley, and, passing over +the river ascended the hill to the Museum. The door was open, and the +guardian was sitting profoundly asleep in the vestibule of the Emperors. + +“You see, that’s the picture-frame,” Rosamund whispered, when they +were inside, pointing to the doorway. “The branch came just there in my +picture.” + +She had lifted her hand. He took her by the wrist and gently pulled her +hand down. + +“You mustn’t show me that.” + +“Don’t let us wake him.” + +A fly buzzed outside on the sunny threshold of the door, making a sleepy +sound like the winding of a rustic horn in the golden stillness, as they +went forward on tiptoe between the dull red walls of the hall of the +Victory, and came into the room beyond, where the Hermes stood alone but +for the little Dionysos on his arm. + +There a greater silence seemed to reign--the silence of the harmony +which lies beyond music, as a blue background of the atmosphere lies +beyond the verges of the vastest stretch of land that man’s eyes have +power to see; he sees the blue, but almost as if with his soul, and +in like manner hears the harmony. Both Rosamund and Dion felt the +difference in the silence directly they entered that sacred room. + +There was no room beyond it. Not very large, it was lighted by three +windows set in a row under a handsome roof of wood. The walls were dull +red like the walls in the hall of the Victory. On the mosaic pavement +were placed two chairs. Rosamund went straight up to one of them, and +sat down in front of the statue, which was raised on a high pedestal, +and set facing the right-hand wall of the chamber. Dion remained +standing a little way behind her. + +He remembered quite well his first visit to Olympia, his first sight +of the Hermes. He had realized then very clearly the tragedy of large +Museums in which statues stand together in throngs, enclosed within +roaring cities. From its situation, hidden in the green breast of this +valley in Elis, the Hermes seemed to receive a sort of consecration, a +blessing from its shrine; and the valley received surely from the Hermes +a gracious benediction, making it unlike any other valley, however +beautiful, in any land of the earth. Nowhere else could the Hermes have +been so serenely tender, so exquisitely benign in its contemplation; and +no other valley could have kept it safe with such gentle watchfulness, +such tranquilly unwearied patience. Surely each loved the other, and so +each gained something from the other. + +Through all the months since his visit, Dion had remembered the unique +quality of the peace of Olympia, like no other peace, and the strange +and exquisite hush which greeted the pilgrim at the threshold of the +chamber in which the Hermes stood. He had remembered, but now he felt. +Again the silence seemed to come out of the marble to greet him, a +remembered pilgrim who had returned to his worship bringing another +pilgrim. He entered once more into the peace of the Hermes, and now +Rosamund shared that peace. As he looked at her for a moment, he knew he +had made a complete atonement; he had sent the shadow away. + +How could any shadow stand in the presence of the Hermes? The divine +calm within this chamber had a power which was akin to the power of +nature in the twilight of a windless evening, or of a beautiful soul at +ease in its own simplicity. It purified. Dion could not imagine any +man being able to look at the Hermes and feel the attraction of sin. +Rosamund was right, he thought. Surely men have to go and fetch their +sins. Their goodness is given to them. The mother holds it, and is aware +of it, when her baby is put into her arms for the first time. + +For a long while these two watched Hermes and the child in the silence +of Elis, bound together by an almost perfect sympathy. And they +understood as never before the beauty of calm--calm of the nerves, calm +of the body, calm of the mind, the heart and the soul; peace physical, +intellectual and moral. In looking at the Hermes they saw, or seemed to +themselves to see, the goal, what struggling humanity is meant for--the +perfect poise, all faculties under effortless control, and so peace. + +“We must be meant for that,” Dion said to himself. “Shall we reach that +goal, and take a child with us?” + +Then he looked down at Rosamund, saw her pale yellow hair, the back of +her neck, in which, somehow, purity was manifested, and thought: + +“I might perhaps get there through her, but only through her.” + +She turned round, looked at him and smiled. + +“Isn’t he divine? And the child’s attitude!” + +Dion moved and sat down beside her. + +“If this is Paganism,” she continued, “it’s the same thing as +Christianity. It’s what God means. Men try to separate things that are +all one. I feel that when I look at Hermes. Oh, how beautiful he is! And +his beauty is as much moral as physical. You know the Antinous mouth?” + +“Of course.” + +“Look at his mouth. Could any one, comparing the two, honestly say that +purity doesn’t shine like a light in darkness? Aren’t those lips stamped +with the Divine seal?” + +“Yes, they are.” + +“Dion, I’m so thankful I have a husband who’s kept the power to see that +even physical beauty must have moral beauty behind it to be perfect. +Many men can’t see that, I think.” + +“Is it their fault?” + +“Yes.” + +After another long silence she said: + +“Spirit really is everything. Hermes tells me that almost as plainly as +the New Testament. Lots of people we know in London would laugh at me +for saying so, the people who talk of ‘being Greek’ and who never can be +Greek. And he stood between Doric columns. I’m trying to learn something +here.” + +“What?” + +“How to bring _him_ up if he ever comes.” + +Dion felt for her hand. + + + +They stayed on for a week at Drouva. Each evening Rosamund shot with +the boy of the wilderness, and they ate any birds that fell, at their +evening meal. The nights were given to the stars till sleep came. And +all the days were dedicated to Hermes, the child, and the sweet green +valley which served as a casket for the perfect jewel which the earth +had given up after centuries of possession. Since Rosamund had told the +dear secret of her heart, what she was trying to learn, Dion was able to +see her go in alone to the inner chamber without any secret jealousy or +any impatience. The given confidence had done its blessed work swiftly +and surely; the spring behind the action, revealed so simply, was +respected, was almost loved by Dion. Often he sat among the ruins alone, +smoking his pipe; or he wandered away after the call of the sheep-bells, +passing between the ruined walls overgrown with brambles and grasses and +mosses, shaded here and there by a solitary tree, and under the low arch +of the Athletes’ entrance into the great green space where the contests +had been held. Here he found the wearers of music feeding peacefully, +attended by a dreaming boy. With the Two in the Garden of Eden there +were happy animals. The sheep-bells ringing tranquilly in his ears made +Eden more real to him, and also more like something in one of the happy +dreams of a man. + +A world that had risen to great heights of emotion in this valley was +dead, but that did not sadden him. He found it impossible to be sad in +Olympia, because his own life was so happy. + +A delicious egoism, the birthright of his youth, had him safe in its +grasp. But sometimes, when Rosamund was alone in the room of the Hermes, +learning her lesson, and he was among the ruins, or walking above the +buried Stadium where the flocks were at pasture, he recalled the great +contests of the Athletes of ancient Greece; the foot-races which were +the original competitions at the games, the races in armor, the long +jumps, the wrestling matches, the discus and dart-throwing, the boxing +and the brutal _pankration_. And he remembered that at the Olympic +Games there were races for boys, for quite young boys. A boy had won at +Olympia who was only twelve years old. When Dion recalled that fact one +golden afternoon, it seemed to him that perhaps his lesson was to be +learnt among the feeding sheep in the valley, rather even than on the +hill where the Hermes dwelt. The father surely shapes one part of the +sacred clay of youth, while on the other part, with a greater softness, +a perhaps subtler care, the mother works. + +He would try to make his boy sturdy and strong and courageous, swift +to the race of life; he would train his boy to be a victor, to be a boy +champion among other boys. Her son must not fail to win the crown of +wild olive. And when he was a man----! But at that point in his dreams +of the future Dion always pulled up. He could not see Rosamund as the +mother of a man, could not see Rosamund old. She would, of course, be +beautiful in old age, with a perhaps more spiritual beauty than she had +even now. He shut his eyes, tried to imagine her, to see her before him +with snow-white hair, a face perhaps etherealized by knowledge of life +and suffering; once he even called up the most perfect picture of old +age he knew of--the portrait of Whistler’s mother, calm, dignified, +gentle, at peace, with folded hands; but his efforts were in vain; he +simply could not see his Rosamund old. And so, because of that, he could +only see their child as a very young boy, wearing a boy’s crown of wild +olive, such as had once been won by the boy of twelve in the games at +Olympia. + +The last day of their visit to the green wilds and the hilltops dawned, +still, cloudless and very hot. There was a light haze over Zante, and +the great plain held a look of sleep--not the sleep of night but of the +siesta, when the dreams come out of the sun, and descend through the +deep-blue corridors to visit those who are weary in the gold. Rosamund, +bareheaded, stood on the hill of Drouva and gazed towards the sea; her +arm was round her olive tree; she looked marvelously well, lithe and +strong, but her face was grave, held even a hint of sadness. + +“Our last day here!” she said to Dion. “One more night with the stars, +only one! Dion, when you brought me here, you did a dangerous thing.” + +“Gave you opportunities for regret? D’you mean that?” + +She nodded, still gazing towards Zante. + +“Such opportunities!” + +“It couldn’t be helped. I had to bring you.” + +“Of course. I know. If you had let me leave Greece without coming here, +and I had ever come to understand what I had missed, I don’t believe I +could have forgiven even you.” + +“I always meant to bring you here.” + +“But you had a sudden impulse, didn’t you?” + +“Yes.” + +“Why exactly did it come?” + +He hesitated. Suddenly he felt reserved; but he broke through his +reserve and answered: + +“I saw I had made you feel sad.” + +“Did you? Why was that?” + +“Don’t you remember?” + +She was catching the dream of the plain, perhaps, for she replied, with +an almost preoccupied air: + +“I don’t think so.” + +“I wanted to make you happy again, very happy, to give you a treat as +quickly as possible. The idea of this”--he flung out a brown hand--“came +to me suddenly. That’s how it was. You--you don’t know how I wish to +keep every breath of sorrow out of your life.” + +“I know you do; I feel it. But you’ve put a sorrow in.” + +She spoke with a half-whimsical smile. + +“Have I?” + +“The sorrow of leaving all this, of leaving the Hermes. I didn’t know +it was possible to grow to care for a lifeless thing as I care for +him. Sometimes I believe the marble has actually retained nothing of +Praxiteles as a man. I mean as apart from a sculptor. But he must have +been full of almost divine feelings and conceptions, or he could never +have made my Hermes. No man can make the divine without having divinity +in him. I’ve learnt more here in these few days than I have learnt in +all my years.” + +“From the statue of a Pagan. Isn’t that strange?” + +“No, I don’t think so. For I was able to see the Christianity in it. I +know what Praxiteles was only able to feel mysteriously. Sometimes in +London I’ve heard people--you know the sort of people I mean--regretting +they didn’t live in the old Greek world.” + +“I’ve regretted that.” + +“Have you? But not in their way. When I look at the Hermes I feel very +thankful I have lived since.” + +“Tell me just why.” + +“Because I live in a world which has received definitely and finally the +message the Hermes knew before it was sent down.” + +She took away her arm from the olive tree and sighed. + +“Oh, Dion, I shall hate going away, leaving the tent and Drouva and him. +But I believe whenever I think of Olympia I shall feel the peace that, +thank God, doesn’t pass all understanding.” + +They went down to the valley that day to pay their final visit to the +Hermes. Twilight had not yet come, but was not very far off when, for +the last time, they crossed the threshold of his chamber. More silent +than ever, more benignly silent, did the hush about him seem to Dion; +more profound were his peace and serenity. He and the child had surely +withdrawn a little farther from all that was not intended, but that, for +some inscrutable reason, had come to be. His winged sandals had carried +him still farther away. As Dion looked at him he seemed to be afar. + +“Rosamund!” + +“Yes?” + +“This evening I have a feeling about the Hermes I’ve never had before.” + +“What is it?” + +“That he’s taking the child away, quite away.” + +“But he’s always been here, and not here. That’s what I love so much.” + +“I don’t mean quite that. It’s as if he were taking the child farther +and farther away, partly because of us.” + +“I don’t like that. I don’t feel that at all.” + +“We belong to this world, you see, and are subject to all its +conditions. We are in it and of it.” + +“Well?” + +“He belongs to such a different world.” + +“Yes, the released world, where no ugly passions can ever get in.” + +“The way he looks at Dionysos tells one that. He hasn’t any fear for the +boy’s future when he grows up and comes to know things. It just strikes +me that no human being who thinks could ever look at a human child like +that. There would always be the fear behind--‘What is life going to do +to the child?’” + +She looked at him, and her face was very grave. + +“D’you think we should feel that?” + +“Surely.” + +“Unless we got the serene courage of the Hermes.” + +“But he lived among gods, and we live among men.” + +“Not always.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“Perhaps some day you will,” she answered. + +Into her eyes there had come a strange look of withdrawal. + +At that moment the atmosphere in the room of the Hermes seemed to Dion +more full of peace even than before, but the peace was like something +almost tangible. It troubled him a little because he felt that the +Hermes, the child and Rosamund were of it, while he was not. They were +surrounded by the atmosphere necessary to them, and to which they were +mysteriously accustomed, while he was for the first time in such an +atmosphere. He felt separated from Rosamund by a gulf, perhaps very +narrow, but probably very deep. + +Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight sylvan and very +ethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the green +doors, and down through the murmuring pine trees; it crossed the shallow +river, and made its way to the garden of ruins where once the Hermes had +stood between Doric Columns in the Heraeon. Through the colonnade of the +echoes it passed, and under the arch of the Athletes. Over the crude and +almost terrible strength of the ruins of the temple of Zeus it let its +green garments trail down, as it felt its way softly but surely to the +buried Stadium where once a boy of twelve had won the crown of wild +olive. The sheep-bells were ringing softly; the flocks were going +homeward from pasture. They were making their way up the valley now at +the base of the Kronos Hill, and the chime of their little bells mingled +with the wide whispering of the eternities among the summits of the pine +trees. Music of earth mingled with the music from a distance that knew +what the twilight knew. + +The tall oblong of the Museum doorway on the hill framed a tiny picture +of Elis, bathed in green and tremulous light; a small section of +hillside, a fragment of empty, poetic country--Pan’s world rather hinted +at than revealed--a suggestion of evening sky, remote, with infinity +lost in its distance. But there was no branch of wild olive flickering +across the picture. + +Rosamund missed it as she looked from the room of the Hermes out to the +whispering evening and the quiet vale of Olympia. But she did not say +so to Dion. He thought of it too, as he looked at her, and he tried to +forget it. The picture framed by the doorway strangely grew dimmer and +yet more full of greenish light; the country of Pan was fading in light. +Presently details were entirely lost. Only an oblong of green, now +almost emerald, light showed from the chamber of the Hermes. And in that +chamber the two marble figures were gradually fading; the athletic, yet +miraculously graceful, messenger of the gods with the winged sandals, +the tiny child clinging to his shoulder with one little arm stretched +out in an enchanting gesture of desire. Still the child nestled against +Hermes, and still Hermes contemplated the child, with a celestial +benignity, a half-smiling calmness of other worlds than this. + +In the vestibule of the Emperors the guardian waited patiently. He was +not accustomed to visitors who lingered on like these two English, +when the light was failing, and surely it must be difficult, if not +impossible, to see the statues properly. But Rosamund, with her usual +lack of all effort, had captivated him. He had grown accustomed to her +visits; he was even flattered by them. It pleased him subtly to have in +his care a treasure such as the Hermes, to see which beautiful women, +the Rosamunds of the world, traveled from far-off countries. Rosamund’s +perpetual, and prolonged, visits had made him feel more important than +he had ever succeeded in feeling before. Let the night come, she might +stay on there, if she chose. He took very little account of Dion. But +Rosamund was beginning to assume a certain vital importance in his quiet +life. + +The green light faded into a very dim primrose; the music of the +sheep-bells drew near and died away among the small houses of the +hamlet at the foot of the hill of Drouva; Elis withdrew itself into the +obscurity that would last till the late coming of the waning moon. Of +Hermes and Dionysos now only the attitudes could be seen faintly. But +even they told of a golden age, an age from which everything ugly, +everything violent, everything unseemly, everything insincere, +everything cruel was blotted out--an age of serenity of body and soul, +the age of the long peace. + +“He’s gone,” said Dion at last. + +Rosamund got up slowly. + +“You think he’s taken away the child because of us?” + +There was an almost pathetic sound in her voice, but there was a smile +in it too. + +“You remember my stupid remark?” + +“Perhaps it wasn’t stupid. I think those who dare to have a child ought +to keep very near to the world Hermes walks in. They mayn’t wear wings +on their sandals, but the earth oughtn’t to hold their feet too fast. +Hermes has taught me.” + +“No one could ever want to take a child away from you,” he answered. + +In the vestibule of the Emperors they bade good-by to the guardian of +the Museum, and made him understand that on the morrow they would be +gone. + +As he looked at Dion’s gift he felt for a moment almost depressed. He +was accustomed to his constant visitor. Surely he would miss her. She +smiled on him with her warm and very human cordiality for the last time, +and went away, with her companion, into the dimness towards the hill of +Drouva. Then the guardian pulled the great door. It closed with a final +sound. The key was turned. And Hermes was left untroubled in that world +where wings grow out of the sandals. + + + + + +BOOK II -- ECHO + + + +CHAPTER I + +Robin, whose other name was Gabriel, arrived at the “little house,” of +which Rosamund had spoken to Dion upon the hill of Drouva, early in the +following year, on the last night of February to be exact. For a long +time before his coming his future home had been subtly permeated by an +atmosphere of expectancy. + +No. 5 Little Market Street was in Westminster, not far from the river +and the Houses of Parliament, yet in a street which looked almost +remote, and which was often very quiet although close to great arteries +of life. Dion sometimes thought it almost too dusky a setting for his +Rosamund, but it was she who had chosen it, and they had both become +quickly fond of it. It was a house with white paneling, graceful +ceilings and carved fireplaces, and a shallow staircase of oak. There +was a tiny but welcoming hall, and the landing on the first floor +suggested potpourri, chintz-covered settees, and little curtains of +chintz moved by a country wind coming through open windows. There were, +in fact, chintz-covered settees, and there was potpourri. Rosamund had +taken care about that; she had also taken care about many other little +things which most London housewives, perhaps, think unworthy of their +attention. Every day, for instance, she burnt lavender about the house, +and watched the sweet smoke in tiny wreaths curling up from the small +shovel, as she gently moved it to and fro, with a half smile of what she +called “rustic satisfaction.” She laid lavender in the cupboards and in +the chests of drawers, and, when she bought flowers, chose by preference +cottage garden flowers, if she could get them, sweet williams, pansies, +pinks, wallflowers, white violets, stocks, Canterbury bells. Sometimes +she came home with wild flowers, and had once given a little dinner +with foxgloves for a table decoration. An orchid, a gardenia, even a +hyacinth, was never to be seen in the little house. Rosamund confessed +that hyacinths had a lovely name, and that they suggested spring, but +she added that they smelt as if they had always lived in hothouses, and +were quite ready to be friends with gardenias. + +She opened her windows. In this she was almost too rigorous for her +maid-servants, who nevertheless adored her. “Plenty of warmth but plenty +of air,” was her prescription for a comfortable and healthy house, “and +not too much or too many of anything.” Dust, of course, was not to be +known of in her dwelling, but “blacks” were accepted with a certain +resignation as a natural chastening and a message from London. +“They aren’t our fault, Annie,” she had been known to observe to the +housemaid. “And dust can’t be anything else, however you look at it, can +it?” And Annie said, “Well, no, ma’am!” and, when she came to think of +it, felt she had not been a liar in the moment of speaking. + +Rosamund never “splashed,” or tried to make a show in her house, and +she was very careful never to exceed their sufficient, but not large, +income; but the ordinary things, those things which of necessity come +into the scheme of everyday life, were always of the very best when she +provided them. Dion declared, and really believed, perhaps with reason, +that no tea was so fragrant, no bread and butter so delicious, no toast +so crisp, as theirs; no other linen felt so cool and fresh to the body +as the linen on the beds of the little house; no other silver glittered +so brightly as the silver on their round breakfast-table; no other +little white window curtains in London managed to look so perennially +fresh, and almost blithe, as the curtains which hung at their windows. +Rosamund and Annie might have conversations together on the subject of +“blacks,” but Dion never saw any of these distressing visitants. +The mere thought of Rosamund would surely keep them at a more than +respectful distance. + +She proved to be a mistress of detail, and a housekeeper whose +enthusiasm was matched by her competence. At first Dion had been rather +surprised when he followed from afar, as is becoming in a man, this +development. Before they settled down in London he had seen in Rosamund +the enthusiastic artist, the joyous traveler, the good comrade, the gay +sportswoman touched with Amazonian glories; he had known in her the deep +lover of pure beauty; he had divined in her something else, a little +strange, a little remote, the girl to whom the “Paradiso” was a +door opening into dreamland, the girl who escaped sometimes almost +mysteriously into regions he knew nothing of; but he had not seen in her +one capable of absolutely reveling in the humdrum. Evidently, then, he +had not grasped the full meaning of a genuine _joie de vivre_. + +To everything she did Rosamund brought zest. She kept house as she sang +“The heart ever faithful,” holding nothing back. Everything must be +right if she could get it right; and the husband got the benefit, +incidentally. Now and then Dion found himself mentally murmuring that +word. A great love will do such things unreasonably. For Rosamund’s +_joie de vivre_, that gift of the gods, caused her to love and rejoice +in a thing for the thing’s own sake, as it seemed, rather than for the +sake of some one, any one, who was eventually to gain by the thing. +Thus she cared for her little house with a sort of joyous devotion and +energy, but because it was “my little house” and deserved every care +she could give it. Rather as she had spoken of the small olive tree on +Drouva, of the Hermes of Olympia, even of Athens, she spoke of it, with +a sort of protective affection, as if she thought of it as a living +thing confided to her keeping. She possessed a faculty not very common +in women, a delight in doing a thing for its own sake, rather than for +the sake of some human being--perhaps a man. If she boiled an egg--she +went to the kitchen and did this sometimes--she seemed personally +interested in the egg, and keenly anxious to do the best by it; the +boiling must be a pleasure to her, but also to the egg, and it must, +if possible, be supremely well done. As the cook once said, after a +culinary effort by Rosamund, “I never seen a lady care for cooking and +all such-like as she done. If she as much as plucked a fowl, you’d swear +she loved every feather of it. And as to a roast, she couldn’t hardly +seem to set more store by it if it was her own husband.” + +Such a spirit naturally made for comfort in a house, and Dion had never +before been so comfortable. Nevertheless--and he knew it with a keen +savoring of appreciation--there was a Spartan touch to be felt in the +little house. Comfort walked hand in hand with Rosamund, but so did +simplicity; she was what the maids called “particular,” but she was not +luxurious; she even disliked luxury, connecting it with superfluity, +for which she had a feeling amounting almost to repulsion. “I detest the +sensation of sinking down in _things_,” was a favorite saying of hers; +and the way she lived proved that she spoke the sheer truth. + +All through the house, and all through the way of life in it, there +prevailed a “note” of simplicity, even of plainness. The odd thing, +perhaps, was that it pleased almost every one who visited the young +couple. A certain well-known man, noted as a Sybarite, clever, decadent +and sought after, once got into the house, he pretended by stealth, +and spent half an hour there in conversation with Rosamund. He came way +“acutely conscious of my profound vulgarity,” as he explained later to +various friends. “Her house revealed to me the hideous fact that all the +best houses in London smack of cocotte-try; the trail of cushions and +liqueurs is over them all. Mrs. Leith’s house is a vestal, and its lamp +is always trimmed.” Daventry’s comment on this was: “Trimmed--yes, but +trimmings--no!” + +Even Esme Darlington highly approved of the “charming sobriety of No. 5 +Little Market Street,” although he had had no hand in its preparation, +no voice in the deciding of its colors, its stuffs, its rugs, or its +stair-rods. He was even heard to declare that “our dear Rosamund is +almost the only woman I know who has the precious instinct of reticence; +an instinct denied, by the way, even to that delightful and marvelous +creature Elizabeth Browning--_requiescat_.” + +The “charming sobriety” was shown in various ways; in a lack of those +enormous cushions which most women either love, or think necessary, in +all sitting-rooms; in the comparative smallness of such sofas as were to +be seen; in the moderation of depth in arm-chairs, and in the complete +absence of footstools. Then the binding of the many books, scattered +about here and there, and ranged on shelves, was “quiet”; there was no +scarlet and gold, or bright blue and gold; pictures were good but few; +not many rugs lay on the polished wooden floors, and there was no +litter of ornaments or bibelots on cabinets or tables. A couple of small +statuettes, copies of bronzes in the Naples Museum, and some bits of +blue-and-white china made their pleasant effect the more easily because +they had not to fight against an army of rivals. There was some good +early English glass in the small dining-room, and a few fine specimens +of luster ware made a quiet show in Dion’s little den. Apart from the +white curtains, and outer curtains of heavier material, which hung at +all the windows, there were no “draperies.” Overmantels, “cosy-corners,” + flung Indian shawls, “pieces” snatched from bazaars, and “carelessly” + hung over pedestals and divans found no favor in Rosamund’s eyes. +There was a good deal of homely chintz about which lit up the rather +old-fashioned rooms, and colors throughout the house were rather soft +than hard, were never emphatic or designed to startle or impress. + +Rosamund, indeed, was by far the most vivid thing in the house, and +some people--not males--said she had taken care to supply for herself +a background which would “throw her up.” These people, if they believed +what they said, did not know her. + +She had on the first floor a little sitting-room all to herself; in this +were now to be found the books which had been in her bedroom in Great +Cumberland Place; the charwoman’s black tray with the cabbage rose, +the mug from Greenwich, the flesh-colored vase, the china cow, the toy +trombone, and other souvenirs of her girlhood to which Rosamund “held.” + On the brass-railed shelf of the writing-table stood a fine photogravure +of the Hermes of Olympia with little Dionysos on his arm. Very often, +many times every day, Rosamund looked up at Hermes and the Child from +account books, letters or notes, and then the green dream of Elis fell +about her softly again; and sometimes she gazed beyond the Hermes, but +instead of the wall of the chamber she saw, set in an oblong frame, and +bathed in green twilight, a bit of the world of Pan, with a branch of +wild olive flickering across the foreground; or, now and then, she saw +a falling star, dropping from its place in the sky down towards a green +wilderness, and carrying a wish from her with it, a wish that was surely +soon to be granted. Her life in the little house had been a happy life +hitherto, but--she looked again at the little Dionysos on the arm of +Hermes, nestling against his shoulder--how much happier it was going to +be, how much happier! She was not surprised, for deep in her heart she +always expected happiness. + +People had been delightful to her and to Dion. Indeed, they had flocked +to the small green door (the Elis door) of 5 Little Market Street in +almost embarrassing numbers. That was partly Mr. Darlington’s fault. +Naturally Rosamund’s and Bruce Evelin’s friends came; and of course +Dion’s relations and friends came. That would really have been enough. +Rosamund enjoyed, but was not at all “mad about,” society, and had no +wish to give up the greater part of her time to paying calls. But +Mr. Darlington could not forbear from kind efforts on behalf of his +delightful young friends, that gifted and beautiful creature Rosamund +Leith, and her pleasant young husband. He, who found time for +everything, found time to give more than one “little party, just a few +friends, no more,” specially for them; and the end of it was that +they found themselves acquainted with almost too many interesting and +delightful people. + +At first, too, Rosamund continued to sing at concerts, but at the end of +July, after their return from Greece, when the London season closed, +she gave up doing so for the time, and accepted no engagements for the +autumn. Esme Darlington was rather distressed. He worked very hard in +the arts himself, and, having “launched” Rosamund, he expected great +things of her, and wished her to go forward from success to success. +Besides “the money would surely come in very handy” to two young +people as yet only moderately well off. He did not quite understand the +situation. Of course he realized that in time young married people +might have home interests, home claims upon them which might necessitate +certain changes of procedure. The day might come--he sincerely hoped it +would--when a new glory, possibly even more than one, would be added to +the delightful Rosamund’s crown; but in the meanwhile surely the autumn +concerts need not be neglected. He had heard no hint as yet of any--h’m, +ha! He stroked his carefully careless beard. But he had left town in +August with his curiosity unsatisfied, leaving Rosamund and Dion behind +him. They had had their holiday, and had stayed steadily on in Little +Market Street through the summer, taking Saturday to Monday runs into +the country; more than once to the seacoast of Kent, where Bruce Evelin +and Beatrice were staying, and once to Worcestershire to Dion’s mother, +who had taken a cottage there close to the borders of Warwickshire. The +autumn had brought people back to town, and it was in the autumn that +Rosamund withdrew from all contact with the hurly-burly of London. She +had no fears at all for her body, none of those sick terrors which some +women have as their time draws near, no premonitions of disaster or +presages of death, but she desired to “get ready,” and her way of +getting ready was to surround her life with a certain stillness, to +build about it white walls of peace. Often when Dion was away in the +City she went out alone and visited some church. Sometimes she spent an +hour or two in Westminster Abbey; and on many dark afternoons she made +her way to St. Paul’s Cathedral where, sitting a long way from the +choir, she listened to evensong. The beautiful and tenderly cool singing +of the distant boys came to her like something she needed, something to +which her soul was delicately attuned. One afternoon they and the men, +who formed the deeply melodious background from which their crystalline +voices seemed to float forward and upward, sang “The Wilderness” of +Wesley. Rosamund listened to it, thankful that she was alone, and +remembering many things, among them the green wilderness beneath the +hill of Drouva. + +Very seldom she spoke to Dion about these excursions of hers. There was +something in her feeling for religion which loved reserve rather than +expression; she who was so forthcoming in many moments of her life, who +was genial and gay, who enjoyed laughter and was always at home with +humanity, knew very well how to be silent. There was a saying she cared +for, “God speaks to man in the silence;” perhaps she felt there was a +suspicion of irreverence in talking to any one, even to Dion, about +her aspiration to God. If, on his return home, he asked her how she had +passed the day, she often said only, “I’ve been very happy.” Then he +said to himself, “What more can I want? I’m able to make her happy.” + +One windy evening in January, when an icy sleet was driving over the +town, as he came into the little hall, he found Rosamund at the foot of +the staircase, with a piece of mother’s work in her hand, about to go +into the drawing-room which was on the ground floor of the house. + +“Rose,” he said, looking down at the little white something she was +holding, “do you think we shall both feel ever so much older in March? +It will be in March, won’t it?” + +“I think so,” she answered, with a sort of deeply tranquil gravity. + +“In March when we are parents?” + +“Are you worrying about that?” she asked him, smiling now, but with, in +her voice, a hint of reproach. + +“Worrying--no. But do you?” + +“Let us go into the drawing-room,” she said. + +When they were there she answered him: + +“Absolutely different, but not necessarily older. Feeling older must be +very like feeling old, I think--and I can’t imagine feeling old.” + +“Because probably you never will.” + +“Have you had tea, Dion?” + +“Yes, at the Greville. I promised I’d meet Guy there to-day. He spoke +about Beattie.” + +“Yes?” + +“Do you think Beattie would marry him if he asked her?” + +“I don’t know.” + +She sat down in the firelight near the hearth, and bent a little over +her work on the tiny garment, which looked as if it were intended for +the use of a fairy. Dion looked at her head with its pale hair. As he +leaned forward he could see all the top of her head. The firelight made +some of her hair look quite golden, gave a sort of soft sparkle to the +curve of it about her broad, pure forehead. + +“Guy’s getting desperate,” he said. “But he’s afraid to put his fortune +to the test. He thinks even uncertainty is better than knowledge of the +worst.” + +“Of one thing I’m certain, Dion. Beattie doesn’t love Guy Daventry.” + +“Oh well, then, it’s all up.” + +Rosamund looked up from the little garment. + +“I didn’t say that.” + +“But if Beattie--but Beattie’s the soul of sincerity.” + +“Yes, I know; but I think she might consent to marry Guy Daventry.” + +“But why?” + +“I don’t know exactly. She never told me. I just feel it.” + +“Oh, if you feel it, I’m sure it is so. But how awfully odd. Isn’t it?” + +“Yes, it really is rather odd in Beattie. Do you want Beattie to marry +Guy Daventry?” + +“Of course I do. Don’t you?” + +“Dear Beattie! I want her to be happy. But I think it’s very difficult, +even when one knows some one very, very well, to know just how she can +get happiness, through just what.” + +“Rose, have I made you happy?” + +“Yes.” + +“As happy as you could be?” + +“I think, perhaps, you will have--soon.” + +“Oh, you mean----?” + +“Yes.” + +She went on stitching quietly. Her hands looked very contented. Dion +drew up a little nearer to the fire with a movement that was rather +brusk. It just struck him that his walk home in the driving sleet had +decidedly chilled his body. + +“I believe I know what you mean about Beattie,” he said, after a pause, +looking into the fire. “But do you think that would be fair to Guy?” + +“I’m not quite sure myself what I mean, honestly, Dion.” + +“Well, let’s suppose it. If it were so, would it be fair?” + +“I think Beattie’s so really good that Mr. Daventry, as he loves her, +could scarcely be unhappy with her.” + +Dion thought for a moment, then he said: + +“Perhaps with Guy it wouldn’t be unfair, but, you know, Rose, that sort +of thing wouldn’t do with some men. Some men could never stand being +married for anything but the one great reason.” + +He did not explain what that reason was, and Rosamund did not ask. There +was a sort of wide and sweet tranquillity about her that evening. Dion +noticed that it seemed to increase upon her, and about her, as the days +passed by. She showed no sign of nervousness, had evidently no dread at +all of bodily pain. Either she trusted in her splendid health, or she +was so wrapped up in the thought of the joy of being a mother that +the darkness to be passed through did not trouble her; or perhaps--he +wondered about this--she was all the time schooling herself, looking up, +in memory, to the columns of the Parthenon. He was much more strung up, +much more restless and excitable than she was, but she did not seem to +notice it. Always singularly unconscious of herself she seemed at this +period to be also unobservant of those about her. He felt that she was +being deliberately egoistic for a great reason, that she was caring for +herself, soul and body, with a sort of deep and quiet intensity because +of the child. + +“She is right,” he said to himself, and he strove in all ways in his +power to aid her beautiful selfishness; nevertheless sometimes he felt +shut out; sometimes he felt as if already the unseen was playing truant +over the seen. He was conscious of the child’s presence in the little +house through Rosamund’s way of being before he saw the child. He +wondered what other women were like in such periods, whether Rosamund +was instinctively conforming to an ancient tradition of her sex, or +whether she was, as usual, strongly individualistic. In many ways she +was surely not like other women, but perhaps in these wholly natural +crises every woman resembled all her sisters who were traveling towards +the same sacred condition. He longed to satisfy himself whether this was +so or not, and one Saturday afternoon, when Rosamund was resting in her +little sitting-room with a book, and the Hermes watching over her, he +bicycled to Jenkins’s gymnasium in the Harrow Road, resolved to put in +forty minutes’ hard work, and then to visit his mother. Mrs. Leith and +Rosamund seemed to be excellent friends, but Dion never discussed his +wife with his mother. There was no reason why he should do so. On this +day, however, instinctively he turned to his mother; he thought that she +might help him towards a clearer knowledge of Rosamund. + +Rosamund had long ago been formally made known to Bob Jenkins, Jim’s +boxing “coach,” who enthusiastically approved of her, though he had +never ventured to put his opinion quite in that form to Dion. Even +Jenkins, perhaps, had his subtleties, those which a really good heart +cannot rid itself of. Rosamund, in return, had made Dion known to her +extraordinary friend, Mr. Thrush of Abingdon Buildings, John’s Court, +near the Edgware Road, the old gentleman who went to fetch his sin every +evening, and, it is to be feared, at various other times also, in a jug +from the “Daniel Lambert.” Dion had often laughed over Rosamund’s “cult” + for Mr. Thrush, which he scarcely pretended to understand, but Rosamund +rejoiced in Dion’s cult for the stalwart Jenkins. + +“I like that man,” she said. “Perhaps some day----” She stopped there, +but her face was eloquent. + +In his peculiar way Jenkins was undoubtedly Doric, and therefore +deserving of Rosamund’s respect. Of Mr. Thrush so much could hardly be +said with truth. In him there were to be found neither the stern majesty +and strength of the Doric, nor the lightness and grace of the Ionic. +As an art product he stood alone, always wearing the top hat, a figure +Degas might have immortalized but had unfortunately never seen. Dion +knew that Mr. Thrush had once rescued Rosamund in a fog and had conveyed +her home, and he put the rest of the Thrush matter down to Rosamund’s +genial kindness towards downtrodden and unfortunate people. He loved her +for it, but could not help being amused by it. + +When Dion arrived at the gymnasium, Jenkins was giving a lesson to a +small boy of perhaps twelve years old, whose mother was looking eagerly +on. The boy, clad in a white “sweater,” was flushed with the ardor of +his endeavors to punch the ball, to raise himself up on the bar till +his chin was between his hands, to vault the horse neatly, and to turn +somersaults on the rings. The primrose-colored hair on his small round +head was all ruffled up, perspiration streamed over his pink rosy +cheeks, his eyes shone with determination, and his little white teeth +were gritted as, with all the solemn intensity of childhood, he strove +to obey on the instant Jenkins’s loud words of command. It was obvious +that he looked to Jenkins as a savage looks to his Tribal God. His +anxious but admiring mother was forgotten; the world was forgotten; +Jenkins and the small boy were alone in a universe of grip dumb-bells, +heavy weights, “exercisers,” boxing-gloves, horizontal bars, swinging +balls and wooden “horses.” Dion stood in the doorway and looked on till +the lesson was finished. It ended with a heavy clap on the small boy’s +shoulders from the mighty paw of Jenkins, and a stentorian, “You’re +getting along and no mistake, Master Tim!” + +The face of Master Tim at this moment was a study. All the flags of +triumph and joy were hung out in it and floated on the breeze; a +soul appeared at the two windows shining with perfect happiness; +and, mysteriously, in all the little figure, from the ruffled +primrose-colored feathers of hair to the feet in the white shoes, the +pride of manhood looked forth through the glowing rapture of a child. + +“What a jolly boy!” said Dion to Jenkins, when Master Tim and his mother +had departed. “It must be good to have a boy like that.” + +“I hope you’ll have one some day, sir,” said Jenkins, speaking heartily +in his powerful voice, but looking, for the moment, unusually severe. + +He and Bert, his wife, had had one child, a girl, which had died of +quinsy, and they had never had another. + +“Now I’m ready for you, sir!” he added, with a sort of outburst of +recovery. “I should like a round with the gloves to-day, if it’s all the +same to you.” + +It was all the same to Dion, and, when he reached Queen Anne’s Mansions +in the darkness of evening, he was still glowing from the exercise; the +blood sang through his veins, and his heart was almost as light as his +step. + +Marion, the parlor-maid, let him in, and told him his mother was at +home. Dion put his hand to his lips, stole across the hall noiselessly, +softly opened the drawing-room door, and caught his mother unawares. + +Whenever he came into the well-known flat alone, he had a moment of +retrogression, went back to his unmarried time, and was again, as for so +many years, in the intimate life of his mother. But to-day, as he opened +the door, he was abruptly thrust out of his moment. His mother was in +her usual place on the high-backed sofa near the fire. She was doing +nothing, was just sitting with her hands, in their wrinkled gloves, +folded in her lap, and her large, round blue eyes looking. Dion thought +of them as looking because they were wide open, but they were strangely +emptied of expression. All of his mother seemed to him for just the one +instant which followed on his entrance to be emptied, as if the woman he +had always known--loving, satirical, clever, kind, observant--had been +poured away. The effect upon him was one of indescribable, almost of +horrible, dreariness. Omar Khayyam, his mother’s black pug, was not in +the room as usual, stretched out before the fire. + +Even as Dion realized this, his mother was poured back into the round +face and plump figure beside the fire, and greeted him with the usual +almost saccharine sweet smile, and: + +“Dee-ar, I wasn’t expecting you to-day. How is the beloved one?” + +“The beloved one” was Mrs. Leith’s rendering of Rosamund. + +“How particularly spry you look,” she added. “I’m certain it’s the +Jenkins paragon. You’ve been standing up to him. Now, haven’t you?” + +Dion acknowledged that he had, and added: + +“But you, mother? How are you?” + +“Quite wickedly well. I ought to be down with influenza like all +well-bred people,--Esme Darlington has it badly,--but I cannot compass +even one sneeze.” + +“Where’s Omar?” + +Mrs. Leith looked grave. + +“Poor little chap, we must turn down an empty glass for him.” + +“What--you don’t mean----?” + +“Run over yesterday just outside the Mansions, and by a four-wheeler. +I’m sure he never expected that the angel of death would come for him in +a growler, poor little fellow.” + +“I say! Little Omar dead! What a beastly shame! Mother, I am sorry.” + +He sat down beside her; he was beset by a sensation of calamity. Oddly +enough the hammer of fate had never yet struck on him so definitely as +now with the death of a dog. But, without quite realizing it, he was +considering poor black Omar as an important element in his mother’s +life, now abruptly withdrawn. Omar had been in truth a rather greedy, +self-seeking animal, but he had also been a companion, an adherent, a +friend. + +“You must get another dog,” Dion added quickly. “I’ll find you one.” + +“Good of you, dee-ar boy! But I’m too old to begin on a new dog.” + +“What nonsense!” + +“It isn’t. I feel I’m losing my nameless fascination for dogs. A poodle +barked at me this afternoon in Victoria Street. One can’t expect one’s +day to last for ever, though, really, some Englishwomen seem to. But, +tell me, how is the beloved one?” + +“Oh--to be sure! I wanted to talk to you about Rose.” + +The smile became very sweet and welcoming on Mrs. Leith’s handsome round +face. + +“There’s nothing wrong, I’m sure. Your Rosamund sheds confidence in her +dear self like a light all round her.” + +“Nothing wrong--no. I didn’t mean that.” + +Dion paused. Now he was with his mother he did not know how to explain +himself; his reason for coming began to seem, even to himself, a little +vague. + +“It’s a little difficult,” he began at last, “but I’ve been wondering +rather about women who are as Rosamund is just now. D’you think all +women become a good deal alike at such times?” + +“In spirit, do you mean?” + +“Well--yes, of course.” + +“I scarcely know.” + +“I mean do they concentrate on the child a long while before it comes.” + +“Many smart women certainly don’t.” + +“Oh, smart women! I mean women.” + +“A good definition, dee-ar. Well, lots of poor women don’t concentrate +on the child either. They have far too much to do and worry about. They +are ‘seeing to’ things up till the very last moment.” + +“Then we must rule them out. Let’s say the good women who have the +time.” + +“I expect a great many of them do, if the husband lets them.” + +“Ah!” said Dion rather sharply. + +“There are a few husbands, you see, who get fidgety directly the +pedestal on which number one thinks himself firmly established begins to +shake.” + +“Stupid fools!” + +“Eminently human stupid fools.” + +“Are they?” + +“Don’t you think so?” + +“Perhaps. But then humanity’s contemptible.” + +“Extra-humanity, or the attempt at it, can be dangerous.” + +“What do you mean exactly by that, mater?” + +“Only that we have to be as we are, and can never really be, can only +seem to be, as we aren’t.” + +“What a whipping I’m giving to myself just now!” was her thought, as she +finished speaking. + +“Oh--yes, of course. That’s true. I think--I think Rosamund’s +concentrating on the child, in a sort of quiet, big way.” + +“There’s something fine in that. But her doings are often touched with +fineness.” + +“Yes, aren’t they? She doesn’t seem at all afraid.” + +“I don’t think she need be. She has such splendid health.” + +“But she may suffer very much.” + +“Yes, but something will carry her gloriously through all that, I +expect.” + +“And you think it’s very natural, very usual, her--her sort of living +alone with the child before it is born?” + +Mrs. Leith saw in her son’s eyes an unmistakably wistful look at this +moment. It was very hard for her not to take him in her arms just then, +not to say, “My son, d’you suppose I don’t understand it all--_all_?” + But she never moved, her hands lay still in her lap, and she replied: + +“Very natural, quite natural, Dion. Your Rosamund is just being +herself.” + +“You think she’s able to live with the child already?” + +Mrs. Leith hesitated for a moment. In that moment certainly she felt a +strong, even an almost terrible inclination to tell a lie to her son. +But she answered: + +“Yes, I do.” + +“That must be very strange,” was all that Dion said just then; but a +little later on--he stayed with his mother longer than usual that day +because poor little Omar was dead--he remarked: + +“D’you know, mater, I believe it’s the right thing to be what’s called a +thorough-paced egoist at certain moments, in certain situations.” + +“Perhaps it is,” said his mother incuriously. + +“I fancy there’s a good deal of rot talked about egoism and that sort of +thing.” + +“There’s a good deal of rot talked about most things.” + +“Yes, isn’t there? And besides, how is one to know? Very often what +seems like egoism may not be egoism at all. As I grow older I often feel +how important it is to search out the real reasons for things.” + +“Sometimes they’re difficult to find,” returned his mother, with an +unusual simplicity of manner. + +“Yes, but still----Well, I must be off.” + +He stood up and looked at the Indian rug in front of the hearth. + +“When are you coming to see us?” he asked. + +“Almost directly, dee-ar.” + +“That’s right. Rosamund likes seeing you. Naturally she depends upon you +at such----” He broke off. “I mean, do come as often as you can.” + +He bent down and kissed his mother. + +“By the way,” he added, almost awkwardly, “about that dog?” + +“What dog, dee-ar?” + +“The dog I want to give you.” + +“We must think about it. Give me time. After a black pug one doesn’t +know all in a moment what type would be the proper successor. You +remember your poor Aunt Binn?” + +“Aunt Binn! Why, what did she do?” + +“Gave Uncle Binn a hairless thing like a note of interrogation, that had +to sleep in a coating of vaseline, when his enormous sheep-dog died who +couldn’t see for hair. She believed in the value of contrast, but +Uncle Binn didn’t. It would have led to a separation but for the hectic +efforts of your aunt’s friend, Miss Vine. When I’ve decided what type of +dog, I’ll tell you.” + +Dion understood the negative and, in spite of his feeling of fitness, +went away rather uncomfortably. He couldn’t forget the strange +appearance of that emptied woman whom he had taken unawares by the +fireside. If only his mother would let him give her another dog! + +When he got home he found Beatrice sitting with Rosamund. + +Dion had grown very fond of Beatrice. He had always been rather touched +and attracted by her plaintive charm, but since she had become his +sister-in-law he had learnt to appreciate also her rare sincerity and +delicacy of mind. She could not grip life, perhaps, could not mold it to +her purpose and desire, but she could do a very sweet and very feminine +thing, she could live, without ever being intrusive, in the life of +another. It was impossible not to see how “wrapped up” she was in +Rosamund. Dion had come to feel sure that it was natural to Beatrice to +lead her life in another’s, and he believed that Rosamund realized this +and often let Beatrice do little things for her which, full of vigor and +“go” as she was, she would have preferred to do for herself. + +“I’ve been boxing and then to see mother,” he said, as he took +Beatrice’s long narrow hand in his. “She sent her best love to you, +Rosamund.” + +“The dear mother!” said Rosamund gently. + +Dion sat down by Beatrice. + +“I’m quite upset by something that’s happened,” he continued. “You know +poor little Omar, Beattie?” + +“Yes. Is he ill?” + +“Dead. He was run over yesterday by a four-wheeler.” + +“Oh!” said Beatrice. + +“Poor little dog,” Rosamund said, again gently. + +“When they picked him up--are you going, Rose?” + +“Only for a few minutes. I am sorry. I’ll write to the dear mother.” + +She went quietly out of the room. Dion sprang up to open the door for +her, but she had been sitting nearer to the door than he, and he was too +late; he shut it, however, and came slowly back to Beatrice. + +“I wonder----” He looked at Beatrice’s pale face and earnest dark eyes. +“D’you think Rosamund disliked my mentioning poor Omar’s being killed?” + +“No.” + +“But didn’t she leave us rather abruptly?” + +“I think perhaps she didn’t want to hear any details. You were just +beginning to--” + +“How stupid of me!” + +“You see, Rosamund has the child to live for now.” + +“Yes--yes. What blunderers we men are, however much we try--” + +“That’s not a blame you ought to take,” Beatrice interrupted, with +earnest gentleness. “You are the most thoughtful man I know--for a +woman, I mean.” + +Dion flushed. + +“Am I? I try to be. If I am it’s because--well, Beattie, you know what +Rose is to me.” + +“Yes, I know.” + +“Dearer and dearer every day. But nobody----Mother thinks a lot of her.” + +“Who doesn’t? There aren’t many Roses like ours.” + +“None. Poor mother! Beattie, d’you think she feels very lonely? You know +she’s got heaps of friends--heaps.” + +“Yes.” + +“It isn’t as if she knew very few people, or lived alone in the +country.” + +“No but I’m very sorry her little dog’s dead.” + +“I want to give her another.” + +“It would be no use.” + +“But why not?” + +“You see, little Omar was always there when you were living there.” + +“Well?” + +“He was part of her life with you.” + +“Oh--yes.” + +Dion looked rather hard at Beatrice. In that moment he began to realize +how much of the intelligence of the heart she possessed, and how widely +she applied it. His application of his intelligence of the heart was, he +feared, much less widespread than hers. + +“Go to see mother when you can, will you?” he said. “She’s very fond of +you, I think.” + +“I’ll go. I like going to her.” + +“And, Beattie, may I say something rather intimate? I’m your brother +now.” + +“Yes.” + +She was sitting opposite to him near the fire on a low chair. There was +a large shaded lamp in the room, but it was on a rather distant table. +He saw Beatrice’s face by the firelight and her narrow thoroughbred +figure in a dark dress. And the firelight, he thought, gave to both face +and figure a sort of strange beauty that was sad, and that had something +of the strangeness and the beauty of those gold and red castles children +see in the fire. They glow--and that evening there was a sort of glow +in Beatrice; they crumble--and then there was a pathetic something in +Beatrice, too, which suggested wistful desires, perhaps faint hopes and +an ending of ashes. + +“Would you marry old Guy if he asked you? Don’t be angry with me.” + +“I’m not.” + +“Of course, we’ve all known for ages how much he cares for you. He spoke +to me about it to-day. He’s desperately afraid of your refusing him. He +daren’t put his fate to the test. Beattie--would you?” + +A slow red crept over Beatrice’s face. She put up one hand to guard +herself from the glow of the fire. For a moment she looked at Dion, and +he thought, “What a strange expression firelight can give to a face!” + Then she said: + +“I can’t tell you.” + +Her voice was husky. + +“Beattie, you’ve got a cold!” + +“Have I?” + +She got up. + +“I must go, Dion. I’ll just see Rosamund for a minute.” + +As she left the room, she said: + +“I’ll go and see your mother to-morrow.” + +The door shut. Dion stood with one elbow resting on the mantelpiece and +looked down into the fire. He saw his mother sitting alone, a strange, +emptied figure; he saw Beatrice. And fire, which beautifies, or makes +romantic and sad everything gave to Beatrice the look of his mother. For +a moment his soul was full of questions about the two women. + + + +CHAPTER II + +“I’ve joined the Artists’ Rifles,” Dion said to Rosamund one day. + +He spoke almost bruskly. Of late he had begun to develop a manner +which had just a hint of roughness in it sometimes. This manner was the +expression of a strong inward effort he was making. If, as his mother +believed, already Rosamund was able to live with the child, Dion’s +solitary possession of the woman he loved was definitely over, probably +forever. Something within him which, perhaps, foolishly, rebelled +against this fact had driven him to seek a diversion; he had found it in +beginning to try to live for the child in the man’s way. He intended to +put the old life behind him, and to march vigorously on to the new. He +called up Master Tim before him in the little white “sweater,” with +the primrose-colored ruffled feathers of hair, the gritted white teeth, +small almost as the teeth of a mouse, the moist, ardent cheeks, and +the glowing eyes looking steadfastly to the Tribal God. He must be the +Tribal God to his little son, if the child were a son. + +Rosamund did not seem surprised by Dion’s abrupt statement, though he +had never spoken of an intention to join any Volunteer Corps. She knew +he was fond of shooting, and had been in camp sometimes when he was at a +public school. + +“What’s that?” she asked. “I’ve heard of it, but I thought it was a +corps for men who are painters, sculptors, writers and musicians.” + +“It was founded, nearly forty years ago, I believe, for fellows working +in the Arts, but all sorts of business men are let in now.” + +“Will it take up much time?” + +“No; I shall have to drill a certain amount, and in summer I shall go +into camp for a bit, and of course, if a big war ever came, I could be +of some use.” + +“I’m glad you’ve joined.” + +“I thought you would be. I shall see a little less of you, I suppose, +but, after all, a husband can’t be perpetually hanging about the house, +can he?” + +Rosamund looked at him and smiled, then laughed gently. + +“Dion, how absurd you are! In some ways you are only a boy still.” + +“Why, what to you mean?” + +“A man who sticks to business as you do, hanging about the house!” + +“You wouldn’t like it if I did.” + +“No, because I should know it was doing you harm.” + +“And besides--do you realize how independent you are?” + +“Am I?” + +“For a woman I think you are extraordinarily independent.” + +She sat still for a minute, looking straight before her in an almost +curious stillness. + +“I believe I know why perhaps I seem so,” she said at length. + +And then she quietly, and very naturally, turned the conversation into +another channel; she was a quieter Rosamund in those days of waiting +than the Rosamund unaffected by motherhood. That Rosamund had been +vigorous and joyous; this Rosamund was strongly serene. In all she was +and did at this time Dion felt strength; but it was shown chiefly in +stillness. She worked sometimes; she read a great deal sitting upstairs +in her own little room. One day Dion found her with a volume of +Tennyson; another day she was reading Shakespeare’s “Henry the Fifth”; +she had the “Paradiso” in hand, too, and the Greek Testament with the +English text in parallel columns. In the room there was a cottage piano, +and one evening, when Dion had been drilling and came back late, he +heard her singing. He stood still in the hall, after shutting softly the +door of the lobby, and listened to the warm and powerful voice of the +woman he loved. He could hear the words of the song, which was a setting +of “Lead, kindly Light.” Rosamund had only just begun singing it when he +came into the hall; the first words he caught were, “The night is dark, +and I am far from home; lead thou me on.” He thrust his hands into the +pockets of the black jacket he was wearing and did not move. He had +never before heard Rosamund sing any piece of music through without +seeing her while she was doing it; her voice seemed to him now different +from the voice he knew so well; perhaps because he was uninfluenced by +her appearance. That counted for much in the effect Rosamund created +when she sang to people. The thought went through Dion’s mind, “Am I +really the husband of this voice?” It was beautiful, it was fervent, +but it was strange, or seemed strange to him as it came down through the +quiet house on this winter evening. For the first time, listening thus, +he was able imaginatively to realize something of what it must be +like to be a mystic, or rather, perhaps, to have within one a definite +tendency towards mysticism, a definite and ceaseless and governing +aspiration towards harmony with the transcendental order. When this +voice which he heard above him sang “The night is dark, and I am far +from home,” he felt a sort of sharp comprehension of the real meaning of +homeless wandering such as he had certainly never experienced before. He +felt, too, that the spirit from which this voice proceeded could never +be at home in the ordinary way of ordinary people, could not be at home +even as he himself could be at home. The spirit behind this voice needed +something of which, till now, he had not consciously felt the need; +something peculiar, out of the way and remote--something very different +from human love and human comfort. Although he was musical, and could be +critical about a composition according to its lights, Dion did not think +about the music of this song _qua_ music--could not have said how good +he considered it to be. He knew only that this was not poor or insincere +music. But music sung in this peculiar way was only a means by which +the under part of a human being, that which has its existence deep down +under layers and layers of the things which commonly appear and are +known of, rose to the surface and announced itself. + +The Artists’ Rifles--and this! + +When the voice was silent, Dion went slowly upstairs. The door of +Rosamund’s little room was shut. He paused outside it, and stood looking +at it, the movable barrier of dark shining wood which divided him from +the voice. When he was ascending the stairs he had meant to go in to +Rosamund. But now he hesitated, and presently he turned away. He felt +that a greater barrier than the door was between them. He might open the +door easily enough, but the other barrier would remain. The life of the +body seemed to him just then an antagonist to the life of the soul. + +“I’m on the lower plane,” said Dion to himself that evening. “If it’s a +boy, I shall have to look after his body; she’ll take care of the rest. +Perhaps mothers always do, but not as she could and will.” + +From this moment he devoted himself as much as possible to his body, +almost, indeed, with the ardor of one possessed by a sort of mania. +The Artists’ Corps took up part of his time; Jenkins another part; he +practised rifle shooting as diligently almost as if he expected to have +to take his place almost immediately in the field; he began to learn +fencing. Rosamund saw very little of him, but she made no comment. He +explained to her what he was doing. + +“You see, Rose,” he said to her once, “if it’s a boy it will be my job +eventually to train him up to be first-class in the distinctively +man’s part of life. No woman can ever do that. I mustn’t let myself get +slack.” + +“You never would, I’m sure.” + +“I hope not. Still, lots of business men do. And I’m sitting about +three-quarters of my time. One does get soft, and the softer a chap gets +the less inclined he is to make the effort required of him, if he wants +to get hard. If I ever am to be the father of a growing-up son--when +they get to about sixteen, you know, they get awfully critical about +games and athletics, sport, everything of that kind--I should like to +be able to keep my end up thoroughly well with him. He’d respect me far +more then. I know exactly the type of fellow real boys look up to. It +isn’t the intelligent softy, however brainy he may be; it’s the man who +can do all the ordinary things superlatively well.” + +She smiled at him with her now curiously tranquil yellow-brown eyes, and +he thought he saw in them approval. + +“I think few men would prepare as you do,” she said. + +“And how many women would prepare as you do?” he returned. + +“I couldn’t do anything else. But now I feel as if we were working +together, in a way.” + +He squeezed her hand. She let it lie motionless in his. + +“But if it weren’t a boy?” he said, struck by a sudden reaction of +doubt. + +And the thought went, like an arrow, through him: + +“What chance should I have then?” + +“I know it will be a boy,” she answered. + +“Why? Not because you sleep north and south!” he exclaimed, with a +laughing allusion to the assertion of Herrick. + +“I don’t.” + +“I always thought the bed----” + +“No, it’s east and west.” + +“Fishermen say the dead sleep east and west.” + +“Are you superstitious?” + +“I don’t know. Perhaps, where you are concerned.” + +“Don’t be. Superstition seems to me the opposite of belief. Just wait, +and remember, I _know_ it will be a boy.” + +One evening Dion went to Great Cumberland Place to dine with Bruce +Evelin and Beatrice, leaving Rosamund apparently in her usual health. +She was going to have “something on a tray” in her sitting-room, and he +went in there to say good-by to her just before he started. He found +her sitting by the fire, and looking at Hermes and the Child with steady +eyes. They were lit up rather faintly by a couple of wax candles placed +on the writing-table. The light from these candles and from the fire +made a delicate and soothing radiance in the room, which was plainly +furnished, and almost somber in color. A very dim and cloudy purple-blue +pervaded it, a very beautiful hue, but austere, and somehow suggestive +of things ecclesiastical. On a small, black oak table at Rosamund’s +elbow two or three books were lying beside a bowl of dim blue glass +which had opalescent lights in it. This bowl was nearly full of water +upon which a water-lily floated. The fire on the hearth was small, +but glowing with red and gold. Dark curtains were drawn across the one +window which looked out at the back of the house. It was a frosty night +and windless. + +Dion stood still for a moment on the threshold of the room after he had +opened the door. + +“How quiet you are in here!” he said. + +“This little room is always quiet.” + +“Yes, but to-night it’s like a room to which some one has just said +‘Hush!’” + +He came in and shut the door quietly behind him. + +“I’ve just a minute.” + +He came up to the fire. + +“And so you were looking at him, our Messenger with winged sandals. Oh, +Rosamund, how wonderful it was at Olympia! I wonder whether you and I +shall ever see the Hermes together again. I suppose all the chances are +against it.” + +“I hope we shall.” + +“Do you? And yet--I don’t know. It would be terrible to see him together +again--if things were much altered; if, for instance, one was less happy +and remembered----” + +He broke off, came to the settee at right angles to the fire on which +she was sitting, and sat down beside her. At this moment--he did not +know why--the great and always growing love he had for her seemed +to surge forward abruptly like a tidal wave, and he was conscious of +sadness and almost of fear. He looked at Rosamund as if he were just +going to part from her, anxiously, and with a sort of greed of detail. + +“Alone I would never go back to Elis,” he said. “Never. What a power +things have if they are connected in our hearts with people. It’s--it’s +awful.” + +A clock chimed faintly. + +“I must go.” + +He got up and stood for a moment looking down at the dear head loved so +much, at her brow. + +“I don’t know why it is,” he said, “but this evening I hate leaving +you.” + +“But it’s only for a little while.” + +There was a tap at the door. + +“Ah! here’s my tray.” + +The maid came in carrying a woman’s meal, and Dion’s strange moment was +over. + +When he got to Great Cumberland Place, Daventry, who was to make a +fourth, had just arrived, and was taking off his coat in the hall. He +looked unusually excited, alert in an almost feverish way, which was +surprising in him. + +“I’m in a case,” he said, “a quite big case. Bruce Evelin’s got it for +me. I’m going to be junior to Addington; Lewis & Lewis instruct me. What +d’you think of that?” + +Dion clapped him on the shoulder. + +“The way of salvation!” + +“Where will it lead me?” + +“To Salvation, of course.” + +“I’ll walk home with you to-night, old Dion. I must yap across the Park +with you to Hyde Park Corner, and tell you all about the woman from +Constantinople.” + +They were going upstairs. + +“The woman----?” + +“My client, my client. My dear boy, this is no ordinary case”--he waved +a small hand ceremoniously--“it’s a _cause celebre_ or I shouldn’t have +bothered myself with it.” + +Lurby opened the drawing-room door. + +“How’s Rosamund?” was Beatrice’s first question to Dion, as they shook +hands. + +“All right. I left her just going to feed from a tray in her little +room.” + +“Rosamund always loved having a meal on a tray,” said Bruce Evelin. +“She’s a big child still. But enthusiasts never really grow up, luckily +for them.” + +“Dinner is served, sir.” + +“Daventry, will you take Beatrice?” + +As Dion followed with Bruce Evelin, he said: + +“So you’ve got Daventry a case!” + +“Yes.” + +Bruce Evelin lowered his voice. + +“He’s a good fellow and a clever fellow, but he’s got to work. He’s been +slacking for years.” + +Dion understood. Bruce Evelin wished Beatrice to marry Daventry. + +“He respects you tremendously, sir. If any one can make him work, you +can.” + +“I’m going to,” returned Bruce Evelin, with his quiet force. “He’s got +remarkable ability, and the slacker--well----” + +He looked at Dion with his dark, informed eyes, in which knowledge of +the world and of men always seemed sitting. + +“I can bear with bad energy almost more easily and comfortably than with +slackness.” + +During dinner, without seeming to, Dion observed and considered Beatrice +and Daventry, imagining them wife and husband. He felt sure Daventry +would be very happy. As to Beatrice, he could not tell. There was +always in Beatrice’s atmosphere, or nearly always, a faint suggestion +of sadness which, curiously, was not disagreeable but attractive. Dion +doubted whether Daventry could banish it. Perhaps no one could, and +Daventry had, perhaps, that love which does not wish to alter, which +says, “I love you with your little sadness--keep it.” + +Daventry was exceptionally animated at dinner. The prospect of actually +appearing in court as counsel in a case had evidently worked upon him +like a powerful tonic. Always able to be amusing when he chose, +he displayed to-night a new something--was it a hint of personal +dignity?--which Dion had not hitherto found in him. “Dear old Daventry,” + the agreeable, and obviously clever, nobody, who was a sure critic of +others, and never did anything himself, who blinked at moments with a +certain feebleness, and was too fond of the cozy fireside, or the deep +arm-chairs of his club, had evidently caught hold of the flying skirts +of his self-respect, and was thoroughly enjoying his capture. He did +not talk very much to Beatrice, but it was obvious that he was at every +moment enjoying her presence, her attention; when she listened earnestly +he caught her earnestness and it seemed to help him; when she laughed, +in her characteristic delicate way,--her laugh seemed almost wholly of +the mind,--he beamed with a joy that was touching in a man of his type +because it was so unself-conscious. His affection for Beatrice had +performed the miracle of drawing him out of the prison of awareness in +which such men as he dwell. To-night he was actually unobservant. Dion +knew this by the changed expression of his eyes. Even Beatrice he was +not observing; he was just feeling what she was, how she was. For once +he had passed beyond the narrow portals and had left satire far behind +him. + +When Beatrice got up to go to the drawing-room he opened the door for +her. She blushed faintly as she went out. When the door was shut, and +the three men were alone, Bruce Evelin said to Dion: + +“Will you mind if Daventry and I talk a little shop to-night?” + +“Of course not. But would you rather I went up and kept Beattie +company?” + +“No; stay till you’re bored, or till you think Beatrice is bored. Let us +light up.” + +He walked slowly, with his gently precise gait, to a cigar cabinet, +opened it, and told the young men to help themselves. + +“And now for the Clarke case,” he said. + +“Is that the name of the woman from Constantinople?” asked Dion. + +“Yes, Mrs. Beadon Clarke,” said Daventry. “But she hates the Beadon and +never uses it. Beadon Clarke’s trying to divorce her, and I’m on her +side. She’s staying with Mrs. Chetwinde. Esme Darlington, who’s an old +friend of hers, thinks her too unconventional for a diplomatist’s wife.” + +Bruce Evelin had lighted his cigar. + +“We mustn’t forget that our friend Darlington has always run tame rather +than wild,” he remarked, with a touch of dry satire. “And now, Daventry, +let us go through the main facts of the case, without, of course, +telling any professional secrets.” + +And he began to outline the Clarke case, which subsequently made a great +sensation in London. + +It appeared that Mrs. Clarke had come first to him in her difficulty, +and had tried hard to persuade him to emerge from his retirement and to +lead for her defense. He had been determined in refusal, and had advised +her to get Sir John Addington, with Daventry as junior. This she had +done. Now Bruce Evelin was carefully “putting up” Daventry to every move +in the great game which was soon to be played out, a game in which a +woman’s honor and future were at stake. The custody of a much-loved +child might also come into question. + +“Suppose Addington is suddenly stricken with paralysis in the middle of +the case, you must be ready to carry it through triumphantly alone,” he +observed, with quietly twinkling eyes, to Daventry. + +“May I have a glass of your oldest brandy, sir?” returned Daventry, +holding on to the dinner-table with both hands. + +The brandy was given to him and the discussion of the case continued. By +degrees Dion found himself becoming strongly interested in Mrs. Clarke, +whose name came up constantly. She was evidently a talented and a very +unusual woman. Perhaps the latter fact partially accounted for the +unusual difficulties in which she was now involved. Her husband, +Councilor to the British Embassy at Constantinople, charged her with +misconduct, and had cited two co-respondents,--Hadi Bey, a Turkish +officer, and Aristide Dumeny, a French diplomat,--both apparently men +of intellect and of highly cultivated tastes, and both slightly younger +than Mrs. Clarke. A curious fact in the case was that Beadon Clarke was +deeply in love with his wife, and had--so Dion gathered from a remark of +Bruce Evelin’s--probably been induced to take action against her by +his mother, Lady Ermyntrude Clarke, who evidently disliked, and perhaps +honestly disbelieved in, her daughter-in-law. There was one child of +the marriage, a boy, to whom both the parents were deeply attached. The +elements of tragedy in the drama were accentuated by the power to love +possessed by accuser and accused. As Dion listened to the discussion +he realized what a driving terror, what a great black figure, almost +monstrous, love can be--not only the sunshine, but the abysmal darkness +of life. + +Presently, in a pause, while Daventry was considering some difficult +point, Dion remembered that Beatrice was sitting upstairs alone. Her +complete unselfishness always made him feel specially chivalrous towards +her. Now he got up. + +“It’s tremendously interesting, but I’m going upstairs to Beattie,” he +said. + +“Ah, how subtle of you, my boy!” said Bruce Evelin. + +“Subtle! Why?” + +“I was just coming to the professional secrets.” + +Dion smiled and went off to Beattie. He found her working quietly, +almost dreamily, on one of those fairy garments such as he had seen +growing towards its minute full size in the serene hands of his +Rosamund. + +“You too!” he said, looking down at the filmy white. “How good you are +to us, Beattie!” + +He sat down. + +“What’s this in your lap?” + +The filmy white had been lifted in the process of sewing, and a little +exquisitely bound white book was disclosed beneath it. + +“May I look?” + +“Yes, do.” + +Dion took the book up, and read the title, “The Kasidah of Haji Abdu +El-Yezdi.” + +“I never heard of this. Where did you get it?” + +“Guy Daventry left it here by mistake yesterday. I must give it to him +to-night.” + +Dion opened the book, and saw on the title page: “Cynthia Clarke, +Constantinople, October 1896,” written in a curiously powerful, very +upright caligraphy. + +“It doesn’t belong to Guy.” + +“No; it was lent to him by his client, Mrs. Clarke.” + +Dion turned some of the leaves of the book, began to read and was +immediately absorbed. + +“By Jove, it’s wonderful, it’s simply splendid!” he said in a moment. +“Just listen to this: + + “True to thy nature, to thyself, + Fame and disfame nor hope, nor fear; + Enough to thee the still small voice + Aye thundering in thine inner ear. + + From self-approval seek applause: + What ken not men thou kennest thou! + Spurn every idol others raise: + Before thine own ideal bow.” + +He met the dark eyes of Beatrice. + +“You care for that?” + +“Yes, very much,” she answered, in her soft and delicate voice. + +“Beattie, I believe you live by that,” he said, almost bruskly. + +Suddenly he felt aware of a peculiar sort of strength in her, in her +softness, a strength not at all as of iron, mysterious and tenacious. + +“Dear old Beattie!” he said. + +Moisture had sprung into his eyes. + +“How lonely our lives are,” he continued, looking at her now with a sort +of deep curiosity. “The lives of all of us. I don’t care who it is, man, +woman, child, he or she, every one’s lonely. And yet----” + +A doubt had surely struck him. He sat very still for a minute. + +“When I think of Rosamund I can’t think of her as lonely.” + +“Can’t you?” + +“No. Somehow it seems as if she always had a companion with her.” + +He turned a few more pages of Mrs. Clarke’s book, glancing here and +there. + +“Rosamund would hate this book,” he said presently. “It seems thoroughly +anti-Christian. But it’s very wonderful.” + +He put the book down. + +“Dear Beattie! Guy cares very much for you.” + +“Yes, I know,” said Beatrice, with a great simplicity. + +“If he comes well out of this case, and feels he’s on the road to +success, he’ll be another man. He’ll dare as a man ought to dare.” + +She went on sewing the little garment for Dion’s child. + +“I’ll walk across the Park with you, old Dion,” said Daventry that +night, as they left the house in Great Cumberland Place, “whether you’re +going to walk home or whether you’re not, whether you’re in a devil of +a hurry to get back to your Rosamund, or whether you’re in a mood for +friendship. What time is it, by the way?” + +He was wrapped in a voluminous blue overcoat, with a wide collar, +immense lapels, and apparently only one button, and that button so +minute that it was scarcely visible to the naked eye. From somewhere he +extracted a small, abnormally thin watch with a gold face. + +“Only twenty minutes to eleven. We dined early.” + +“You really wish to walk?” + +“I not only wish to walk, I will walk.” + +The still glory of frost had surely fascinated London, had subdued the +rumbling and uneasy black monster; it seemed to Dion unusually quiet, +almost like something in ecstasy under the glittering stars of frost, +which shone in a sky swept clear of clouds by the hand of the lingering +winter. It was the last night of February, but it looked, and felt, like +a night dedicated to the Christ Child, to Him who lay on the breast of +Mary with cattle breathing above Him. As Dion gazed up at the withdrawn +and yet almost piercing radiance of the wonderful sky, instinctively he +thought of the watching shepherds, and of the coming of that Child who +stands forever apart from all the other children born of women into this +world. He wished Rosamund were with him to see the stars, and the frost +glistening white on the great stretches of grass, and the naked trees in +the mysterious and romantic Park. + +“Shall we take the right-hand path and walk round the Serpentine?” said +Daventry presently. + +“Yes. I don’t mind. Rosamund will be asleep, I think. She goes to bed +early now.” + +“When will it be?” + +“Very soon, I suppose; perhaps in ten days or so.” + +Daventry was silent. He wanted and meant to talk about his own affairs, +but he hesitated to begin. Something in the night was making him feel +very small and very great. Dion gave him a lead by saying: + +“D’you mind my asking you something about the Clarke case?” + +“Anything you like. I’ll answer if I may.” + +“Do you believe Mrs. Clarke to be guilty or innocent?” + +“Oh, innocent!” exclaimed Daventry, with unusual warmth. + +“And does Bruce Evelin?” + +“I believe so. I assume so.” + +“I noticed that, while I was listening to you both, he never expressed +any opinion, or gave any hint of what his opinion was on the point.” + +“I feel sure he thinks her innocent,” said Daventry, still almost with +heat. “Not that it much matters,” he added, in a less prejudiced voice. +“The point is, we must prove her to be innocent whether she is nor not. +I happen to feel positive she is. She isn’t the least the siren type of +woman, though men like her.” + +“What type is she?” + +“The intellectual type. Not a blue-stocking! God forbid! I couldn’t +defend a blue-stocking. But she’s a woman full of taste, who cares +immensely for fine and beautiful things, for things that appeal to the +eye and the mind. In that way, perhaps, she’s almost a sensualist. +But, in any other way! I want you to know her. She’s a very interesting +woman. Esme Darlington says her perceptions are exquisite. Mrs. +Chetwinde’s backing her up for all she’s worth.” + +“Then she believes her to be innocent too, of course.” + +“Of course. Come with me to Mrs. Chetwinde’s next Sunday afternoon. +She’ll be there.” + +“On a night like this, doesn’t a divorce case seem preposterous?” + +“Well, you have the tongue of the flatterer!”--he looked up--“But +perhaps it does, even when it’s Mrs. Clarke’s.” + +“Are you in love with Mrs. Clarke?” + +“Deeply, because she’s my first client in a _cause celebre_.” + +“Have you forgotten her book again?” + +“Her book? ‘The Kasidah’? I’ve got it here.” + +He tapped the capacious side pocket of his coat. + +“You saw it then?” he added. + +“Beattie had it when I went upstairs.” + +“I wonder what she made of it,” Daventry said, with softness in his +voice. “Don’t ever let Rosamund see it, by the way. It’s anything +rather than Christian. Mrs. Clarke gets hold of everything, dives into +everything. She’s got an unresting mind.” + +They had come to the edge of the Serpentine, on which there lay an +ethereal film of baby ice almost like frosted gauze. The leafless trees, +with their decoration of filigree, suggested the North and its peculiar +romance--nature trailing away into the mighty white solitudes where the +Pole star reigns over fields of ice. + +“Hyde Park is bringing me illusions to-night,” said Daventry. “That +water might be the Vistula. If I heard a wolf howling over there near +the ranger’s lodge, I shouldn’t be surprised.” + +A lifeguardsman, in a red cloak, and a woman drifted away over the frost +among the trees. + +“I love Mrs. Clarke as a client, but perhaps I love her even more +because, through her, I hope to get hold of something I’ve--I’ve let +drop,” continued Daventry. + +“What’s that?” + +Daventry put his arm through Dion’s. + +“I don’t know whether I can name it even to you; but it’s something a +man of great intelligence, such as myself, should always keep in his +fist.” + +He paused. + +“The clergy are apt to call it self-respect,” he at length added, in a +dry voice. + +Dion pressed his arm. + +“Bruce Evelin wants you to marry Beatrice.” + +“He hasn’t told you so?” + +“No, except by taking the trouble to force you to work.” + +Daventry stood still. + +“I’m going to ask her--almost directly.” + +“Come on, Guy, or we shall have all the blackbirds round us. Look over +there.” + +Not far off, among the trees, two slinking and sinister shadows of men +seemed to be intent upon them. + +“Isn’t it incredible to practise the profession of a blackmailer out of +doors on a night like this?” said Dion. “D’you remember when we were in +the night train coming from Burstal? You had a feather that night.” + +“Damn it! Why rake up--?” + +“And I said how wonderful it would be if some day I were married to +Rosamund.” + +“Is it wonderful?” + +“Yes.” + +“Very wonderful?” + +“Yes.” + +“Children too!” + +Daventry sighed. + +“One wants to be worthy of it all,” he murmured. “And then”--he laughed, +as if calling in his humor to save him from something--“the children, in +their turn, feel they would like to live up to papa. Dion, people can be +caught in the net of goodness very much as they can be caught in the net +of evil. Let us praise the stars for that.” + +They arrived at the bridge. The wide road, which looked to-night +extraordinarily clean, almost as if it had been polished up for the +passing of some delicate procession in the night, was empty. There were +no vehicles going by; the night-birds kept among the trees. The quarter +after eleven chimed from some distant church. Dion thought of Rosamund, +as he paused on the bridge, thought of himself as a husband yielding his +wife up to the solitude she evidently desired. He took Daventry for his +companion; she had the child for hers. There was suffering of a kind +even in a very perfect marriage, but what he had told Daventry was true; +it had been very wonderful. He had learnt a great deal in his marriage, +dear lessons of high-mindedness in desire, of purity in possession. +If Rosamund were to be cut off from him even to-night he had gained +enormously by the possession of her. He knew what woman can be, and +without disappointment; for he did not choose to reckon up those small, +almost impalpable things which, like passing shadows, had now and +then brought a faint obscurity into his life with Rosamund, as +disappointments. They came, perhaps, from himself. And what where they? +He looked out over the long stretch of unruffled water, filmed over with +ice near the shores, and saw a tiny dark object traveling through it +with self-possession and an air of purpose beneath the constellations; +some aquatic bird up to something, heedless of the approaching midnight +and the Great Bear. + +“Look at that little beggar!” said Daventry. “And we don’t know so very +much more about it all than he does. I expect he’s a Muscovy duck, or +drake, if you’re a pedant about genders.” + +“He’s evidently full of purpose.” + +“Out in the middle of the ice-cold Serpentine. He’s only a speck now, +like our world in space. Now I can’t see him.” + +“I can.” + +“You’re longer-sighted than I am. But, Dion, I’m seeing a longish way +to-night, farther than I’ve seen before. Love’s a great business, +the greatest business in life. Ambition, and greed, and vanity, and +altruism, and even fanaticism, must give place when it’s on hand, when +it harnesses its winged horses to a man’s car and swings him away to the +stars.” + +“Ask her. I think she’ll have you.” + +A star fell through the frosty clear sky. Dion remembered the falling +star above Drouva. This time he was swift with a wish, but it was not a +wish for his friend. + +They reached Hyde Park Corner just before midnight and parted there. +Dion hailed a hansom, but Daventry declared with determination that he +was going to walk all the way home to Phillimore Gardens. + +“To get up my case, to arrange things mentally,” he explained. “Big +brains always work best at night. All the great lawyers toil when +the stars are out. Why should I be an exception? I dedicate myself to +Cynthia Clarke. She will have my undivided attention and all my deepest +solicitude.” + +“I know why.” + +“No, no.” + +He put one hand on the apron which Dion had already closed. + +“No, really, you’re wrong. I am deeply interested in Mrs. Clarke because +she is what she is. I want her to win because I’m convinced she’s +innocent. Will you come to Mrs. Chetwinde’s next Sunday and meet her?” + +“Yes, unless Rosamund wants me.” + +“That’s always understood.” + +The cab drove away, and the great lawyer was left to think of his case +under the stars. + +When the cab turned the corner of Great Market Street, Westminster, and +came into Little Market Street, Dion saw in the distance before him two +large, staring yellow eyes, which seemed to be steadily regarding +him like the eyes of something on the watch. They were the lamps of a +brougham drawn up in front of No. 5. Dion’s cabman, perforce, pulled up +short before the brown door of No. 4. + +“A carriage in front of my house at this time of night!” thought Dion, +as he got out and paid the man. + +He looked at the coachman and at the solemn brown horse between the +shafts, and instantly realized that this was the carriage of a doctor. + +“Rosamund!” + +With a thrill of anxiety, a clutch at his heart, he thrust his latchkey +into the door. It stuck; he could not turn it. This had never happened +before. He tried, with force, to pull the key out. It would not move. +He shook it. The doctor’s coachman, he felt, was staring at him from +the box of the brougham. As he struggled impotently with the key his +shoulders began to tingle, and a wave of acute irritation flooded him. +He turned sharply round and met the coachman’s eyes, shrewd, observant, +lit, he thought, by a flickering of sarcasm. + +“Has the doctor been here long?” said Dion. + +“Sir?” + +“This is a doctor’s carriage, isn’t it?” + +“Yes, sir. Doctor Mayson.” + +“Well, I say, has he been here long?” + +“About an hour, sir, or a little more.” + +“Thanks.” + +Dion turned again and assaulted the latchkey. + +But he had to ring the bell to get in. When the maid came, looking +excited, he said: + +“I don’t know what on earth’s the matter with this key. I can’t either +turn it or get it out.” + +“No, sir?” + +The girl put her hand to the key, and without any difficulty drew it out +of the door. + +“I don’t know--I couldn’t!” + +The girl shut the door. + +“What’s the matter? Why’s the doctor here? It isn’t----?” + +“Yes, sir,” said the girl, with a sort of intensely feminine +significance. “It came on quite sudden.” + +“How long ago?” + +“A good while, sir. I couldn’t say exactly.” + +“But why wasn’t I sent for?” + +“My mistress wouldn’t have you sent for, sir. Besides, we were expecting +you every moment.” + +“Ah! and I--and now it’s past midnight.” + +He had quickly taken off his coat, hat and gloves. Now he ran up the +shallow steps of the staircase. There was a sort of tumult within him. +He felt angry, he did not know why. His whole body was longing to do +something strong, eager, even violent. He hated his latchkey, he hated +the long stroll in Hyde Park, the absurd delay upon the bridge, his +preoccupation with the Muscovy duck, or whatever bird it was, voyaging +over the Serpentine. Why had nothing told him not to lose a moment but +to hurry home? He remembered that he had been specially reluctant to +leave Rosamund that evening, that he had even said to her, “I don’t know +why it is, but this evening I hate to leave you.” Perhaps, then, he had +been warned, but he had not comprehended the warning. As he had looked +at the stars he had thought of the coming of the most wonderful Child +who had ever visited this earth. Perhaps then, too----He tried to +snap off his thought, half confusedly accusing himself of some sort of +blasphemy. At the top of the staircase he turned and looked down into +the hall. + +“The nurse?” + +“Sir?” + +“Have you managed to get the nurse?” + +“Yes, sir; she’s been here some time.” + +At this moment Doctor Mayson opened the door of Rosamund’s room and came +out upon the landing--a tall, rosy and rather intellectual-looking +man, with tranquil gray eyes, and hair thinning above the high knobby +forehead. Dion had never seen him before. They shook hands. + +“I shouldn’t go into your wife’s room,” said Doctor Mayson in a low bass +voice. + +“Why? Doesn’t she wish it?” + +“She wished you very much to be in the house.” + +“Then why not send for me?” + +“She was against it, I understand. And she doesn’t wish any one to be +with her just now except the nurse and myself.” + +“When do you expect? . . .” + +“Some time during the night. It’s evidently going to be an easy +confinement. I’m just going down to send away my carriage. It’s no use +keeping the horse standing half the night in this frost. I’m very fond +of horses.” + +“Fond of horses--are you?” said Dion, rather vacantly. + +“Yes. Are you?” + +The low bass voice almost snapped out the question. + +“Oh, I dare say. Why not? They’re useful animals. I’ll come down with +you if I’m not to go into my wife’s room.” + +He followed the doctor down the stairs he had just mounted. When the +carriage had been sent away, he asked Doctor Mayson to come into his den +for a moment. The pains of labor had come on unexpectedly, but were not +exceptionally severe; everything pointed to an easy confinement. + +“Your wife is one of the strongest and healthiest women I have ever +attended,” Doctor Mayson added; “superb health. It’s a pleasure to see +any one like that. I look after so many neurotic women in London. They +give themselves up for lost when they are confronted with a perfectly +natural crisis. Mrs. Leith is all courage and self-possession.” + +“But then why shouldn’t I see her?” + +“Well, she seems to have an extraordinary sense of duty towards the +child that’s coming. She thinks you might be less calm than she is.” + +“But I’m perfectly calm.” + +Doctor Mayson smiled. + +“D’you know, it’s really ever so much better for us men to keep right +out of the way in such moments as these. It’s the kindest thing we can +do.” + +“Very well. I’ll do it of course.” + +“I never go near my own wife when she’s like this.” + +Dion stared into the fire. + +“Have you many children?” + +“Eleven,” remarked the bass voice comfortably. “But I married very +young, before I left Guy’s. Now I’ll go up again. You needn’t be the +least alarmed.” + +“I’m not,” said Dion bruskly. + +“Capital!” + +And Doctor Mayson went off, not treading with any precaution. It was +quite obvious that his belief in his patient was genuine. + +Eleven children! Well, some people were prepared to take any risks and +to face any responsibilities. Was it very absurd to find in the coming +of one child a tremendous event? Really, Doctor Mayson had almost +succeeded in making Dion feel a great fool. Just another child in the +world--crying, dribbling, feebly trying to grasp the atmosphere; another +child to cut its first tooth, with shrieks, to have whooping-cough, +chicken-pox, rose rash and measles; another child to eat of the fruit of +the tree; another child to combat and love and suffer and die. No, +damn it, the matter was important. Doctor Mayson and his rosy face were +unmeaning. He might have eleven, or a hundred and eleven children, but +he had no imagination. + +Dion shut himself into his room, sat down in a big armchair, lit his +pipe and thought about the Clarke case. He had just told Doctor Mayson +a white lie. He was determined not to think about his Rosamund: he dared +not do that; so his mind fastened on the Clarke case. Almost ferociously +he flung himself upon it, called upon the unknown Mrs. Clarke, the woman +whom he had never seen to banish from him his Rosamund, to interpose +between her and him. For Rosamund was inevitably suffering, and if he +thought about that suffering his deep anxiety, his pity, his yearning +would grow till they were almost unendurable, might even lead his feet +to the room upstairs, the room forbidden to him to-night. So he called +to Mrs. Clarke, and at last, obedient to his insistent demand, she came +and did her best for him, came, he imagined, from Constantinople, to +keep him company in this night of crisis. + +As Daventry had described her, as Bruce Evelin had, with casual +allusions and suggestive hints, built her up before Dion in the talk +after dinner that night, so she was now in the little room: a woman +of intellect and of great taste, with an intense love for, and fine +knowledge of, beautiful things: a woman who was almost a sensualist in +her adoration for fine and rare things. + +“I detest the sensation of sinking down in things!” + +Who had said that once with energy in Dion’s hearing? Oh--Rosamund, of +course! But she must not be admitted into Dion’s life in these hours of +waiting. Mrs. Clarke must be allowed to reign. She had come (in Dion’s +imagination) all the way from the city of wood and of marble beside the +seaway of the Golden Horn, a serious, intellectual and highly cultivated +woman, whom a cruel fate--Kismet--was now about to present to the world +as a horrible woman. Pale, thin, rather melancholy she was, a reader of +many books, a great lover of nature, a woman who cared very much for +her one child. Why should Fate play such a woman such a trick? Perhaps +because she was very unconventional, and it is unwise for the bird which +sings in the cage of diplomacy to sing any but an ordinary song. + +Daventry had dwelt several times on Mrs. Clarke’s unconventionality; +evidently the defense meant to lay stress on it. + +So now Dion sat with a pale, thin, unconventional woman, and she told +him about the life at Stamboul. She knew, of course, that he had hated +Constantinople. He allowed her to know that. And she pointed out to him +that he knew nothing of the wonderful city, upon which Russia breathes +from the north, and which catches, too, strange airs and scents and +murmurs of voices from distant places of Asia. What does the passing +tourist of a Pera hotel know about the great city of the Turks? Nothing +worth knowing. The roar of the voices of the Levant deafens his ears; +the glitter of the shop windows in the Grande Rue blinds his eyes. He +knows not the exquisite and melancholy charm, full of nuances and of the +most fragile and evanescent subtleties, which Constantinople holds for +those who know her and love her well. + +The defense was evidently going to make much of Mrs. Clarke’s passion +for the city on the Bosporus. Daventry had alluded to it more than once, +and Bruce Evelin had said, “Mrs. Clarke has always had an extraordinary +feeling for places. If her husband had accused her of a liaison with +Eyub, or of an unholy fancy for the forest of Belgrad, we might have +been in a serious difficulty. She had, I know, a regular romance once +with the Mosquee Verte at Brusa.” + +Evidently she was a woman whom ordinary people would be likely to +misunderstand. Dion sat in his arm-chair trying to understand her. The +effort would help him to forget, or to ignore if he couldn’t forget, +what was going on upstairs in the little house. He pulled hard at his +pipe, as an aid to his mind; he sat alone for a long while with Mrs. +Clarke. Sometimes he looked across the Golden Horn from a bit of waste +ground in Pera, near to a small cemetery: it was from there, towards +evening, that he had been able to “feel” Stamboul, to feel it as an +unique garden city, held by the sea, wooden and frail, marble and +enduring. And somewhere in the great and mysterious city Mrs. Clarke had +lived and been adored by the husband who, apparently still adoring, was +now trying to get rid of her. + +Sometimes Dion heard voices rising from the crowded harbor of the Golden +Horn. They crept up out of the mystery of the evening; voices from the +caiques, and from the boats of the fishermen, and from the big sailing +vessels which ply to the harbors of the East, and from the steamers at +rest near the Galata Bridge, and from the many craft of all descriptions +strung out towards the cypress-crowned hill of Eyub. And Mrs. Clarke, +standing beside him, began to explain to him in a low and hoarse voice +what these strange cries of the evening meant. + +Daventry had mentioned that she had a hoarse voice. + +At a little after three o’clock Dion sat forward abruptly in his chair +and listened intently. He fancied he had heard a faint cry. He waited, +surrounded by silence, enveloped by silence. There was a low drumming +in his ears. Mrs. Clarke had escaped like a phantom. Stamboul, with its +mosques, its fountains, its pigeons and its plane trees, had faded away. +The voices from the Golden Horn were stilled. The drumming in Dion’s +ears grew louder. He stood up. He felt very hot, and a vein in his left +temple was beating--not fluttering, but beating hard. + +He heard, this time really heard, a cry overhead, and then the muffled +sound of some one moving about; and he went to the door, opened it and +passed out into the hall. He did not go upstairs, but waited in the +hall until Doctor Mayson came down, looking as rosy and serene and +unconcerned as ever. + +“Well, Mr. Leith,” he said, “you’re a father. I congratulate you. You +wife has got through beautifully.” + +“Yes?” + +“By the way, it’s a boy.” + +“Yes, of course.” + +Doctor Mayson looked genuinely surprised. + +“Why ‘of course’? I don’t quite understand.” + +“She knew it was going to be a boy.” + +The doctor smiled faintly. + +“Women often have strange fancies at such times. I mean before they are +confined.” + +“But you see she was right. It is a boy.” + +“Exactly,” returned the doctor, looking at his nails. + +Dion saw the star falling above the hill of Drouva. + +Did the Hermes know? + + + +CHAPTER III + +On the following Sunday afternoon Dion was able to fulfil his promise +to Daventry. Rosamund and the baby were “doing beautifully”; he was not +needed at home, so he set out with Daventry, who came to fetch him, to +visit Mrs. Willie Chetwinde in Lowndes Square. + +When they reached the house Daventry said: + +“Now for Mrs. Clarke. She’s really a wonderful woman, Dion, and she’s +got a delicious profile.” + +“Oh, it’s that--” + +“No, it isn’t.” + +He gently pushed Mrs. Chetwinde’s bell. + +As they went upstairs they heard a soft hum of voices. + +“Mrs. Clarke’s got heaps of people on her side,” whispered Daventry. +“This is a sort of rallying ground for the defense.” + +“Where’s her child? Here?” + +“No, with some relations till the trial’s over.” + +The butler opened the door, and immediately Dion’s eyes rested on +Mrs. Clarke, who happened to be standing very near to it with Esme +Darlington. Directly Dion saw her he knew at whom he was looking. +Something--he could not have said what--told him. + +By a tall pedestal of marble, on which was poised a marble statuette +of Echo,--not that Echo who babbled to Hera, but she who, after her +punishment, fell in love with Narcissus,--he saw a very thin, very pale, +and strangely haggard-looking woman of perhaps thirty-two talking to +Esme Darlington. At first sight she did not seem beautiful to Dion. +He was accustomed to the radiant physical bloom of his Rosamund. This +woman, with her tenuity, her pallor, her haunted cheeks and temples, her +large, distressed and observant eyes--dark hazel in color under brown +eyebrows drawn with a precise straightness till they neared the bridge +of the nose and there turning abruptly downwards, her thin and almost +white-lipped mouth, her cloudy brown hair which had no shine or sparkle, +her rather narrow and pointed chin, suggested to him unhealthiness, a +human being perhaps stricken by some obscure disease which had drained +her body of all fresh color, and robbed it of flesh, had caused to +come upon her something strange, not easily to be defined, which almost +suggested the charnel-house. + +As he was looking at her, Mrs. Clarke turned slightly and glanced up at +the statue of Echo, and immediately Dion realized that she had beauty. +The line of her profile was wonderfully delicate and refined, almost +ethereal in its perfection; and the shape of her small head was +exquisite. Her head, indeed, looked girlish. Afterwards he knew that she +had enchanting hands--moving purities full of expressiveness--and slim +little wrists. Her expression was serious, almost melancholy, and in her +whole personality, shed through her, there was a penetrating refinement, +a something delicate, wild and feverish. She looked very sensitive and +at the same time perfectly self-possessed, as if, perhaps, she dreaded +Fate but could never be afraid of a fellow-creature. He thought: + +“She’s like Echo after her punishment.” + +On his way to greet Mrs. Chetwinde, he passed by her; as he did so she +looked at him, and he saw that she thoroughly considered him, with a +grave swiftness which seemed to be an essential part of her personality. +Then she spoke to Esme Darlington. Dion just caught the sound of her +voice, veiled, husky, but very individual and very attractive--a voice +that could never sing, but that could make of speech a music frail and +evanescent as a nocturne of Debussy’s. + +“Daventry’s right,” thought Dion. “That woman is surely innocent.” + +Mrs. Chetwinde, who was as haphazard, as apparently absent-minded and as +shrewd in her own house as in the houses of others, greeted Dion with a +vague cordiality. Her husband, a robust and very definite giant, with a +fan-shaped beard, welcomed him largely. + +“Never appear at my wife’s afternoons, you know,” he observed, in a fat +and genial voice. “But to-day’s exceptional. Always stick to an innocent +woman in trouble.” + +He lowered his voice in speaking the last sentence, and looked very +human. And immediately Dion was aware of a special and peculiar +atmosphere in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room on this Sunday afternoon, +of something poignant almost, though lightly veiled with the sparkling +gossamer which serves to conceal undue angularities, something which +just hinted at tragedy confronted with courage, at the attempted stab +and the raised shield of affection. Here Mrs. Clarke was in sanctuary. +He glanced towards her again with a deepening interest. + +“Canon Wilton’s coming in presently,” said Mrs. Chetwinde. “He’s +preaching at St. Paul’s this afternoon, or perhaps it’s Westminster +Abbey--something of that kind.” + +“I’ve heard him two or three times,” answered Dion, who was on very +good, though not on very intimate, terms with Canon Wilton. “I’d rather +hear him than anybody.” + +“In the pulpit--yes, I suppose so. I’m scarcely an amateur of sermons. +He’s a volcano of sincerity, and never sends out ashes. It’s all red-hot +lava. Have you met Cynthia Clarke?” + +“No.” + +“She’s over there, echoing my Echo. Would you like----?” + +“Very much indeed.” + +“Then I’ll--” + +An extremely pale man, with long, alarmingly straight hair and wandering +eyes almost the color of silver, said something to her. + +“Watteau? Oh, no--he died in 1721, not in 1722,” she replied. “The only +date I can never remember is William the Conqueror. But of course you +couldn’t remember about Watteau. It’s distance makes memory. You’re too +near.” + +“That’s the fan painter, Murphy-Elphinston, Watteau’s reincarnation,” + she added to Dion. “He’s always asking questions about himself. +Cynthia--this is Mr. Dion Leith. He wishes----” She drifted away, not, +however, without dexterously managing to convey Mr. Darlington with her. + +Dion found himself looking into the large, distressed eyes of Mrs. +Clarke. Daventry was standing close to her, but, with a glance at his +friend, moved away. + +“I should like to sit down,” said Mrs. Clarke. + +“Here are two chairs----” + +“No, I’d rather sit over there under the Della Robbia. I can see Echo +from there.” + +She walked very slowly and languidly, as if tired, to a large and low +sofa covered with red, which was exactly opposite to the statuette. +Dion followed her, thinking about her age. He supposed her to be about +thirty-two or thirty-three, possibly a year or two more or less. She was +very simply dressed in a gray silk gown with black and white lines in +it. The tight sleeves of it were unusually long and ended in points. +They were edged with some transparent white material which rested +against her small hands. + +She sat down and he sat down by her, and they began to talk. Unlike Mrs. +Chetwinde, Mrs. Clarke showed that she was alertly attending to all that +was said to her, and, when she spoke, she looked at the person to whom +she was speaking, looked steadily and very unself-consciously. Dion +mentioned that he had once been to Constantinople. + +“Did you care about it?” said Mrs. Clarke, rather earnestly. + +“I’m afraid I disliked it, although I found it, of course, tremendously +interesting. In fact, I almost hated it.” + +“That’s only because you stayed in Pera,” she answered, “and went about +with a guide.” + +“But how do you know?”--he was smiling. + +“Well, of course you did.” + +“Yes.” + +“I could easily make you love it,” she continued, in an oddly impersonal +way, speaking huskily. + +Dion had never liked huskiness before, but he liked it now. + +“You are fond of it, I believe?” he said. + +His eyes met hers with a great deal of interest. + +He considered her present situation an interesting one; there was drama +in it; there was the prospect of a big fight, of great loss or great +gain, destruction or vindication. + +In her soul already the drama was being played. He imagined her soul in +turmoil, peopled with a crowd of jostling desires and fears, and he was +thinking a great many things about her, and connected with her, almost +simultaneously--so rapidly a flood of thoughts seemed to go by in the +mind--as he put his question. + +“Yes, I am,” replied Mrs. Clarke. “Stamboul holds me very fast in its +curiously inert grip. It’s a grip like this.” + +She held out her small right hand, and he put his rather large and +sinewy brown hand into it. The small hand folded itself upon his in a +curious way--feeble and fierce at the same time, it seemed--and held +him. The hand was warm, almost hot, and soft, and dry as a fire is +dry--so dry that it hisses angrily if water is thrown on it. + +“Now, you are trying to get away,” she said. “And of course you can, +but----” + +Dion made a movement as if to pull away his hand, but Mrs. Clarke +retained it. How was that? He scarcely knew; in fact he did not know. +She did not seem to be doing anything definite to keep him, did not +squeeze or grip his hand, or cling to it; but his hand remained in hers +nevertheless. + +“There,” she said, letting his hand go. “That is how Stamboul holds. Do +you understand?” + +Mrs. Chetwinde’s vague eyes had been on them during this little episode. +Dion had had time to see that, and to think, “Now, at such a time, no +one but an absolutely innocent woman would do in public what Mrs. Clarke +is doing to me.” Mrs. Chetwinde, he felt sure, full of all worldly +knowledge, must be thinking the very same thing. + +“Yes,” he said. “I think I do. But I wonder whether it could hold me +like that.” + +“I know it could.” + +“May I ask how you know?” + +“Why not? Simply by my observation of you.” + +Dion remembered the swift grave look of consideration she had given to +him as he came into the room. Something almost combative rose up in him, +and he entered into an argument with her, in the course of which he +was carried away into the revelation of his mental comparison between +Constantinople and Greece, a comparison into which entered a moral +significance. He even spoke of the Christian significance of the +Hermes of Olympia. Mrs. Clarke listened to him with a very still, and +apparently a very deep, attention. + +“I’ve been to Greece,” she said simply, when he had finished. + +“You didn’t feel at all as I did, as I do?” + +“You may know Greece, but you don’t know Stamboul,” she said quietly. + +“If you had shown it to me I might feel very differently,” Dion said, +with a perhaps slightly banal politeness. + +And yet he did not feel entirely banal as he said it. + +“Come out again and I will show it to you,” she said. + +She was almost staring at him, at his chest and shoulders, not at his +face, but her eyes still kept their unself-conscious and almost oddly +impersonal look. + +“You are going back there?” + +“Of course, when my case is over.” + +Dion felt very much surprised. He knew that Mrs. Clarke’s husband was +accredited to the British Embassy at Constantinople; that the +scandal about her was connected with that city and with its +neighborhood--Therapia, Prinkipo, and other near places, that both the +co-respondents named in the suit lived there. Whichever way the case +went, surely Constantinople must be very disagreeable to Mrs. Clarke +from now onwards. And yet she was going back there, and apparently +intended to take up her life there again. She evidently either saw or +divined his surprise, for she added in the husky voice: + +“Guilt may be governed by circumstances. I suppose it is full of alarms. +But I think an innocent woman who allows herself to be driven out of a +place she loves by a false accusation is merely a coward. But all this +is very uninteresting to you. The point is, I shall soon be settled down +again at Constantinople, and ready to make you see it as it really is, +if you ever return there.” + +She had spoken without hardness or any pugnacity; there was no defiance +in her manner, which was perfectly simple and straightforward. + +“Your moral comparison between Constantinople and Greece--it isn’t fair, +by the way, to compare a city with a country--doesn’t interest me at +all. People can be disgusting anywhere. Greece is no better than +Turkey. It has a wonderfully delicate, pure atmosphere; but that doesn’t +influence the morals of the population. Fine Greek art is the purest art +in the world; but that doesn’t mean that the men who created it had only +pure thoughts or lived only pure lives. I never read morals into art, +although I’m English, and it’s the old hopeless English way to do +that. The man who made Echo”--she turned her large eyes towards the +statuette--“may have been an evil liver. In fact, I believe he was. But +Echo is an exquisite pure bit of art.” + +Dion thought of Rosamund’s words about Praxiteles as they sat before +Hermes. His Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke were mentally at opposite poles; +yet they were both good women. + +“My friend Daventry would agree with you, I know,” he said. + +“He’s a clever and a very dear little man. Who’s that coming in?” + +Dion looked and saw Canon Wilton. He told Mrs. Clarke who it was. + +“Enid told me he was coming. I should like to know him.” + +“Shall I go and tell him so?” + +“Presently. How’s your baby? I’m told you’ve got a baby.” + +Dion actually blushed. Mrs. Clarke gazed at the blush, and no doubt +thoroughly understood it, but she did not smile, or look arch, or full +of feminine understanding. + +“It’s very well, thank you. It’s just like other babies.” + +“So was mine. Babies are always said to be wonderful, and never are. +And we love ours chiefly because they aren’t. I hate things with wings +growing out of their shoulders. My boy’s a very naughty boy.” + +They talked about the baby, and then about Mrs. Clarke’s son of ten; +and then Canon Wilton came up, shook hands warmly with Dion, and was +introduced by Mrs. Chetwinde to Mrs. Clarke. + +Presently, from the other side of the room where he was standing with +Esme Darlington, Dion saw them in conversation; saw Mrs. Clarke’s eyes +fixed on the Canon’s almost fiercely sincere face. + +“It’s going to be an abominable case,” murmured Mr. Darlington in Dion’s +ear. “We must all stand round her.” + +“I can’t imagine how any one could think such a woman guilty,” said +Dion. + +“It has all come about through her unconventionality.” He pulled his +beard and lifted his ragged eyebrows. “It really is much wiser +for innocent people, such as Cynthia, to keep a tight hold on the +conventions. They have their uses. They have their place in the scheme. +But she never could see it, and look at the result.” + +“But then don’t you think she’ll win?” + +“No one can tell.” + +“In any case, she tells me she’s going back to live at Constantinople.” + +“Madness! Sheer madness!” said Mr. Darlington, almost piteously. “I +shall beg her not to.” + +Dion suppressed a smile. That day he had gained the impression that Mrs. +Clarke had a will of iron. + +When he went up to say good-by to her, Daventry had already gone; he +said he had work to do on the case. + +“May I wish you success?” Dion ventured to say, as he took her hand. + +“Thank you,” she answered. “I think you must go in for athletic +exercises, don’t you?” + +Her eyes were fixed on the breadth of his chest, and then traveled to +his strong, broad shoulders. + +“Yes, I’m very keen on them.” + +“I want my boy to go in for them. It’s so important to be healthy.” + +“Rather!” + +He felt the Stamboul touch in her soft, hot hand. As he let it go, he +added: + +“I can give you the address of a first-rate instructor if your boy ever +wants to be physically trained. I go to him. His name’s Jenkins.” + +“Thank you.” + +She was still looking at his chest and shoulders. The expression of +distress in her eyes seemed to be deepening. But a tall man, Sir John +Killigrew, one of her adherents, spoke to her, and she turned to give +him her complete attention. + +“I’ll walk with you, if you’re going,” said Canon Wilton’s strong voice +in Dion’s ear. + +“That’s splendid. I’ll just say good-by to Mrs. Chetwinde.” + +He found her by the tea-table with three or four men and two very smart +women. As he came up one of the latter was saying: + +“It’s all Lady Ermyntrude’s fault. She always hated Cynthia, and she has +a heart of stone.” + +The case again! + +“Oh, are you going?” said Mrs. Chetwinde. + +She got up and came away from the tea-table. + +“D’you like Cynthia Clarke?” she asked. + +“Yes, very much. She interests me.” + +“Ah?” + +She looked at him, and seemed about to say something, but did not speak. + +“You saw her take my hand,” he said, moved by a sudden impulse. + +“Did she?” + +“We were talking about Stamboul. She did it to show me----” He broke +off. “I saw you felt, as I did, that no one but a through and through +innocent woman could have done it, just now--like that, I mean.” + +“Of course Cynthia is innocent,” Mrs. Chetwinde said, rather coldly and +very firmly. “There’s Canon Wilton waiting for you.” + +She turned away, but did not go back to the tea-table; as Dion went out +of the room he saw her sitting down on the red sofa by Mrs. Clarke. + +Canon Wilton and he walked slowly away from the house. The Canon, who +had some heart trouble of which he never spoke, was not allowed to walk +fast; and to-day he was tired after his sermon at the Abbey. He inquired +earnestly about Rosamund and the child, and seemed made happy by the +good news Dion was able to give him. + +“Has it made all life seem very different to you?” he asked. + +Dion acknowledged that it had. + +“I was half frightened at the thought of the change which was coming,” + he said. “We were so very happy as we were, you see.” + +The Canon’s intense gray eyes shot a glance at him, which he felt rather +than saw, in the evening twilight. + +“I hope you’ll be even happier now.” + +“It will be a different sort of happiness now.” + +“I think children bind people together more often than not. There are +cases when it’s not so, but I don’t think yours is likely to be one of +them.” + +“Oh, no.” + +“Is it a good-looking baby?” + +“No, really it’s not. Even Rosamund thinks that. D’you know, so far +she’s marvelously reasonable in her love.” + +“That’s splendid,” said Canon Wilton, with a strong ring in his voice. +“An unreasonable love is generally a love with something rotten at its +roots.” + +Dion stood still. + +“Oh, is that true really?” + +The Canon paused beside him. They were in Eaton Square, opposite to St. +Peter’s. + +“I think so. But I hate anything that approaches what I call mania. +Religious mania, for instance, is abhorrent to me, and, I should think, +displeasing to God. Any mania entering into a love clouds that purity +which is the greatest beauty of love. Mania--it’s detestable!” + +He spoke almost with a touch of heat, and put his hand on Dion’s +shoulder. + +“Beware of it, my boy.” + +“Yes.” + +They walked on, talking of other things. A few minutes before they +parted they spoke of Mrs. Clarke. + +“Did you know her before to-day?” asked the Canon. + +“No. I’d never even seen her. How dreadful for her to have to face such +a case.” + +“Yes, indeed.” + +“The fact that she’s innocent gives her a great pull, though. I realized +what a pull when I was having a talk with her.” + +“I don’t know much about the case,” was all that the Canon said. “I hope +justice will be done in it when it comes on.” + +Dion thought that there was something rather implacable in his voice. + +“I don’t believe Mrs. Clarke doubts that.” + +“Did she say so?” asked Canon Wilton. + +“No. But I felt that she expected to win--almost knew she would win.” + +“I see. She has confidence in the result.” + +“She seems to have.” + +“Women often have more confidence in difficult moments than we men. +Well, here I must leave you.” + +He held out his big, unwavering hand to Dion. + +“Good-by. God bless you both, and the child, whether it’s plain or +not. One good thing’s added to us when we start rather ill-favored; the +chance of growing into something well-favored.” + +He gripped Dion’s hand and walked slowly, but powerfully, away. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +As Dion had said, the baby was an ordinary baby. “In looks,” the nurse +remarked, “he favors his papa.” Certainly in this early stage of his +career the baby had little of the beauty and charm of Rosamund. As his +head was practically bald, his forehead, which was wrinkled as if by +experience and the troubles of years, looked abnormally high. His face, +full of puckers, was rather red; his nose meant very little as yet; his +mouth, with perpetually moving lips, was the home of bubbles. His eyes +were blue, and looked large in his extremely small countenance, which +was often decorated with an expression of mild inquiry. This expression, +however, sometimes changed abruptly to a network of wrath, in which +every feature, and even the small bald head, became involved. Then the +minute feet made feeble dabs, or stabs, at the atmosphere; the tiny +fists doubled themselves and wandered to and fro as if in search of the +enemy; and a voice came forth out of the temple, very personal and very +intense, to express the tempest of the soul. + +“Hark at him!” said the nurse. “He knows already what he wants and what +he _don’t_ want.” + +And Rosamund, listening as only a mother can listen, shook her head over +him, trying to condemn the rage, but enjoying the strength of her +child in the way of mothers, to whom the baby’s roar perhaps brings the +thought, “What a fine, bold man he’ll be some day.” If Rosamund had such +a thought the nurse encouraged it with her. “He’s got a proud spirit +already, ma’am. He’s not to be put upon. Have his way he will, and I +don’t altogether blame him.” Nor, be sure, did Rosamund altogether +blame the young varmint for anything. Perhaps in his tiny fisticuffs and +startlingly fierce cries she divined the Doric, in embryo, as it were; +perhaps when “little master” shrieked she thought of the columns of the +Parthenon. + +But Dion told the truth to Canon Wilton when he had said that Rosamund +was marvelously reasonable, so far, in her love for her baby son. The +admirable sanity, the sheer healthiness of outlook which Dion loved in +her did not desert her now. To Dion it seemed that in the very calmness +and good sense of her love she showed its great depth, showed that +already she was thinking of her child’s soul as well as of his little +body. + +Dion felt the beginnings of a change in Rosamund, but he did not find +either her or himself suddenly and radically changed by the possession +of a baby. He had thought that perhaps as mother and father they would +both feel abruptly much older than before, even perhaps old. It was not +so. Often Dion gazed at the baby as he bubbled and cooed, sneezed with +an air of angry astonishment, stared at nothing with a look of shallow +surmise, or, composing his puckers, slept, and Dion still felt young, +even very young, and not at all like a father. + +“I’m sure,” he once said to Rosamund, “women feel much more like mothers +when they have a baby than men feel like fathers.” + +“I feel like a mother all over,” she replied, bending above the child. +“In every least little bit of me.” + +“Then do you feel completely changed?” + +“Completely, utterly.” + +Dion sat still for a moment gazing at her. She felt his look, perhaps, +for she lifted her head, and her eyes went from the baby to him. + +“What is it, Rosamund? What are you considering?” + +“Well----” She hesitated. “Perhaps no one could quite understand, but I +feel a sense of release.” + +“Release! From what?” + +Again she hesitated; then she looked once more at the child almost as if +she wished to gain something from his helplessness. At last she said: + +“Dion, as you’ve given me _him_, I’ll tell you. Very often in the past +I’ve had an urgent desire some day to enter into the religious life.” + +“D’you--d’you mean to become a Roman Catholic and a nun?” he exclaimed, +feeling, absurdly perhaps, almost afraid and half indignant. + +“No. I’ve never wished to change my religion. There are Anglican +sisterhoods, you know.” + +“But your singing!” + +“I only intended to sing for a time. Then some day, when I felt quite +ready, I meant--” + +“But you married me?” he interrupted. + +“Yes. So you see I gave it all up.” + +“But you said it was the child which had brought you a sensation of +release!” + +“Perhaps you have never been a prisoner of a desire which threatens to +dominate your soul forever,” she said, quietly evading his point and +looking down, so that he could not see her eyes. “Look, he’s waking!” + +Surely she had moved abruptly and the movement had awakened the child. +She began playing with him, and the conversation was broken. + +The Clarke trial came on in May, when Robin was becoming almost elderly, +having already passed no less than ten weeks in the midst of this wicked +world. On the day before it opened, Daventry made Dion promise to come +into court at least once to hear some of the evidence. + +“A true friend would be there every day,” he urged--“to back up his old +chum.” + +“Business!” returned Dion laconically. + +“What’s your real reason against it?” + +“Well, Rosamund hates this kind of case. I spoke to her about it the +other day.” + +“What did she say?” + +“That she was delighted you had something to do, and that she hoped, if +Mrs. Clarke were innocent, she’d win. She pities her for being dragged +through all this mud.” + +“Yes?” + +“She said at the end that she hoped I wouldn’t think her unsympathetic +if she neither talked about the case nor read about it. She hates +filling her mind with ugly details and horrible suggestions.” + +“I see.” + +“You know, Guy, Rosamund thinks--she’s told me so more than once--that +the mind and the soul are very sensitive, and that--that they ought to +be watched over, and--and taken care of.” + +Dion looked rather uncomfortable as he finished. It was one thing to +speak of such matters with Rosamund, and quite another to touch on them +with a man, even a man who was a trusted friend. + +“Perhaps you’d rather not come at all?” + +“No, no. I’ll come once. You know how keen I am on your making a good +start.” + +Daventry took him at his word, and got him a seat beside Mrs. Chetwinde +on the third day of the trial, when Mrs. Clarke’s cross-examination, +begun on the previous day, was continued by Sir Edward Jeffson, Beadon +Clarke’s leading counsel. + +Dion told Rosamund where he was going when he left the house in the +morning. + +“I hope it will go well for poor Mrs. Clarke,” she said kindly, but +perhaps rather indifferently. + +She had not looked at the reports of the case in the papers, and had not +discussed its progress with Dion. He was not sorry for that. It was a +horrible case, full of abominable allegations and suggestions such as +he would have hated to discuss with Rosamund. As he stood in the little +hall of their house, which was delicately scented with lavender and lit +by pale sunshine, bidding her good-by, he realized the impossibility of +such a woman as she was ever being “mixed up” in such a trial. Simply +that couldn’t happen, he thought. Instinct would keep her far from every +suggestion of a possible impurity. He felt certain that Mrs. Clarke +was innocent, but, as he looked into Rosamund’s honest brown eyes, +he thought that Mrs. Clarke must have been singularly imprudent. He +remembered how she had held his hand in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room. +Wisdom and unwisdom; he compared them: the one was a builder up, the +other a destroyer of beauty--the beauty that is in every completely sane +and perfectly poised life. + +“Rose,” he said, leaning forward to kiss his wife, “I think you are very +wise.” + +“Why wise all of a sudden?” she asked, smiling. + +“You keep the door of your life.” + +He glanced round at the little hall, simple, fresh, with a few white +roses in a blue pot, the pale sunshine lying on the polished floor of +wood, the small breeze coming in almost affectionately between snowy +curtains. Purity--everything seemed to whisper of that, to imply that; +simplicity ruling, complexity ruled out. + +And then he was sitting in the crowded court, breathing bad air, hearing +foul suggestions, watching strained or hateful faces, surrounded by +people who were attracted by ugly things as vultures are attracted by +the stench of dead and decaying bodies. At first he loathed being there; +presently, however, he became interested, then almost fascinated by his +surroundings and by the drama which was being played slowly out in the +midst of them. + +Daventry, in wig and gown, looked tremendously legal and almost severe +in his tense gravity. Sir John Addington, his leader, a man of great +fame, was less tense in his watchfulness, amazingly at his ease with the +Court, and on smiling terms with the President, who, full of worldly +and unworldly knowledge, held the balance of justice with an unwavering +firmness. The jury looked startlingly commonplace, smug and sleepy, +despite the variety of type almost inevitably presented by twelve human +beings. Not one of them looked a rascal; not one of them looked an +actively good man. The intense Englishness of them hit one in the face +like a well-directed blow from a powerful fist. And they had to give the +verdict on this complex drama of Stamboul! How much they would have +to tell their wives presently! Their sense of their unusual importance +pushed through the smugness heavily, like a bulky man in broadcloth +showing through a dull crowd. + +Mrs. Clarke occasionally glanced at them with an air of almost +distressed inquiry, as if she had never seen such cabbages before, and +was wondering about their gray matter. Her life in Stamboul must have +effected changes in her. She looked almost exotic in this court, despite +the simplicity of her gown, her unpretending little hat; as if her mind, +perhaps, had become exotic. But she certainly did not look wicked. Dion +was struck again by the strong mentality of her and by her haggardness. +To him she seemed definitely a woman of mind, not at all an animal +woman. When he gazed at her he felt that he was gazing at mind rather +than at body. Just before she went into the box she met his eyes. She +stared at him, as if carefully and strongly considering him; then she +nodded. He bowed, feeling uncomfortable, feeling indeed almost a brute. + +“She’ll think I’ve come out of filthy curiosity,” he thought, looking +round at the greedy faces of the crowd. + +No need to ask why those faces were there. + +He felt still more uncomfortable when Mrs. Clarke was in the +witness-box, and Sir Edward Jeffson took up the cross-examination which +he had begun late in the afternoon of the previous day. + +Dion had very seldom been in a Court of Justice, and had never before +been in the Divorce Court. As the cross-examination of Mrs. Clarke +lengthened out he felt as if his clothes, and the clothes of all the +human beings who crowded about him, were being ruthlessly stripped off, +as if an ugly and abominable nakedness were gradually appearing. The +shame of it all was very hateful to him; and yet--yes, he couldn’t deny +it--there was a sort of dreadful fascination in it, too. + +The two co-respondents, Hadi Bey and Aristide Dumeny of the French +Embassy in Constantinople, were in court, sitting not far from Dion, to +whom Mrs. Chetwinde, less vague than, but quite as self-possessed as, +usual, pointed them out. + +Both were young men. Hadi Bey, who of course wore the fez, was a fine +specimen of the smart, alert, cosmopolitan and cultivated Turk of modern +days. There was a peculiar look of vividness and brightness about him, +in his piercing dark eyes, in his red lips, in his healthy and manly +face with its rosy brown complexion and its powerful decided chin. +He had none of the sleepiness and fatalistic languor of the fat +hubble-bubble smoking Turk of caricature. The whole of him looked +aristocratic, energetic, perfectly poised and absolutely self-possessed. +Many of the women in court glanced at him without any distaste. + +Aristide Dumeny was almost strangely different--an ashy-pale, dark-eyed, +thin and romantic-visaged man, stamped with a curious expression of pain +and fatalism. He looked as if he had seen much, dreamed many dreams, +and suffered not a little. There was in his face something slightly +contemptuous, as if, intellectually, he seldom gazed up at any man. He +watched Mrs. Clarke in the box with an enigmatic closeness of attention +which seemed wholly impersonal, even when she was replying to hideous +questions about himself. That he had an interesting personality was +certain. When his eyes rested on the twelve jurymen he smiled every so +faintly. It seemed to him, perhaps, absurd that they should have power +over the future of the woman in the witness-box. + +That woman showed an extraordinary self-possession which touched dignity +but which never descended to insolence. Despite her obvious cleverness +and mental resource she preserved a certain simplicity. She did not pose +as a passionate innocent, or assume any forced airs of supreme virtue. +She presented herself rather as a woman of the world who was careless of +the conventions, because she thought of them as chains which prevented +free movement and were destructive of genuine liberty. She acknowledged +that she had been a great deal with Hadi Bey and Dumeny, that she had +often made long excursions with each of them on foot, on horseback, in +caiques, that she had had them to dinner, separately, on many occasions +in a little pavilion which stood at the end of her husband’s garden and +looked upon the Bosporus. These dinners had frequently taken place when +her husband was away from home. Monsieur Dumeny was a good musician and +had sometimes sung and played to her till late in the night. Hadi Bey +had sometimes been her guide in Constantinople and had given to her the +freedom of his strange and mysterious city of Stamboul. With him she had +visited the mosques, with him she had explored the bazaars, with him +she had sunk down in the strange and enveloping melancholy of the vast +Turkish cemeteries which are protected by forests of cypresses. All this +she acknowledged without the least discomposure. One of her remarks to +the cross-examining counsel was this: + +“You suggest that I have been very imprudent. I answer that I am not +able to live what the conventional call a prudent life. Such a life +would be a living death to me.” + +“Kindly confine yourself to answering my questions,” retorted Counsel +harshly. “I suggest that you were far more than imprudent. I suggest +that when you and Hadi Bey remained together in that pavilion on +the Bosporus until midnight, until after midnight, you----” and then +followed another hideous accusation, which, gazing with her observant +eyes at the brick-red shaven face of her accuser, Mrs. Clarke quietly +denied. She never showed temper. Now and then she gave indications of a +sort of cold disgust or faint surprise. But there were no outraged +airs of virtue. A slight disdain was evidently more natural to the +temperament of this woman than any fierceness of protestation. Once when +Counsel said, “I shall ask the jury to infer”--something abominable, +Mrs. Clarke tranquilly rejoined: + +“Whatever they infer it won’t alter the truth.” + +Daventry moved his shoulders. Dion was certain that he considered this +remark ill-advised. The jury, however, at whom Mrs. Clarke gazed in the +short silence which followed, seemed, Dion thought, impressed by her +firmness. The luncheon interval prevented Counsel from saying anything +further just then, and Mrs. Clarke stepped down from the box. + +“Isn’t she wonderful?” + +Dion heard this murmur, which did not seem to be addressed to any +particular person. It had come from Mrs. Chetwinde, who now got up and +went to speak to Mrs. Clarke. The whole court was in movement. Dion went +out to have a hasty lunch with Daventry. + +“A pity she said that!” Daventry said in a low voice to Dion, hitching +up his gown. “Juries like to be deferred to.” + +“I believe she impressed them by her independence.” + +“Do you, though? She’s marvelously intelligent. Perhaps she knows more +of men, even of jurymen, than I do.” + +At lunch they discussed the case. Daventry had had two or three chances +given to him by Sir John Addington, and thought he had done quite well. + +“Do you think Mrs. Clarke will win?” said Dion. + +“I know she’s innocent, but I can’t tell. She’s so infernally +unconventional and a jury’s so infernally conventional that I can’t help +being afraid.” + +Dion thought of his Rosamund’s tranquil wisdom. + +“I think Mrs. Clarke’s very clever,” he said. “But I suppose she isn’t +very wise.” + +“I’ll tell you what it is, old Dion; she prefers life to wisdom.” + +“Well, but----” Dion Began. + +But he stopped. Now he knew Mrs. Clarke a little better, from her own +evidence, he knew just what Daventry meant. He looked upon the life of +unwisdom, and he was able to feel its fascination. There were scents in +it that lured, and there were colors that tempted; in its night there +was music; about it lay mystery, shadows, and silver beams of the moon +shining between cypresses like black towers. It gave out a call to +which, perhaps, very few natures of men were wholly deaf. The unwise +life! Almost for the first time Dion considered it with a deep +curiosity. + +He considered it more attentively, more curiously, during the afternoon, +when Mrs. Clarke’s cross-examination was continued. + +It was obvious that during this trial two women were being presented to +the judge and jury, the one a greedy and abominably secret and clever +sensualist, who hid her mania beneath a cloak of intellectuality, the +other a genuine intellectual, whose mental appetites far outweighed the +appetites of her body, who was, perhaps, a sensualist, but a sensualist +of the spirit and not of the flesh. Which of these two women was the +real Cynthia Clarke? The jury would eventually give their decision, +but it might not be in accordance with fact. Meanwhile, the horrible +unclothing process was ruthlessly proceeded with. But already Dion was +becoming accustomed to it. Perhaps Mrs. Clarke’s self-possession helped +him to assimilate the nauseous food which was offered to him. + +Beadon Clarke was in court, and had been pointed out to Dion, an +intellectual and refined-looking man, bald, with good features, and +a gentle, but now pained, expression; obviously a straight and +aristocratic fellow. Beside him sat his mother, that Lady Ermyntrude +who, it was said, had forced on the trial. She sat upright, her eyes +fixed on her daughter-in-law, a rather insignificant small woman, +not very well dressed, young looking, with hair done exactly in Queen +Alexandra’s way, and crowned with a black toque. + +Dion noticed that she had a very firm mouth and chin. She did not +look actively hostile as she gazed at the witness, but merely +attentive--deeply, concentratedly attentive. Mrs. Clarke never glanced +towards her. + +Perhaps, whatever Lady Ermyntrude had believed hitherto, she was now +beginning to wonder whether her conception of her son’s wife had been +a wrong one, was beginning to ask herself whether she had divined the +nature of the soul inhabiting the body which now stood up before her. + +About an hour before the close of the sitting the heat in the court +became almost suffocating, and the Judge told Mrs. Clarke she might +continue her evidence sitting down. She refused this favor. + +“I’m not at all tired, my lord,” she said. + +“She’s made of iron,” Mrs. Chetwinde murmured to Dion. “Though she +generally looks like a corpse. She was haggard even as a girl.” + +“Did you know her then?” he whispered. + +“I’ve known her all my life.” + +Daventry wiped his brow with a large pocket-handkerchief, performing the +action legally. One of the jurymen, who was too fat, and had something +of the expression of a pug dog, opened his mouth and rolled slightly +in his seat. The cross-examination became with every moment more +disagreeable. Beadon Clarke never lifted his eyes from his knees. All +the women in court, except Mrs. Chetwinde and Mrs. Clarke, were looking +strangely alive and conscious. Dion had forgotten everything except +Stamboul and the life of unwisdom. Suppose Mrs. Clarke had lived the +life imputed to her by Counsel, suppose she really were a consummately +clever and astoundingly ingenious humbug, driven, as many human beings +are driven, by a dominating vice which towered over her life issuing +commands she had not the strength to resist, how had it profited her? +Had she had great rewards in it? Had she been led down strange ways +guided by fascination bearing the torch from which spring colored fires? +Good women sometimes, perhaps oftener than many people realize, look +out of the window and try to catch a glimpse of the world of the wicked +women, asking themselves, “Is it worth while? Is their time so much +better than mine? Am I missing--missing?” And they shut the window--for +fear. Far away, turning the corner of some dark alley, they have seen +the colored gleam of the torch. + +Rosamund would never do that--would never even want to do that. She was +not one of the good women who love to take just a peep at evil “because +one ought to know something of the trials and difficulties of those less +fortunately circumstanced than oneself.” + +But, for the moment, Dion had quite forgotten his Rosamund. She was +in England, but he was in Stamboul, hearing the waters of the Bosporus +lapping at the foot of Mrs. Clarke’s garden pavilion, while Dumeny +played to her as the moon came up to shine upon the sweet waters of +Asia; or sitting under the plane trees of the Pigeon Mosque, while Hadi +Bey showed her how to write an Arabic love-letter--to somebody in the +air, of course. In this trial he felt the fascination of Constantinople +as he had never felt it when he was in Constantinople; but he felt, too, +that only those who strayed deliberately from the beaten paths could +ever capture the full fascination of the divided city, which looks to +Europe and to Asia, and is set along the way of the sea. + +Whether innocent or guilty, Mrs. Clarke had certainly done that. He +watched her with a growing interest. How very much she must know that he +did not know. Then he glanced at Hadi Bey, who still sat up alertly, who +still looked bright and vivid, intelligent, ready for anything, a man +surely with muscles of steel and a courageous robust nature, and at +Aristide Dumeny. Upon the latter his eyes rested for a long time. +When at last he again looked at Mrs. Clarke he had formed the definite +impression that Dumeny was corrupt--an interesting man, a clever, +probably a romantic as well as a cynical man, but certainly corrupt. + +Didn’t that tell against Mrs. Clarke? + +She was now being questioned about a trip at night in a caique with Hadi +Bey down the sweet waters of Asia where willows lean over the stream. +Mrs. Chetwinde’s pale eyes were fastened upon her. Beadon Clarke bent +his head a little lower as, in her husky voice, his wife said that +he knew of the expedition, had apparently smiled upon her +unconventionalities, knowing how entirely free she was from the ugly +bias towards vice attributed to her by Counsel. + +Lady Ermyntrude Clarke shot a glance at her son, and her firm mouth +became firmer. + +The willows bent over the sweet waters in the warm summer night; the +Albanian boatmen were singing. + +“She must have had wonderful times!” + +The whisper came from an unseen woman sitting just behind Dion. His mind +echoed the thought she had expressed. Now the Judge was rising from the +bench and bowing to the Court; Mrs. Clarke was stepping down from the +witness-box; Dumeny, his eyes half closed, was brushing his shining silk +hat with the sleeve of his coat; Beadon Clarke was leaning to speak to +his mother. + +The Court was adjourned. + +As Dion got up he felt the heat as if it were heat from a furnace. His +face and his body were burning. + +“Come and speak to Cynthia, and take us to tea somewhere--can you?” said +Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“Of course, with pleasure.” + +“Your Rosamund----?” + +Her eyes were on him for a moment. + +“She won’t expect me at any particular time.” + +“Mr. Daventry can come too.” + +Dion never forgot their difficult exit from the court. It made him feel +ashamed for humanity, for the crowd which frantically pressed to stare +at a woman because perhaps she had done things which were considered +by all right-minded people to be disgusting. Mrs. Clarke and her little +party of friends had to be helped away by the police. When at length +they were driving away towards Claridge’s Hotel, Dion was able once +more to meet the eyes of his companions, and again he was amazed at +the self-possession of Mrs. Clarke. Really she seemed as composed, as +completely mistress of herself, as when he had first seen her standing +near the statue of Echo in the drawing-room of Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“You haven’t been in court before to-day, have you?” she said to Dion. + +“No.” + +“Why did you come to-day?” + +“Well, I----” He hesitated. “I promised Mr. Daventry to come to-day.” + +“That was it!” said Mrs. Clarke, and she looked out of the window. + +Dion felt rather uncomfortable as he spoke to Mrs. Chetwinde and left +further conversation with Mrs. Clarke to Daventry; but when they were +all in a quiet corner of the tearoom at Claridge’s, a tea-table before +them and a band playing softly at a distance, he was more at his ease. +The composure of Mrs. Clarke perhaps conveyed itself to him. She spoke +of the case quite naturally, as a guilty woman surely could not possibly +have spoken of it--showing no venom, making no attack upon her accusers. + +“It’s all a mistake,” she said, “arising out of stupidity, out of the +most widespread and, perhaps, the most pitiable and dangerous lack in +human nature.” + +“And what’s that?” asked Daventry, rather eagerly. + +“I expect you know.” + +He shook his head. + +“Don’t you?” she asked of Dion, spreading thinly some butter over a +piece of dry toast. + +“I’m afraid I don’t.” + +“Cynthia means the lack of power to read character, the lack of +psychological instinct,” drifted from the lips of Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“Three-quarters of the misunderstandings and miseries of the world come +from that,” said Mrs. Clarke, looking at the now buttered toast. “If my +mother-in-law and my husband had any psychological faculty they would +never have mistaken my unconventionality, which I shall never give up, +for common, and indeed very vulgar, sinfulness.” + +“Confusing the pastel with the oleograph,” dropped out Mrs. Chetwinde, +looking abstractedly at an old red woman in a turret of ostrich plumes, +who was spread out on the other side of the room before a plate of +cakes. + +“You are sure Lady Ermyntrude didn’t understand?” said Daventry, with a +certain sharp legality of manner. + +“You mean that she might be wicked instead of only stupid?” + +“Well, yes. I suppose it does come to that.” + +“Believe me, Mr. Daventry, she’s a quite honest stupid woman. She +honestly thinks that I’m a horrible creature.” + +And Mrs. Clarke began to bite the crisp toast with her lovely teeth. +Mrs. Chetwinde’s eyes dwelt on her for a brief instant with, Dion +thought, a rather peculiar look which he could not quite understand. It +had, perhaps, a hint of hardness, or of cold admiration, something of +that kind, in it. + +“Tell me some more about the baby,” was Mrs. Clarke’s next remark, +addressed to Dion. “I want to get away for a minute into a happy +domestic life. And yours is that, I know.” + +How peculiarly haggard, and yet how young she looked as she said that! +She added: + +“If the case ends as I feel sure it will, I hope your wife and I shall +get to know each other. I hear she’s the most delightful woman in +London, and extraordinarily beautiful. Isn’t she?” + +“I think she is beautiful,” Dion said simply. + +And then they talked about Robin, while Mrs. Chetwinde and Daventry +discussed some question of the day. Before they parted Dion could not +help saying: + +“I want to ask you something.” + +“Yes?” + +“Why do you feel sure that the trial will end as it ought to end? Surely +the lack of the psychological instinct is peculiarly abundant--if a +lack can be abundant!”--he smiled, almost laughed, a little +deprecatingly--“in a British jury?” + +“And so you think they’re likely to go wrong in their verdict?” + +“Doesn’t it rather follow?” + +She stared at him, and her eyes were, or looked, even more widely opened +than usual. After a long pause she said; + +“You wish to frighten me.” + +She got up, and began to draw on her dove-colored Swedish kid gloves. + +“Tippie,” she said to Mrs. Chetwinde, “I must go home now and have a +little rest.” + +Only then did Dion realize how marvelously she was bearing a tremendous +strain. He began to admire her prodigiously. + +When he said good-by to her under the great porch he couldn’t help +asking: + +“Are your nerves of steel?” + +She leaned forward in the brougham. + +“If your muscles are of iron.” + +“My muscles!” he said. + +“Haven’t you educated them?” + +“Oh--yes.” + +“And perhaps I’ve educated my nerves.” + +Mrs. Chetwinde’s spirited horses began to prance and show temper. Mrs. +Clarke sat back. As the carriage moved away, Dion saw Mrs. Chetwinde’s +eyes fixed upon him. They looked at that moment not at all vague. If +they had not been her eyes, he would have been inclined to think them +piercing. But, of course, Mrs. Chetwinde’s eyes could never be that. + +“How does one educate one’s nerves, Guy?” asked Dion, as the two friends +walked away. + +“By being defendant in a long series of divorce cases, I should say.” + +“Has Mrs. Clarke ever been in another case of this kind?” + +“Good heavens, no. If she had, even I couldn’t believe in her innocence, +as I do now.” + +“Then where did she get her education?” + +“Where do women get things, old Dion? It seems to me sometimes straight +from God, and sometimes straight from the devil.” + +Dion’s mental comment on this was, “What about Mrs. Clarke?” But he did +not utter it. + +Before he left Daventry, he was pledged to be in court on the last day +of the case, when the verdict would be given. He wished to go to the +court again on the morrow, but the thought of Rosamund decided him not +to do this; he would, he knew, feel almost ashamed in telling her that +the divorce court, at this moment, fascinated him, that he longed, +or almost longed, to follow the colored fires of a certain torch down +further shadowy alleys of the unwise life. He felt quite sure that +Mrs. Clarke was an innocent woman, but she had certainly been very +unconventional indeed in her conduct. He remembered the almost stern +strength in her husky voice when she had said “my unconventionality, +_which I shall never give up_.” So even this hideous and widely +proclaimed scandal would not induce her to bow in the future before the +conventional gods. She really was an extraordinary woman. What would +Rosamund think of her? If she won her case she evidently meant to know +Rosamund. Of course, there could be nothing against that. If she +lost the case, naturally there could never be any question of such an +acquaintance; he knew instinctively that she would never suggest it. +Whatever she was, or was not, she was certainly a woman of the world. + +That evening, when he reached home, he found Rosamund sitting in the +nursery in the company of Robin and the nurse. The window was partially +open. Rosamund believed in plenty of air for her child, and no +“cosseting”; she laughed to scorn, but genially, the nurse’s prejudice +against “the night air.” + +“My child,” she said, “must get accustomed to night as well as day, +Nurse--and the sooner the better.” So now “Master Robin” was played upon +by a little wind from Westminster. He seemed in no way alarmed by it. +This evening he was serene, and when his father entered the room he +assumed his expression of mild inquiry, vaguely agitated his small +rose-colored fists, and blew forth a welcoming bubble. + +Dion was touched at the sight. + +“Little rogue!” he said, bending over Robin. “Little, little rogue!” + +Robin raised his, as yet scarcely defined, eyebrows, stared tremendously +hard at the nursery atmosphere, pulled out his wet lips and gurgled, at +the same time wagging his head, now nicely covered with silky fair hair, +or down, whichever you chose to call it. + +“He knows his papa, ma’am, and that he does, a boy!” said the nurse, +who approved of Dion, and had said below stairs that he was “as good a +husband as ever wore shoe-leather.” + +“Of course he does,” said Rosamund softly. “Babies have plenty of +intelligence of a kind, and I think it’s a darling kind.” + +Dion sat down beside her, and they both bent over Robin in the gathering +twilight, while the nurse went softly out of the room. + +Dion had quite forgotten the Clarke case. + + + +CHAPTER V + +Three days later Daventry called in Little Market Street early, and +was shown into the dining-room where he found Rosamund alone at the +breakfast-table. + +“Do forgive me for bursting in upon the boiled eggs,” he said, looking +unusually excited. “I’m off almost directly to the Law Courts and I want +to take Dion with me. It’s the last day of Mrs. Clarke’s case. We expect +the verdict some time this evening. I dare say the court will sit late. +Where’s Dion?” + +“He’s just coming down. We were both disturbed in the night, so we slept +later than usual.” + +“Disturbed? Burglars? Fire?” + +“No; Robin’s not at all well.” + +“I say! I’m sorry for that. What is it?” + +“He’s had a very bad throat and been feverish, poor little chap. But I +think he’s better this morning. The doctor came.” + +“You’ll never be one of the fussy mothers.” + +“I hope not,” she said, rather gravely; “I’m not fond of them. Here’s +Dion.” + +Daventry sat with them while they breakfasted, and Dion agreed to keep +his promise and go to the court. + +“I told Uncle Biron I must be away from business to hear the +summing-up,” he said. “I’ll send a telegram to the office. Do you think +it will be all right for Mrs. Clarke?” + +“She’s innocent, but nobody can say. It depends so much on the +summing-up.” + +Dion glanced at Rosamund. + +“You mustn’t think I’m going to turn into an idler, Rose. This is a very +special occasion.” + +“I know. Mr. Daventry’s first case.” + +“Haven’t you followed it at all?” Daventry asked. + +She shook her head. + +“No, but I’ve been wished you well all the same.” + +When the two men got up to go, Dion said: + +“Rosamund!” + +“What is it?” + +“If Mrs. Clarke wins and is completely exonerated, I think she would +like very much to make your acquaintance.” + +Rosamund looked surprised. + +“What makes you think so?” + +“Well, she said something to that effect the other day.” + +“She’s a very interesting, clever woman,” interposed Daventry, with +sudden warmth. + +“I’m sure she is. We must see. It’s very kind of her. Poor woman! What +dreadful anxiety she must be in to-day! You’ll all be glad when it’s +over.” + +When the two friends were out in the sunshine, walking towards the +Strand, Daventry said: + +“Why is your wife against Mrs. Clarke?” + +“She isn’t. What makes you thinks so?” + +“I’m quite sure she doesn’t want to know her, even if she gets the +verdict.” + +“Well, of course all this sort of thing is--it’s very far away from +Rosamund.” + +“You don’t mean to say you doubt Mrs. Clarke?” + +“No, but----” + +“Surely if she’s innocent she’s as good as any other woman.” + +“I know, but----I suppose it’s like this: there are different ways of +being good, and perhaps Mrs. Clarke’s way isn’t Rosamund’s. In fact, we +know it isn’t.” + +Daventry said nothing more on the subject; he began to discuss the case +in all its bearings, and presently dwelt upon the great power English +judges have over the decisions of juries. + +“Mrs. Clarke gave her evidence splendidly on the whole,” he said. +“And Hadi Bey made an excellent impression. My one fear is that fellow +Aristide Dumeny. You didn’t hear him, but, of course, you read his +evidence. He was perfectly composed and as clever as he could be in the +box, but I’m sure, somehow, the jury were against him.” + +“Why?” + +“I hardly know. It may be something in his personality.” + +“I believe he’s a beast,” said Dion. + +“There!” exclaimed Daventry, wrinkling his forehead. “If the Judge +thinks as you do it may just turn things against us.” + +“Why did she make a friend of the fellow?” + +“Because he’s chock-full of talent and knowledge, and she loves both. +Dion, my boy, the mind can play the devil with us as well as the body. +But I hope--I hope for the right verdict. Anyhow I’ve done well, and +shall get other cases out of this. The odd thing is that Mrs. Clarke’s +drained me dry of egoism. I care only to win for her. I couldn’t bear to +see her go out of court with a ruined reputation. My nerves are all on +edge. If Mrs. Clarke loses, how d’you think she’ll take it?” + +“Standing up.” + +“I expect you’re right. But I don’t believe I shall take it standing. +Perhaps some women make us men feel for them more than they feel for +themselves. Don’t look at me in court whatever you do.” + +They had arrived at the Law Courts. He hurried away. + +Dion’s place was again beside Mrs. Chetwinde, who looked unusually +alive, and whose vagueness had been swept away by something--anxiety +for her friend, perhaps, or the excitement of following day after day an +unusually emotional _cause celebre_. + +Now, as Sir John Addington stood up to continue his speech on Mrs. +Clarke’s behalf, begun on the previous day, Mrs. Chetwinde leaned +forward and fixed her eyes upon him, closing her fingers tightly on the +fan she had brought with her. + +Sir John spoke with an earnestness and conviction which at certain +moments rose almost to passion, as he drew the portrait of a woman whose +brilliant mind and innocent nature had led her into the unconventional +conduct which her enemies now asserted were wickedness. Beadon Clarke’s +counsel had suggested that Mrs. Clarke was an abominable woman, +brilliantly clever, exquisitely subtle, who had chosen as an +armor against suspicion a bold pretense of simplicity and harmless +unconventionality, but who was the prey of a hidden and ungovernable +vice. He, Sir John, ventured to put forward for the jury’s careful +examination a very different picture. He made no secret of the fact +that, from the point of view of the ordinary unconventional man or +woman, Mrs. Clarke had often acted unwisely, and, with not too fine a +sarcasm, he described for the jury the average existence of “a careful +drab woman” in the watchful and eternally gossiping diplomatic world. +Then he contrasted with it the life led by Mrs. Clarke in the wonderful +city of Stamboul--a life “full of color, of taste, of interest, of +charm, of innocent, joyous and fragrant liberty. Which of us,” he +demanded, “would not in our souls prefer the latter life to the +former? Which of us did not secretly long for the touch of romance, +of strangeness, of beauty, to put something into our lives which they +lacked? But we have not the moral courage to break our prison doors and +to emerge into the nobler world.” + +“The dull, the drab, the platter-faced and platter-minded people,” he +said, in a passage which Dion was always to remember, “who go forever +bowed down beneath the heavy yoke of convention, are too often apt to +think that everything charming, everything lively, everything unusual, +everything which gives out, like sweet incense, a delicate aroma of +strangeness, must be, somehow, connected with wickedness. Everything +which deviates from their pattern must deviate towards the devil, +according to them; every step taken away from the beaten path must +be taken towards ultimate destruction. They have no conception of +intimacies between women and men cemented not by similar lusts +and similar vices, but by similar intellectual tastes and similar +aspirations towards beauty. In color such people always find blackness, +in gaiety wickedness, in liberty license, in the sacred intimacies +of the soul the hateful vices of the body. But you, gentlemen of the +jury----” + +His appeal to the twelve in the box at this moment was, perhaps, +scarcely convincing. He addressed them as if, like Mrs. Clarke and +himself, they were enamored of the unwise life, which is only unwise +because we live in a world of censorious fools, and as if he knew it. +The strange thing was that the jury were evidently impressed if not +carried away, by his appeal. They sat forward, stared at Sir John as +if fascinated, and even began to assume little airs which were +almost devil-may-care. But when, with a precise and deliberately cold +acuteness, Sir John turned to the evidence adverse to his client, and +began to tear it to shreds, they stared less, frowned, and showed by +their expressions their efforts to be legal. + +As soon as Sir John had finished his speech, the Court rose for the +luncheon interval. + +“Are you going out?” said Mrs. Chetwinde to Dion. “I’ve brought some +horrible little sandwiches, and I shan’t stir.” + +“I’m not hungry. I’ll stay with you.” + +He sighed. + +“What a crowd!” he said, looking over the sea of hot, staring faces. +“How horrid people look sometimes!” + +“When they’re feeling cruel.” + +She began to eat her sandwiches, which were tightly packed in a small +silver box. + +“Isn’t Mrs. Clarke coming to-day?” Dion asked. + +“Yes. I expect her in a moment. Esme Darlington is bringing her.” + +“Mr. Darlington?” + +“You’re surprised?” + +“Well, I should hardly have expected somehow that--I don’t know.” + +“I do. But Esme Darlington’s more of a man than he seems. And he’s +thoroughly convinced of Cynthia’s innocence. Here they are.” + +There was a stir in the crowd. Many women present rustled as they turned +in their seats; some stood up and craned forward; people in the gallery +leaned over, looking eagerly down; a loud murmur and a wide hiss of +whispering emphasized the life in the court. The tall, loose-limbed +figure of Esme Darlington, looking to-day singularly dignified and +almost impressive, pushed slowly forward, followed by the woman whose +social fate was so soon to be decided. + +Mrs. Clarke glanced round over the many faces without any defiance as +she made her way with difficulty to a seat beside her solicitor. The +lack of defiance in her expression struck Dion forcibly. This woman did +not seem to be mentally on the defensive, did not seem to be wishing to +repel the glances, fierce with curiosity, which were leveled at her from +all sides. Apparently she had no fear at all of bristling bayonets. Her +haggard face was unsmiling, not cold, but intense with a sort of living +calm which was surely not a mask. She looked at Mrs. Chetwinde and at +Dion as she passed near to them, giving them no greeting except with her +large eyes which obviously recognized them. In a moment she was sitting +down between her solicitor and Esme Darlington. + +“It will quite break Guy Daventry up if she doesn’t get the verdict,” + said Dion in an uneven voice to Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“Mr. Daventry?” she said, with an odd little stress of emphasis on the +name. + +“Of course I should hate it too. Any man who feels a woman is +innocent--” + +He broke off. She said nothing, and went on eating her little sandwiches +as if she rather disliked them. + +“Mrs. Chetwinde, do tell me. I believe you’ve got an extraordinary +flair--will she win?” + +“My dear boy, now how can I know?” + +Dion felt very young for a minute. + +“I want to know what you expect.” + +Mrs. Chetwinde closed the small silver box with a soft snap. + +“I fully expect her to win.” + +“Because she’s innocent?” + +“Oh no. That’s no reason in a world like this, unfortunately.” + +“But, then, why?” + +“Because Cynthia always does get what she wants, or needs. She has quite +abnormal will-power, and will-power is _the_ conqueror. If I’m to tell +you the truth, I see only one reason for doubt, I don’t say fear, as to +the result.” + +“Can you tell me what it is?” + +“Aristide Dumeny.” + +At this moment the Judge returned to the bench. An hour later he began +to sum up. + +He spoke very slowly and rather monotonously, and at first Dion thought +that he was going to be “let down” by this almost cruelly level finale +to a dramatic, sometimes even horrible, struggle between powerful +opposing forces. But presently he began to come under a new fascination, +the fascination of a cool and very clear presentation of undressed +facts. Led by the Judge, he reviewed again the complex life at +Constantinople, he followed again Mrs. Clarke’s many steps away from the +beaten paths, he penetrated again through some of the winding ways into +the shadows of the unwise life. And he began to wonder a little and a +little to fear for the woman who was sitting so near to him waiting for +the end. He could not tell whether the Judge believed her to be innocent +or guilty, but he thought he could tell that the Judge considered her +indiscreet, too heedless of those conventions on which social relations +are based, too determined a follower after the flitting light of her own +desires. Presently the position of Beadon Clarke in the Constantinople +_menage_ was touched upon, and suddenly Dion found himself imagining how +it would be to have as his wife a Mrs. Clarke. Suppose Rosamund were +to develop the unconventional idiosyncrasies of a Cynthia Clarke? He +realized at once that he was not a Beadon Clarke; he could never stand +that sort of thing. He felt hot at the mere thought of his Rosamund +making night expeditions in caiques alone with young men--such, for +instance, as Hadi Bey; or listening alone at midnight in a garden +pavilion isolated, shaded by trees, to the music made by a Dumeny. + +Dumeny! The Judge pronounced his name. + +“I come now to the respondent’s relation with the second co-respondent, +Aristide Dumeny of the French Embassy in Constantinople.” + +Dion leaned slightly forward and looked at Dumeny. Dumeny was sitting +bolt upright, and now, as the Judge mentioned his name, he folded his +arms, raised his long dark eyes, and gazed steadily at the bench. Did he +know that he was the danger in the case? If he did he did not show any +apprehension. His white face, typically French, with its rather long +nose, slightly flattened temples, faintly cynical and ironic lips +and small but obstinate chin, was almost sinister in its complete +immobility. + +“He’s certainly a corrupt beast,” Dion said to himself. “But as +certainly he’s an interesting, clever, knowledgeable beast.” + +Dumeny’s very thick, glossy, and slightly undulating dark hair, growing +closely round his low forehead, helped to make him almost romantically +handsome, although his features were rather irregular. His white ears +were abnormally small, Dion noticed. + +The Judge went with cold minuteness into every detail of Dumeny’s +intimacy with Mrs. Clarke that had been revealed in the trial, and dwelt +on the link of music which, it was said, had held them together. + +“Music stimulates the passions, and may, in highly sensitive persons, +generate impulses not easy to control, provided that the situation +in which such persons find themselves, when roused and stirred, +is propitious. It has been given in evidence that Monsieur Dumeny +frequently played and sang to the respondent till late in the night in +the pavilion which has been described to you. You have seen Monsieur +Dumeny in the box, and can judge for yourselves whether he was a man +likely to avail himself of any advantage his undoubted talents may have +given him with a highly artistic and musical woman.” + +There was nothing striking in the words, but to Dion the Judge’s voice +seemed slightly changed as it uttered the last sentence. Surely a frigid +severity had crept into it, surely it was colored with a faint, but +definite, contempt. Several of the jury started narrowly at Aristide +Dumeny, and the foreman, with a care and precision almost ostentatious, +took a note. + +The Judge continued his analysis of Mrs. Clarke’s intimacy with Dumeny. +He was scrupulously fair; he gave full weight to the mutual attraction +which may be born out of common intellectual tastes--an attraction +possibly quite innocent, quite free from desire of anything but food for +the brain, the subtler emotions, and the soul “if you like to call +it so, gentlemen.” But, somehow, he left upon the mind of Dion, and +probably upon the minds of many others, an impression that he, the +Judge, was doubtful as to the sheer intellectuality of Monsieur Dumeny, +was not convinced that he had reached that condition of moral serenity +and purification in which a rare woman can be happily regarded as a sort +of disembodied spirit. + +When the Judge at length finished with Dumeny and Dumeny’s relations +with Mrs. Clarke, Dion felt very anxious about the verdict. The Judge +had not succeeded in making him believe that Mrs. Clarke was a guilty +woman, but he feared that the jury had been made doubtful. It was +evident to him that the Judge had a bad opinion of Dumeny, and had +conveyed his opinion to the jury. Was the unwisdom of Mrs. Clarke to +prove her undoing? Esme Darlington was pulling his ducal beard almost +nervously. A faint hum went through the densely packed court. Mrs. +Chetwinde moved and used her fan for a moment. Dion did not dare to look +at Guy Daventry. He was realizing, with a sort of painful sharpness, how +great a change a verdict against Mrs. Clarke must make in her life. + +Her boy, perhaps, probably indeed, would be taken from her. She had only +spoken to him casually about her boy, but he had felt that the casual +reference did not mean that she had a careless heart. The woman whose +hand had held his for a moment would be tenacious in love. He felt sure +of that, and sure that she loved her naughty boy with a strong vitality. + +When the Judge had finished his task and the jury retired to consider +their verdict, it was past four o’clock. + +“What do you think?” Dion said in a low voice to Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“About the summing-up?” + +“Yes.” + +“It has left things very much as I expected. Any danger there is lies in +Monsieur Dumeny.” + +“Do you know him?” + +“Oh, yes. I stayed with Cynthia once in Constantinople. He took us +about.” + +She made no further comment on Monsieur Dumeny. + +“I wonder whether the jury will be away long?” Dion said, after a +moment. + +“Probably. I shan’t be at all surprised if they can’t agree. Then there +will be another trial.” + +“How appalling!” + +“Yes, it wouldn’t be very nice for Cynthia.” + +“I can’t help wishing----” + +He paused, hesitating. + +“Yes?” said Mrs. Chetwinde, looking about the court. + +“I can’t help wishing Mrs. Clarke hadn’t been unconventional in quite +such a public way.” + +A faint smile dawned and faded on Mrs. Chetwinde’s lips and in her pale +eyes. + +“The public method’s often the safest in the end,” she murmured. + +Then she nodded to Esme Darlington, who presently got up and managed to +make his way to them. He, too, thought the jury would probably disagree, +and considered the summing-up rather unfavorable to Mrs. Clarke. + +“People who live in the diplomatic world live in a whispering gallery,” + he said, bending down, speaking in an under-voice and lifting and +lowering his eyebrows. “I told Cynthia so when she married. I ventured +to give her the benefit of my--if I may say so--long and intimate +knowledge of diplomatic life and diplomatists. I said to her, ‘Remember +you can _always_ be under observation.’ Ah, well--one can only hope +the jury will take the right view. But how can we expect British +shopkeepers, fruit brokers, cigar merchants, and so forth to understand +a--really, one can only say--a wild nature like Cynthia’s? It’s a wild +mind--I’d say this before her!--in an innocent body, just that.” + +He pulled almost distractedly at his beard with bony fingers, and +repeated plaintively: + +“A wild mind in an innocent body--h’m, ha!” + +“If only Mr. Grundy can be brought to comprehension of such a +phenomenon!” murmured Mrs. Chetwinde. + +It was obvious to Dion that his two friends feared for the result. + +The Judge had left the bench. An hour passed by, and the chime of a +clock striking five dropped down coolly, almost frostily, to the hot and +curious crowd. Mrs. Clarke sat very still. Esme Darlington had returned +to his place beside her, and she spoke to him now and then. Hadi +Bey wiped his handsome rounded brown forehead with a colored silk +handkerchief; and Aristide Dumeny, with half-closed eyes, ironically +examined the crowd, whispered to a member of his Embassy who had +accompanied him into court, folded his arms and sat looking down. Beadon +Clarke’s face was rigid, and a fierce red, like the red of a blush of +shame, was fixed on his cheeks. His mother had pulled a thick black veil +with a pattern down over her face, and was fidgeting perpetually with a +chain of small moonstones set in gold which hung from her throat to her +waist. Daventry, blinking and twitching, examined documents, used +his handkerchief, glanced at his watch, hitched his gown up on his +shoulders, looked at Mrs. Clarke and looked away. + +Uneasiness, like a monster, seemed crouching in the court as in a lair. + +At a quarter-past five, the Judge returned to the bench. He had received +a communication from the jury, who filed in, to say, through their +foreman, that they could not agree upon a verdict. A parley took +place between the foreman and the Judge, who made inquiry about their +difficulties, answered two questions, and finally dismissed them to +further deliberations, urging them strongly to try to arrive at an +unanimous conclusion. + +“I am willing to stay here till nightfall,” he said, in a loud and +almost menacing voice, “if there is any chance of a verdict.” + +The jury, looking weary, harassed and very hot, once more disappeared, +the Judge left the bench, and the murmuring crowd settled down to +another period of waiting. + +To Dion it seemed that a great tragedy was impending. Already Mrs. +Clarke had received a blow. The fact that the jury had publicly +announced their disagreement would be given out to all the world by the +newspapers, and must surely go against Mrs. Clarke even if she got a +verdict ultimately. + +“Do you think there is any chance still?” he said to Mrs. Chetwinde. + +“Oh, yes. As I told you, Cynthia always manages to get what she wants.” + +“I shouldn’t think she can ever have wanted anything so much as she +wants the right verdict to-day.” + +“I don’t know that,” Mrs. Chetwinde replied, with a rather disconcerting +dryness. + +She was using her fan slowly and monotonously, as if, perhaps, she were +trying to make her mind calm by the repetition of a physical act. + +“I’m sorry the foreman said they couldn’t agree,” Dion said, almost in +a whisper. “Even if the verdict is for Mrs. Clarke, I’m afraid that will +go against her.” + +“If she wins she wins, and it’s all right. Cynthia’s not the sort of +woman who cares much what the world thinks. The only thing that really +matters is what the world does; and if she gets the verdict the world +won’t do anything--except laugh at Beadon Clarke.” + +A loud buzz of conversation rose from the court. Presently the light +began to fade, and the buzz faded with it; then some lights were turned +on, and there was a crescendo of voices. It was possible to see more +clearly the multitude of faces, all of them hot, nearly all of them +excited and expressive. A great many people were standing, packed +closely together and looking obstinate in their determined curiosity. +Most of them were either staring at, or were trying to stare at Mrs. +Clarke, who was now talking to her solicitor. Esme Darlington was +eating a meat lozenge and frowning, evidently discomposed by the jury’s +dilemma. Lady Ermyntrude Clarke had lifted her veil and was whispering +eagerly to her son, bending her head, and emphasizing her remarks with +excited gestures which seemed to suggest the energy of one already +uplifted by triumph. Beadon Clarke listened with the passivity of a man +encompassed by melancholy, and sunk deep in the abyss of shame. +Aristide Dumeny was reading a letter which he held with long-fingered, +waxen-white hands very near to his narrow dark eyes. His close-growing +thick hair looked more glossy now that there was artificial light in +the court; from the distance its undulations were invisible, and it +resembled a cap of some heavy and handsome material drawn carefully down +over his head. Hadi Bey retained his vivid, alert and martial demeanor. +He was twisting his mustaches with a muscular brown hand, not nervously, +but with a careless and almost a lively air. Many women gazed at him +as if hypnotized; they found the fez very alluring. It carried their +thoughts to the East; it made them feel that the romance of the East was +not very far from them. Some of them wished it very near, and thought of +husbands in silk hats, bowlers, and flat caps of Harris tweed with +the dawning of a dull distaste. The woman just behind Dion was talking +busily to her neighbor. Dion heard her say: + +“Some women always manage to have a good time. I wish I was one of them. +Dick is a dear, but still----” She whispered for a minute or two; then +out came her voice with, “There must be great chances for a woman in +the diplomatic world. I knew a girl who married an _attache_ and went +to Bucharest. You can have no idea what the Roumanians----” whisper, +whisper, whisper. + +That woman was envying Mrs. Clarke, it seemed, but surely not envying +her innocence. Dion began to be conscious of faint breaths from the +furnace of desire, and suddenly he saw the gaunt and sickly-smiling head +of hypocrisy, like the flat and tremulously moving head of a serpent, +lifted up above the court. Only a little way off Robin, now better, but +still “not quite the thing,” was lying in his cozy cot in the nursery of +No. 5 Little Market Street, with Rosamund sitting beside him. The window +to-day, for once, would probably be shut as a concession to Robin’s +indisposition. A lamp would be burning perhaps. In fancy, Dion saw +Rosamund’s head lit up by a gentle glow, her hair giving out little +gleams of gold, as if fire were caught in its meshes. How was it that +her head always suggested to him purity; and not only her purity but the +purity of all sweet, sane and gloriously vigorous women--those women +who tread firmly, nobly, in the great central paths of life? He did not +know, but he was certain that the head of no impure, of no lascivious +woman could ever look like his Rosamund’s. That nursery, holding little +Robin and his mother in the lamplight, was near to this crowded court, +but it was very far away too, as far as heaven is from hell. It would be +good, presently, to go back to it. + +Chime after chime dropped down frostily into the almost rancid heat of +the court. Time was sending its warning that night was coming to London. + +An epidemic of fidgeting and of coughing seized the crowd, which was +evidently beginning to feel the stinging whip of an intense irritation. + +“What on earth,” said the voice of a man, expressing the thought which +bound all these brains together, “what on earth can the jury be up to?” + +Surely by now everything for and against Mrs. Clarke must have been +discussed _ad nauseam_. Only the vainest of repetitions could be +occupying the time of the jury. People began positively to hate those +twelve uninteresting men, torn from their dull occupations to decide a +woman’s fate. Even Mrs. Chetwinde showed vexation. + +“This is really becoming ridiculous,” she murmured. “Even twelve fools +should know when to give their folly a rest.” + +“I suppose there must be one or two holding out against all argument and +persuasion. Don’t you think so?” said Dion, almost morosely. + +“I dare say. I know a great deal about individual fools, but very little +about them in dozens. The heat is becoming unbearable.” + +She sighed deeply and moved in her seat, opening and shutting her fan. + +“She must be enduring torment,” muttered Dion. + +“Yes; even Cynthia can hardly be proof against this intolerable delay.” + +Another dropping down of chimes: eight o’clock! A long murmur went +through the crowd. Some one said: “They’re coming at last.” + +Every one moved. Instinctively Dion leant forward to look at Mrs. +Clarke. He felt very much excited and nervous, almost as if his own fate +were about to be decided. As he looked he saw Mrs. Clarke draw herself +up till she seemed taller than usual. She had a pair of gloves in +her lap, and she now began to pull one of these gloves on, slowly and +carefully, as if she were thinking about what she was doing. The jury +filed in looking feverish, irritable and battered. Three or four of them +showed piteous and injured expressions. Two others had the peculiar look +of obstinate men who have been giving free rein to their vice, indulging +in an orgy of what they call willpower. Their faces were, at the same +time, implacable and ridiculous, but they walked impressively. The Judge +was sent for. Two or three minutes elapsed before he came in. During +those minutes there was no coughing and scarcely any moving. The silence +in the court was vital. During it, Dion stared hard at the jury and +strove to read the verdict in their faces. Naturally he failed. No +message came from them to him. + +The Judge came back to the bench, looking weary and harsh. + +“Do you find that the respondent has been guilty or not guilty of +misconduct with the co-respondent, Hadi Bey?” said the clerk of the +court. + +“We find that the respondent has not been guilty of misconduct with Hadi +Bey.” + +After a slight pause, speaking in a louder voice than before, the clerk +of the court said: + +“Do you find that the respondent has been guilty or not guilty of +misconduct with the co-respondent, Aristide Dumeny?” + +“We find that the respondent has not been guilty of misconduct with +Aristide Dumeny.” + +Dion saw the Judge frown. + +Slight applause broke out in the court, but it was fitful and uncertain +and almost immediately died away. + +Mrs. Chetwinde said in a low voice, almost as if to herself: + +“Cynthia has got what she wants--again.” + +Then, after the formalities, the crowd was in movement; the weary and +excited people, their curiosity satisfied at last, began to melt away; +the young barristers hurried out, eagerly discussing the rights and +wrongs of the case; and Mrs. Clarke’s adherents made their way to her to +offer her their congratulations. + +Daventry was triumphant. He shook his client’s hand, held it, shook +it again, and could scarcely find words to express his excitement and +delight. Even Esme Darlington’s usual careful serenity was for the +moment obscured by an emotion eminently human, as he spoke into Mrs. +Clarke’s ear the following words of a ripe wisdom: + +“Cynthia, my dear, after this do take my advice and live as others live. +In a conventional world conventionality is the line of least resistance. +Don’t turn to the East unless the whole congregation does it.” + +“I shall never forget your self-sacrifice in facing the crowd with me +to-day, dear Esme,” was her answer. “I know how much it cost you.” + +“Oh, as to that, for an old friend--h’m, ha!” + +His voice failed in his beard. He drew forth a beautiful Indian +handkerchief--a gift from his devoted friend the Viceroy of India--and +passed it over a face which looked unusually old. + +Mrs. Chetwinde said: + +“I expected you to win, Cynthia. It was stupid of the jury to be so +slow in arriving at the inevitable verdict. But stupid people are as +lethargic as silly ones are swift. How shall we get to the carriage? We +can’t go out by the public exit. I hear the crowd is quite enormous, and +won’t move. We must try a side door, if there is one.” + +Then Dion held Mrs. Clarke’s hand, and looked down at her haggard but +still self-possessed face. It astonished him to find that she preserved +her earnestly observant expression. + +“I’m very glad,” was all he found to say. + +“Thank you,” she replied, in a voice perhaps slightly more husky than +usual. “I mean to stay on in London for some time. I’ve got lots of +things to settle”--she paused--“before I go back to Constantinople.” + +“But are you really going back?” + +“Of course--eventually.” + +Her voice, nearly drowned by the noise of people departing from the +court, sounded to him implacable. + +“You heard the hope of the Court that my husband and I would come +together again? Of course we never shall. But I’m sure I shall get hold +of Jimmy. I know my husband won’t keep him from me.” She stared at his +shoulders. “I want you to help me with Jimmy’s physical education--I +mean by getting him to that instructor you spoke of.” + +“To be sure--Jenkins,” he said, marveling at her. + +“Jenkins--exactly. And I hope it will be possible for your wife and me +to meet soon, now there’s nothing against it owing to the verdict.” + +“Thank you.” + +“Do tell her, and see if we can arrange it.” + +Dumeny at this moment passed close to them with his friend on his way +out of court. His eyes rested on Mrs. Clarke, and a faint smile went +over his face as he slightly raised his hat. + +“Good-by,” said Mrs. Clarke to Dion. + +And she turned to Sir John Addington. + +Dion made his way slowly out into the night, thinking of the unwise life +and of the smile on the lips of Dumeny. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +That summer saw, among other events of moment, the marriage of Beatrice +and Daventry, the definite establishment of Robin as a power in his +world, and the beginning of one of those noiseless contests which seem +peculiar to women, and which are seldom, if ever, fully comprehended in +all their bearings by men. + +Beatrice, as she wished it, had a very quiet, indeed quite a +hole-and-corner wedding in a Kensington church, of which nobody had ever +heard till she was married in it, to the great surprise of its vicar, +its verger, and the decent widow woman who swept its pews for a moderate +wage. For their honeymoon she and Daventry disappeared to the Garden of +France to make a leisurely tour through the Chateaux country. + +Meanwhile Robin, according to his nurse, “was growing something +wonderful, and improving with his looks like nothing I ever see before, +and me with babies ever since I can remember anything as you may say, +a dear!” His immediate circle of wondering admirers was becoming almost +extensive, including, as it did, not only his mother and father, his +nurse, and the four servants at No. 5 Little Market Street, but also +Mrs. Leith senior, Bruce Evelin--now rather a lonely man--and Mr. Thrush +of John’s Court near the Edgware Road. + +At this stage of his existence, Rosamund loved Robin reasonably but with +a sort of still and holy concentration, which gradually impinged upon +Dion like a quiet force which spreads subtly, affecting those in its +neighborhood. There was in it something mystical and, remembering her +revelation to him of the desire to enter the religious life which had +formerly threatened to dominate her, Dion now fully realized the truth +of a remark once made by Mrs. Chetwinde about his wife. She had called +Rosamund “a radiant mystic.” + +Now changes were blossoming in Rosamund like new flowers coming up in +a garden, and one of these flowers was a beautiful selfishness. So Dion +called it to himself but never to others. It was a selfishness surely +deliberate and purposeful--an unselfish selfishness, if such a thing can +be. Can the ideal mother, Dion asked himself, be wholly without it? All +that she is, perhaps, reacts upon the child of her bosom, the child who +looks up to her as its Providence. And what she is must surely be at +least partly conditioned by what she does and by all her way of life. +The child is her great concern, and therefore she must guard sedulously +all the gates by which possible danger to the child might strive to +enter in. This was what Rosamund had evidently made up her mind to do, +was beginning to do. Dion compared her with many of the woman of London +who have children and who, nevertheless, continue to lead haphazard, +frivolous, utterly thoughtless lives, caring apparently little more for +the moral welfare of their children than for the moral welfare of their +Pekinese. Mrs. Clarke had a hatred of “things with wings growing out of +their shoulders.” Rosamund would probably never wish their son to have +wings growing out of his shoulders, but if he had little wings on his +sandals, like the Hermes, perhaps she would be very happy. With winged +sandals he might take an occasional flight to the gods. Hermes, of +course, was really a rascal, many-sided, and, like most many-sided +people and gods, capable of insincerity and even of cunning; but the +Hermes of Olympia, their Hermes, was the messenger purged, by Praxiteles +of very bit of dross--noble, manly, pure, serene. Little Robin bore at +present no resemblance to the Hermes, or indeed--despite the nurse’s +statements--to any one else except another baby; but already it was +beginning mysteriously to be possible to foresee the great +advance--long clothes to short clothes, short clothes to knickerbockers, +knickerbockers to trousers. Robin would be a boy, a youth, a man, and +what Rosamund was might make all the difference in that Trinity. The +mystic who enters into religion dedicated her life to God. Rosamund +dedicated hers to her boy. It was the same thing with a difference. And +as the mystic is often a little selfish in shutting out cries of the +world--cries sometimes for human aid which can scarcely be referred from +the fellow-creature to God--so Rosamund was a little selfish, guided by +the unusual temperament which was housed within her. She shut out some +of the cries that she might hear Robin’s the better. + +Robin’s sudden attack of illness during Mrs. Clarke’s ordeal had been +overcome and now seemed almost forgotten. Rosamund had encountered the +small fierce shock of it with an apparent calmness and self-possession +which at the time had astonished Dion and roused his admiration. A baby +often comes hardly into the world and slips out of it with the terrible +ease of things fated to far-off destinies. During one night Robin +had certainly been in danger. Perhaps that danger had taught Rosamund +exactly how much her child meant to her. Dion did not know this; he +suspected it because, since Robin’s illness, he had become much more +sharply aware of the depth of mother-love in Rosamund, of the hovering +wings that guarded the nestling. That efficient guarding implies +shutting out was presently to be brought home to him with a definiteness +leading to embarrassment. + +The little interruptions a baby brings into the lives of a married +couple were setting in. Dion was sure that Rosamund never thought +of them as interruptions. When Robin grew much older, when he was in +trousers, and could play games, and appreciate his father’s prowess +and God-given capacities in the gymnasium, on the tennis lawn, over the +plowland among the partridges, Dion’s turn would come. Meanwhile, did +he actually love Robin? He thought he did. He was greatly interested in +Robin, was surprised by his abrupt manifestations and almost hypnotized +by his outbursts of wrath; when Robin assumed his individual look of +mild inquiry, Dion was touched, and had a very tender feeling at his +heart. No doubt all this meant love. But Dion fully realized that his +feeling towards Robin did not compare with Rosamund’s. It was less +intense, less profound, less of the very roots of being. His love for +Robin was a shadow compared with the substance of his love for Rosamund. +How would Rosamund’s two loves compare? He began to wonder, even +sometimes put to himself the questions, “Suppose Robin were to die, +how would she take it? And how would she take it if I were to die?” And +then, of course, his mind sometimes did foolish things, asked questions +beginning with, “Would she rather----?” He remembered his talks with +Rosamund on the Acropolis--talks never renewed--and compared the former +life without little Robin, with the present life pervaded gently, or +vivaciously, or almost furiously by little Robin. Among the mountains +and by the deep-hued seas of Greece he had foreseen and wondered about +Robin. Now Robin was here; the great change was accomplished. Probably +Rosamund and he, Dion, would never again be alone with their love. Other +children, perhaps, would come. Even if they did not, Robin would pervade +their lives, in long clothes, short skirts, knickerbockers, trousers. He +might, of course, some day choose a profession which would carry him to +some distant land: to an Indian jungle or a West African swamp. But by +that time his parents would be middle-aged people. And how would their +love be then? Dion knew that now, when Rosamund and he were still young, +both less than thirty, he would give a hundred Robins, even if they were +all his own Robins, to keep his one Rosamund. That was probably quite +natural now, for Robin was really rather inexpressive in the midst of +his most unbridled demonstrations. When he was calm and blew bubbles he +had charm; when he was red and furious he had a certain power; when he +sneezed he had pathos; when he slept the serenity of him might be felt; +but he would mean very much more presently. He would grow, and surely +his father’s love for him would grow. But could it ever grow to the +height, the flowering height, of the husband’s love for Rosamund? Dion +already felt certain that it never could, that it was his destiny to be +husband rather than parent, the eternal lover rather than the eternal +father. Rosamund’s destiny was perhaps to be the eternal mother. She had +never been exactly a lover. Perhaps her remarkable and beautiful +purity of disposition had held her back from being that. Force, energy, +vitality, strong feelings, she had; but the peculiar something in which +body seems mingled with soul, in which soul seems body and body soul, +was apparently lacking in her. Dion had perhaps never, with full +consciousness, missed that element in her till Robin made his +appearance; but Robin, in his bubbling innocence, and almost absurd +consciousness of himself and of others, did many things that were not +unimportant. He even had the shocking impertinence to open his father’s +eyes, and to show him truths in a bright light--truths which, till now, +had remained half-hidden in shadow; babyhood enlightened youth, the +youth persisting hardily because it had never sown wild oats. Robin did +not know that; he knew, in fact scarcely anything except when he wanted +nourishment and when he desired repose. He also knew his mother, knew +her mystically and knew her greedily, with knowledge which seemed of +God, and with an awareness whose parent was perhaps a vital appetite. +At other people he gazed and bubbled but with a certain infantile +detachment, though his nurse, of course, declared that she had never +known a baby to take such intelligent notice of all created things +in its neighborhood. “He knows,” she asseverated, with the air of one +versed in mysteries, “he knows, does little master, who’s who as well as +any one, and a deal better than some that prides themselves on this and +that, a little upsy-daisy-dear!” + +Mrs. Leith senior paid him occasional visits, which Dion found just +the least bit trying. Since Omar had been killed, Dion had felt more +solicitous about his mother, who had definitely refused ever to have +another dog. If he had been allowed to give her a dog he would have felt +more easy about her, despite Beatrice’s quiet statement of why Omar had +meant so much. As he might not do that, he begged his mother to come +very often to Little Market Street and to become intimate with Robin. +But when he saw her with Robin he was generally embarrassed, although +she was obviously enchanted with that gentleman, for whose benefit she +was amazingly prodigal of nods and becks and wreathed smiles. It was +a pity, he thought, that his mother was at moments so apparently +elaborate. He felt her elaboration the more when it was contrasted with +the transparent simplicity of Rosamund. Even Robin, he fancied, was +at moments rather astonished by it, and perhaps pushed on towards a +criticism at present beyond the range of his powers. But Mrs. Leith’s +complete self-possession, even when immersed in the intricacies of a +baby-language totally unintelligible to her son, made it impossible to +give her a hint to be a little less--well, like herself when at No. +5. So he resigned himself to a faint discomfort which he felt sure was +shared by Rosamund, although neither of them ever spoke of it. But they +never discussed his mother, and always assumed that she was ideal both +as mother-in-law and grandmother. She was Robin’s godmother and had +given him delightful presents. Bruce Evelin and Daventry were his +godfathers. + +Bruce Evelin now lived alone in the large house in Great Cumberland +Place. He made no complaint of his solitude, which indeed he might be +said to have helped to bring about by his effective, though speechless, +advocacy of Daventry’s desire. But it was obvious to affectionate eyes +that he sometimes felt rather homeless, and that he was happy to be in +the little Westminster home where such a tranquil domesticity reigned. +Dion sometimes felt as if Bruce Evelin were watching over that home in +a wise old man’s way, rather as Rosamund watched over Robin, with a +deep and still concentration. Bruce Evelin had, he confessed, “a +great feeling” for Robin, whom he treated with quiet common sense as +a responsible entity, bearing, with a matchless wisdom, that entity’s +occasional lapses from decorum. Once, for instance, Robin chose Bruce +Evelin’s arms unexpectedly as a suitable place to be sick in, without +drawing down upon himself any greater condemnation than a quiet, “How +lucky he selected a godfather as his receptacle!” + +And Mr. Thrush of John’s Court? One evening, when he returned home, Dion +found that old phenomenon in the house paying his respects to Robin. He +was quite neatly dressed, and wore beneath a comparatively clean collar +a wisp of black tie that was highly respectable, though his top hat, +deposited in the hall, was still as the terror that walketh in darkness. +His poor old gray eyes were pathetic, and his long, battered old face +was gently benign; but his nose, fiery and tremendous as ever, still +made proclamation of his “failing.” Dion knew that Mr. Thrush had +already been two or three times to see Robin, and had wondered about it +with some amusement. “Where will your cult for Mr. Thrush lead you?” + he had laughingly said to Rosamund. And then he had forgotten “the +phenomenon,” as he sometimes called Mr. Thrush. But now, when he +actually beheld Mr. Thrush in his house, seated on a chair in the +nursery, with purple hands folded over a seedy, but carefully brushed, +black coat, he genuinely marveled. + +Mr. Thrush rose up at his entrance, quite unself-conscious and +self-possessed, and as Dion, concealing his surprise, greeted the +visitor, Rosamund, who was showing Robin, remarked: + +“Mr. Thrush has great ideas on hygiene, Dion. He quite agrees with us +about not wrapping children in cotton-wool.” + +“Your conceptions are Doric, too, in fact?” said Dion to Thrush, in the +slightly rough or bluff manner which he now sometimes assumed. + +“I wouldn’t go so far as to say exactly that, sir,” said Mr. Thrush, +speaking with a sort of gentleness which was almost refined. “But +having been a chemist in a very good way of business--just off Hanover +Square--during the best years of my life, I have my views, foolish or +perhaps the reverse, on the question of infants. My motto, so far as I +have one, is, _Never cosset_.” + +He turned towards Robin, who, from his mother’s arms, sent him a look of +mild inquiry, and reiterated, with plaintive emphasis, “_Never cosset!_” + +“There, Dion!” said Rosamund, with a delicious air of genial +appreciation which made Mr. Thrush gently glow. + +“And I’ll go further,” pursued that authority, lifting a purple hand +and moving his old head to give emphasis to his deliverance, “I’ll +go further even than that. Having retired from the pharmaceutical +brotherhood I’ll say this: If you can do it, avoid drugs. Chemists”--he +leaned forward and emphatically lowered his voice almost to a +whisper--“Chemists alone know what harm they do.” + +“By Jove, though, and do they?” said Dion heartily. + +“Terrible, sir, terrible! Some people’s insides that I know of--used to +know of, perhaps I should say--must be made of iron to deal with all the +medicines they put into ‘em. Oh, keep your baby’s inside free from all +such abominations!” (He loomed gently over Robin, who continued to stare +at him with an expression of placid interrogation.) “Keep it away from +such things as the Sampson Syrup, Mother Maybrick’s infant tablets, +Price’s purge for the nursery, Tinkler’s tone-up for tiny tots, Ada +Lane’s pills for the poppets, and above and before all, from Professor +Jeremiah T. Iplock’s ‘What baby wants’ at two-and-sixpence the bottle, +or in tabloid form for the growing child, two-and-eight the box. Keep +his inside clear of all such, and you’ll be thankful, and he’ll bless +you both on his bended knees when he comes to know his preservation.” + +“He’ll never have them, Mr. Thrush,” said Rosamund, with a sober voice +and twinkling eyes. “Never.” + +“Bless you, ma’am, for those beautiful words. And now really I must be +going.” + +“You’ll find tea in the housekeeper’s room, Mr. Thrush, as usual,” said +Rosamund. + +“And very kind of you to have it there, I’m sure, ma’am!” the old +gentleman gallantly replied as he made his wavering adieux. + +At the door he turned round to face the nursery once more, lifted one +hand in a manner almost apostolic, and uttered the final warning “_Never +cosset!_” Then he evaporated, not without a sort of mossy dignity, and +might be heard tremblingly descending to the lower regions. + +“Rose, since when do we have a housekeeper’s room?” asked Dion, touching +Robin’s puckers with a gentle fore-finger. + +“I can’t call it the servants’ hall to him, poor old man. And I like to +give him tea. It may wean him from----” An expressive look closed the +sentence. + +That night, at last, Dion drew from her an explanation of her Thrush +cult. On the evening when Mr. Thrush had rescued her in the fog, as they +walked slowly to Great Cumberland Place, he had told her something of +his history. Rosamund had a great art in drawing from people the story +of their troubles when she cared to do so. Her genial and warm-hearted +sympathy was an almost irresistible lure. Mr. Thrush’s present fate +had been brought about by a tragic circumstance, the death of his only +child, a girl of twelve, who had been run over by an omnibus in Oxford +Circus and killed on the spot. Left alone with a peevish, nagging wife +who had never suited him, or, as he expressed it, “studied” him in any +way, he had gone down the hill till he had landed near the bottom. All +his love had been fastened on his child, and sorrow had not strengthened +but had embittered him. + +“But to me he seems a gentle old thing,” Dion said, when Rosamund told +him this. + +“He’s very bitter inside, poor old chap, but he looks upon us as +friends. He’s taken sorrow the wrong way. That’s how it is. I’m trying +to get him to look at things differently, and Robin’s helping me.” + +“Already!” said Dion, smiling, yet touched by her serious face. + +“Yes. He’s an unconscious agent. Poor old Mr. Thrush has never learnt +the lesson of our dear Greek tombs: farewell! He hasn’t been able to say +that simply and beautifully, leaving all in other hands. And so he’s the +poor old wreck we know. I want to get him out of it if I can. He came +into my life on a night of destiny too.” + +But she explained nothing more. And she left Dion wondering just how she +would receive a sorrow such as had overtaken Mr. Thrush. Would she be +able to submit as those calm and simple figures on the tombs which she +loved appeared to be submitting? Would she let what she loved pass away +into the shades with a brave and noble, “Farewell”? Would she take the +hand of Sorrow, that hand of steel and ice, as one takes the hand of a +friend--stern, terrible, unfathomed, never to be fathomed in this world, +but a friend? He wondered, but, loving her with that love which never +ceased to grow within him, he prayed that he might never know. She +seemed born to shed happiness and to be happy, and indeed he could +scarcely imagine her wretched. + +It was after the explanation of Mr. Thrush’s exact relation to Rosamund +that the silent contest began in the waning summer when London was +rather arid, and even the Thames looked hot between its sluggish banks +of mud. + +After the trial of her divorce case was over, Mrs. Clarke had left +London and gone into the country for a little while, to rest in a small +house possessed by Esme Darlington at Hook Green, a fashionable part +of Surrey. At, and round about, Hook Green various well-known persons +played occasionally at being rural; it suited Mrs. Clarke very well to +stay for a time among them under Mr. Darlington’s ample and eminently +respectable wing. She hated being careful, but even she, admonished by +Mr. Darlington, realized that immediately after emerging from the shadow +of a great scandal she had better play propriety for a time. It really +must be “playing,” for, as had been proved at the trial, she was a +thoroughly proper person who hadn’t troubled to play hitherto. So she +rested at Hook Green, till the season was over, with Miss Bainbridge, an +old cousin of Esme’s; and Esme “ran down” for Saturdays and Sundays, and +“ran up” from Mondays to Saturdays, thus seeing something of the season +and also doing his chivalrous devoir by “poor dear Cynthia who had had +such a cruel time of it.” + +The season died, and Mr. Darlington then settled down for a while at +Pinkney’s Place, as his house was called, and persuaded Mrs. Clarke to +lengthen her stay there till the end of August. He would invite a few of +the people likely to “be of use” to her under the present circumstances, +and by September things would be “dying down a little,” with all the +shooting parties of the autumn beginning, and memories of the past +season growing a bit gray and moldy. Then Mrs. Clarke could do what she +liked “within reason, of course, and provided she gave Constantinople +a wide berth.” This she had not promised to do, but she seldom made +promises. + +Rosamund had expressed to Daventry her pleasure in the result of the +trial, but in the rather definitely detached manner which had always +marked her personal aloofness from the whole business of the deciding of +Mrs. Clarke’s innocence or guilt. She had only spoken once again of the +case to Dion, when he had come to tell her the verdict. Then she had +said how glad she was, and what a relief it must be to Mrs. Clarke, +especially after the hesitation of the jury. Dion had touched on Mrs. +Clarke’s great self-possession, and--Rosamund had begun to tell him +how much better little Robin was. He had not repeated to Rosamund Mrs. +Clarke’s final words to him. There was no necessity to do that just +then. + +Mrs. Clarke stayed at Hook Green till the end of August without +making any attempt to know Rosamund. By that time Dion had come to the +conclusion that she had forgotten about the matter. Perhaps she had +merely had a passing whim which had died. He was not sorry, indeed, he +was almost actively glad, for he was quite sure Rosamund had no wish to +make Mrs. Clarke’s acquaintance. At the beginning of September, however, +when he had just come back to work after a month in camp which had +hardened him and made him as brown as a berry, he received the following +note: + + +“CLARIDGE’S HOTEL, 2 September, 1897 + +“DEAR Mr. LEITH,--What of that charming project of bringing about a +meeting between your wife and me? Esme Darlington is always talking of +her beauty and talent, and you know my love of the one and the other. +Beauty is the consolation of the world; talent the incentive to action +stirring our latent vitality. In your marriage you are fortunate; in +mine I have been unfortunate. You were very kind to me when things were +tiresome. I feel a desire to see your happiness. I’m here arranging +matters with my solicitor, and expect to be here off and on for several +months. Perhaps October will see you back in town, but if you happen +to be in this dusty nothingness now, you might come and see me one +day.--Yours with goodwill, + +“CYNTHIA CLARKE + +“P. S.--My husband and I are separated, of course, but I have my boy a +good deal with me. He will be up with me to-morrow. I very much want to +take him to that physical instructor you spoke of to me. I forget the +name. Is it Hopkins?” + + +As Dion read this note in the little house he felt the soft warm grip +of Stamboul. Rosamund and Robin were staying at Westgate till the end of +September; he would go down there every week from Saturday till Monday. +It was now a Monday evening. Four London days lay before him. He put +away the letter and resolved to answer it on the morrow. This he did, +explaining that his wife was by the sea and would not be back till the +autumn. He added that the instructor’s name was not Hopkins but Jenkins, +and gave Mrs. Clarke the address of the gymnasium. At the end of his +short note he expressed his intention of calling at Claridge’s, but did +not say when he would come. He thought he would not fix the day and the +hour until he had been to Westgate. On a postcard Mrs. Clarke thanked +him for Jenkins’s address, and concluded with “Suggest your own day, +or come and dine if you like. Perhaps, as you’re alone, you’ll prefer +that.--C. C.” + +At Westgate Dion showed Rosamund Mrs. Clarke’s letter. As she read it +he watched her, but could gather nothing from her face. She was looking +splendidly well and, he thought, peculiarly radiant. A surely perfect +happiness gazed bravely out from her mother’s eyes, changed in some +mysterious way since the coming of Robin. + +“Well?” he said, as she gave him back the letter. + +“It’s very kind of her. Esme Darlington turns us all into swans, doesn’t +he? He’s a good-natured enchanter. How thankful she must be that it’s +all right about her boy. Oh, here’s Robin! Robino, salute your father! +He’s a hard-bitten military man, and some day--who knows?--he’ll have +to fight for his country. Dion, look at him! Now isn’t he trying to +salute?” + +“And that he is, ma’am!” cried the ecstatic nurse. “He knows, a boy! +It’s trumpets, sir, and drums he’s after already. He’ll fight some day +with the best of them. Won’t he then, a marchy-warchy-umtums?” + +And Robin made reply with active fists and feet and martial noises, +assuming alternate expressions of severe decision almost worthy of +a Field-Marshal, and helpless bewilderment that suggested a startled +puppy. He was certainly growing in vigor and beginning to mean a good +deal more than he had meant at first. Dion was more deeply interested +in him now, and sometimes felt as if Robin returned the interest, +was beginning to be able to assemble and concentrate his faculties at +certain moments. Certainly Robin already played an active part in the +lives of his parents. Dion realized that when, on the following Monday, +he returned to town without having settled anything with regard to Mrs. +Clarke. Somehow Robin had always intervened when Dion had drawn near to +the subject of the projected acquaintance between the woman who kept the +door of her life and the woman who, innocently, followed the flitting +light of desire. There were the evenings, of course, but somehow they +were not propitious for a discussion of social values. Although Robin +retired early, he was apt to pervade the conversation. And then Rosamund +went away at intervals to have a look at him, and Dion filled up +the time by smoking a cigar on the cliff edge. The clock struck +ten-thirty--bedtime at Westgate--before one had at all realized how late +it was getting; and it was out of the question to bother about things +on the edge of sleep. That would have made for insomnia. The question +of Mrs. Clarke could easily wait till the autumn, when Rosamund would +be back in town. It was impossible for the two women to know each other +when the one was at Claridge’s and the other at Westgate. Things would +arrange themselves naturally in the autumn. Dion never said to himself +that Rosamund did not intend to know Mrs. Clarke, but he did say to +himself that Mrs. Clarke intended to know Rosamund. + +He wondered a little about that. Why should Mrs. Clarke be so apparently +keen on making the acquaintance of Rosamund? Of course, Rosamund was +delightful, and was known to be delightful. But Mrs. Clarke must know +heaps of attractive people. It really was rather odd. He decidedly +wished that Mrs. Clarke hadn’t happened to get the idea into her head, +for he didn’t care to press Rosamund on the subject. The week passed, +and another visit to Westgate, and he had not been to Claridge’s. In the +second week another note came to him from Mrs. Clarke. + + +“CLARIDGE’S, ETC. + +“DEAR Mr. LEITH,--I’m enchanted with Jenkins. He’s a trouvaille. My +boy goes every day to the ‘gym,’ as he calls it, and is getting on +splendidly. We are both grateful to you, and hope to tell you so. Come +whenever you feel inclined, but only then. I love complete liberty too +well ever to wish to deprive another of it--even if I could. How wise of +your wife to stay by the sea. I hope it’s doing wonders for the baby who +(mercifully) isn’t wonderful.--Yours sincerely, + +“CYNTHIA CLARKE” + + +After receiving this communication Dion felt that he simply must go +to see Mrs. Clarke, and he called at the hotel and asked for her about +five-thirty on the following afternoon. She was out, and he left his +card, feeling rather relieved. Next morning he had a note regretting she +had missed him, and asking him, “when” he came again, to let her know +beforehand at what time he meant to arrive so that she might be in. He +thanked her, and promised to do this, but he did not repeat his visit. +By this time, quite unreasonably he supposed, he had begun to feel +decidedly uncomfortable about the whole affair. Yet, when he considered +it fully and fairly, he told himself that he was a fool to imagine that +there could be anything in it which was not quite usual and natural. +He had been sympathetic to Mrs. Clarke when she was passing through +an unpleasant experience; he was Daventry’s good friend; he was also a +friend of Mrs. Chetwinde and of Esme Darlington; naturally, therefore, +Mrs. Clarke was inclined to number him among those who had “stuck to +her” when she was being cruelly attacked. Where was the awkwardness in +the situation? After denying to himself that there was any awkwardness +he quite suddenly and quite clearly realized one evening that such +denial was useless. There was awkwardness, and it arose simply from +Rosamund’s passive resistance to the faint pressure--he thought it +amounted to that--applied by Mrs. Clarke. This it was which had given +him, which gave him still, a sensation obscure, but definite, of +contest. + +Mrs. Clarke meant to know Rosamund, and Rosamund didn’t mean to know +Mrs. Clarke. Well, then, the obvious thing for him to do was to keep out +of Mrs. Clarke’s way. In such a matter Rosamund must do as she liked. +He had no intention of attempting to force upon her any one, however +suitable as an acquaintance or even as a friend, whom she didn’t want +to know. He loved her far too well to do that. He decided not to mention +Mrs. Clarke again to Rosamund when he went down to Westgate; but somehow +or other her name came up, and her boy was mentioned, too. + +“Is he still with his mother?” Rosamund asked. + +“Yes. He’s nearly eleven, I believe. She takes him to Jenkins for +exercise. She’s very fond of him, I think.” + +After a moment of silence Rosamund simply said, “Poor child!” and then +spoke of something else, but in those two words, said as she had said +them, Dion thought he heard a definite condemnation of Mrs. Clarke. He +began to wonder whether Rosamund, although she had not read a full, or, +so far as he knew, any account of the case in the papers, had somehow +come to know a good deal about the unwise life of Constantinople. +Friends came to see her in London; she knew several people at Westgate; +report of a _cause celebre_ floats in the air; he began to believe she +knew. + +At the end of September, just before Rosamund was to return to London +for the autumn and winter, Mrs. Clarke wrote to Dion again. + + +“CLARIDGE’S, 28 September, 1897 + +“DEAR Mr. LEITH,--I’m so sorry to bother you, but I wonder whether +you can spare me a moment. It’s about my boy. He seems to me to have +strained himself with his exercises. Jenkins, as you probably know, has +gone away for a fortnight’s holiday, so I can’t consult him. I feel a +little anxious. You’re an athlete, I know, and could set me right in a +moment if I’m making a fuss about nothing. The strain seems to be in the +right hip. Is that possible?--Yours sincerely, + +“CYNTHIA CLARKE” + + +Dion didn’t know how to refuse this appeal, so he fixed an hour, went +to Claridge’s, and had an interview with Mrs. Clarke and her son, +Jimmy Clarke. When he went up to her sitting-room he felt rather +uncomfortable. He was thinking of her invitation to dinner, and to call +again, of his lack of response. She must certainly be thinking of +them, too. But when he was with her his discomfort died away before her +completely natural and oddly impersonal manner. Dinners, visits, seemed +far away from her thoughts. She was apparently concentrated on her boy, +and seemed to be thinking of him, not at all of Dion. Had Dion been a +vain man he might have been vexed by her indifference; as he was not +vain, he felt relieved, and so almost grateful to her. Jimmy, +too, helped to make things go easily. The young rascal, a sturdy, +good-looking boy, with dark eyes brimming over with mischief, took +tremendously to Dion at first sight. + +“I say,” he remarked, “you must be jolly strong! May I?” + +He felt Dion’s biceps, and added, with a sudden profound gravity: + +“Well, I’m blowed! Mater, he’s almost as hard as Jenkins.” + +His mother gave Dion a swift considering look, and then at once began +to consult him about Jimmy’s hip. The visit ended with an application by +Dion of Elliman’s embrocation, for which one of the hotel page-boys was +sent to the nearest chemist. + +“I say, mind you come again, Mr. Leith!” vociferated Jimmy, when Dion +was going. “You’re better than doctors, you know.” + +Mrs. Clarke did not back up her son’s frank invitation. She only thanked +Dion quietly in her husky voice, and bade him good-by with an “I know +how busy you must be, and how difficult you must find it ever to pay a +call. You’ve been very good to us.” At the door she added, “I’ve never +seen Jimmy take so much to anyone as to you.” As Dion went down the +stairs something in him was gently glowing. He was glad that young +rascal had taken to him at sight. The fact gave him confidence when he +thought of Robin and the future. + +It occurred to him, as he turned into the Greville Club, that Mrs. +Clarke had not once mentioned Rosamund during his visit. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When Rosamund, Robin and the nurse came back to London on the last day +of September, Beatrice and Daventry were settled in their home. They +had taken a flat in De Lorne Gardens, Kensington, high up on the seventh +floor of a big building, which overlooked from a distance the trees of +Kensington Gardens. Their friends soon began to call on them, and one +of the first to mount up in the lift to their “hill-top,” as Daventry +called their seventh floor, was Mrs. Clarke. A few nights after her +call the Daventrys dined in Little Market Street, and Daventry, whose +happiness had raised him not only to the seventh-floor flat, but also +to the seventh heaven, mentioned that she had been, and that they +were going to dine with her at Claridge’s on the following night. He +enlarged, almost with exuberance, upon her _savoir-vivre_, her knowledge +and taste, and said Beattie was delighted with her. Beatrice did not +deny it. She was never exuberant, but she acknowledged that she had +found Mrs. Clarke attractive and interesting. + +“A lot of the clever ones are going to-morrow,” said Daventry. He +mentioned several, both women and men, among them a lady who was famed +for her exclusiveness as well as for her brains. + +Evidently Mrs. Chetwinde had been speaking by the book when she had said +at the trial, “If she wins, she wins, and it’s all right. If she +gets the verdict, the world won’t do anything, except laugh at Beadon +Clarke.” No serious impression had apparently been left upon society by +the first disagreement of the jury. The “wild mind in the innocent body” + had been accepted for what it was. And perhaps now, chastened by a sad +experience, the wild mind was on the way to becoming tame. Dion wondered +if it were so. After dinner he was undeceived by Daventry, who told him +over their cigars that Mrs. Clarke was positively going back to live in +Constantinople, and had already taken a flat there, “against every one’s +advice.” Beadon Clarke had got himself transferred, and was to be sent +to Madrid, so she wouldn’t run against him; but nevertheless she was +making a great mistake. + +“However,” Daventry concluded, “there’s something fine about her +persistence; and of course a guilty woman would never dare to go back, +even after an acquittal.” + +“No,” said Dion, thinking of the way his hand had been held in Mrs. +Chetwinde’s drawing-room. “I suppose not.” + +“I wonder when Rosamund will get to know her,” said Daventry, with +perhaps a slightly conscious carelessness. + +“Never, perhaps,” said Dion, with equal carelessness. “Often one +lives for years in London without knowing, or even ever seeing, one’s +next-door neighbor.” + +“To be sure!” said Daventry. “One of London’s many advantages, or +disadvantages, as the case may be.” + +And he began to talk about Whistler’s Nocturnes. Dion had never +happened to tell Daventry about Jimmy Clarke’s strained hip and his own +application of Elliman’s embrocation. He had told Rosamund, of course, +and she had said that if Robin ever strained himself she should do +exactly the same thing. + +That night, when the Daventrys had gone, Dion asked Rosamund whether +she thought Beattie was happy. She hesitated for a moment, then she said +with her usual directness: + +“I’m not sure that she is, Dion. Guy is a dear, kind, good husband to +her, but there’s something homeless about Beattie somehow. She’s living +in that pretty little flat in De Lorne Gardens, and yet she seems to +me a wanderer. But we must wait; she may find what she’s looking for. I +pray to God that she will.” + +She did not explain; he guessed what she meant. Had she, too, been a +wanderer at first, and had she found what she had been looking for? +While Rosamund was speaking he had been pitying Guy. When she had +finished he wondered whether he had ever had cause to pity some one +else--now and then. Despite the peaceful happiness of his married life +there was a very faint coldness at, or near to, his heart. It came upon +him like a breath of frost stealing up out of the darkness to one who, +standing in a room lit and warmed by a glowing fire, opens a window and +lets in for a moment a winter night. But he shut his window quickly, and +he turned to look at the fire and to warm his hands at its glow. + +Mrs. Clarke rapidly established a sort of intimacy with the Daventrys. +As Daventry had helped to fight for her, and genuinely delighted in her +faculties, this was very natural; for Beatrice, unlike Rosamund, was +apt to take her color gently from those with whom she lived, desiring to +please them, not because she was vain and wished to be thought charming, +but because she had an unusually sweet disposition and wished to +be charming. She was sincere, and if asked a direct question always +returned an answer that was true; but she sometimes fell in with an +assumption from a soft desire to be kind. Daventry quite innocently +assumed that she found Mrs. Clarke as delightful as he did. Perhaps +she did; perhaps she did not. However it was, she gently accepted Mrs. +Clarke as a friend. + +Dion, of course, knew of this friendship; and so did Rosamund. She never +made any comment upon it, and showed no interest in it. But her life +that autumn was a full one. She had Robin; she had the house to +look after, “my little house”; she had Dion in the evenings; she had +quantities of friends and acquaintances; and she had her singing. She +had now definitely given up singing professionally. Her very short +career as an artist was closed. But she had begun to practise diligently +again, and showed by this assiduity that she loved music not for +what she could gain by it, but for its own sake. Of her friends and +acquaintances she saw much less than formerly. Many of them complained +that they never could get a glimpse of her now, that she shut them +out, that “not at home” had become a parrot-cry on the lips of her +well-trained parlor-maid, that she cared for nobody now that she had +a husband and a baby, that she was self-engrossed, etc., etc. But they +could not be angry with her; for if they did happen to meet her, or if +she did happen to be “at home” when they called, they always found +her the genial, radiant, kind and friendly Rosamund of old; full, +apparently, of all the former interest in them and their doings, +eager to welcome and make the most of their jokes and good stories, +sympathetic towards their troubles and sorrows. To Dion she once said +in explanation of her withdrawal from the rather bustling life which +keeping up with many friends and acquaintances implies: + +“I think one sometimes has to make a choice between living deeply in the +essentials and just paddling up to one’s ankles in the non-essentials. +I want to live deeply if I can, and I am very happy in quiet. I can hear +only in peace the voices that mean most to me.” + +“I remember what you said to me once in the Acropolis,” he answered. + +“What was that?” + +“You said, ‘Oh, Dion, if you knew how something in me cares for +freshness and for peace.’” + +“You remember my very words!” + +“Yes.” + +“Then you understand?” + +“And besides,” he said slowly, and as if with some hesitation, “you used +to long for a very quiet life, for the religious life; didn’t you?” + +“Once, but it seems such ages ago.” + +“And yet Robin’s not a year old yet.” + +She looked at him with a sudden, and almost intense, inquiry; he was +smiling at her. + +“Robino maestro di casa!” he added. + +And they both laughed. + +Towards the end of November one day Daventry said to Dion in the +Greville Club: + +“Beatrice is going to give a dinner somewhere, probably at the Carlton. +She thought of the twenty-eighth. Are Rosamund and you engaged that +night? She wants you, of course.” + +“No. We don’t go out much. Rose is an early rooster, as she calls it.” + +“Then the twenty-eighth would do capitally.” + +“Shall I tell Rose?” + +“Yes, do. Beattie will write too, or tell Rosamund when she sees her.” + +“Whom are you going to have?” + +“Oh, Mrs. Chetwinde for one, and--we must see whom we can get. We’ll try +to make it cheery and not too imbecile.” + +As Daventry was speaking, Dion felt certain that the dinner had an +object, and he thought he knew what that object was. But he only said: + +“It’s certain to be jolly, and I always enjoy myself at the Carlton.” + +“Even with bores?” said Daventry, unable to refrain from pricking a +bubble, although he guessed the reason why Dion had blown it. + +“Anyhow, I’m sure you won’t invite bores,” said Dion, trying to preserve +a casual air, and wishing, for the moment, that he and his friend were +densely stupid instead of quite intelligent. + +“Pray that Beattie and I may be guided in our choice,” returned +Daventry, going to pick up the “Saturday Review.” + +Rosamund said of course she would go on the twenty-eighth and help +Beattie with her dinner. She had accepted before she asked who were +the invited guests. Beattie, who was evidently quite guileless in the +matter, told her at once that Mrs. Clarke was among them. Rosamund said +nothing, and appeared to be looking forward to the twenty-eighth. She +even got a new gown for it, and Dion began to feel that he had made a +mistake in supposing that Rosamund had long ago decided not to know Mrs. +Clarke. He was very glad, for he had often felt uncomfortable about Mrs. +Clarke, who, he supposed, must have believed that his wife did not wish +to meet her, as her reiterated desire to make Rosamund’s acquaintance +had met with no response. She had, he thought, shown the tact of a lady +and of a thorough woman of the world in not pressing the point, and in +never seeking to continue her acquaintance, or dawning friendship, with +him since his wife had come back to town. He felt a strong desire now +to be pleasant and cordial to her, and to show her how charming and +sympathetic his Rosamund was. He looked forward to this dinner as he +seldom looked forward to any social festivity. + +On the twenty-sixth of November Robin had a cold! On the twenty-seventh +it was worse, and he developed a little hard cough which was rather +pathetic, and which seemed to surprise and interest him a good deal. +Rosamund was full of solicitude. On the night of the twenty-seventh she +said she would sit up with Robin. The nurse protested, but Rosamund was +smilingly firm. + +“I want you to have a good night, Nurse,” she said. “You’re too devoted +and take too much out of yourself. And, besides, I shouldn’t sleep. +I should be straining my ears all the time to hear whether my boy was +coughing or not.” + +Nurse had to give in, of course. But Dion was dismayed when he heard of +the project. + +“You’ll be worn out!” he exclaimed. + +“No, I shan’t But even if I were it wouldn’t matter.” + +“But I want you to look your radiant self for Beattie’s dinner.” + +“Oh--the dinner!” + +It seemed she had forgotten it. + +“Robin comes first,” she said firmly, after a moment of silence. + +And she sat up that night in an arm-chair by the nursery fire, +ministering at intervals to the child, who seemed impressed and +heartened in his coughings by his mother’s presence. + +On the following day she was rather tired, the cough was not abated, and +when Dion came back from business he learnt that she had telegraphed to +Beattie to give up the dinner. He was very much disappointed. But she +did really look tired; Robin’s cough was audible in the quiet house; the +telegram had gone, and of course there was nothing more to be done. Dion +did not even express his disappointment; but he begged Rosamund to go +very early to bed, and offered to sleep in a separate room if his return +late was likely to disturb her. She agreed that, perhaps, that would be +best. So, at about eleven-thirty that night, Dion made his way to their +spare room, walking tentatively lest a board should creak and awaken +Rosamund. + +Everybody had missed her and had made inquiries about her, except Mrs. +Clarke and Daventry. The latter had not mentioned her in Dion’s hearing. +But he was very busy with his guests. Mrs. Clarke had apparently not +known that Rosamund had been expected at the dinner, for when Dion, who +had sat next her, had said something about the unfortunate reason for +Rosamund’s absence, Mrs. Clarke had seemed sincerely surprised. + +“But I thought your wife had quite given up going out since her child +was born?” she had said. + +“Oh no. She goes out sometimes.” + +“I had no idea she did. But now I shall begin to be disappointed and to +feel I’ve missed something. You shouldn’t have told me.” + +It was quite gravely and naturally said. As he went into the spare room, +Dion remembered the exact tone of Mrs. Clarke’s husky voice in speaking +it, the exact expression in her eyes. They were strange eyes, he +thought, unlike any other eyes he had seen. In them there was often a +look that seemed both intent and remote. Their gaze was very direct but +it was not piercing. There was melancholy in the eyes but there was no +demand for sympathy. When Dion thought of the expression in Rosamund’s +eyes he realized how far from happiness, and even from serenity, Mrs. +Clarke must be, and he could not help pitying her. Yet she never posed +as _une femme incomprise_, or indeed as anything. She was absolutely +simple and natural. He had enjoyed talking to her. Despite her gravity +she was, he thought, excellent company, a really interesting woman +and strongly individual. She seemed totally devoid of the little +tiresomenesses belonging to many woman--tiresomenesses which spring out +of vanity and affectation, the desire of possession, the uneasy wish to +“cut out” publicly other women. Mrs. Clarke would surely never +“manage” a man. If she held a man it would be with the listless and yet +imperative grip of Stamboul. The man might go if he would, but--would he +want to go? + +In thinking of Mrs. Clarke, Dion of course always considered her with +the detached spectator’s mind. No woman on earth was of real importance +to him except Rosamund. His mother he did not consciously count among +women. She was to him just the exceptional being, the unique and homely +manifestation a devoted mother is to the son who loves her without +thinking about it; not numbered among women or even among mothers. She +stood to him for protective love unquestioning, for interest in him and +all his doings unwavering, for faith in his inner worth undying, for the +Eternities without beginning or ending; but probably he did not know it. +Of Rosamund, what she was, what she meant in his life, he was intensely, +even secretly, almost savagely conscious. In Mrs. Clarke he was more +interested than he happened to be in any of the women who dwelt in the +great world of those whom he did not love and never could love. + +Had the dinner-party he had just been to been arranged by Daventry in +order that Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke might meet in a perfectly natural +way? If so, it must have been Daventry’s idea and not Mrs. Clarke’s. +Dion had a feeling that Daventry had been vexed by Rosamund’s defection. +He knew his friend very well. It was not quite natural that Daventry +had not mentioned Rosamund. But why should Daventry strongly wish Mrs. +Clarke and Rosamund to meet if Mrs. Clarke had not indicated a desire to +know Rosamund? Daventry was an enthusiastic adherent of Mrs. Clarke’s. +He had, Dion knew, a chivalrous feeling for her. Having helped to win +her case, any slight put upon her would be warmly resented by him. + +Had Rosamund put upon her a slight? Had she deliberately avoided the +dinner? + +Dion was on the point of getting into the spare-room bed when he asked +himself that question. As he pulled back the clothes he heard a dry +little sound. It was Robin’s cough. He stole to the door and opened it. +As he did so he saw the tail of Rosamund’s dressing-gown disappearing +over the threshold of the nursery. The nursery door shut softly behind +her, and Dion got into bed feeling heartily ashamed of his suspicion. +How low it was to search for hidden motives in such a woman as Rosamund. +He resolved never to do that again. He lay in bed listening, but he did +not hear Robin’s cough again, and he wondered if the child was already +old enough to be what nurses call “artful,” whether he had made use of +his little affliction to get hold of his providence in the night. + +What a mystery was the relation of mother and little child! He lay for +a long while musing about it. Why hadn’t he followed Rosamund over the +threshold of the nursery just now? The mystery had held him back. + +Was it greater than the mystery of the relation of man to woman in a +love such as his for Rosamund? He considered it, but he was certain that +he could not fathom it. No man, he felt sure, knew or ever could know +how a mother like Rosamund, that is an intensely maternal mother, +regarded her child when he was little and dependent on her; how she +loved him, what he meant to her. And no doubt the gift of the mother to +the child was subtly reciprocated by the child. But just how? + +Dion could not remember at all what he had felt, or how he had regarded +his mother when he was nine months old. Presently he recalled Hermes and +the child in that remote and hushed room hidden away in the green wilds +of Elis; he even saw them before him--saw the beautiful face of the +Hermes, saw the child’s stretched-out arm. + +Elis! He had been wonderfully happy there, far away in the smiling +wilderness. Would he ever be there again? And, if fate did indeed lead +his steps thither, would he again be wonderfully happy? Of one thing he +was certain; that he would never see Elis, would never see Hermes and +the child again, unless Rosamund was with him. She had made the green +wilderness to blossom as the rose. She only could make his life to +blossom. He depended upon her terribly--terribly. Always that love of +his was growing. People, especially women, often said that the love of +a man was quickly satisfied, more quickly than a woman’s, that the +masculine satisfaction was soon followed by satiety. Love such as that +was only an appetite, a species of lust. Such a woman as Rosamund could +not awaken mere lust. For her a man might have desire, but only the +desire that every great love of a man for a woman encloses. And how +utterly different that was from physical lust. + +He thought of the maidens upholding the porch of the Erechtheion. His +Rosamund descended from them, was as pure, as serene in her goodness, as +beautiful as they were. + +In thinking of the beloved maidens he did not think of them as marble. + +Before he went to sleep Dion had realized that, since Rosamund was +awake, the reason for his coming to the spare room did not exist. +Nevertheless he did not go to their bedroom that night. Robin’s little +dry cough still sounded in his ears. To-night was Robin’s kingdom. + +In a day or two Robin was better, in a week he was perfectly well. If +he had not chanced to catch cold, would Rosamund have worn that new +evening-gown at the Carlton dinner? + +On that question Dion had a discussion with Daventry which was +disagreeable to him. One day Daventry, who had evidently been, in +silence, debating whether to speak or not, said to him: + +“Oh, Dion, d’you mind if I use a friend’s privilege and say something I +very much want to say, but which you mayn’t be so keen to hear?” + +“No, of course not. We can say anything to each other.” + +“Can we? I’m not sure of that--now.” + +“What d’you mean?” + +“Oh, well--anyhow, this time I’ll venture. Why did Rosamund throw us +over the other night at almost the last moment?” + +“Because Robin was ill.” + +“He’s quite well now.” + +“Why not. It’s ten days ago.” + +“He can’t have been so very ill.” + +“He was ill enough to make Rosamund very anxious. She was up with him +the whole night before your dinner; and not only that, she was up again +on the night of the dinner, though she was very tired.” + +“Well, coming to our dinner wouldn’t have prevented that--only eight +till ten-thirty.” + +“I don’t think, Guy, you at all understand Rosamund’s feeling for +Robin,” said Dion, with a sort of dry steadiness. + +“Probably not, being a man.” + +“Perhaps a father can understand better.” + +“Better? It seems to me one either does understand a thing or one +doesn’t understand it.” + +There was a not very attractive silence which Daventry broke by saying: + +“Then you think if Beattie and I give another dinner at the Carlton--a +piece of reckless extravagance, but we are made on entertaining!--Robin +won’t be ill again?” + +“Another dinner? You’ll be ruined.” + +“I’ve got several more briefs. Would Robin be ill?” + +“How the deuce can any one know?” + +“I’ll hazard a guess. He would be ill.” + +Dion reddened. There was sudden heat not only in his cheeks but also +about his heart. + +“I didn’t know you were capable of talking such pernicious rubbish!” he +said. + +“Let’s prove whether it’s rubbish or not. Beattie will send Rosamund +another dinner invitation to-morrow, and then we’ll wait and see what +happens to Robin’s health.” + +“Guy, I don’t want to have a quarrel with you.” + +“A quarrel? What about?” + +“If you imply that Rosamund is insincere, is capable of acting a part, +we shall quarrel. Robin was really ill. Rosamund fully meant to go to +your dinner. She bought a new dress expressly for it.” + +“Forgive me, old Dion, and please don’t think I was attacking Rosamund. +No. But I think sometimes the very sweetest and best women do have their +little bit of insincerity. To women very often the motive seems of more +importance than the action springing from it. I had an idea that perhaps +Rosamund was anxious not to hurt some one’s feelings.” + +“Whose?” + +After a slight hesitation Daventry said: + +“Mrs. Clarke’s.” + +“Did Mrs. Clarke know that Rosamund accepted to go to your dinner?” + asked Dion abruptly, and with a forcible directness that put the not +unastute Daventry immediately on his guard. + +“What on earth has that to do with it?” + +“Everything, I should think. Did she?” + +“No,” said Daventry. + +“Then how could--?” Dion began. But he broke off, and added more +quietly: + +“Why are you so anxious that Rosamund should know Mrs. Clarke?” + +“Well, didn’t Mrs. Clarke ages ago express a wish to know Rosamund if +the case went in her favor?” + +“Oh, I--yes, I fancy she did. But she probably meant nothing by it, and +has forgotten it.” + +“I doubt that. A woman who has gone through Mrs. Clarke’s ordeal is +generally hypersensitive afterwards.” + +“But she’s come out splendidly. Everybody believes in her. She’s got her +child. What more can she want?” + +“As she’s such a great friend of ours I think it must seem very odd to +her not knowing Rosamund, especially as she’s good friends with you. +D’you mind if we ask Rosamund to meet her again?” + +“You’ve done it once. I should leave things alone. Mind, Rosamund has +never told me she doesn’t want to know Mrs. Clarke.” + +“That may be another example of her goodness of heart,” said Daventry. +“Rosamund seldom or never speaks against people. I’ll tell you the +simple truth, Dion. As I helped to defend Mrs. Clarke, and as we won +and she was proved to be an innocent woman, and as I believe in her and +admire her very much, I’m sensitive for her. Perhaps it’s very absurd.” + +“I think it’s very chivalrous.” + +“Oh--rot! But there it is. And so I hate to see a relation of my own--I +count Rosamund as a relation now--standing out against her.” + +“There’s no reason to think she’s doing that.” + +An expression that seemed to be of pity flitted over Daventry’s +intelligent face, and he slightly raised his eyebrows. + +“Anyhow, we won’t bother you with another dinner invitation,” he said. + +And so the conversation ended. + +It left with Dion an impression which was not pleasant, and he could not +help wondering whether, during the conversation, his friend had told him +a direct and deliberate lie. + +No more dinners were given by Beattie and Daventry at the Carlton. +Robin’s health continued to be excellent. Mrs. Clarke was never +mentioned at 5 Little Market Street, and she gave to the Leiths no sign +of life, though Dion knew that she was still in London and was going to +stay on there until the spring. He did not meet her, although she knew +many of those whom he knew. This was partly due, perhaps, to chance; but +it was also partly due to deliberate action by Dion. He avoided going to +places where he thought he might meet her: to Esme Darlington’s, to Mrs. +Chetwinde’s, to one or two other houses which she frequented; he even +gave up visiting Jenkins’s gymnasium because he knew she continued to +go there regularly with Jimmy Clarke, whom, since the divorce case, with +his father’s consent, she had taken away from school and given to the +care of a tutor. All this was easy enough, and required but little +management on account of Rosamund’s love of home and his love of what +she loved. Since Robin’s coming she had begun to show more and more +plainly her root-indifference to the outside pleasures and attractions +of the world, was becoming, Dion thought, week by week, more cloistral, +was giving the rein, perhaps, to secret impulses which marriage had +interfered with for a time, but which were now reviving within her. +Robin was a genuine reason, but perhaps also at moments an excuse. Was +there not sometimes in the quiet little house, quiet unless disturbed by +babyhood’s occasional outbursts, a strange new atmosphere, delicate and +subdued, which hinted at silent walks, at twilight dreamings, at slowly +pacing feet, bowed heads and wide-eyed contemplation? Or was all this +a fancy of Dion’s, bred in him by Rosamund’s revelation of an old and +haunting desire? He did not know; but he did know that sometimes, when +he heard her warm voice singing at a little distance from him within +their house, he thought of a man’s voice, in some dim and remote chapel +with stained-glass windows, singing an evening hymn in the service of +Benediction. + +In the midst of many friends, in the midst of the enormous City, +Rosamund effected, or began to effect, a curiously intent withdrawal, +and Dion, as it were, accompanied her; or perhaps it were truer to say, +followed after her. He loved quiet evenings in his home, and the love of +them grew steadily upon him. To the occasional protests of his friends +he laughingly replied: + +“The fact is we’re both very happy at home. We’re an unfashionable +couple.” + +Bruce Evelin, Esme Darlington and a few others, including, of course, +Dion’s mother and the Daventrys, they sometimes asked to come to them. +Their little dinners were homely and delightful; but Mr. Darlington +often regretted plaintively their “really, if I may say so, almost too +definite domesticity.” He even said to certain intimates: + +“I know the next thing we shall hear of will be that the Leiths have +decided to bury themselves in the country. And Dion Leith will wreck his +nerves by daily journeys to town in some horrid business train.” + +At the beginning of January, however, there came an invitation which +they decided to accept. It was to an evening party at Mrs. Chetwinde’s, +and she begged Rosamund to be nice to her and sing at it. + +“Since you’ve given up singing professionally one never hears you at +all,” she wrote. “I’m not going to tell the usual lie and say I’m only +having a few people. On the contrary, I’m asking as many as my house +will hold. It’s on January the fifteenth.” + +It happened that the invitation arrived in Little Market Street by the +last post, and that, earlier in the day, Daventry had met Dion in the +Club and had casually told him that Mrs. Clarke was spending the whole +of January in Paris, to get some things for the flat in Constantinople +which she intended to occupy in the late spring. Rosamund showed Dion +Mrs. Chetwinde’s note. + +“Let’s go,” he said at once. + +“Shall we? Do you like these crowds? She says ‘as many as my house will +hold.’” + +“All the better. There’ll be all the more to enjoy the result of your +practising. Do say yes.” + +His manner was urgent. Mrs. Clarke would be in Paris. This party was +certainly no ingenuity of Daventry’s. + +“We mustn’t begin to live like a monk and a nun,” he exclaimed. “We’re +too young and enjoy life too much for that.” + +“Do monks and nuns live together? Since when?” said Rosamund, laughing +at him. + +“Poor wretches! If only they did, how much--!” + +“Hush!” she said, with a smiling pretense of thinking of being shocked +presently. + +She went to the writing-table. + +“Very well, then, we’ll go if you want to.” + +“Don’t you?” he asked, following her. + +She had sat down and taken up a pen. Now she looked up at him with her +steady eyes. + +“I’m sure I shall enjoy it when I’m there,” she answered. “I generally +enjoy things. You know that. You’ve seen me among people so often.” + +“Yes. One would think you reveled in society if one only knew you in +that phase.” + +“Well, I don’t _really_ care for it one bit. I can’t, because I never +miss it if I don’t have it.” + +“I believe you _really_ care for very few things and for very few +people,” he said. + +“Perhaps that’s true about people.” + +“How many people, I wonder?” + +“I don’t think one always knows whom one cares for until something +happens.” + +“Something?” + +“Until one’s threatened with loss, or until one actually does lose +somebody one loves. I”--she hesitated, stretched out her hand, and drew +some notepaper out of a green case which stood on the table--“I had +absolutely no idea what I felt for my mother until she died. She died +very suddenly.” + +Tears rushed to her eyes and her whole face suddenly reddened. + +“Then I knew!” she said, in a broken voice. + +Dion had never before seen her look as she was looking now. + +For a moment he felt almost as if he were regarding a stranger. There +was a sort of heat of anger in the face, which looked rebellious in its +emotion; and he believed it was the rebellion in her face which made him +realize how intensely she had been able to love her mother. + +“Now I must write to Mrs. Chetwinde,” she said, suddenly bending over +the notepaper, “and tell her we’ll come, and I’ll sing.” + +“Yes.” + +He stood a moment watching the moving pen. Then he bent down and just +touched her shoulder with a great gentleness. + +“If you knew what I would do to keep every breath of sorrow out of your +life!” he said, in a low voice. + +Without looking up she touched his hand. + +“I know you would. You could never bring sorrow into my life.” + +From that day Dion realized what intensity of feeling lay beneath +Rosamund’s serene and often actively joyous demeanor. Perhaps she cared +for very few people, but for those few she cared with a force surely +almost abnormal. Her mother had now been dead for many years; never +before had Rosamund spoken of her death to him. He understood the reason +of that silence now, and from that day the desire to keep all sorrow +from her became almost a passion in him. He even felt that its approach +to her, that its cold touch resting upon her, would be a hateful and +almost unnatural outrage. Yet he saw all around him people closely +companioned by sorrow and did not think that strange. Sorrow even +approached very near to Rosamund and to him in that very month of +January, for Beatrice had a miscarriage and lost her baby. She said very +little about it, but Dion believed that she was really stricken to the +heart. He was very fond of Beatrice, he almost loved her; yet her sorrow +was only a shadow passing by him, not a substance pressing upon him. And +that fact, which he realized, made him know how little even imagination +and quiet affection can help men feel the pains of others. The heart +knoweth only its own bitterness and the bitterness of those whom it +deeply and passionately loves. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +On January the fifteenth Rosamund put on the gown which had been bought +for the Carlton dinner but not worn at it. + +Although she had not really wanted to go to Mrs. Chetwinde’s party she +looked radiantly buoyant, and like one almost shining with expectation, +when she was ready to start for Lowndes Square. + +“You ought to go out every night,” Dion said, as he put her cloak over +her shoulders. + +“Why?” + +“To enjoy and to give enjoyment. Merely to look at you would make the +dullest set of people in London wake up and scintillate. Don’t tell me +you’re not looking forward to it, because I couldn’t believe you.” + +“Now that the war-paint is on I confess to feeling almost eager for the +fray. How nicely you button it. You aren’t clumsy.” + +“How could I be clumsy in doing something for you? Where’s your music?” + +“In my head. Jennie will meet us there.” + +Jennie was Rosamund’s accompanist, a clever Irish girl who often came to +Little Market Street to go through things with Rosamund. + +“It will be rather delightful singing to people again,” she added in a +joyous voice as they got into the hired carriage. “I hope I’ve really +improved.” + +“How you love a thing for itself!” he said, as they drove off. + +“I think that’s the only way to love.” + +“Of course it is. You know the only way to everything beautiful and +sane. What I have learnt from you!” + +“Dion,” she said, in the darkness, “I think you are rather a dangerous +companion for me.” + +“How can I be?” + +“I’m not at all a piece of perfection. Take care you don’t teach me to +think I am.” + +“But you’re the least conceited--” + +“Hush, you encourager of egoism!” she interrupted seriously. + +“I’m afraid you’ll find a good many more at Mrs. Chetwinde’s.” + +Dion thought he had been a true prophet half an hour later when, from a +little distance, he watched and listened while Rosamund was singing her +first song. Seeing her thus in the midst of a crowd he awakened to the +fact that Robin had changed her very much. She still looked splendidly +young but she no longer looked like a girl. The married woman and the +mother were there quite definitely. Even he fancied that he heard them +in her voice, which had gained in some way, perhaps in roundness, +in mellowness. This might be the result of study; he was inclined to +believe it the result of motherhood. She was wearing ear-rings--tiny, +not long drooping things, they were green, small emeralds; and he +remembered how he had loved her better when he saw her wearing ear-rings +for the first time in Mr. Darlington’s drawing-room. How definite she +was in a crowd. Crowds effaced ordinary people, but when Rosamund was +surrounded she always seemed to be beautifully emphasized, to be made +more perfectly herself. She did not take, she gave, and in giving showed +how much she had. + +She was giving now as she sang, “Caro mio ben.” + +Towards the end of the song, when Dion was deeply in it and in her who +sang it, he was disturbed by a woman’s whisper coming from close behind +him. He did not catch the beginning of what was communicated, but he did +catch the end. It was this: “Over there, the famous Mrs. Clarke.” + +But Mrs. Clarke was in Paris. Daventry had told him so. Dion looked +quickly about the large and crowded room, but could not see Mrs. +Clarke. Then he glanced behind him to see the whisperer, and beheld a +hard-faced, middle-aged and very well-known woman--one of those women +who, by dint of perpetually “going about,” become at length something +less than human. He was quite sure Mrs. Brackenhurst would not make +a mistake about anything which happened at a party. She might fail to +recognize her husband, if she met him about her house, because he was +so seldom there; she would not fail to recognize the heroine of a +resounding divorce case. Mrs. Clarke must certainly have returned from +Paris and be somewhere in that room, listening to Rosamund and probably +watching her. Dion scarcely knew whether this fact made him sorry or +glad. He did know, however, that it oddly excited him. + +When “Caro mio ben” was ended people began to move. Rosamund was +surrounded and congratulated, and Dion saw Esme Darlington bending to +her, half paternally, half gallantly, and speaking to her emphatically. +Mrs. Chetwinde drifted up to her; and three or four young men hovered +near to her, evidently desirous of putting in a word. The success of +her leaped to the eye. Dion saw it and glowed. But the excitement in him +persisted, and he began to move towards the far side of the great room +in search of Mrs. Clarke. If she had just come in she would probably +be near the door by which the pathetic Echo stood on her pedestal of +marble, withdrawn in her punishment, in her abasement beautiful and +wistful. How different was Rosamund from Echo! Dion looked across at her +joyous and radiant animation, as she smiled and talked almost with the +eagerness and vitality of a child; and he had the thought, “How goodness +preserves!” Women throng the secret rooms of the vanity specialists, +put their trust in pomades, in pigments, in tinctures, in dyes; and the +weariness and the sin become lustrous, perhaps, but never are hidden +or even obscured. His Rosamund trusted in a wholesome life, with air +blowing through it, with sound sleep as its anodyne, with purity on +guard at its door; and radiance and youth sparkled up in her like +fountain spray in the sunshine. And the wholesomeness of her was a lure +to the many even in a drawing-room of London. He saw powdered women, +women with darkened eyebrows, and touched-up lips, and hair that had +forgotten long ago what was its natural color, looking at her, and +he fancied there was a dull wonder in their eyes. Perhaps they were +thinking: “Yes, that’s the recipe--being gay in goodness!” And perhaps +some of them were thinking, too: “We’ve lost the power to follow that +recipe, if we ever had it.” Poor women! With a sort of exultation he +pitied them and their husbands. A chord was sounded on the piano. He +stood still. The loud buzz of conversation died down. Was Rosamund +going to sing again so soon? Perhaps some one had begged for something +specially beloved. Jennie was playing a soft prelude as a gentle warning +to a few of those who seem ever to find silence a physical difficulty. +She stopped, and began to play something Dion did not know, something +very modern in its strange atmospheric delicacy, which nevertheless +instantly transported him to Greece. He was there, even before Rosamund +began to sing in a voice that was hushed, in a far-off voice, not +antique, but the voice of modernity, prompted by a mind looking away +from what is near to what is afar and is deeply desired. + + “A crescent sail upon the sea, + So calm and fair and ripple-free + You wonder storms can ever be; + + A shore with deep indented bays, + And o’er the gleaming water-ways + A glimpse of Islands in the haze; + + A faced bronzed dark to red and gold, + With mountain eyes that seem to hold + The freshness of the world of old; + + A shepherd’s crook, a coat of fleece, + A grazing flock--the sense of peace, + The long sweet silence--this is Greece.” + +The accompaniment continued for a moment alone, whispering remoteness. +Then, like a voice far off in a blue distance, there came again from +Rosamund, more softly and with less pressure: + + “----The sense of peace, + The long sweet silence--this is Greece! + This is Greece!” + +It was just then that Dion saw Mrs. Clarke. She had, perhaps, been +sitting down; or, possibly, some one had been standing in front of her +and had hidden her from him; for she was not far off, and he wondered +sharply why he had not seen her till now, why, till now, she had +refrained from snatching him away from his land of the early morning. +There was to him at this moment something actually cruel and painful in +her instant suggestion of Stamboul. Yet she was not looking at him, but +was directing upon Rosamund her characteristic gaze of consideration, +in which there was a peculiar grave thoroughness. A handsome, fair +young man, with a very red weak mouth, stood close to her. Echo was +just beyond. Without speaking, Mrs. Clarke continued looking at Rosamund +intently, when the music evaporated, and Greece faded away into the +shining of that distance which hides our dreams. And Dion noted again, +with a faint creeping of wonder and of doubt, the strange haggardness of +her face, which, nevertheless, he had come to think almost beautiful. + +The fair young man spoke to her, bending and looking at her eagerly. +She turned her head slowly, and as if reluctantly towards him, and +was evidently listening to what he said, listening with that apparent +intentness which was characteristic of her. She was dressed in black +and violet, and wore a large knot of violets in her corsage. Round her +throat was clasped an antique necklace of dull, unshining gold, and +dim purple stones, which looked beautiful, but almost weary with +age. Perhaps they had lain for years in some dim bazaar of Stamboul, +forgotten under heaps of old stuffs. Dion thought of them as slumbering, +made drowsy and finally unconscious by the fumes of incense and the +exhalations from diapered perfume vials. As he looked at Mrs. Clarke, +the bare and shining vision of Greece, evoked by the song Rosamund had +just been singing, faded; the peculiar almost intellectually delicate +atmosphere of Greece was gone; and he saw for a moment the umber mystery +of Stamboul, lifted under tinted clouds of the evening beyond the waters +of the Golden Horn; the great rounded domes and tapering speary minarets +of the mosques, couchant amid the shadows and the trailing and gauzy +smoke-wreaths, a suggestion of dense masses of cypresses, those trees of +the night which only in the night can be truly themselves, guarding the +innumerable graves of the Turkish cemeteries. + +From that moment he connected Mrs. Clarke in his mind with the cypress. +Surely she must have spent very many hours wandering in those enormous +and deserted gardens of the dead, where the very dust is poignant, +and the cries of the sea come faintly up to Allah’s children crumbling +beneath the stone flowers and the little fezes of stone. Mrs. Clarke +must love the cypress, for about her there was an atmosphere which +suggested dimness and the gathering shadows of night. + +Greece and Stamboul, the land of the early morning and the wonder-city +of twilight; Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke, standing there for a moment, in +the midst of the shifting crowd, Dion traveled, compared, connected and +was alone in the soul’s solitude. + +Then Mrs. Chetwinde spoke to him, and he saw Bruce Evelin in the +distance going towards Rosamund. + +Mrs. Chetwinde told him that Rosamund had made a great advance. + +“Now that she’s given up singing professionally she’s singing better +than ever. That Grecian song is the distilled essence of Greece felt in +our new way. For we’ve got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells +us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set +by a young Athenian who’s over here studying English. He catches the +butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn’t +jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there’s Cynthia! I hope +she heard the last thing.” + +“Yes, she did.” + +“Ah?” + +“I thought Mrs. Clarke was spending January in Paris.” + +“She came back to-day, and sent round to ask if she might come.” + +Mrs. Chetwinde wandered away, insouciant and observant as ever. Even at +her own parties she always had an air of faintly detached indifference, +never bothered about how “it” was “going.” If it chose to stop it could, +and her guests must put up with it. + +When she left him Dion hesitated. Mrs. Clarke had just seen him and sent +him a grave nod of recognition. Should he go to her? But the fair young +man was still at her side, was still, with his weak red mouth, talking +into her ear. Dion felt a strange distaste as he saw those moving lips +under the brushed-up, almost ridiculously small, golden mustache; and +just as he was conscious of this distaste Mrs. Clarke got rid of the +young man, and spoke to a woman. Then she moved forward slowly. Mr. +Chetwinde spoke to her, moving his ample fan-shaped beard, which always +looked Assyrian, though he was profoundly English and didn’t know it. +She drew nearer to Dion as she answered Mr. Chetwinde, but in a wholly +unconscious manner. To-night she looked more haggard even than usual, +no doubt because of the journey from Paris. But Mrs. Chetwinde had once +said of her: “Cynthia is made of iron.” Could that be true? She was +quite close to Dion now, and he was aware of a strange faint perfume +which reminded him of Stamboul; and he realized here in Lowndes Square +that Stamboul was genuinely fascinating, was much more fascinating than +he had realized when he was in it. + +Mrs. Clarke passed him without looking at him, and he felt sure quite +unconscious of his nearness to her. Evidently she had forgotten all +about him. Just after she had gone by he decided that of course he ought +to go and speak to her, and that to-night he must introduce Rosamund +to her. Not to do so would really be rude. Daventry was not there to be +chivalrous. The illness of Beattie, and doubtless his own distress at +the loss of his unborn child, had kept him away. Dion thought that he +would be unchivalrous if he now neglected to make a point of speaking to +Mrs. Clarke and of introducing his wife to her. + +Having made up his mind on this he turned to follow Mrs. Clarke, and at +once saw that Esme Darlington, that smoother of difficult social places, +was before him. A little way off he saw Mr. Darlington, with Rosamund +well but delicately in hand, making for Mrs. Clarke somewhat with +the gait of Agag. In a moment the thing was done. The two women were +speaking to each other, and Rosamund had sent to Mrs. Clarke one of her +inquiring looks. Then they sat down together on that red sofa to which +Mrs. Clarke had led Dion for his first conversation with her. Esme +Darlington remained standing before it. The full acquaintance was joined +at last. + +Were they talking about the baby? Dion wondered, as for a moment he +watched them, forgetting his surroundings. Rosamund was speaking with +her usual swift vivacity. At home she was now often rather quiet, +moving, Dion sometimes thought, in an atmosphere of wide serenity; but +in society she was always full of sunshine and eager life. Something +within her leaped up responsively at the touch of humanity, and to-night +she had just been singing, and the whole of her was keenly awake. The +contrast between her and Mrs. Clarke was almost startling: her radiant +vitality emphasized Mrs. Clarke’s curious, but perfectly natural, +gravity; the rose in her cheeks, the yellow in her hair, the gaiety +in her eyes, drew the attention to Mrs. Clarke’s febrile and tense +refinement, which seemed to have worn her body thin, to have drained +the luster out of her hair, to have fixed the expression of observant +distress in her large and fearless eyes. Animal spirits played through +Rosamund to-night; from Mrs. Clarke they were absent. Her haggard +composure, confronting Rosamund’s pure sparkle, suggested the comparison +of a hidden and secret pool, steel colored in the depths of a sunless +forest, with a rushing mountain stream leaping towards the sea in a +tangle of sun-rays. Dion realized for the first time that Mrs. Clarke +never laughed, and scarcely ever smiled. He realized, too, that she +really was beautiful. For Rosamund did not “kill” her; her delicacy of +line and colorless clearness stood the test of nearness to Rosamund’s +radiant beauty. Indeed Rosamund somehow enhanced the peculiarly +interesting character of Mrs. Clarke’s personality, which was displayed, +but with a sort of shadowy reticence, in her physique, and at the same +time underlined its melancholy. So might a climbing rose, calling to the +blue with its hundred blossoms, teach something of the dark truth of the +cypress through which its branches are threaded. + +But Mrs. Clarke would certainly never be Rosamund’s stairway towards +heaven. + +Some one he knew spoke to Dion, and he found himself involved in a long +conversation; people moving hid the two women from him, but presently +the piano sounded again, and Rosamund sang that first favorite of hers +and of Dion’s, the “Heart ever faithful,” recalling him to a dear day +at Portofino where, in a cozy room, guarded by the wintry woods and the +gray sea of Italy, he had felt the lure of a faithful spirit, and known +the basis of clean rock on which Rosamund had built up her house of +life. Bruce Evelin stood near to him while she sang it now, and once +their eyes met and exchanged affectionate thoughts of the singer, which +went gladly out of the gates eager to be read and understood. + +When the melody of Bach was finished many people, impelled thereto by +the hearty giant whom Mrs. Chetwinde had most strangely married, went +downstairs to the black-and-white dining-room to drink champagne and eat +small absurdities of various kinds. A way was opened for Dion to Mrs. +Clarke, who was still on the red sofa. Dion noticed the fair young man +hovering, and surely with intention in his large eyes, in the middle +distance, but he went decisively forward, took Mrs. Clarke’s listless +yet imperative hand, and asked her if she would care to go down with +him. + +“Oh no; I never eat at odd times.” + +“Do you ever eat at all?” + +“Yes, at my chosen moments. Do find another excuse.” + +“For going to eat?” + +“Or drink.” + +His reply was to sit down beside her. Mrs. Chetwinde’s dining-room was +large. People probably knew that, for the drawing-room emptied slowly. +Even the fair young man went away to seek consolation below. Rosamund +had descended with Bruce Evelin and Esme Darlington. There was a +pleasant and almost an intimate hush in the room. + +“I heard you were to be in Paris this month,” Dion said. + +“I came back to-day.” + +“Aren’t you tired?” + +“No. I want to speak to you about Jimmy, if you don’t mind.” + +“Please do,” said Dion rather earnestly, struck by a sort of little pang +as he remembered the boy’s urgent insistence that his visitor was to +come again soon. + +“I’m not quite satisfied with his tutor.” + +She began to ask Dion’s advice with regard to the boy’s bringing up, +explaining that her husband had left that matter in her hands. + +“He’s very sorry and ashamed now, poor man, about his attacks on me, and +tries to make up from a distance by trusting me completely with Jimmy. I +don’t bear him any malice, but of course the link between us is smashed +and can’t ever be resoldered. I’m asking you what I can’t ask him +because he’s a weak man.” + +The implication was obvious and not disagreeable to Dion. He gave +advice, and as he did so thought of Robin at ten. + +Mrs. Clarke was a remarkably sensible woman, and agreed with his views +on boys, and especially with his theory, suddenly discovered in the +present heat of conversation, that to give them “backbone” was of even +more importance than to develop their intellectual side. She spoke of +her son in a way that was almost male. + +“He mustn’t be small,” she said, evidently comprehending both soul and +body in the assertion. “D’you know Lord Brayfield who was talking to me +just now?” + +“You mean a fair man?” + +“Yes, with a meaningless mouth. Jimmy mustn’t grow up into anything of +that kind.” + +The conversation took a decidedly Doric turn as Mrs. Clarke developed +her ideas of what a man ought to be. In the midst of it Dion remembered +Dumeny, and could not help saying: + +“But that type”--they had been speaking of what he considered to be +Rosamund’s type of man, once described by her as “a strong soul in a +strong body, and a soft heart but not a softy’s heart”--“is almost the +direct opposite of the artistic type of man, isn’t it?” + +Her large eyes looked “Well?” at him, but she said nothing. + +“I thought you cared so very much for knowledge and taste in a man.” + +“So I do. But Jimmy will never have knowledge and taste. He’s the +boisterous athletic type.” + +“And you’re glad?” + +“Not sorry, at any rate. He’ll just be a thorough man, if he’s brought +up properly, and that will do very well.” + +“I think you’re very complex,” Dion said, still thinking of Dumeny. + +“Because I make friends in so many directions?” + +“Well--yes, partly,” he answered, wondering if she was reading his +thought. + +“Jimmy’s not a friend but my boy. I know very well Monsieur Dumeny, for +instance, whom you saw, and I dare say wondered about, at the trial; but +I couldn’t bear that my boy should develop into that type of man. You’ll +say I am a treacherous friend, perhaps. It might be truer to say I was +born acquisitive and too mental. I never really liked Monsieur Dumeny; +but I liked immensely his musical talent, his knowledge, his sure taste, +and his power of making almost everything flower into interestingness. +Do you know what I mean? Some people take light from your day; others +add to its light and paint in wonderful shadows. If I went to the +bazaars alone they were Eastern shops; if I went with Dumeny they were +the Arabian Nights. Do you understand?” + +“Yes.” + +“The touch of his mind on a thing gave it life. It stirred. One could +look into its heart and see the pulse beating. I care to do that, so I +cared to go about with Monsieur Dumeny. But one doesn’t love people for +that sort of thing. In the people one loves one needs character, the +right fiber in the soul. You ought to know that.” + +“Why?” he asked, almost startled. + +“I was introduced to your wife just now.” + +“Oh!” + +There was a pause. Then Dion said: + +“I’m glad you have met.” + +“So am I,” said Mrs. Clarke, in a voice that sounded more husky even +than usual. “She sang that Greek song quite beautifully. I’ve just been +telling her that I want to show her some curious songs I have heard in +Turkey, and Asia Minor, at Brusa. There was one man who used to sing to +me at Brusa outside the Mosquee Verte. Dumeny took down the melody for +me.” + +“Did you like the ‘Heart ever faithful’?” + +“Of course it’s excellent in that sledge-hammer sort of way, a superb +example of the direct. Stamboul is very indirect. Perhaps it has colored +my taste. It’s full of mystery. Bach isn’t mysterious, except now and +then--in rare bits of his passion music, for instance.” + +“I wonder if my wife could sing those Turkish songs.” + +“We must see. She sang that Greek song perfectly.” + +“But she’s felt Greece,” said Dion. “And I think there’s something in +her that----” + +“Yes?” + +“I only mean,” he said, with reserve in his voice, “that I think there’s +something of Greece in her.” + +“She’s got a head like a Caryatid.” + +“Yes,” he said, with much less reserve. “Hasn’t she?” + +Mrs. Clarke had paid his Rosamund two noble compliments, he thought; and +he liked her way of payment, casual yet evidently sincere, the simple +utterance of two thoughts in a mind that knew. He felt a sudden glow of +real friendship for her, and, on the glow as it were, she said: + +“Jimmy’s quite mad about you.” + +“Still?” he blurted out, and was instantly conscious of a false step. + +“He’s got an extraordinary memory for a biceps, and then Jenkins talks +about you to him.” + +As they went on talking people began coming up from the black-and-white +dining-room. Dion said he would come to see Jimmy again, would visit the +gymnasium in the Harrow Road one day when Jimmy was taking his lesson. +Did Jimmy ever go on a Saturday? Yes, he was going next Saturday at +four. Dion would look in next Saturday. Now Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund had +met, and Mrs. Clarke evidently admired Rosamund in two ways, Dion felt +quite different about his acquaintance with her. If it had already been +agreed that Mrs. Clarke should show Rosamund Turkish songs, there was +no need for further holding back. The relief which had come to him made +Dion realize how very uncomfortable he had been about Mrs. Clarke in +the immediate past. He was now thoroughly and cordially at his ease with +her. They talked till the big drawing-room was full again, till Rosamund +reappeared in the midst of delightful friends; talked of Jimmy’s future, +of the new tutor who must be found,--a real man, not a mere bloodless +intellectual,--and, again, of Constantinople, to which Mrs. Clarke would +return in April, against the advice of her friends, and in spite of Esme +Darlington’s almost frantic protests, “because I love it, and because I +don’t choose to be driven out of any place by liars.” Her last remark to +him, and he thought it very characteristic of her, was this: + +“Liberty’s worth bitterness. I would buy it at the price of all the +tears in my body.” + +It was, perhaps, also very characteristic that she made the statement +with a perfectly quiet gravity which almost concealed the evidently +tough inflexibility beneath. + +And then, when people were ready to go, Rosamund sung Brahm’s +“Wiegenlied.” + +Dion stood beside Bruce Evelin while Rosamund was singing this. She sang +it with a new and wonderful tenderness which had come to her with Robin, +and in her face, as she sang, there was a new and wonderful tenderness. +The meaning of Robin in Rosamund’s life was expressed to Dion by +Rosamund in this song as it had never been expressed before. Perhaps +it was expressed also to Bruce Evelin, for Dion saw tears in his eyes +almost brimming over, and his face was contracted, as if only by a +strong, even a violent, effort he was able to preserve his self-control. + +As people began to go away Dion found himself close to Esme Darlington. + +“My dear fellow,” said Mr. Darlington, with unusual abandon, “Rosamund +has made a really marvelous advance--marvelous. In that ‘Wiegenlied’ she +reached high-water mark. No one could have sung it more perfectly. What +has happened to her?” + +“Robin,” said Dion, looking him full in the face, and speaking with +almost stern conviction. + +“Robin?” said Mr. Darlington, with lifted eyebrows. + +Then people intervened. + +In the carriage going home Rosamund was very happy. She confessed to the +pleasure her success had given her. + +“I quite loved singing to-night,” she said. “That song about Greece was +for you.” + +“I know, and the ‘Wiegenlied’ was for Robin.” + +“Yes,” she said. + +She was silent; then her voice came out of the darkness: + +“For Robin, but he didn’t know it.” + +“Some day he will know it.” + +Not a word was said about Mrs. Clarke that night. + +On the following day, however, Dion asked Rosamund how she had liked +Mrs. Clarke. + +“I saw you talking to her with the greatest animation.” + +“Was I?” said Rosamund. + +“And she told me it had been arranged that she should--no, I don’t mean +that; but she said she wanted to show you some wonderful Turkish songs.” + +“Did she? What a beautiful profile she has!” + +“Ah, you noticed that!” + +“Oh yes, directly.” + +“Didn’t she mention the Turkish songs?” + +“I believe she did, but only in passing, casually. D’you know, Dion, +I’ve got an idea that Greece is our country, not Turkey at all. You hate +Constantinople, and I shall never see it, I’m sure. We are Greeks, and +Robin has to be a Greek, too, in one way--a true Englishman, of course, +as well. Do you remember the Doric boy?” + +And off went the conversation to the hills of Drouva, and never came +back to Turkey. + +When Friday dawned Dion thought of his appointment for Saturday +afternoon at the gymnasium in the Harrow Road, and began to wish he had +not made it. Rosamund had not mentioned Mrs. Clarke again, and he began +to fear that she had not really liked her, although her profile was +beautiful. If Rosamund had not liked Mrs. Clarke, his cordial enthusiasm +at Mrs. Chetwinde’s--in retrospect he felt that his attitude and manner +must have implied that--had been premature, even, perhaps, unfortunate. +He wished he knew just what impression Mrs. Clarke had made upon +Rosamund, but something held him back from asking her. He had asked her +already once, but somehow the conversation had deviated--was it to Mrs. +Clarke’s profile?--and he had not received a direct answer. Perhaps that +was his fault. But anyhow he must go to the gymnasium on the morrow. +To fail in doing that after all that had happened, or rather had not +happened, in connexion with Mrs. Clarke would be really rude. He did +not say anything about the gymnasium to Rosamund on Friday, but on the +Saturday he told her what had been arranged. + +“Her son, Jimmy Clarke, has taken a boyish fancy to me, it seems. I said +I’d look in and see his lesson just for once.” + +“Is he a nice boy?” + +“Yes, first-rate, I should think, rather a pickle, and likely to develop +into an athlete. The father is awfully ashamed now of what he did--that +horrible case, I mean--and is trying to make up for it.” + +“How?” said Rosamund simply. + +“By giving her every chance with the boy.” + +“I’m glad the child likes you.” + +“I’ve only seen him once.” + +“Twice won’t kill his liking,” she returned affectionately. + +And then she went out of the room. She always had plenty to do. Small +though he was, Robin was a marvelous consumer of his mother’s time. + +When Dion got to the gymnasium Mrs. Clarke and Jimmy were already there, +and Jimmy, in flannels and a white sweater, his dark hair sticking up in +disorder, and his face scarlet with exertion, was performing feats with +an exerciser fixed to the wall, while Mrs. Clarke, seated on a hard +chair in front of a line of heavy weights and dumb-bells, was looking +on with concentrated attention. Jenkins was standing in front of +Jimmy, loudly directing his movements with a stentorian: +“One--two--one--two--one--two! Keep it up! No slackening! Put some guts +into it, sir! One--two--one--two!” + +As Dion came in Mrs. Clarke looked round and nodded; Jimmy stared, +unable to smile because his mouth and lower jaw were working, and he had +no superfluous force to spare for polite efforts; and Jenkins uttered a +gruff, “Good day, sir.” + +“How are you, Jenkins?” returned Dion, in his most off-hand manner. + +Then he jerked his hand at Jimmy with an encouraging smile, went over to +Mrs. Clarke, shook her hand and remained standing beside her. + +“Do you think he’s doing it well?” she murmured, after a moment. + +“Stunningly.” + +“Hasn’t he broadened in the chest?” + +“Rather!” + +She looked strangely febrile and mental in the midst of the many +appliances for developing the body. Rosamund, with her splendid physique +and glowing health, would have crowned the gymnasium appropriately, +have looked like the divine huntress transplanted to a modern city +where still the cult of the body drew its worshipers. The Arcadian +mountains--Olympia in Elis,--Jenkins’s “gym” in the Harrow +Road--differing shrines but the cult was the same. Only the conditions +of worship were varied. Dion glanced down at Mrs. Clarke. Never had she +seemed more curiously exotic. Yet she did not look wholly out of place; +and it occurred to him that a perfectly natural person never looks +wholly out of place anywhere. + +“Face to the wall, sir!” cried Jenkins. + +Jimmy found time for a breathless and half-inquiring smile at Dion as he +turned and prepared for the most difficult feat. + +“His jaw always does something extraordinary in this exercise,” said +Mrs. Clarke. “It seems to come out and go in again with a click. Jenkins +says it’s because Jimmy gets his strength from there.” + +“I know. Mine used to do just the same.” + +“Jimmy doesn’t mind. It amuses him.” + +“That’s the spirit!” + +“He finishes with this.” + +“Already?” said Dion, surprised. + +“You must have been a little late. How did you come?” + +“On my bicycle. I had a puncture. That must have been it. And there was +a lot of traffic.” + +“Keep it up, sir!” roared Jenkins imperatively. “What’s the matter with +that left arm?” + +Click went Jimmy’s lower jaw. + +“Dear little chap!” muttered Dion, full of sympathetic interest. “He’s +doing splendidly.” + +“You really think so?” + +“Couldn’t be better.” + +“You understand boys?” + +“Better than I understand women, I expect,” Dion returned, with a sudden +thought of Rosamund at home and the wonderful Turkish songs Mrs. Clarke +wished to show to her. + +Mrs. Clarke said nothing, and just at that moment Jenkins announced: + +“That’ll do for to-day, sir.” + +In a flood of perspiration Jimmy turned round, redder than ever, his +chest heaving, his mouth open, and his eyes, but without any conceit, +asking for a word of praise from Dion, who went to clap him on the +shoulder. + +“Capital! Hallo! What muscles we’re getting! Eh, Jenkins?” + +“Master Jimmy’s not doing badly, sir. He puts his heart into it. That I +must say.” + +Jimmy shone through the red and the perspiration. + +“He sticks it,” continued Jenkins, in his loud voice. “Without grit +there’s nothing done. That’s what I always tell my pupils.” + +“I say”--began Jimmy, at last finding a small voice--“I say, Mr. Leith, +you haven’t hurried over it.” + +“Over what?” + +“Letting me see you again. Why, it’s--” + +“Run along to the bath, sir. You’ve got to have it before you cool +down,” interposed the merciless Jenkins. + +And Jimmy made off with an instant obedience which showed his private +opinion of the god who was training him. + +When he was gone Jenkins turned to Dion and looked him over. + +“Haven’t seen much of you, sir, lately,” he remarked. + +“No, I’ve been busy,” returned Dion, feeling slightly uncomfortable as +he remembered that the reason for his absence from the Harrow Road was +listening to the conversation. + +“Going to have a round with the gloves now you are here, sir?” pursued +Jenkins. + +Dion looked at Mrs. Clarke. + +“Well, I hadn’t thought of it,” he said, rather doubtfully. + +“Just as you like, sir.” + +“Do, Mr. Leith,” said Mrs. Clarke, getting up from the hard chair, and +standing close to the medicine ball with her back to the vaulting-horse. +“Jimmy and I are going in a moment. You mustn’t bother about us.” + +“Well, but how are you going home?” + +“We shall walk. Of course have your boxing. It will do you good.” + +“You’re right there, ma’am,” said Jenkins, with a sort of stern +approval. “Mr. Leith’s been neglecting his exercises lately.” + +“Oh, I’ve been doing a good deal in odd times with the Rifle Corps.” + +“I don’t know anything about that, sir.” + +“All right, I’ll go and change,” said Dion, who always kept a singlet +and flannels at the gymnasium. “Then----” he turned to Mrs. Clarke as if +about to say good-by. + +“Oh, Jimmy will want to see you for a moment after his bath. We’ll say +good-by then.” + +“Yes, I should like to see him,” said Dion, and went off to the dressing +cubicles. + +When he returned ready for the fray, with his arms bared to the +shoulder, he found Jimmy, in trousers and an Eton jacket, with still +damp hair sleeked down on his head, waiting with his mother, but not to +say good-by. + +“We aren’t going,” he announced, in a voice almost shrill with +excitement, as Dion came into the gymnasium. “The mater was all for a +trot home, but Jenkins wishes me to stay. He says it’ll be a good lesson +for me. I mean to be a boxer.” + +“Why not?” observed the great voice of Jenkins. “It’s the best sport in +the world bar none.” + +“There!” said Jimmy. “And if I can’t be anything else I’ll be a bantam, +that’s what I’ll be.” + +“Oh, you’ll grow, sir, no doubt. We may see you among the heavy-weights +yet.” + +“What’s Mr. Leith? Is he a heavy-weight?” vociferated Jimmy. “Just look +at his arms.” + +“You’ll see him use them in a minute,” observed Jenkins, covering Dion +with a glance of almost grim approval, “and then you can judge for +yourself.” + +“You can referee us, Jimmy,” said Dion, smiling, as he pulled on the +gloves. + +“I say, by Jove, though!” said Jimmy, looking suddenly overwhelmed and +very respectful. + +He shook his head and blushed, then abruptly grinned. + +“The mater had better do that.” + +They all laughed except Mrs. Clarke. Even Jenkins unbent, and his +bass “Ha ha!” rang through the large vaulted room. Mrs. Clarke smiled +faintly, scarcely changing the expression of her eyes. She looked +unusually intent and, when the smile was gone, more than usually grave. + +“I hope you don’t mind our staying just for a few minutes,” she said to +Dion. “You see what he is!” + +She looked at her boy, but not with deprecation. + +“Of course not, but I’m afraid it will bore you.” + +“Oh no, it won’t. I like to see skill of any kind.” + +She glanced at his arms. + +“I’ll get out of your way. Come, Jimmy!” + +She took him by the arm and went back to the hard chair, while Dion and +Jenkins in the middle of the floor stood up opposite to one another. + +“Have you got a watch, Master Jimmy?” said Jenkins, looking over his +shoulder at his pupil. + +“Rather!” piped Jimmy. + +“Well, then, you’d better time us if you don’t referee us.” + +Jimmy sprang away from his mother. + +“Keep out of our road, or you may chance to get a kidney punch that’ll +wind you. Better stand here. That’s it. Three-minute rounds. Keep your +eye on the watch.” + +“Am I to say ‘Go’?” almost whispered Jimmy, tense with a fearful +importance such as Caesar and Napoleon never felt. + +“Who else? You don’t expect us to order ourselves about, do you?” + +After a pause Jimmy murmured, “No” in a low voice. So might a mortal +whisper a reply when interrogated from Olympus as to his readiness to be +starter at a combat of the immortal gods. + +“Now, then, watch in hand and no favoritism!” bellowed Jenkins, whose +sense of humor was as boisterous as his firmness was grim. “Are we +ready?” + +Dion and he shook hands formally and lifted their arms, gazing at each +other warily. Mrs. Clarke leaned forward in the chair which stood among +the dumb-bells. Jimmy perspired and his eyes became round. He had his +silver watch tight in his right fist. Jenkins suddenly turned his head +and stared with his shallow and steady blue eyes, looking down from +Olympus upon the speck of a mortal far below. + +“Go!” piped Jimmy, in the voice of an ardent, but awestruck mouse. + +Homeric was that combat in the Harrow Road; to its starter and +timekeeper a contest of giants, awful in force, in skill, in agility, in +endurance. Dion boxed quite his best that day, helped by his gallery. He +fought to win, but he didn’t win. Nobody won, for there was no knock-out +blow given and taken, and, when appealed to for a decision on points, +Jimmy, breathing stertorously from excitement, was quite unable to give +the award. He could only stare at the two glorious heroes before him and +drop the silver watch, glass downwards of course, on the floor, where +its tinkle told of destruction. Later on, when he spoke, he was able to +say: + +“By Jove!” which he presently amplified into, “I say, mater, by +Jove--eh, wasn’t it, though?” + +“Not so bad, sir!” said Jenkins to Dion, after the latter had taken the +shower bath. “You aren’t as stale as I expected to find you, not near as +stale. But I hope you’ll keep it up now you’ve started with it again.” + +And Dion promised he would, put his bicycle on the top of a fourwheeler, +sent it off to Westminster, and walked as far as Claridge’s with Mrs. +Clarke and Jimmy. + +The boy made him feel tremendously intimate with Mrs. Clarke. The +hero-worship he was receiving, the dancing of the blood through his +veins, the glow of hard exercise, the verdict of Jenkins on his physical +condition--all these things combined spurred him to a joyous exuberance +in which body and mind seemed to run like a matched pair of horses in +perfect accord. Although not at all a conceited man, the feeling that +he was being admired, even reverenced, was delightful to him, and warmed +his heart towards the jolly small boy who kept along by his side through +the busy streets. He and Jimmy talked in a comradely spirit, while +Mrs. Clarke seemed to listen like one who has things to learn. She was +evidently a capital walker in spite of her delicate appearance. To-day +Dion began to believe in her iron health, and, in his joy of the body, +he liked to think of it. After all delicacy, even in a woman, was a +fault--a fault of the body, a sort of fretful imperfection. + +“Are you strong?” he said to her, when Jimmy’s voice ceased for a moment +to demand from him information or to pour upon him direct statement. + +“Oh yes. I’ve never been seriously ill in my life. Don’t I look strong?” + she asked. + +“I don’t think you do, but I feel as if you are.” + +“It’s the wiry kind of strength, I suppose.” + +“The mater’s a stayer,” quoth Jimmy, and forthwith took up the wondrous +tale with his hero, who began to consult him seriously on the question +of “points.” + +“If you’d had to give a decision, Jimmy, which of us would have got it, +Jenkins or I?” + +Jimmy looked very grave and earnest. + +“It’s jolly difficult to tell a thing like that, isn’t it?” he said, +after a longish pause. “You see, you’re both so jolly strong, aren’t +you?” + +His dark eyes gazed at the bulk of Dion. + +“Well, which is the quicker?” demanded Dion. + +But Jimmy was not to be drawn. + +“I think you’re both as quick as--as cats,” he returned diplomatically, +seeking anxiously for the genuine sporting comparison that would be +approved at the ring-side. “Don’t you, mater?” + +Mrs. Clarke huskily agreed. They were now nearing Claridge’s, and Jimmy +was insistent that Dion should come in and have a real jam tea with +them. + +“Do, Mr. Leith, if you have the time,” said Mrs. Clarke, but without any +pressure. + +“The strawberry they have is ripping, I can tell you!” cried Jimmy, with +ardor. + +But Dion refused. Till he was certain of Rosamund’s attitude he felt he +simply couldn’t accept Mrs. Clarke’s hospitality. He was obliged to get +home that day. Mrs. Clarke did not ask why, but Jimmy did, and had to +be put off with an evasion, the usual mysterious “business,” which, of +course, a small boy couldn’t dive into and explore. + +Dion thought Mrs. Clarke was going to say good-by without any mention of +Rosamund, but when they reached Claridge’s she said: + +“Your wife and I didn’t decide on a day for the Turkish songs. You +remember I mentioned them to you the other night? I can’t recollect +whether she left it to me to fix a time, or whether I left it to her. +Can you find out? Do tell her I was stupid and forgot. Will you?” + +Dion said he would. + +“I think they’ll interest her. Now, Jimmy!” + +But Jimmy hung on his god. + +“I say, you’ll come again now! You promise!” + +What could Dion do? + +“You put your honor into it?” pursued Jimmy, with desperate earnestness. +“You swear?” + +“If I swear in the open street the police will take me up,” said Dion +jokingly. + +“Not they! One from the shoulder from you and I bet they lose enough +claret to fill a bucket. You’ve given your honor, hasn’t he, mater?” + +“Of course we shall see him again,” said Mrs. Clarke, staring at Dion. + +“What curious eyes she has!” Dion thought, as he walked homeward. + +Did they ever entirely lose their under-look of distress? + + + +CHAPTER IX + +That evening Dion told Rosamund what Mrs. Clarke had said when he parted +from her at Claridge’s. + +“I promised her I’d find out which it was,” he added. “Do you remember +what was said?” + +After a minute of silence, during which Rosamund seemed to be +considering something, she answered: + +“Yes, I do.” + +“Which was it?” + +“Neither, Dion. Mrs. Clarke has made a mistake. She certainly spoke of +some Turkish songs for me, but there was never any question of fixing a +day for us to try them over together.” + +“She thinks there was.” + +“It’s difficult to remember exactly what is said, or not said, in the +midst of a crowd.” + +“But you remember?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then you’d rather not try them over?” + +“After what you’ve told me about Constantinople I expect I should be +quite out of sympathy with Turkish music,” she answered, lightly and +smiling. “Let us be true to our Greek ideal.” + +She seemed to be in fun, but he detected firmness of purpose behind the +fun. + +“What shall I say to Mrs. Clarke?” he asked. + +“I should just leave it. Perhaps she’ll forget all about it.” + +Dion was quite sure that wouldn’t happen, but he left it. Rosamund had +determined not to allow Mrs. Clarke to be friends with her. He wished +very much it were otherwise, not because he really cared for Mrs. +Clarke, but because he liked her and Jimmy, and because he hated the +idea of hurting the feelings of a woman in Mrs. Clarke’s rather unusual +situation. He might, of course, have put his point of view plainly to +Rosamund at once. Out of delicacy he did not do this. His great love for +Rosamund made him instinctively very delicate in all his dealings with +her; it told him that Rosamund did not wish to discuss her reasons for +desiring to avoid Mrs. Clarke. She had had them, he believed, before +Mrs. Clarke and she had met. That meeting evidently had not lessened +their force. He supposed, therefore, that she had disliked Mrs. Clarke. +He wondered why, and tried to consider Mrs. Clarke anew. She was +certainly not a disagreeable woman. She was very intelligent, +thoroughbred, beautiful in a peculiar way,--even Rosamund thought +that,--ready to make herself pleasant, quite free from feminine malice, +absolutely natural, interested in all the really interesting things. +Beattie liked her; Daventry rejoiced in her; Mrs. Chetwinde was her +intimate friend; Esme Darlington had even made sacrifices for her; Bruce +Evelin---- + +There Dion’s thought was held up, like a stream that encounters a +barrier. What did Bruce Evelin think of Mrs. Clarke? He had not gone +to the trial. But since he had retired from practise at the Bar he had +never gone into court. Dion had often heard him say he had had enough +of the Law Courts. There was no reason why he should have been drawn +to them for Mrs. Clarke’s sake, or even for Daventry’s. But what did he +think of Mrs. Clarke? Dion resolved to tell him of the rather awkward +situation which had come about through his own intimacy--it really +amounted to that--with Mrs. Clarke, and Rosamund’s evident resolve to +have nothing to do with her. + +One day Dion went to Great Cumberland Place and told Bruce Evelin all +the facts, exactly what Mrs. Clarke had said and done, exactly what +Rosamund had said and done. As he spoke it seemed to him that he was +describing a sort of contest, shadowy, perhaps, withdrawn and full of +reserves, yet definite. + +“What do you think of it?” he said, when he had told the comparatively +little there was to tell. + +“I think Rosamund likes to keep her home very quiet, don’t you?” + +“Yes, I do.” + +“Even her friends complain that she shuts them out.” + +“I know they do.” + +“She may not at all dislike Mrs. Clarke. She may simply not wish to add +to her circle of friends.” + +“The difficulty is, that Mrs. Clarke is such friends with Beattie and +Guy, and that I’ve got to know her quite well. Then there’s her boy; +he’s taken a fancy to me. If Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund could just +exchange calls it would be all right, but if they don’t it really looks +rather as if Rosamund--well, as if she thought the divorce case had left +a slur on Mrs. Clarke. What I mean is, that I feel Mrs. Clarke will take +it in that way.” + +“She may, of course.” + +“I wonder why she is so determined to make friends with Rosamund,” + blurted out Dion abruptly. + +“You think she is determined?” said Bruce Evelin quietly. + +“Yes. Telling you had made me feel that quite plainly.” + +“Anyhow, she’ll be gone back to Constantinople in April, and then your +little difficulty will come to an end automatically.” + +Dion looked rather hard at Bruce Evelin. When he spoke to Rosamund of +Mrs. Clarke, Rosamund always seemed to try for a gentle evasion. Now +Bruce Evelin was surely evading the question, and again Mrs. Clarke was +the subject of conversation. Bruce Evelin was beginning to age rather +definitely. He had begun to look older since Beattie was married. But +his dark eyes were still very bright and keen, and one could not be +with him for even a few minutes without realizing that his intellect was +sharply alert. + +“Isn’t it strange that she should go back to live in Constantinople?” + Dion said. + +“Yes. Not many women in her position would do it.” + +“And yet there’s reason in her contention that an innocent woman who +allows herself to be driven away from the place she lived in is a bit of +a coward.” + +“Beadon Clarke’s transferred to Madrid, so Mrs. Clarke’s reason--it was +a diplomatic one--for living in Constantinople falls to the ground.” + +“Yes, that’s true. But of course her husband and she have parted. + +“Naturally. So she has the world to choose from.” + +“For a home, you mean? Yes. It’s an odd choice, Constantinople. But +she’s not an ordinary woman.” + +“No, I suppose not,” said Bruce Evelin. + +Again Dion was definitely conscious of evasion. He got up to go away, +feeling disappointed. + +“Then you advise me to do nothing?” he said. + +“What about, my boy?” + +“About Mrs. Clarke.” + +“What could you do?” + +Dion was silent. + +“I think it’s better to let women settle these little things among +themselves. They have a deep and comprehensive understanding of trifles +which we mostly lack. How’s Robin?” + +Robin again! Was he always to be the buffer between 5 Little Market +Street and Mrs. Clarke? + +“He’s well and tremendously lively, and I honestly think he’s growing +better looking.” + +“Dear little chap!” said Bruce Evelin, with a very great tenderness in +his voice. “Dion, we shall have to concentrate on Robin.” + +Dion looked at him with inquiry. + +“Poor Beattie, I don’t think she’ll have a child.” + +“Beattie! Not ever?” + +“I’m afraid not.” + +Dion was shocked and startled. + +“But I haven’t heard a word--” he began. + +“No. Both Beattie and Guy feel it terribly. I had a talk with Beattie’s +doctor to-day.” + +“How dreadful! I’m sorry. But----” He paused. + +He didn’t like to ask intimate questions about Beattie. + +“I’m afraid it is so,” said Bruce Evelin. “You must let us all have a +share in your Robin.” + +He spoke very quietly, but there was a very deep, even intense, feeling +in his voice. + +“Poor Beattie!” Dion said. + +And that, too, was an evasion. + +He went away from Great Cumberland Place accompanied by a sense of +walking, not perhaps in darkness, but in a dimness which was not +delicately beautiful like the dimness of twilight, but was rather akin +to the semi-obscurity of fog. + +Not a word more was said about Mrs. Clarke between Rosamund and Dion, +and the latter never let Mrs. Clarke know about the Turkish songs, never +fulfilled his undertaking to go and see Jimmy again. In a contest +he could only be on Rosamund’s side. The whole matter seemed to him +unfortunate, even almost disagreeable, but, for him, there could be no +question as to whether he wished Rosamund’s or Mrs. Clarke’s will to +prevail. Whatever Rosamund’s reason was for not choosing to be friends +with Mrs. Clark he knew it was not malicious or petty. Perhaps she +had made a mistake about Mrs. Clarke. If so it was certainly an honest +mistake. It was when he thought of his promise to Jimmy that he felt +most uncomfortable about Rosamund’s never expressed decision. Jimmy had +a good memory. He would not forget. As to Mrs. Clarke, of course she now +fully understood that Mrs. Dion Leith did not want to have anything +to do with her. She continued to go often to Beattie and Daventry, +consolidated her friendship with them. But Dion never met her in +De Lorne Gardens. From Daventry he learnt that Mrs. Clarke had been +extraordinarily kind to Beattie when Beattie’s expectation of motherhood +had faded away. Bruce Evelin’s apprehension was well founded. For +reasons which Daventry did not enter into Beattie could never now hope +to have a child. Daventry was greatly distressed about it, but rather +for Beattie’s sake than for his own. + +“I married Beattie because I loved her, not because I wanted to become a +father,” he said. + +After a long pause he added, almost wistfully. + +“As to Beattie’s reasons for marrying me, well, Dion, I haven’t asked +what they were and I never shall. Women are mysterious, and I believe +it’s wisdom on our part not to try to force the locks and look into +the hidden chambers. I’ll do what I can to make up to Beattie for this +terrible disappointment. It won’t be nearly enough, but that isn’t my +fault. Rosamund and you can help her a little.” + +“How?” + +“She--she’s extraordinarily fond of Robin.” + +“Extraordinarily?” said Dion, startled almost by Daventry’s peculiar +emphasis on the word. + +“Yes. Let her see a good deal of Robin if you can. Poor Beattie! She’ll +never have a child of her own to live in.” + +Dion told Rosamund of this conversation, and they agreed to encourage +Beattie to come to Little Market Street as often as possible. +Nevertheless Beattie did not come very often. It was obvious that she +adored Robin, who was always polite to her; but perhaps delicacy of +feeling kept her from making perpetual pilgrimages to the shrine before +which an incense not hers was forever ascending; or perhaps she met +a gaunt figure of Pain in the home of her sister. However it was, her +visits were rather rare, and no persuasion availed to make her come +oftener. At this time she and Dion’s mother drew closer together, The +two women loved and understood each other well. Perhaps between them +there was a link of loneliness, or perhaps there was another link. + +Early in April Dion received one morning the following letter: + + +“CLARIDGE’S HOTEL 6 April + +“DEAR MR. LEITH,--I feel pretty rotten about you. I thought when once +a clever boxer gave his honor on a thing it was a dead cert. The mater +wouldn’t let me write before, though I’ve been at her over it every day +for weeks. But now we’re going away, so she says I may write and just +tell you. If you want to say good-by could you telephone, she says. +P’raps you don’t. P’raps you’ve forgotten us. I can tell you Jenkins is +sick about it all and your never going to the Gim. He said to me to-day, +‘I don’t know what’s come over Mr. Leith.’ No more do I. The mater says +you’re a busy man and have a kid. I say a true friend is never too +busy to be friendly. I really do feel rotten over it, and now we are +going.--Your affectionate JIMMY.” + + +Dion showed Rosamund the letter, and telephoned to say he would call on +the following day. Jimmy’s voice answered on the telephone and said: + +“I say, you have been beastly to us. The mater says nothing, but we +thought you liked us. Jenkins says that between boxers there’s always +a--” + +At this point Jimmy was cut off in the flow of his reproaches. + +On arriving at Claridge’s Dion found Jimmy alone. Mrs. Clarke was out +but would return in a moment. Jimmy received his visitor not stiffly but +with exuberant and vociferous reproaches, and vehement demands to know +the why and wherefore of his unsportsmanlike behavior. + +“I’ve ordered you a real jam tea all the same,” he concluded, with a +magnanimity which did him honor, and which, as he was evidently aware, +proved him to be a true sportsman. + +“You’re a trump,” said Dion, pulling the boy down beside him on a sofa. + +“Oh, well--but I say, why didn’t you come?” + +He stared with the mercilessly inquiring eyes of boyhood. + +“I don’t think I ever said on my honor that I would come.” + +“But you did. You swore.” + +“No. I was afraid of the policeman.” + +“I say, what rot! As if you could be afraid of any one! Why, Jenkins +says you’re the best pupil he’s ever had. Why didn’t you? Don’t you like +us?” + +“Of course I do.” + +“The mater says you’re married, and married men have no time to bother +about other people’s kids. Is that true?” + +“Well, of course there’s a lot to be done in London, and I go to +business every day.” + +“You’ve got a kid, haven’t you?” + +“Yes!” + +“It’s a boy, isn’t it?” + +“Yes.” + +“I say, how old is it?” + +“A year and a month old, or a little over.” + +Jimmy’s face expressed satire. + +“A year and a month!” he repeated. “Is that all? Then it can’t be much +good yet, can it?” + +“It can’t box or do exercise as you can. You are getting broad.” + +“Rather! Box? I should think not! A kid of a year old boxing! I should +like to see it with Jenkins.” + +He begin to giggle. By the time Mrs. Clarke returned and they sat down +to the real jam tea, the ice was in fragments. + +“I believe you were right, mater, and it was all the kid that prevented +Mr. Leith from sticking to his promise,” Jimmy announced, as he helped +Dion to “the strawberry,” with a liberality which betokened an affection +steadfast even under the stress of blighting circumstances. + +“Of course I was right,” returned his mother gravely. + +Dion was rather glad that she looked away from him as she said it. + +Her manner to him was unchanged. Evidently she was a woman not quick to +take offense. He liked that absence of all “touchiness” from her, and +felt that a man could rest comfortably on her good breeding. But this +very good breeding increased within him a sense of discomfort which +amounted almost to guilt. He tried to smother it by being very jolly +with Jimmy, to whom he devoted most of his attention. When tea was over +Mrs. Clarke said to her son: + +“Now, Jimmy, you must go away for a little while and let me have a talk +with Mr. Leith.” + +“Oh, mater, that’s not fair. Mr. Leith’s my pal. Aren’t you, Mr. Leith? +Why, even Jenkins says--” + +“I should rather think so. Why--” + +“You shall see Mr. Leith again before he goes.” + +He looked at his mother, suddenly became very grave, and went slowly out +of the room. It was evident to Dion that Mrs. Clarke knew how to make +people obey her when she was in earnest. + +As soon as Jimmy had gone Mrs. Clarke rang for the waiter to take away +the tea-table. + +“Then we shan’t be bothered,” she remarked. “I hate people coming in and +out when I’m trying to have a quiet talk.” + +“So do I,” said Dion. + +The waiter rolled the table out gently and shut the door. + +Mrs. Clarke sat down on a sofa. + +“Do light a cigar,” she said. “I know you want to smoke, and I’ll have a +cigarette.” + +She drew out of a little case which lay on a table beside her a Turkish +cigarette and lit it, while Dion lighted a cigar. + +“So you’re really going back to Constantinople?” he began. “Are you +taking Jimmy with you?” + +“Yes, for a time. My husband raises no objection. In a year I shall send +Jimmy to Eton. Lady Ermyntrude is furious, of course, and has tried to +stir up my husband. But her influence with him is dead. He’s terribly +ashamed at what she made him do.” + +“The action?” + +“Yes. It was she who made him think me guilty against his real inner +conviction. Now, poor man, he realizes that he dragged me through the +dirt without reason. He’s ashamed to show his face in the Clubs, and +nearly resigned from diplomacy. But he’s a valuable man, and they’ve +persuaded him to go to Madrid.” + +“Why go back to Constantinople?” + +“Merely to show I’m not afraid to and that I won’t be driven from my +purpose by false accusations.” + +“And you love it, of course.” + +“Yes. My flat will be charming, I think. Some day you’ll see it.” + +Dion was silent in surprise. + +“Don’t you realize that?” she asked, staring at him. + +“I think it very improbable that I shall ever go back to +Constantinople.” + +“And I’m sure you will.” + +“Why are you sure?” + +“That I can’t tell you. Why is one sometimes sure that certain things +will come about?” + +“Do you claim to be psychic?” said Dion. + +“I never make verbal claims. Now about Jimmy.” + +She discussed for a little while seriously her plans for the boy’s +education while he stayed with her. She had found a tutor, a young +Oxford man, who would accompany them to Turkey, but she wanted Dion’s +advice on certain points. He gave it, wondering all the time why she +consulted him after his neglect of her and of her son, after his +failure to accept invitations and to fulfil pledges (or to stick to the +understandings which were almost pledges), after the tacit refusals of +Rosamund. Did it not show a strange persistence, even a certain lack of +pride in her? Perhaps she heard the haunting questions which he did not +utter, for she suddenly turned from the topic of the boy and said: + +“You’re surprised at my bothering you with all this when we really know +each other so slightly. It is unconventional; but I shall never learn +the way to conventionality in spite of all poor Esme’s efforts to +shepherd me into the path he thinks narrow and I find broad--a way that +leads to destruction. I feel you absolutely understand boys, and know by +instinct the best way with them. That’s why I _still_ come to you.” + +She paused. She had deliberately driven home her meaning by a stress on +one word. Now she sat looking at him, with a wide-eyed and deeply +grave fixity, as if considering what more she should say. Dion murmured +something about being very glad if he could help her in any way with +regard to Jimmy. + +“You can be conventional,” she remarked. “Well, why not? Most English +people are perpetually playing for safety.” + +“I wish you wouldn’t go back to Constantinople,” said Dion. + +“Why?” + +“I believe it’s a mistake. It seems to me like throwing down a defiance +to your world.” + +“But I never play for safety.” + +“But think of the danger you’ve passed through.” + +The characteristic distressed look deepened in her eyes till they seemed +to him tragic. Nevertheless, fearlessness still looked out of them. + +“What shall I gain by doing that?” she asked. + +“Esme Darlington once said you were a wild mind in an innocent body. I +believe he was right. But it seems to me that some day your wild mind +may get you into danger again and that perhaps you won’t escape from it +unscathed a second time.” + +“How quiet and safe it must be at Number 5!” she rejoined, without any +irony. + +“You wouldn’t care for that sort of life. You’d find it humdrum,” said +Dion, with simplicity. + +“You never would,” she said, still without irony, without even the hint +of a sneer. “And the truth is that the humdrum is created not by a way +of living but by those who follow it. Your wife and the humdrum could +never occupy the same house. I shall always regret that I didn’t see +something of her. Do give her a cordial ‘au revoir’ from me. You’ll hear +of me again. Don’t be frightened about me in your kind of chivalrous +heart. I am grateful to you for several things. I’m not going to give +the list now. That would either bore you, or make you feel shy. Some +day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are, in a caique on the sweet +waters of Asia or among the cypresses of Eyub.” + +With the last sentence she transported Dion, as on a magic carpet, to +the unwise life. Her husky voice changed a little; her face changed +a little too; the one became slower and more drowsy; the other less +haggard and fixed in its expression of distress. This woman had her +hours of happiness, perhaps even of exultation. For a moment Dion +envisaged another woman in her. And when he had bidden her good-by, and +had received the tremendous farewells of Jimmy, he realized that she had +made upon him an impression which, though soft, was certainly deep. He +thought of how a cushion looks when it lies on a sofa in an empty room, +indented by the small head of a woman who has been thinking, thinking +alone. For a moment he was out of shape, and Mrs. Clarke had made him +so. + +In the big hall, as he passed out, he saw Lord Brayfield standing in +front of the bureau speaking to the hall porter. + +“Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are, in a caique on the +sweet waters of Asia or among the cypresses of Eyub.” + +Dion smiled as he recalled Mrs. Clarke’s words, which had been spoken +fatalistically. Then his face became very grave. + +Suddenly there dawned upon him, like a vision in the London street, one +of the vast Turkish cemeteries, dusty, forlorn, disordered, yet full +of a melancholy touched by romance; and among the thousands of graves, +through the dark thickets of cypresses, he was walking with Mrs. Clarke, +who looked exactly like Echo. + +A newsboy at the corner was crying his latest horror--a woman found +stabbed in Hyde Park. But to Dion his raucous and stunted voice sounded +like a voice from the sea, a strange and sad cry lifted up between +Europe and Asia. + + + + +BOOK III -- LITTLE CLOISTERS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +More than a year and a half passed away, and in the autumn of 1899 the +Boer War broke out and the face of England was changed; for the heart of +England began to beat more strongly than usual, and the soul of England +was stirred. The winter came, and in many Englishmen a hidden conflict +began; in their journey through life they came abruptly to a parting of +the ways, stood still and looked to the right and the left, balancing +possibilities, searching their natures and finding within them strange +hesitations, recoils, affirmations, determined nobilities. + +Dion had followed the events which led up to the fateful decision of +Wednesday, October the eleventh, with intense interest. As the October +days drew on he had felt the approach of war. It came up, this footfall +of an enemy, it paced at his side. Would he presently be tried by this +enemy, would it test him and find out exactly what metal he was made of? +He wondered, but from the moment when the first cloud showed itself on +the horizon he had a presentiment that this distant war was going to +have a strong effect on his life. + +On the afternoon of October the eleventh he walked slowly home from +the City alone. There was excitement in the air. The voices of the +newsvendors sounded fateful in his ears; the faces of the passers-by +looked unusually eager and alert. As he made his way through the crowd +he did not debate the rights and wrongs of the question about to +be decided between Briton and Boer. His mind avoided thoughts about +politics. For him, perhaps strangely, the issue had already narrowed +down to a personal question: “What is this war going to mean to me?” + +He asked himself this; he put the question again and again. Nevertheless +it was answered somewhere within him almost as soon as it was put. If +there came a call for volunteers he would be one of the many who would +answer it. The call might not come, of course; the war might be short, a +hole-and-corner affair soon ended. He told himself that, and, as he did +so, he felt sure that the call would come. + +He knew he would not hold back; but he knew also that his was not the +eagerness to go of the man assumed by journalists to be the typical +Englishman. He was not mad to plunge into the great game, reckless of +the future and shouting for the fray. He was not one of the “hard-bitten +raw-boned men with keen eyes and ready for anything” beloved of the +journalists, who loom so large in the public eye when “big things are +afoot.” On that autumn evening, as he walked homeward, Dion knew the +bunkum that is given out to the world as truth, knew that brave men have +souls undreamed of in newspaper offices. He perceived the figure of +war just then as a figure terribly austere, grim, cold, harsh--a figure +stripped of all pleasant flesh and sweet coloring, of all softness and +warm humanity. It accompanied him like an iron thing which nevertheless +was informed with life. Joy withered beside it, yet it had the power to +make things bloom. Already he knew that as he had not known it before. + +In the crowded Strand the voices of the newsvendors were insistently +shrill, raucous, almost fierce. As he heard them he faced tests. Many +things were going to be put to the test in the almost immediate future. +Among them perhaps would be Rosamund’s exact feeling for him. + +Upon the hill of Drouva they had slept in the same tent, husband and +wife, more than three years ago; in green and remote Elis they had sat +together before the Hermes, hidden away from the world and hearing +the antique voices; in Westminster Robin was theirs; yet this evening, +facing in imagination the tests of war, Dion knew that Rosamund’s exact +feeling for him was still a secret from him. If he went to South Africa +that secret must surely be revealed. Rosamund would inevitably find out +then the nature of her feeling for him, how much she cared, and even if +she did not tell him how much she cared he would know, he could not help +knowing. + +He knew with a terrible thoroughness this evening how much he cared for +her. + +He considered Robin. + +Robin was now more than two and a half years old; a personage in a +jersey and minute knickerbockers, full of dancing energy and spirits, +full of vital interest in the smaller problems of life. He was a fidget +and he was a talker. Out of a full mind he poured forth an abundant +stream of words, carelessly chosen at times, yet on the whole apt to +the occasion. His intelligence was marked, of course,--what very young +child’s is not?--and he had inherited an ample store of the _joie de +vivre_ which distinguished his mother. The homeliness of feature which +had marked him out in the baldhead stage of his existence had given +place to a dawning of what promised to be later on distinct good looks. +Already he was an attractive-looking child, with a beautiful mouth, a +rather short and at present rather snub nose, freckled on the bridge, +large blue eyes, and a forehead, temples and chin which hinted at +Rosamund’s. His hair was now light brown, and had a bold, almost an +ardent, wave in it. Perhaps Robin’s most marked characteristic at this +time was ardor. Occasionally the mildly inquiring expression which Dion +had been touched by in the early days came to his little face. He could +be very gentle and very clinging, and was certainly sensitive. Often +imagination, in embryo as it were, was shown by his eyes. But ardor +informed and enveloped him, he swam in ardor and of ardor he was all +compact. Even the freckles which disfigured, or adorned, the bridge of +his nose looked ardent. Rosamund loved those freckles in a way she could +never have explained, loved them with a strength and tenderness which +issued from the very roots of her being. To her they were Robin, the +dearest part of the dearest thing on earth. Many of her kisses had gone +to those little freckles. + +Dion might have to part not only from Rosamund but also from Robin. + +He had become very fond of his little son. The detachment which had +perhaps marked his mental attitude to the baby did not mark his +mental attitude to the boy. In the Robin of to-day, the jerseyed and +knickerbockered person, with the incessantly active legs, the eager +eyes, the perpetually twittering voice, Dion was conscious of the spirit +of progress. Already he was able to foresee the small school-boy, whom +only a father could properly help and advise in regard to many aspects +of the life ahead; already he was looking forward to the time when he +could take a hand in the training of Robin. It would be very hard to go +away from that little bit of quicksilver, very hard indeed. + +But the thought which made his heart sink, which brought with it almost +a sensation of mortal sickness to his soul, was the thought of parting +from Rosamund. As he walked down Parliament Street he imagined the +good-by to her on the eve of sailing for South Africa. That acute moment +might never come. This evening he felt it on the way. Whatever happened +it would be within his power to stay with Rosamund, for there was no +conscription in England. If he went to South Africa then the action +of leaving her would be deliberate on his part. Was there within him +something that was stronger than his love for her? There must be, he +supposed, for he knew that if men were called for, and if Rosamund +asked, or even begged him not to go, he would go nevertheless. + +Vaporous Westminster, dark and leaning to the great river, for how long +he had not seen it, or realized what it meant to him! Custom had blinded +his eyes and had nearly closed his mind to it. The day’s event had +given him back sight and knowledge. This evening his familiarity with +Westminster bred in him intensity of vision and apprehension. It seemed +to him that scales had fallen from his eyes, that for the first time +he really saw Parliament Street, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster +Bridge, the river. The truth was, that for the first time he really +felt them, felt that he belonged to them and they to him, that their +blackness in the October evening was part of the color of him, that the +Westminster sounds, chimes, footfalls, the dull roar of traffic, human +voices from street, from bridge, from river, harmonized with the voices +in him, in the very depths of him. This was England, this closeness, +this harmony of the outer to and with the inner, this was England saying +to one of her sons, “You belong to me and I to you.” The race spoke and +the land, they walked with Dion in the darkness. + +For he did not go straight home. He walked for a long time beside the +river. By the river he kissed Robin and he said good-by to Rosamund, +by the river he climbed upon the troopship, and he saw the fading of +England on the horizon, and he felt the breath of the open sea. And +in the midst of a crowd of men going southward he knew at last what +loneliness was. The lights that gleamed across the river were the last +lights of England that he would see for many a day, perhaps forever; +the chime from the clock-tower was the last of the English sounds. He +endured in imagination a phantom bitterness of departure which seemed +abominably real; then suddenly he was recalled from a possible future to +the very definite present. + +He met by the river two men, sleek people in silk hats, with plump +hands--hands which looked as if they were carefully fed on very +nutritious food every day by their owners--warmly covered. As they +passed him one of those know-alls said to the other: + +“Oh, it’ll only be a potty little war. What can a handful of peasants do +against our men? I’ll lay you five to one in sovereigns two months will +see it out.” + +“I dare say you will,” returned the other, in a voice that was surely +smiling, “but I won’t take you.” + +“By Jove, what a plunger I am!” thought Dion. “Racing ahead like a horse +that’s lost his wits. Ten to one they’ll never want volunteers.” + +But Westminster still looked exceptional, full of the inner meaning, and +somewhere within him a voice still said, “You will go.” Nevertheless he +was able partly to put off his hybrid feeling, half-dread, half-desire. +The sleek people in the silk hats had made their little effect on the +stranger. “The man in the street is often right,” Dion said to himself; +though he knew that the man in the street is probably there, and remains +there, because he is so often wrong. + +When he reached Little Market Street Dion told Rosamund there would +be war in South Africa, but he did not even hint at his thought that +volunteers might be called for, at his intention, if they were, to offer +himself. To do that would not only be absurdly premature, but might +even seem slightly bombastic, an uncalled-for study in heroics. He kept +silence. The battles of Ladysmith, of Magersfontein, of Stormberg, of +Colenso, unsettled the theories of sleek people in silk hats. England +came to a very dark hour when Robin was playing with a new set of bricks +which his Aunt Beattie had given him. Dion began to understand the +rightness of his instinct that evening by the river, when Westminster +had spoken to him and England had whispered in his blood. As he had +thought of things, so they were going to be. The test was very great. It +was as if already it stood by him, a living entity, and touched him +with an imperious hand. Sometimes he looked at Rosamund and saw great +stretches of sea rolling under great stretches of sky. The barrier! How +would he be able to bear the long separation from Rosamund? The habit of +happiness in certain circumstances can become the scourge of a man. Men +who were unhappy at home could go to war with a lighter heart than he. + +Just before Christmas the call for men came, and in Dion a hesitation +was born. Should he go and offer himself at once without telling +Rosamund, or should he tell her what he wished to do and ask her +opinion? Suppose she were against his going out? He could not ask her +advice if he was not prepared to take it. What line did he wish her +to take? By what course of action would such a woman as Rosamund prove +depth of love? Wouldn’t it be natural for a woman who loved a man +to raise objections to his going out to fight in a distant country? +Wouldn’t she prove her love by raising objections? On the other hand, +wouldn’t a woman who loved a man in the greatest way be driven by the +desire to see him rise up in an emergency and prove his manhood at +whatever cost to her? + +Dion wanted one thing of Rosamund at this moment, wanted it terribly, +with longing and with fear,--the proof absolute and unhesitating of her +love for him. + +He decided to volunteer without telling her before hand that he meant to +do so. He told no one of his intention except his Uncle Biron, whom he +was obliged to consult as they were partners in business. + +“You’re right, my boy,” said his uncle. “We’ll get on as best we can +without you. We shall miss you, of course. Since you’ve been married +your energy has been most praiseworthy, but, of course, the nation comes +before the firm. What does your mother say?” + +Dion was struck with a sense of wonder by this question. Why didn’t his +uncle ask him what Rosamund had said? + +“I haven’t spoken to her,” he answered. + +“She’ll wish you to go in spite of all,” said his uncle gravely. + +“I haven’t even spoken to Rosamund of my intention to enlist.” + +His uncle looked surprised, even for a moment astonished, but he only +said: + +“She’s rather on heroic lines, I should judge. There’s something +spacious in her nature.” + +“Yes,” said Dion. + +He pledged his uncle to silence. Then they talked business. + +From that moment Dion wondered how his mother would take his decision. +That he had not wondered before proved to himself the absorbing +character of his love for his wife. He loved his mother very much, yet, +till his uncle had spoken about her in the office, he had only thought +about Rosamund in connection with his decision to enlist. The very +great thing had swallowed up the big thing. There is something ruthless, +almost at moments repellent, in the very great thing which rules in a +man’s life. But his mother would never know. + +That was what he said to himself, unconscious of the fact that his +mother had known and had lived alone with her knowledge for years. + +He offered himself for service in South Africa with the City Imperial +Volunteers. The doctor passed him. He was informed that he would be +sworn in at the Guildhall on 4th January. The great step was taken. + +Why had he taken it without telling Rosamund he was going to take it? + +As he came out into the dark winter evening he wondered about that +almost vaguely. He must have had a driving reason, but now he did not +know what it was. How was Rosamund going to take it? Suddenly he felt +guilty, as if he had done her a wrong. They were one flesh, and in such +a vital matter he had not consulted her. Wasn’t it abominable? + +As soon as he was free he went straight home. + +This time, as he walked homeward, Dion held no intercourse with +Westminster. If he heard the chimes, the voices, the footfalls, he was +not conscious of hearing them; if he saw the vapors from the river, +the wreaths of smoke from the chimneys, the lights gleaming in the near +houses and far away across the dark mystery of the water, he did not +know that he saw them. In himself he was imprisoned, and against the +great city in which he walked he had shut the doors. + +He arrived at his house and put his hand in his pocket to get his +latch-key. Before he was able to draw it forth the green door was opened +and Beatrice came out. + +“Dion!” she said, startled. + +“You nearly ran over me!” + +“What is it?” she asked. “What have you done?” + +“But--” + +“I know!” she interrupted. + +She put out her hand and took hold of his coat sleeve. The action was +startlingly impulsive in Beatrice, who was always so almost plaintive, +so restrained, so dim. + +“But you can’t!” + +“I do. You are going to South Africa.” + +He said nothing. How could he tell Beatrice before he told Rosamund? + +“When are you going?” + +“Is Rosamund in the house, Beattie?” he asked, very gently. + +Beatrice flushed deeply, painfully, and took her hand from his sleeve. + +“Yes. I’ve been playing with Robin, building castles with the new +bricks. Good-by, Dion.” + +She went past him and down the small street rather quickly. He stood for +a moment looking after her; then he turned into the house. As he shut +the door he heard a chord struck on the piano upstairs in Rosamund’s +sitting-room. He took off his coat and hat and came into the little +hall. As he did so he heard Rosamund’s voice beginning to sing Brahms’s +“Wiegenlied” very softly. He guessed that she was singing to an audience +of Robin. The bricks had been put away after the departure of Aunt +Beattie, and now Robin was being sung towards sleep. How often would he +be sung to by Rosamund in the future when his father would not be there +to listen! + +Robin was going to have his mother all to himself, and Rosamund was +going to have her little son all to herself. But they did not know that +yet. The long months of their sacred companionship stretched out before +the father as he listened to the lullaby, which he could only just hear. +Rosamund had mastered the art of withdrawing her voice and yet keeping +it perfectly level. + +When the song was finished, whispered away into the spaces where music +disperses to carry on its sweet mission, Dion went up the stairs, opened +the door of Rosamund’s room, and saw something very simple, and, to him, +very memorable. Rosamund had turned on the music-stool and put her +right arm round Robin, who, in his minute green jersey and green +knickerbockers, stood leaning against her with the languid happiness and +half-wayward demeanor of a child who has been playing, and who already +feels the soothing influence of approaching night with its gift of +profound sleep. Robin’s cheeks were flushed, and in his blue eyes there +was a curious expression, drowsily imaginative, as if he were welcoming +dreams which were only for him. With a faint smile on his small rosy +lips he was listening while Rosamund repeated to him in English the +words of the song she had just been singing. Dion heard her say: + + “Sink to slumber, good-night, + And angels of light + With love you shall fold + As the Christ Child of old.” + +“There’s Fa!” whispered Robin, sending to Dion a semi-roguish look. + +Dion held up his hand and formed “Hush!” with his lips. Rosamund +finished the verse: + + “While the stars dimly shine + May no sorrow be thine.” + +She bent and kissed Robin on the top of his head just in the middle, +choosing the place, and into his hair she breathed a repetition of the +last words, “May no sorrow be thine.” + +And Dion was going to the war. + +Robin slipped from his mother’s arm gently and came to his father. + +“‘Allo, Fa!” he observed confidentially. + +Dion bent down. + +“Hallo, Robin!” + +He picked the little chap up and gave him a kiss. What a small bundle +of contentment Robin was at that moment. In South Africa Dion often +remembered just how Robin had felt to him then, intimate and a mystery, +confidential, sleepy with happiness, a tiny holder of the Divine, a +willing revelation and a soft secret. So much in so little! + +“You’ve been playing with Aunt Beattie.” + +Robin acknowledged it. + +“Auntie’s putty good at bricks.” + +“Did you meet Beattie, Dion?” asked Rosamund. + +“On the doorstep.” + +He thought of Beattie’s question. There was no question in Rosamund’s +face. But perhaps his own face had changed. + +A tap came to the door. + +“Master Robin?” said nurse, in a voice that held both inquiry and an +admonishing sound. + +When Robin had gone off to bed, walking vaguely and full of the +forerunners of dreams, Dion knew that his hour had come. He felt a sort +of great stillness within him, stillness of presage, perhaps, or of +mere concentration, of the will to be, to do, to endure, whatever +came. Rosamund shut down the lid of the piano and came away from the +music-stool. Dion looked at her, and thought of the maidens of the porch +and of the columns of the Parthenon. + +“Rosamund,” he said,--that stillness within him forbade any preparation, +any “leading up,”--“I’ve joined the City Imperial Volunteers.” + +“The City Imperial Volunteers?” she said. + +He knew by the sound of her voice that she had not grasped the meaning +of what he had done. She looked surprised, and a question was in her +brown eyes. + +“Why? What are they? I don’t understand. And the Artists’ Rifles?” + +“I’ve got my transfer from them. I’ve joined for the war.” + +“The war? Do you mean----?” + +She came up to him, looking suddenly intent. + +“Do you mean you have volunteered for active service in South Africa?” + +“Yes.” + +“Without consulting me?” + +Her whole face reddened, almost as it had reddened when she spoke to him +about the death of her mother. + +“Yes. I haven’t signed on yet, but the doctor has passed me. I’m to be +sworn in at the Guildhall on the fourth, I believe. We shall sail very +soon, almost directly, I suppose. They want men out there.” + +He did not know how bruskly he spoke; he was feeling too much to know. + +“I didn’t think you could do such a thing without speaking to me first. +My husband, and you----!” + +She stopped abruptly, as if afraid of what she might say if she went on +speaking. Two deep lines appeared in her forehead. For the first time in +his life Dion saw an expression of acute hostility in her eyes. She had +been angry, or almost angry with him for a moment in Elis, when he broke +off the branch of wild olive; but she had not looked like this. There +was something piercing in her expression that was quite new to him. + +“I felt I ought to do it,” he said dully. + +“Did you think I should try to prevent you?” + +“No. I scarcely knew what I thought.” + +“Have you told your mother?” + +“No. I had to tell Uncle Biron because of the business. Nobody else +knows.” + +And then suddenly he remembered Beattie. + +“At least I haven’t told any one else.” + +“But some one else does know--knew before I did.” + +“I saw Beattie just now, as I said. I believe she guessed. I didn’t tell +her.” + +“But how could she guess such a thing if you gave her no hint?” + +“That’s just what I have been wondering.” + +Rosamund was silent. She went away from him and stood by the fire, +turning her back to him. He waited for a moment, then he went to the +hearth. + +“Don’t you think perhaps it’s best for a man to decide such a thing +quite alone? It’s a man’s job, and each man must judge for himself what +he ought to do in such a moment. If you had asked me not to go I should +have felt bound to go all the same.” + +“But I should have said ‘Go.’ Then you never understood me in Greece? +All our talks told you nothing about me? And now Robin is here--you +thought I should ask you not to go!” + +She turned round. She seemed almost passionately surprised. + +“Perhaps--in a way--I wished to think that.” + +“Why? Did you wish to despise me?” + +“Rosamund! As if I could ever do that.” + +“If you did a despicable thing I should despise you.” + +“Don’t! I haven’t much more time here.” + +“I never, never shall be able to understand how you could do this +without telling me beforehand that you were going to do it.” + +“It wasn’t from any want of respect or love for you.” + +“I can’t talk about it any more just now.” + +The flush on her face deepened. She turned and went out of the room. + +Dion was painfully affected. He had never before had a serious +disagreement with Rosamund. It was almost intolerable to have one now +on the eve of departure from her. He felt like one who had committed an +outrage out of the depths of a terrible hunger, a hunger of curiosity. +He knew now why he had volunteered for active service without consulting +Rosamund. Obscurely his nature had spoken, saying, “Put her to the test +and make the test drastic.” And he had obeyed the command. He had wanted +to know, to find out suddenly, in a moment, the exact truth of years. +And now he had roused a passion of anger in Rosamund. + +Her anger wrapped him in pain such as he had never felt till now. + +The house seemed full of menace. In the little room the atmosphere was +changed. He looked round it and his eyes rested on the Hermes. He went +up to it and stood before it. + +Instantly he felt again the exquisite calm of Elis. The face of the +Hermes made the thought of war seem horrible and ridiculous. Men had +learnt so much when Praxiteles created his Hermes, and they knew so +little now. The enigma of their violence was as great as the enigma of +the celestial calm which the old Greeks had perpetuated to be forever +the joy and the rest of humanity. And he, Dion, was going to take an +active part in violence. The unchanging serenity of the Hermes, which +brought all Elis before him, with its green sights and its wonderful +sounds, of the drowsy insects in the sunshine, of the sheep-bells, and +of the pines whose voices hold within them all the eternal secrets, +increased the intensity of his misery. He realized how unstable are the +foundations of human happiness, and his house of life seemed crumbling +about him. + +Presently he went downstairs to his room and wrote letters to his mother +and to Bruce Evelin, telling them what he had done. + +When he had directed and stamped these letters he thought of Beattie +and Guy. Beattie knew. What was it which had led her so instantly to +a knowledge denied to Rosamund? Rosamund had evidently not noticed any +difference in him when he came in that evening. But, to be sure, Robin +had been there. + +Robin had been there. + +Dion sat before the writing-table for a long while doing nothing. Then +a clock struck. He had only half an hour to spare before dinner would be +ready. Quickly he wrote a few words to Beattie: + + +“MY DEAR BEATTIE,--You were right. I have volunteered for active service +and shall soon be off to South Africa. I don’t know yet exactly when we +shall start, but I expect they’ll hurry us off as quickly as they can. +Men are wanted out there badly. Lots of fellows are coming forward. +I’ll tell you more when I see you again. Messages to Guy.--Yours +affectionately, + +“DION” + + +It was not an eloquent letter, but Beattie would understand. Beattie was +not a great talker but she was a great understander. He went out to put +the three letters into the pillar-box. Then he hurried upstairs to his +dressing-room. For the first time in his life he almost dreaded spending +an evening alone with Rosamund. + +He did not see her till he came into the drawing-room. As he opened the +door he saw her sitting by the fire reading, in a dark blue dress. + +“I’m afraid I’m late,” he said, as he walked to the hearth. “I wrote to +mother, Beattie and godfather to tell them what I was going to do.” + +“What you had done,” she said quietly, putting down the book. + +“I haven’t actually been sworn in yet, but of course it is practically +the same thing.” + +He looked at her almost surreptitiously. She was very grave, but there +was absolutely nothing hostile or angry in her expression or manner. +They went into the dining-room, and talked together much as usual during +dinner. As soon as dinner was over, and the parlor-maid had gone out, +having finished her ministrations, which to Dion that night had seemed +innumerable and well-nigh unbearable, he said: + +“I’m dreadfully sorry about to-day. I did the wrong thing in +volunteering without saying anything to you. Of course you were hurt and +startled----” + +He looked at her and paused. + +“Yes, I was. I couldn’t help it, and I don’t think you ought to have +done what you did. But you have made a great sacrifice--very great. I +only want to think of that, Dion, of how much you are giving up, and of +the cause--our cause.” + +She spoke very earnestly and sincerely, and her eyes looked serious and +very kind. + +“Don’t let us go back to anything sad, or to any misunderstanding now,” + she continued. “You are doing an admirable thing, and I shall always be +glad you had the will to do it, were able to do it. Tell me everything. +I want to live in your new life as much as I can. I want you to feel me +in it as much as you can.” + +“She has prayed over it. While I was writing my letters she was praying +over it.” + +Suddenly Dion knew this as if Rosamund had opened her heart to him and +had told it. And immediately something which was like a great light +seemed not only to illumine the present moment but also to throw a +piercing ray backwards upon all his past life with Rosamund. In the +light of this ray he discerned a shadowy something, which stood between +Rosamund and him, keeping them always apart. It was a tremendous +Presence; his feeling was that it was the Presence of God. Abruptly he +seemed to be aware that God had always stood, was standing now, between +him and his wife. He remembered the words in the marriage service, +“Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” “But God,” + he thought, “did not join us. He stood between us always. He stands +between us now.” It was an awful thought. It was like a great blasphemy. +He was afraid of it. And yet he now felt that it was an old, old thought +in his mind which only now had he been able to formulate. He had known +without knowing consciously, but now he consciously knew. + +He took care at this moment not to look at Rosamund. If he looked, +surely she would see in his eyes his terrible thought, the thought he +was going to carry with him to South Africa. Making a great effort +he began to tell her all that he knew about the C.I.V. They discussed +matters in a comradely spirit. Rosamund said many warm-hearted things, +showed herself almost eagerly solicitous. They went up to sit by the +fire in her little room. Dion smoked. They talked for a long time. Had +any one been there to listen he would probably have thought, “This man +has got the ideal wife. She’s a true comrade as well as a wife.” But +all the time Dion kept on saying to himself, “This is the result of her +prayers before dinner. She is being good.” Only when it was late, past +their usual hour for going to bed, did he feel that the strong humanity +in Rosamund had definitely gained ground, that she was being genuinely +carried away by warm impulses connected with dear England, our men, and +with him. + +When they got up at last to go to bed she exclaimed: + +“I shall always love what you have done, Dion. You know that.” + +“But not the way of my doing it!” trembled on his lips. + +He did not say it, however. Why lead her back even for a moment to +bitterness? + +That night he lay with his thoughts, and in the darkness the ray was +piercing bright and looked keen like a sharpened sword. + + + +CHAPTER II + +On the fourth of January Dion and about nine hundred other men were +sworn in at the Guildhall; on January the seventeenth, eight hundred +of them, including Dion, were presented with the Freedom of the City +of London; on the nineteenth they were equipped and attended a farewell +service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, after which they were entertained at +supper, some at Gray’s Inn and some at Lincoln’s Inn; on the twentieth +they entrained for Southampton, from which port they sailed in the +afternoon for South Africa. Dion was on board of the “Ariosto.” + +Strangely, perhaps, he was almost glad when the ship cast off and the +shores of England faded and presently were lost beyond the horizon line. +He was alone now with his duty. Life was suddenly simplified. It was +better so. In the last days he had often felt confused, beset, had often +felt that he was struggling in a sea of complications which threatened +to overwhelm him. There had been too much to do and there had been too +much to endure; he had been obliged to be practical when he was feeling +intensely emotional. The effort to dominate and to conceal his emotion +had sometimes almost exhausted him in the midst of all he had had to +do. He had come to the knowledge of the fact that it is the work of the +spirit which leaves the whole man tired. He was weary, not from hard +energies connected with his new profession, not from getting up at +dawn, marching through dense crowds of cheering countrymen, traveling, +settling in on shipboard, but from farewells. He looked back now upon a +sort of panorama of farewells, of partings from his mother, his uncle, +Bruce Evelin, Guy, Beatrice, Robin, Rosamund. + +Quite possibly all these human companions had vanished out of his life +for ever. It was a tremendous thought, upon which he was resolved not to +dwell lest his courage and his energies might be weakened. + +Through good-bys a man may come to knowledge, and Dion had, in these +last few days, gone down to the bedrock of knowledge concerning some of +those few who were intimately in his life--knowledge of them and also +of himself. Nobody had traveled to Southampton to see him off. He had a +very English horror of scenes, and had said all his good-bys in private. +With Bruce Evelin he had had a long talk; they had spoken frankly +together about the future of Rosamund and Robin in the event of his not +coming back. Dion had expressed his views on the bringing up of the boy, +and, in doing so had let Bruce Evelin into secrets of Greece. The father +did not expect, perhaps did not even desire, that the little son should +develop into a paragon, but he did desire for Rosamund’s child the +strong soul in the strong body, and the soft heart that was not a +softy’s heart. + +In that conversation Bruce Evelin had learnt a great deal about Dion. +They had spoken of Rosamund, perhaps more intimately than they had ever +spoken before, and Dion had said, “I’m bothering so much about Robin +partly because her life is bound up with Robin’s.” + +“Several lives are bound up with that little chap’s,” Bruce Evelin had +said. + +And a sudden sense of loneliness had come upon Dion. But he had only +made some apparently casual remark to the effect that he knew Bruce +Evelin would do his best to see that Robin came to no harm. No absurd +and unnecessary promises had been exchanged between the old and the +young man. Their talk had been British, often seemingly casual, and +nearly always touched with deep feeling. It had not opened to Dion new +vistas of Bruce Evelin. For a long time Dion had felt that he knew +Bruce Evelin. But it had given him a definite revelation of the strong +faithfulness, the tenacity of faithfulness in friendship, which was +perhaps the keynote of Bruce Evelin’s character. + +The parting from Guy had been less eventful. Nevertheless it had helped +to get rid of certain faint misunderstandings which neither of the +friends had ever acknowledged. Since the Mrs. Clarke episode Dion had +been aware that Guy’s feeling towards him had slightly changed. They +were such old and tried friends that they would always care for each +other, but Guy could not help resenting Rosamund’s treatment of Mrs. +Clarke, could not help considering Dion’s acquiescence in it a sign of +weakness. These feelings, unexpressed, but understood by Dion, had set +up a slight barrier between the two young men; it had fallen when they +said good-by. Mrs. Clarke had been forgotten then by Guy, who had only +remembered the gifts of war, and that possibly this was his final sight +of old Dion. All their common memories had been with them when the last +hand-clasp was given, and perhaps only when their hands fell apart had +they thoroughly tested at last the strength of the link between them. +They were friends for life without knowing exactly why. Thousands of +Englishmen were in the same case. + +Dion had gone to De Lorne Mansions to bid good-by to Beattie, and with +her, too, he had talked about Robin. Beattie had known when Dion was +coming, and had taken care to be alone. Always quiet, she had seemed +to Dion quieter even than usual in that final hour by the fire, almost +singularly timid and repressed. There had even been moments when she had +seemed to him cold. But the coldness--if really there had been any--had +been in her manner, perhaps in her voice, but had been absent from her +face. They had sat in the firelight, which Beattie was always fond of, +and Dion had not been able to see her quite clearly. If the electric +light had been turned on she might have told him more; but she surely +would not have told him of the quiet indifference which manner and voice +and even inexpressive attitude had seemed to be endeavoring to convey +to him. For Beattie’s only half-revealed face had looked eloquent in the +firelight, eloquent of a sympathy and even of a sorrow she had said very +little about. Whenever Dion had begun to feel slightly chilled he had +looked at her, and the face in the firelight had assured him. “Beattie +does care,” he had thought; and he had realized how much he wanted +Beattie to care, how he had come to depend upon Beattie’s sisterly +affection and gentle but deep interest in all the course of his life. + +Quickly, too quickly, the moment had come for him to say the last word +to Beattie, and suddenly he had felt shy. It had seemed to him that +something in Beattie--he could not have said what--had brought about +this unusual sensation in him. He had got up abruptly with a “Well, I +suppose I must be off now!” and had thrust out his hand. He had felt +that his manner and action were almost awkward and hard. Beattie had got +up too in a way that looked listless. + +“Are you well, Beattie?” he had asked. + +“Quite well.” + +“Perhaps you are tired?” + +“No.” + +“I fancied--well, good-by, Beattie.” + +“Good-by, Dion.” + +That had been all. At the door he had looked round, and had seen Beattie +standing with her back to him and her face to the firelight, stooping +slightly, and he had felt a strong impulse to go to her again, and +to--he hardly knew what--to say good-by again, perhaps, in a different, +more affectionate or more tender way. But he had not done it. Instead he +had gone out and had shut the door behind him very quietly. It was odd +that Beattie had not even looked after him. Surely people generally did +that when a friend was going away, perhaps for ever. But Beattie was +different from other people, and somehow he was quite sure she cared. + +The three last good-bys had been said to his mother, Robin and Rosamund, +in Queen Anne’s Mansions and Little Market Street. He had stayed with +his mother for nearly two hours. She had a very bad cold, unbecoming, +complicated with fits of sneezing, a cold in the “three handkerchiefs an +hour” stage. And this commonplace malady had made him feel very tender +about her, and oddly pitiful about all humanity, including, of course, +himself. While they talked he had thought several times, “It’s hard to +see mother in such a state when perhaps I shall never see her again. I +don’t want to remember her with a cold.” And the thought, “I shan’t be +here to see her get well,” had pained him acutely. + +“I’m looking and feeling glazed, dee-ar,” had been her greeting to him. +“My nose is shiny and my mind is woolly. I don’t think you ought to kiss +me or talk to me.” + +And then he had kissed her, and they had talked, intimately, sincerely. +In those last hours mercifully Dion had not felt shy with his mother. +But perhaps this was because she was never shy, not even in tenderness +or in sorrow. She was not afraid of herself. They had even been able to +discuss the possibility of his being killed in the war, and Mrs. Leith +had been quite simple about it, laying aside all her usual elaboration +of manner. + +“The saddest result of such an honorable and noble end would be the loss +to Robin, I think,” she had said. + +“To Robin? But he’s got such a mother!” + +“Do you think he doesn’t need, won’t need much more later on, the father +he’s got? Dion, my son, humility is a virtue, no doubt, but I don’t +believe in excess even in the practice of virtue, and sometimes I think +you do.” + +“I didn’t know it.” + +“This going to the war is a splendid thing for you. I wouldn’t have you +out of it even though----” + +Here she had been overcome by a tremendous fit of sneezing from which +she had emerged with the smiling remark: + +“I’m not permitted to improve the occasion.” + +“I believe I know what you mean. Perhaps you’re right, mother. You’re +cleverer than I am. Still I can’t help seeing that Robin’s got a mother +such as few children have. Look round at all the mothers you know in +London!” + +“Yes. Rosamund was created to be a mother. But just to-day I want to +look at Robin’s father.” + +And so they had talked of him. + +That talk had done Dion good. It had set his face towards a shining +future. If he came back from the war he now felt, through the feeling +of his mother, that he would surely come back tempered, tried, better +fitted to Robin’s uses, more worthy of any woman’s gift of herself. +Without preaching, even without being remarkably definite, his mother +had made him see in this distant war a great opportunity, not to win a +V.C. or any splashing honor that would raise him up in the eyes of the +world, but to reach out and grip hold of his own best possibilities. Had +his mother done even more than this? Had she set before him some other +goal which the war might enable him to gain if he had not already gained +it? Had she been very subtle when seeming to be very direct? Even when +she held him in her arms--despite the cold!--and gave him the final kiss +and blessing, he was not sure. If it had been done it had been done with +extraordinary delicacy, with the marvelous cunning of clever love which +knows how to avoid all the pitfalls. And it had been done, too, with +the marvelous unselfishness of which, perhaps, only the highest type of +mother-love is capable. + +After he had left his mother, and was just going out of the flat, Dion +had heard through the half-open door a sound, a ridiculous sound, which +had made him love her terribly, and with the sudden yearning which +is the keenest pain of the heart because it defines all the human +limitations: she was sneezing again violently. As he shut the front +door, “If she were to die while I’m away, and I were to come back!” had +stabbed his mind. Outside in the court he had gazed up at the towering +rows of lighted windows and had said another good-by out there. + +Shutting his eyes for a moment as the “Ariosto” plowed her way onwards +through a rather malignant sea, Dion saw again those rows of lighted +windows, and he wondered, almost as earnestly as a child wonders, +whether his mother’s cold was better. What he had done, volunteering +for active service and joining the C.I.V. battalion, had made him feel +simpler than usual; but he did not know it, did not look on at his own +simplicity. + +And then, last of all, had come the parting from Robin and Rosamund. + +Rosamund and Dion had agreed not to make very much of his departure +to Robin. Father was going way for a time, going over the sea +picturesquely, with a lot of friends, all men, all happy to be together +and to see wonderful things in a country quite different from England. +Some day, when Robin was a big as his father, perhaps he, too, would +make such a voyage with his friends. Robin had been deeply interested, +and had shown his usual ardor in comment and--this was more +embarrassing--in research. He had wanted to know a great deal about +his father’s intentions and the intentions of father’s numerous male +friends. What were they going to do when they arrived in the extremely +odd country which had taken it into its head to be different from +England? How many male friends was father taking with him? Why hadn’t +they all been to “see us?” Was Uncle Guy one of them? Was Mr. Thrush +going too? Why wasn’t Mr. Thrush going? If he was too old to go was +Uncle Guy too old? Did Mr. Thrush want to go? Was he disappointed at +father’s not being able to take him? Was it all a holiday for father? +Would mummy have liked to go? No lies had been told to Robin, but +some of the information he had sought had been withheld. Dion had made +skilful use of Mr. Thrush when matters had become difficult, when Robin +had nearly driven him into a corner. The ex-chemist, though seldom seen, +loomed large in Robin’s world, on account of his impressive coloring and +ancient respectabilities. Robin regarded him with awful admiration, and +looked forward to growing like him in some far distant future. Dion had +frequently ridden off from difficult questions on Mr. Thrush. Even in +the final interview between father and son Mr. Thrush had been much +discussed. + +The final interview had taken place in the nursery among Aunt Beattie’s +bricks, by which Robin was still obsessed. Dion had sat on the floor and +built towers with his boy, and had wondered, as he handled the bricks +in the shining of the nursery fire, whether he would come back to help +Robin with his building later on. He was going out to build, for England +and for himself, perhaps for Robin and Rosamund, too. Would he be +allowed to see the fruits of his labors? + +The towers of bricks had grown high, and with it Dion had built up +another tower, unknown to Robin, a tower of hopes for the child. So much +ardor in so tiny a frame! It was a revelation of the wonder of +life. What a marvel to have helped to create that life and what a +responsibility. And he was going away to destroy life, if possible. +The grotesqueness of war had come upon him then, as he had built up the +tower with Robin. And he had longed for a released world in which his +boy might be allowed to walk as a man. The simplicity of Robin, his +complete trustfulness, his eager appreciation of human nature, his +constant reaching out after kindness without fear of being denied, +seemed to imply a world other than the world which must keep on letting +blood in order to get along. Robin, and all the other Robins, female +and male, revealed war in its true light. Terrible children whose +unconscious comment on life bites deep like an acid! Terrible Robin in +that last hour with the bricks! + +When the tower had become a marvel such as had been seen in no nursery +before, Dion had suggested letting it be. Another brick and it must +surely fall. The moment was at hand when he must see the last of Robin. +He had had a furtive but strong desire to see the tower he and his +son had built still standing slenderly erect when he went out of the +nursery. Just then he had been the man who seeks a good omen. Robin had +agreed with his suggestion after a long moment of rapt contemplation of +the tower. + +“I wish Mr. Thrush could see it,” he had observed, laying down the brick +he had taken up to add to the tower just before his father had spoken. +“He _would_ be pleased.” + +The words had been lifted out on a sigh, the sigh of the wonder-worker +who had achieved his mission. And then they had talked of Mr. Thrush, +sitting carefully, almost motionless, beside the tower, and speaking +softly “for fear.” The firelight had danced upon the yellow bricks and +upon the cream-colored nursery walls, filtering through the high +nursery “guard” which protected Robin from annihilation by fire, and +the whisper, whisper of their voices had only emphasized the quiet. And, +with every moment that went by, the lit-up tower had seemed more like a +symbol to Dion. Then at last the cuckoo-clock had chimed and the wooden +bird, with trembling tail, had made its jerky obeisance. + +“Cuckoo!” + +Dion had put his arm round the little figure in the green jersey and the +tiny knickerbockers, and had whispered, still governed by the tower: + +“I must go now, Robin.” + +“Good-by, Fa,” Robin had whispered back, with his eyes on the tower. + +With a very careful movement he had lifted his face to be kissed, and +on his soft lips Dion had felt a certain remoteness. Did the tower stand +between him and his little son as he said good-by to Robin? + +Just as he had reluctantly let Robin go and, with his legs crossed, had +been about to perform the feat of getting up without touching the floor +with his hands, and without shaking the bricks in their places,--moved +to this trifling bodily feat by the desire to confront his emotion with +an adversary,--the door behind him had been opened. Already in movement +he had instinctively half-turned round. Something had happened,--he +never knew exactly what,--something had escaped from his physical +control because his mind had abruptly been deflected from its task of +vigilance; there had been a crash and a cry of “Oh, _Fa_!” from Robin, +and he had met Rosamund’s eyes as the tower toppled down in ruin. Not so +much as one brick had been left upon another. + +Robin had been greatly distressed. Tears had come into his eyes, and +for a moment he had looked reproachfully at his father. Then, almost +immediately, something chivalrous had spoken within him, admonishing +him, and he had managed a smile. + +“It’ll be higher next time, Fa, won’t it?” he had murmured, still +evidently fighting a keen disappointment. + +And Dion had caught him up, given him a hug, whispered “My boy!” to him, +put him down and gone straight out of the room with Rosamund, who had +not spoken a word. + +And that had been the last of Robin for his father. + +In the evening, when Robin was asleep, Dion had said good-by to +Rosamund. The catastrophe of the tower of bricks had haunted his mind. +As he had chosen to make of the tower an omen, in its destruction he had +found a presage of evil which depressed him, which even woke in him ugly +fears of the future. He had had a great deal out of life, not all he had +wanted, but still a great deal. Perhaps he was not going to have +much more. He had not spoken of his fears to Rosamund, but had been +resolutely cheerful with her in their last conversation. Neither of them +had mentioned the possibility of his not coming back. They had talked +of what probably lay before him in South Africa, and of Robin, and +presently Rosamund had said: + +“I want to make a suggestion. Will you promise to tell me if you dislike +it?” + +“Yes. What is it?” + +“Would you mind if I succeeded in letting this house and went into the +country with Robin to wait for your coming back?” + +“Letting it furnished, do you mean?” + +“Yes.” + +“But won’t you be dull in the country, away from mother, and Beattie, +and godfather, and all our friends?” + +“I could never be dull with Robin and nature, never, and I wouldn’t go +very far from London. I thought of something near Welsley.” + +“So that you could go in to Cathedral service when ‘The Wilderness’ was +sung!” + +He had smiled as he had said it, but his own reference to Rosamund’s +once-spoken-of love of the wilderness had, in a flash, brought the hill +of Drouva before him, and he had faced man’s tragedy--remembered joys of +the past in a shadowed present. + +“Go into the country, Rose. I only want you to be happy, but”--he had +hesitated, and then had added, almost in spite of himself--“but not too +happy.” + +Not too happy! That really was the great fear at his heart now that +he was voyaging towards South Africa, that Rosamund would be too happy +without him. He no longer deceived himself. This drastic change in his +life had either taught him to face realities, or simply prevented him +from being able to do anything else. He told himself the truth, and it +was this, that Rosamund did not love him at all as he loved her. She +was fond of him, she trusted him, she got on excellently with him, she +believed in him, she even admired him for having been able to live as he +had lived before their marriage, but she did not passionately love +him. He might have been tempted to think that, with all her fine, even +splendid, qualities, she was deprived of the power of loving intensely +if he had not seen her with Robin, if he had not once spoken with her +about her mother. + +If he were killed in South Africa would Rosamund be angry at his death? +That was her greatest tribute, anger, directed surely not against +any human being, but against the God Whom she loved and Who, so she +believed, ruled the world and directed the ways of men. Once Rosamund +had said that she knew it was possible for human beings to hurt God. She +had doubtless spoken out of the depths of her personal experience. She +had felt sure that by her anger at the death of her mother she had +hurt God. Such a conviction showed how she thought of God, in what a +closeness of relation with God she felt herself to be. Dion knew now +that she had loved her mother, that she loved Robin, as she did not love +him. If he were to die she would be very sorry, but she would not be +very angry. No, she would be able to breathe out a “farewell!” simply, +with a resignation comparable to that of the Greeks on those tombs which +she loved, and then--she would concentrate on Robin. + +If he, Dion, were to be shot, and had time for a thought before dying, +he knew what his thought would be: that the Boer’s bullet had only hit a +man, not, like so many bullets fired in war, a man and a woman. And that +thought would add an exquisite bitterness to the normal bitterness of +death. + +So Dion, on the “Ariosto,” voyaged towards South Africa, companioned +by new and definite knowledge--new at any rate in the light and on the +surface, definite because in the very big moments of life truth becomes +as definite as the bayonet piercing to the man who is pierced. + +His comrades were a mixed lot, mostly quite young. The average age was +about twenty-five. Among them were barristers, law students, dentists, +bank clerks, clerks, men of the Civil Service, architects, auctioneers, +engineers, schoolmasters, builders, plumbers, jewelers, tailors, Stock +Exchange men, etc., etc. There were representatives of more than a +hundred and fifty trades, and adherents to nine religions, among the men +of the C.I.V. Their free patriotism welded them together, the thing they +had all spontaneously done abolished differences between Baptists +and Jews, Methodists and Unitarians, Catholics and Protestants. The +perfumery manager and the marine engineer comprehended each other’s +language; the dentist and the insurance broker “hit it off together” at +first sight; printers and plumbers, pawnbrokers and solicitors, varnish +testers and hop factors--they were all friendly and all cheerful +together. Each one of them had done a thing which all the rest secretly +admired. Respect is a good cement, and can stand a lot of testing. +In his comrades Dion was not disappointed. Among them were a few +acquaintances, men whom he had met in the City, but there was only one +man whom he could count as a friend, a barrister named Worthington, a +bachelor, who belonged to the Greville Club, and who was an intimate of +Guy Daventry’s. Worthington knew Daventry much better than he knew +Dion, but both Dion and he were glad to be together and to exchange +impressions in the new life which they had entered so abruptly, moved +by a common impulse. Worthington was a dark, sallow, narrow-faced man, +wiry, with an eager intellect, fearless and energetic, one of the most +cheerful men of the battalion. His company braced Dion. + +The second day at sea was disagreeable; the ship rolled considerably, +and many officers and men were sea-sick. Dion was well, but Worthington +was prostrated, and did not show on deck. Towards evening Dion went down +to have a look at him, and found him in his bunk, lead-colored, with +pinched features, but still cheerful and able to laugh at his own +misery. They had a small “jaw” together about people and things at home, +and in the course of it Worthington mentioned Mrs. Clarke, whom he had +several times met at De Lorne Gardens. + +“You know she’s back in London?” he said. “The winter’s almost +impossible at Constantinople because of the winds from the Black Sea.” + +“Yes, I heard she was in London, but I haven’t seen her this winter.” + +“I half thought--only half--she’d send me a wire to wish me good luck +when we embarked,” said Worthington, shifting uneasily in his bunk, and +twisting his white lips. “But she didn’t. She’s a fascinating woman. I +should have liked to have had a wire from her.” + +“By Jove!” exclaimed Dion. + +“What is it?” + +“I’ve just remembered I got some telegrams when we were going off. I +read one, from my wife, and stuffed the others away. There was such a +lot to do and think of. I believe they’re here.” + +He thrust a hand into one of his pockets and brought out four telegrams, +one, Rosamund’s, open, the rest unopened. Worthington lay staring at him +and them, glad perhaps to be turned for a moment from self-contemplation +by any incident, however trifling. + +“I’ll bet I know whom they’re from,” said Dion. “One’s from old Guy, +one’s from Bruce Evelin, and one’s from----” He paused, fingering the +telegrams. + +“Eh?” said Worthington, still screwing his lips about. + +“Perhaps from Beattie, my sister-in-law, unless she and Guy have clubbed +together. Well, let’s see.” + +He tore open the first telegram. + + +“May you have good luck and come back safe and soon.--BEATTIE--GUY.” + + +He opened the second. It was from Bruce Evelin. + + +“May you be a happy warrior.--BRUCE EVELIN.” + + +Dion read it more than once, and his lips quivered for a second. He shot +a glance at Worthington, and said, rather bruskly: + +“Beatrice and Guy Daventry and Bruce Evelin!” + +Worthington gave a little faint nod in the direction of the telegram +that was still unopened. + +“Your mater!” + +“No; she wrote to me. She hates telegrams, says they’re public property. +I wonder who it is.” + +He pushed a forefinger under the envelope, tore it and pulled out the +telegram. + + +“The forgotten do not always forget. May Allah have you and all brave +men in His hand.--CYNTHIA CLARKE.” + + +Dion felt Worthington’s observant eyes upon him, looked up and met them +as the “Ariosto” rolled and creaked in the heavy gray wash of the sea. + +“Funny!” he jerked out. + +Worthington lifted inquiring eyebrows but evidently hesitated to speak +just then. + +“It’s from Mrs. Clarke.” + +“Beastly of her!” tipped out Worthington. “What--she say?” + +“Just wishes me well.” + +And Dion stuck the telegram back into the flimsy envelope. + +When he looked at it again that night he thought the woman from +Stamboul was a very forgiving woman. Almost he wished that she were less +forgiving. She made him now, she had made him in days gone by, feel as +if he had behaved to her almost badly, like a bit of a brute. Of course +that wasn’t true. If he hadn’t been married, no doubt they might +have been good friends. As things were, friendship between them was +impossible. He did not long for friendship with Mrs. Clarke. His life +was full. There was no room in it for her. But he slightly regretted +that he had met her, and he regretted more that she had wished to know +Rosamund and him better than Rosamund had wished. He kept her telegram, +with the rest of the telegrams he had received on his departure; now and +then he looked at it, and wondered whether its wording was not the +least bit indelicate. It would surely have been wiser if Mrs. Clarke had +omitted the opening six words. They conveyed a reproach; they conveyed, +too, a curious suggestion of will power, of quiet persistence. When +he read them Dion seemed to feel the touch--or the grip--of Stamboul, +listless apparently, yet not easily to be evaded or got rid of. + +That telegram caused him to wonder whether he had made a really strong +impression upon Mrs. Clarke, such as he had not suspected till now, +whether she had not, perhaps, liked him a good deal more than she +liked most people. “May Allah have you and all brave men in His hand.” + Worthington would have been glad to have had that message. Dion had +discovered that Worthington was half in love with Mrs. Clarke. He +chaffed Dion about Mrs. Clarke’s telegram with a rather persistent +gaiety which did not hide a faint, semi-humorous jealousy. One day he +even said, “To him that hath shall be given. It’s so like a woman to +sent her word of encouragement to the man who’s got a wife to encourage +him, and to leave the poor beggar who’s got no one out in the cold. It’s +a cruel world, and three-quarters of the cruelty in it is the production +of women.” He spoke with a smile, and the argument which followed was +not serious. They laughed and bantered each other, but Dion understood +that Worthington really envied him because Mrs. Clarke had thought of +him at the moment of departure. Perhaps he had been rather stupid in +letting Worthington know about her telegram. But Worthington had been +watching him; he had had the feeling that Worthington had guessed whom +the telegram was from. The matter was of no importance. If Mrs. Clarke +had cared for him, or if he had cared for her, he would have kept her +message secret; as they were merely acquaintances who no longer met +each other, her good wishes from a distance meant very little, merely +a kindly thought, for which he was grateful and about which no mystery +need be made. + +Of course he must write a letter of thanks to Mrs. Clarke. + +One day, after he had written to Rosamund, to Robin, to his mother, to +Beattie and to Bruce Evelin, Mrs. Clarke’s turn came. His letter to her +was short and cheery, but he was slow in writing it. There was a noise +of men, a turmoil of activity all about him. In the midst of it he heard +a husky, very individual voice, he saw a pair of wide-open distressed +eyes looking directly at him. And an odd conviction came to him that +life would bring Mrs. Clarke and him together again. Then he would come +back from South Africa? He had no premonition about that. What he felt +as he wrote his letter was simply that somehow, somewhere, Mrs. Clarke +and he would get to know each other better than they knew each other +now. Kismet! In the vast Turkish cemeteries there were moldering bodies +innumerable. Why did he think of them whenever he thought of Mrs. +Clarke? No doubt because she lived in Constantinople, because much of +her life was passed in the shadow of the towering cypresses. He had +thought of her as a cypress. Did she keep watch over bodies of the dead? + +A bugle rang out. He put his letter into the envelope and hastily +scribbled the address. Mrs. Clarke was again at Claridge’s. + +* * * * * + +Every man who loves very deeply wishes to conquer the woman he loves, to +conquer the heart of her and to have it as his possession. Dion had left +England knowing that he had won Rosamund but had never conquered +her. This South African campaign had come upon him like a great blow +delivered with intention; a blow which does not stun a man but which +wakes the whole man up. If this war had not broken out his life would +have gone on as before, harmoniously, comfortably, with the daily work, +and the daily exercise, and the daily intercourse with wife and child +and friends. And would he ever have absolutely known what he knew now, +what--he was certain of it!--his mother knew, what perhaps Beattie and +even Bruce Evelin knew? + +He had surely failed in a great enterprise, but he was resolved to +succeed if long enough life were given to him. He was now awake and +walked in full knowledge. Surely, Rosamund being what she was, the issue +lay with himself. If God had stood between them that must be because he, +Dion, was not yet worthy of the full happiness which was his greatest +earthly desire. Dion was certain that God did not stand between Rosamund +and Robin. + +He had dreams of returning to England a different, or perhaps a +developed, man. The perfect lovers ought to stand together on the same +level. Rosamund and he had never done that yet. He resolved to gain in +South Africa, to get a grip on his best possibilities, to go back to +England, if he ever went back, a bigger soul, freer, more competent, +more generous, more fearless. He could never be a mystic. He did +not want to be that. But surely he could learn in this interval of +separation which, like a river, divided his life from Rosamund’s, to +match her mysticism with something which would be able to call it out +of its mysterious understanding. Instead of retreating to God alone she +might then, perhaps, take him with her; instead of praying over him she +might pray with him. If, after he returned from South Africa, Rosamund +were ever again to be deliberately good with him, making such an effort +as she had made on that horrible evening in Little Market Street when +he had told her he was going on active service, he felt that he simply +couldn’t bear it. + +He put firmly aside the natural longings for home which often assailed +him, and threw himself heart and soul into his new duties. Already he +felt happier, for he was “out” to draw from the present, from the whole +of it, all the building material it contained, and was resolute to use +all that material in the construction of a palace, a future based on +marble, strong, simple, noble, a Parthenon of the future. Only the weak +man looks to omens, is governed in his mind, and so in his actions, by +them. That which he had not known how to win in an easy life he must +learn to win in a life that was hard. This war he would take as a gift +to him, something to be used finely. If he fell in it still he would +have had his gift, the chance to realize some of his latent and best +possibilities. He swept out of his mind an old thought, the creeping +surmise that perhaps Rosamund had given him all she had to give in +lover’s love, that she knew how to love as child and as mother, but that +she was incapable of being a great lover in man’s sense of the term when +he applies it to woman. + +Madeira was passed on January the twenty-fifth, and the men, staring +across the sea, saw its lofty hills rising dreamily out of the haze, +watchers of those who would not stop, who had no time for any eating of +the lotus. Heat came upon the ship, and there were some who pretended +that they heard sounds, and smelled perfumes wafted, like messages, from +the hidden shores on which probably they would never land. Every one +was kept busy, after a sail bath, with drilling, musketry instruction, +physical drill, cleaning of accouterments, a dozen things which made the +hours go quickly in a buzz of human activities. Some of the men, Dion +among them, were trying to learn Dutch under an instructor who knew the +mysteries. A call came for volunteers for inoculation, and both Dion +and Worthington answered it, with between forty and fifty other men. +The prick of the needle was like the touch of a spark; soon after came a +mystery of general wretchedness, followed by pains in the loins, a rise +of temperature and extreme, in Dion’s case even intense, weakness. +He lay in his bunk trying to play the detective on himself, to stand +outside of his body, saying to himself, “This is I, and I am quite +unaffected by my bodily condition.” For what seemed to him a long time +he was fairly successful in his effort; then the body began to show +definitely the power of its weakness upon the Ego, to asset itself by +feebleness. His will became like an invalid who is fretful upon the +pillows. Soon his strong resolutions, cherished and never to be parted +from till out of them the deeds had blossomed, lost blood and fell +upon the evil day of anemia. He had a sensation of going out. When the +midnight came he could not sleep, and with it came a thought feeble but +persistent: “If she loves me it’s because I’ve given her Robin.” And in +the creaking darkness, encompassed by the restlessness of the sea, again +and again he repeated to himself the words--“it’s because I’ve given her +Robin.” That was the plain truth. If he was loved, he was loved because +of something he had done, not because of something that he was. Towards +dawn he felt so weak that his hold on life seemed relaxing, and at last +he almost wished to let it go. He understood why dying people do not +usually fear death. + +Three days later he was quite well and at work, but the memory of his +illness stayed with him all through the South African campaign. Often at +night he returned to that night on shipboard, and said to himself, “The +doctor’s needle helped me to think clearly.” + +The voyage slipped away with the unnoticed swiftness that is the child +of monotony. The Southern Cross shone above the ship. When the great +heat set in the men were allowed to sleep on deck, and Dion lay all +night long under the wheeling stars, and often thought of the stars +above Drouva, and heard Rosamund’s voice saying, “I can see the +Pleiades.” + +The ship crossed the line. Early in February the moon began to show a +benign face to the crowd of men. One night there was a concert which was +followed by boxing. Dion boxed and won his bout easily on points. + +This little success had upon him a bracing effect, and gave him a +certain prestige among his comrades. He did well also at revolver and +musketry practice--better than many men who, though good enough shots at +Bisley, found sectional practice with the service rifle a difficult job, +were adepts at missing a mark with the revolver, and knew nothing of +fire discipline. Because he had set an aim before him on which he knew +that his future happiness depended, he was able to put his whole heart +into everything he did. In the simplest duty he saw a means to an end +which he desired intensely. Everything that lay to hand in the life +of the soldier was building material which he must use to the best +advantage. He knew fully, for the first time, the joy of work. + +On a day in the middle of February the “Ariosto” passed the mail-boat +from the Cape bound for England, sighted Table Mountain, and came to +anchor between Robben Island and the docks. On the following morning +the men of the C.I.V. felt the earth with eager feet as they marched to +Green Point Camp. + + + +CHAPTER III + +“Robin,” said Rosamund, “would you like to go and live in the country?” + +Robin looked very serious and, after a moment of silent consideration, +remarked: + +“Where there’s no houses?” + +“Some houses, but not nearly so many as here.” + +“Would Mr. Thrush be there?” + +“Well no, I’m afraid he wouldn’t.” + +Robin began to look decidedly adverse to the proposition. + +“You see Mr. Thrush has always lived in London,” began Rosamund +explanatorily. + +“But so’ve we,” interrupted Robin. + +“But we aren’t as old as Mr. Thrush.” + +“Is he very old, mummie? How old is he?” + +“I don’t know, but he’s a very great deal older than you are.” + +“I s’poses,” observed Robin meditatively, slightly wrinkling his little +nose where the freckles were. “Well, mummie?” + +“Old people don’t generally like to move about much, but I think it +would be very good for you and me to go into the country while father’s +away.” + +And taking Robin on her knees, and putting her arms round him, Rosamund +began to tell him about the country, developing enthusiasm as she +talked, bending over the little fair head that was so dear to her--the +little fair head which contained Robin’s dear little thoughts, funny and +very touching, but every one of them dear. + +She described to Robin the Spring as it is in the English country, frail +and fragrant, washed by showers that come and go with a waywardness +that seems very conscious, warmed by sunbeams not fully grown up and +therefore not able to do the work of the sunbeams of summer. She told +him of the rainbow that is set in the clouds like a promise made from +a very great distance, and of the pale and innocent flowers of Spring: +primroses, periwinkles, violets, cowslips, flowers of dells in the +budding woods, and of clearings round which the trees stand on guard +about the safe little daisies and wild hyacinths and wild crocuses; +flowers of the sloping meadows that go down to the streams of Spring. +And all along the streams the twigs are budding; the yellow “lambs’ +tails” swing in the breeze, as if answering to the white lambs’ tails +that are wagging in the fields. The thrush sings in the copse, and in +his piercing sweet note is the sound of Spring. + +Bending over Robin, Rosamund imitated the note of the thrush, and Robin +stared up at her with ardent eyes. + +“Does Mr. Thrush ever do that?” + +“I’ve never heard him do it.” + +And she went on talking about the Spring. + +How she loved that hour talking of Spring in the country with her human +Spring in her arms. What was the war to her just then? Robin abolished +war. While she had him there was always the rainbow, the perfect +rainbow, rising from the world to the heavens and falling from the +heavens to the world. The showers were fleeting Spring showers, and the +clouds were fleecy and showed the blue. + +“Robin, Robin, Robin!” she breathed over her child, when they had lived +in the Spring together, the pure and exquisite Spring. + +And Robin, all glowing with the ardor he had caught from her, declared +for the country. + +A few days later Rosamund wrote to Canon Wilton, who happened to be in +residence at Welsley out of his usual time, and asked him if he knew of +any pretty small house, with a garden, in the neighborhood, where she +and Robin could settle down till Dion came back from the war. In answer +she got a letter from the Canon inviting her to spend a night or two at +his house in the Precincts. In a P.S. he wrote: + + +“If you can come next week I think I can arrange with Mr. Soames, our +precentor, for Wesley’s ‘Wilderness’ to be sung at one of the afternoon +services; but let me know by return what days you will be here.” + + +Rosamund replied by telegraph. Aunt Beatrice was installed in Little +Market Street for a couple of nights as Robin’s protector, and Rosamund +went down to Welsley, and spent two days with the Canon. + +She had never been alone with him before, except now and then for a few +minutes, but he was such a sincere and plain-spoken man that she had +always felt she genuinely knew him. To every one with whom he spoke he +gave himself as he was. This unusual sincerity in Rosamund’s eyes was a +great attraction. She often said that she could never feel at home with +pretense even if the intention behind it was kindly. Perhaps, however, +she did not always detect it, although she possessed the great gift of +feminine intuition. + +She arrived by the express, which reached Welsley Station in the +evening, and found Canon Wilton at the station to meet her. His greeting +was: + +“The ‘Wilderness,’ Wesley, at the afternoon service to-morrow.” + +“That’s good of you!” she exclaimed, with the warm and radiant +cordiality that won her so many friends. “I shall revel in my little +visit here. It’s an unexpected treat.” + +The Canon seemed for a moment almost surprised by her buoyant +anticipation, and a look that was sad flitted across his face; but she +did not notice it. + +As they drove in a fly to his house in the Precincts she looked out at +the busy provincial life in the narrow streets of the old country town, +and enjoyed the intimate concentration of it all. + +“I should like to poke about here,” she said. “I should feel at home as +I never do in London. I believe I’m thoroughly provincial at heart.” + +In the highest tower of the Cathedral, which stood in the heart of +the town, the melodious chimes lifted up their crystalline voices, and +“Great John” boomed out the hour in a voice of large authority. + +“Seven o’clock,” said the Canon. “Dinner is at eight. You’ll be all +alone with me this evening.” + +“To-morrow too, I hope,” Rosamund said, with a smile. + +“No, to-morrow we shall be the awkward number--three. Mr. Robertson, +from Liverpool, is coming to stay with me for a few days. He preaches +here next Sunday evening.” + +Rosamund’s thought was carried back to a foggy night in London, when she +had heard a sermon on egoism, and a quotation she had never forgotten: +_“Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat.”_ + +“Can you manage with two clergymen?” said Canon Wilton. + +“I’ll try. I don’t think they’ll frighten me, and I’ve been wishing to +meet Mr. Robertson for a long time.” + +“He’s a good man,” said Canon Wilton very simply. But the statement as +he made it was like an accolade. + +Rosamund enjoyed her quiet evening with the Canon in the house with the +high green gate, the elm trees and the gray gables. As they talked, at +first in the oak-paneled dining-room, later in the Canon’s library by a +big wood fire, she was always pleasantly conscious of being enclosed, +of being closely sheltered in the arms of the Precincts, which held also +the mighty Cathedral with its cloisters, its subterranean passages, its +ancient tombs, its mysterious courts, its staircases, its towers hidden +in the night. The ecclesiastical flavor which she tasted was pleasant +to her palate. She loved the nearness of those stones which had been +pressed by the knees of pilgrims, of those walls between which so many +prayers had been uttered, so many praises had been sung. A cosiness +of religion enwrapped her. She had a delicious feeling of safety. They +could hear the chimes where they sat encompassed by a silence which was +not like ordinary silences, but which to Rosamund seemed impregnated +with the peace of long meditations and of communings with the unseen. + +“This rests me,” she said to her host. “Don’t you love your time here?” + +“I’m fond of Welsley, but I don’t think I should like to pass all my +year in it. I don’t believe in sinking down into religion, or into +practises connected with it, as a soft old man sinks down into a feather +bed. And that’s what some people do.” + +“Do they?” said Rosamund abstractedly. + +Just then a large and murmurous sound, apparently from very far off, had +begun to steal upon her ears, level and deep, suggestive almost of the +vast slumber of a world and of the underthings that are sleepless but +keep at a distance. + +“Is it the organ?” she asked, in a listening voice. + +Canon Wilton nodded. + +“Dickinson practising.” + +They sat in silence for a long time listening. In that silence the Canon +was watching Rosamund. He thought how beautiful she was and how good, +but he almost disliked the joy which he discerned in her expression, in +her complete repose. He rebuked himself for this approach to dislike, +but his rebuke was not efficacious. In this enclosed calm of the +precincts of Welsley where, pacing within the walls by the edge of +the velvety lawns, the watchman would presently cry out the hour Canon +Wilton was conscious of a life at a distance, the life of a man he had +met first in St. James’s Square. The beautiful woman in the chair by the +fire had surely forgotten that man. + +Presently the distant sound of the organ ceased. + +“I love Welsley,” said Rosamund, on a little sigh. “I just love it. I +should like to live in the Precincts.” + +That brought them to a discussion of plans in which Dion was talked of +with warm affection and admiration by Rosamund; and all the time she was +talking, Canon Wilton saw the beautiful woman in the chair listening +to the distant organ. He knew of a house that was to be let in the +Precincts, but that night he did not mention it. Something prevented him +from doing so--something against which he struggled, but which he failed +to overcome. + +When they separated it was nearly eleven o’clock. As Rosamund took +her silver candlestick from the Canon at the foot of the shallow oak +staircase she said: + +“I’ve had _such_ a happy evening!” + +It was a very sweet compliment very sweetly paid. No man could have been +quite indifferent to it. Canon Wilton was not. As he looked at Rosamund +a voice within him said: + +“That’s a very dear woman.” + +It spoke undeniable truth. Yet another voice whispered: + +“Oh, if I could change her!” + +But that was impossible. The Canon knew that, for he was very sincere +with himself; and he realized that the change he wanted to see could +only come from within, could never be imposed by him from without upon +the mysterious dweller in the Temple of Rosamund. + +That night Rosamund undressed very slowly and “pottered about” in her +room, doing dreamily unnecessary things. She heard the chimes, and she +heard the watchman calling the midnight hour near her window as “Great +John” lifted up his voice. In the drawers where her clothes were laid +the Canon’s housekeeper had put lavender. She smelt it as she listened +to the watchman’s voice, shutting her eyes. Presently she drew aside +curtain and blind and looked out of the window. She saw the outline of +part of the great Cathedral with the principal tower, the home of “Great +John”; she felt the embracing arms of the Precincts; and when she knelt +down to say her prayers she thought: + +“Here is a place where I can really pray.” + +Nuns surely are helped by their convents and monks by the peace of their +whitewashed cells. + +“It is only in sweet places of retirement that one can pray as one ought +to pray,” thought Rosamund that night as she lay in bed. + +She forgot that the greatest prayer ever offered up was uttered on a +cross in the midst of a shrieking crowd. + +On the following day she went to the morning service in the +Cathedral, and afterwards heard something which filled her with joyful +anticipation. Canon Wilton told her there was a house to let in the +Precincts. + +“I’ll take it,” said Rosamund at once. “Esme Darlington has found me a +tenant for No. 5, an old friend of his, or rather two old friends, Sir +John and Lady Tenby. Where is it?” + +He took her to see it. + +The house in question had been occupied by the widow of a Dean, who had +recently been driven by her health to “relapse upon Bournemouth.” It was +a small old house with two very large rooms--one was the drawing-room, +the other a bed-room. + +The house stood at right angles to the east end of the Cathedral, from +which it was only divided by a strip of turf broken up by fragments +of old gray ruins, and edged by an iron railing, and by a paved +passage-way, which led through the Dark Entry from the “Green Court,” + where the Deanery and Minor Canons’ houses were situated, to the +pleasaunce immediately around the Cathedral. To the green lawns of this +wide pleasaunce the houses of the residentiary Canons gave access. One +projecting latticed window of the drawing-room of Mrs. Browning’s house, +another of the big bedroom above it, and the windows of the kitchen and +the servants’ quarters looked on to the passage-way and the Cathedral; +all the other windows looked into an old garden surrounded by a very +high brick wall, a garden of green turf like moss, of elm trees, and, in +summer, of gay herbaceous borders, a garden to which the voices of the +chimes dropped down, and to which the Cathedral organ sent its message, +as if to a place that knew how to keep safely all things that were +precious. Even the pure and chill voices of the boy choristers found +a way to this hidden garden, in which there were straight and narrow +paths, where nuns might have loved to walk unseen of the eyes of men. + +The Dean’s widow had left behind all her furniture, and was now adorning +a Bournemouth hotel, in which her sprightly invalidism and close +knowledge of the investments of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and of +the habits and customs of the lesser clergy, were greatly appreciated. +Some of the furniture did not wholly commend itself to Rosamund. There +were certain settees and back-to-backs, certain whatnots and occasional +tables, which seemed to stamp the character of the Dean’s widow +as meretricious. But these could easily be “managed.” Rosamund was +enchanted with the house, and went from room to room with Canon Wilton +radiantly curious, and almost as excited as a joyous schoolgirl. + +“I must poke my nose into everything!” she exclaimed. + +And she did it, and made the Canon poke his too. + +Presently, opening the lattice of the second window in the big, +low-ceiled drawing-room, she leaned out to the moist and secluded +garden. She was sitting sideways on the window-seat, of which she had +just said, “I won’t have this dreadful boudoir color on _my_ cushions!” + Canon Wilton was standing behind her, and presently heard her sigh +gently, and almost voluptuously, as if she prolonged the sigh and did +not want to let it go. + +“Yes?” he said, with a half-humorous inflection of the voice. + +Rosamund looked round gravely. + +“Did you say something?” + +“Only--yes?--in answer to your sigh.” + +“Did I? Yes, I must have. I was thinking----” + +She hesitated, while he stood looking at her with his strong, steady +gray-blue eyes. + +“I was thinking of a life I shall never live.” + +He came up to the window-seat. + +“Some of it might have been passed in just such a garden as this within +sound of bells.” + +With a change of voice she added: + +“How Robin will love it!” + +“The life you will never live?” said the Canon, smiling gravely. + +“No, the garden.” + +“Then you haven’t a doubt?” + +“Oh no. When I know a thing there’s no room in me for hesitation. I +shall love being here with Robin as I have never loved anything yet.” + +The quarter struck in the Cathedral tower. + +“Very different from South Africa!” said Canon Wilton. + +Rosamund knitted her brows for a moment. + +“I wonder whether Dion will come back altered,” she said. + +“D’you wish him to?” + +She got up from the window-seat, put out her hand, and softly pulled the +lattice towards her. + +“Not in most ways. He’s so dear as he is. It would all depend on the +alteration.” + +She latched the window gently, and again looked at the garden through +it. + +“I may be altered, too, by living here!” she said. “All alone with +Robin. I think I shall be.” + +Canon Wilton made no comment. He was thinking: + +“And when the two, altered, come together again, if they ever do, what +then?” + +He had noticed that Rosamund never seemed to think of Dion’s death in +South Africa as a possibility. When she spoke of him she assumed his +return as a matter of course. Did she never think of death, then? Did +she, under the spell of her radiant and splendidly healthy youth, forget +all the tragic possibilities? He wondered, but he did not ask. + +Mr. Robertson arrived at the Canon’s house just in time for the +afternoon service--“my Wilderness service,” as Rosamund called it. The +bells were ringing as he drove up with his modest luggage, and Rosamund +had already gone to the Cathedral and was seated in a stall. + +“I should like to have half an hour’s quiet meditation in church before +the service begins,” she had remarked to Canon Wilton. And the Canon had +put her in a stall close to where he would presently be sitting, and had +then hurried back to meet Father Robertson. + +“My Welsley!” was Rosamund’s thought as she sat in her stall, quite +alone, looking up at the old jeweled glass in the narrow Gothic windows, +at the wonderful somber oak, age-colored, of the return stalls and +canopy beneath which Canon Wilton, as Canon-in-Residence, would soon be +sitting at right angles to her, at the distant altar lifted on high and +backed by a delicate marble screen, beyond which stretched a further, +tranquilly obscure vista of the great church. The sound of the bells +ringing far above her head in the gray central tower was heard by her, +but only just heard, as we hear the voices of the past murmuring of +old memories and of deeds which are almost forgotten. Distant footsteps +echoed among the great tombs of stone and of marble, which commemorated +the dead who had served God in that place in the gray years gone by. +In her nostrils there seemed to be a perfume, like an essence of +concentrated prayers sent up among these stone traceries, these pointed +arches, these delicate columns, by generations of believers. She felt +wrapped in a robe never woven by hands, in a robe that gave warmth to +her spirit. + +A few people began stealing quietly in through the narrow archway in +the great screen which shut out the raised choir from the nave. Only +one bell sounded now in the gray tower. A faint noise, like an oncoming +sigh, above Rosamund’s head heralded the organ’s awakening, and was +followed by the whisper of its most distant voice, a voice which made +her think--she knew not why--of the sea whispering about a coral reef in +an isle of the Southern Seas, part of God’s world, mysteriously linked +to “my Welsley.” She shut her eyes, seeking to feel more strongly the +sensation of unity. When she opened them she saw, sitting close to her +in the return stalls, Father Robertson. His softly glowing eyes were +looking at her, and did not turn away immediately. She felt that he knew +she was his fellow-guest, and was conscious of a delicious sensation of +sympathy, of giving and taking, of cross currents of sympathy between +the Father and herself. + +“I love this hour--I love all this!” she said to herself. + +If only little Robin were submerged in the stall beside her! + +The feet of the slow procession were heard, and the silver wand of the +chief verger shone out of the delicate gloom. + +When the anthem was given out Rosamund looked across at Canon Wilton, +and her eyes said to him, “Thank you.” Then she stood up, folded her +hands on the great cushion in front of her, and looked at the gray +vistas and at the dim sparkle of the ancient glass in the narrow +windows. + + +“The wilderness and the solitary places . . .” + + +She had spoken of this to Dion as they looked at Zante together, before +little Robin had come, and she had said that if she had committed a +great sin she would like to take her sin into the Wilderness, because +purification might be found there. And she had meant what she said, +had spoken out of her heart sincerely. But now, as she listened to this +anthem, she saw a walled-in garden, with green turf like moss, old elm +trees and straight narrow paths. Perhaps she had been mistaken when +she had spoken of the sin and the Wilderness, perhaps she would find +purification with fewer tears and less agony in the cloister, within the +sound of the bells which called men to the service of God, and of the +human voices which sang His praises. Saints had fled into the Wilderness +to seek God there, but was He not in the Garden between the sheltering +walls, ready there, as in the farthest desert, to receive the submission +of the soul, to listen to the cry, “I have sinned”? + +As in Elis the spell of the green wild had been upon Rosamund, so +now the spell of these old Precincts was upon her, and spoke to her +innermost being, and as in Elis Dion had been woven into her dream of +the Wilderness, so now in Welsley Robin was woven into it. But Dion had +seemed a forerunner, and little Robin seemed That for which she had long +waited, the fulfilment of the root desire of her whole being as applied +to human life. + +When the service was over and the procession had gone out Rosamund sat +very still listening to the organ. She believed that Canon Wilton had +given the organist a hint that he would have an attentive hearer, for he +was playing one of Bach’s greatest preludes and fugues. Father Robertson +stayed on in his place. All the rest of the small congregation drifted +away through the archway in the rood-screen and down the steps to the +nave. The fugue was a glorious, sturdy thing, like a great solid +body inhabited by a big, noble, unquestioning soul--a soul free from +hesitations, that knew its way to God and would not be hindered from +taking it. A straight course to the predestined end--that was good, that +was glorious! The splendid clamor of the organ above her, growing in +sonorous force, filled Rosamund with exultation. She longed to open +her mouth and sing; the blood came to her cheeks; her eyes shone; she +mounted on the waves of sound; she was wound up with the great fugue, +and felt herself part of it. The gradual working up thrilled her whole +being; she was physically and spiritually seized hold of and carried +along towards a great and satisfying end. At last came the trumpet with +its sound of triumphant flame, and the roar of the pedals was like the +roaring of the sea. Already the end was there, grandly inherent in +the music, inevitably, desired by all the voices of the organ. All the +powers of the organ thundered towards it, straining to be there. + +It came, like something on the top of the world. + +“If I were a man that’s the way I should like to go to God!” said +Rosamund to herself, springing up. “That’s the way, in a chariot of +fire.” + +Unconscious of what she was doing she stretched out her hands with a +big gesture and opened her lips to let out a breath; then, in the gray +silence of the now empty Cathedral, she saw Father Robertson’s eyes. + +He stepped down from his stall and went out through the archway, and +she followed him. On the steps, just beyond the rood-screen, she met +a small, determined-looking man with hot cheeks and shining eyes. She +guessed at once that he was the organist, went up to him and thanked him +enthusiastically. + +The organist was the first person she captivated in Welsley, where she +was to have so many warm adherents very soon. + +Father Robertson went back to Canon Wilton’s house while Rosamund talked +to the organist, with whom she walked as far as a high wooden gate +labeled “Mr. Dickinson.” + +“You’ve got a walled garden too!” she remarked, as her companion took +off his hat with an “I live here.” + +The organist looked inquiring. Rosamund laughed. + +“How could you know? It’s only that I’ve been visiting a delicious old +house, with a walled garden, to-day. It’s to let.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Duncan Browning’s!” said Mr. Dickinson. “I--I’m sure I hope +you’re going to take it.” + +“I may!” said Rosamund. “Good-by, and thank you again for your splendid +music. It’s done me good.” + +“My dear!” exclaimed Mr. Dickinson, about a minute later, +bursting--rather than going--into his wife’s small drawing-room, +“I’ve just met the most delightful woman, a goddess to look at, and as +charming as a siren brought up to be a saint.” + +“More epigrams, Henry!” murmured Mrs. Dickinson. + +“She’s staying with Canon Wilton. She’s a thorough musician such as one +seldom comes across. There’s a chance--I hope it materializes--of her +taking--” + +“Your tea is nearly cold, Henry.” + +“Her name is Mrs. Dion Leith. If she really does come here we must be +sure to--” + +“Scones, Henry?” + +Thus urged, Mr. Dickinson’s body for the moment took precedence of his +soul. + +Rosamund knew she was going to like Mr. Robertson as she liked very few +people. She felt as if already she was his friend, and when they shook +hands in Canon Wilton’s drawing-room she cordially told him so, and +referred to the Sunday evening when she had heard him preach. The rooks +were cawing among the elms in the Canon’s garden. She could hear their +voices in the treetops while she was speaking. A wind was stirring +as the afternoon waned, and there came a patter of rain on the lofty +windows. And the voices of the rooks, in the windy treetops, the patter +of the rain, and the sigh of the wind were delightful to Rosamund, +because she was safely within the Precincts, like a bird surrounded by +the warmth of its nest. + +“I’m coming to live here,” she said to Mr. Robertson, as she poured out +tea for the two clergymen. “My husband has gone to South Africa with the +City Imperial Volunteers. He’s in business, so we live in London. But +while he’s away I mean to stay here.” + +And eagerly almost as a child, she told him about the house of the +Dean’s widow, and described to him the garden. + +“It’s like a convent garden, isn’t it?” she asked Canon Wilton, who +assented. “That’s why I love it. It gives me the feeling of enclosed +peace that must be so dear to nuns.” + +Something in her voice and look as she said this evidently struck Mr. +Robertson, and when she presently left the room he said to Canon Wilton: + +“If I didn’t know that sweet woman had a husband I should say she was +born with the vocation for a religious life. From the first moment I +spoke to her, looked at her, I felt that, and the feeling grows upon me. +Can’t one see her among sisters?” + +“I don’t wish to,” said Canon Wilton bluntly. “Shall we go to my study?” + +With the composed gentleness that was characteristic of him Father +Robertson assented, and they went downstairs. When they were safely +shut up in the big room, guarded by multitudes of soberly bound volumes, +Canon Wilton said: + +“Robertson, I want to talk to you in confidence about my guest, who, as +you say, is a very sweet woman. You could do something for her which I +couldn’t do. I have none of your impelling gentleness. You know how to +stir that which dwells in the inner sanctuary, to start it working for +itself; I’m more apt to try to work for it, or at it. Perhaps I can +rouse up a sinner and make him think. I’ve got a good bit of the +instinct of the missioner. But my dear guest there isn’t a sinner, +except as we all are! She’s a very good woman who doesn’t quite +understand. I think perhaps you might help her to understand. She +possesses a great love, and she doesn’t know quite how to handle it, or +even to value it.” + +The clock struck seven when they stopped talking. + +That evening, after dinner, Canon Wilton asked Rosamund to sing. Almost +eagerly she agreed. + +“I shall love to sing in the Precincts,” she said, as she went to the +piano. + +Father Robertson, who had been sitting with his back to the piano, +moved to the other side of the room. While Rosamund sang he watched her +closely. He saw that she was quite unconscious of being watched, and her +unconsciousness of herself made him almost love her. Her great talent he +appreciated fully, for he was devoted to music; but he appreciated much +more the moral qualities she showed in her singing. He was a man who +could not forbear from searching for the soul, from following its +workings. He had met all sorts and conditions of men, and with few +he had not been friends. He had known, knew now, scientists for whose +characters and lives he had strong admiration, and who felt positive +that the so-called soul of man was merely the product of the brain, +resided in the brain, and must cease with the dispersal of the brain at +death. He was not able to prove the contrary. That did not trouble him +at all. It was not within the power of anything or of any one to trouble +this man’s faith. He did not mind being thought a fool. Indeed, being +without conceit, and even very modest, he believed himself to be +sometimes very foolish. But he knew he was not a fool in his faith, +which transcended forms, and swore instinctively brotherhood with all +honest beliefs, and even with all honest disbeliefs. In his gentle, +sometimes slightly whimsical way, he was as sincere as Canon Wilton; but +whereas the Canon showed the blunt side of sincerity, he usually showed +the tender and winning side. He found good in others as easily and as +surely as the diviner finds the spring hidden under the hard earth’s +surface. His hazel twig twisted if there was present only one drop of +the holy water. + +He discerned many drops in Rosamund. In nothing of her was her +enthusiasm for what was noble and clean and sane and beautiful more +apparent than in her singing. Her voice and her talent were in service +when she sang, in service to the good. Music can be evil, neurotic, +decadent and even utterly base. She never touched musical filth, which +she recognized as swiftly as dirt on a body or corruption in a soul. + +“We must have Bach’s ‘Heart ever faithful,’” said Canon Wilton strongly, +when Rosamund, after much singing, was about to get up from the piano. + +Almost joyfully she obeyed his smiling command. When at last she shut +the piano she said to Father Robertson: + +“That’s Dion’s--my husband’s--best-loved melody.” + +“I should like to know your husband,” said Father Robertson. + +“You must, when he comes back.” + +“You have no idea, I suppose, how long he will be away?” + +“No, nor has he.” + +“Then what are you going to do about Mrs. Browning’s house?” said the +Canon’s bass. + +“Oh--well----” + +Two lines appeared in her forehead. + +“I thought of taking it for six months, and then I can see. My little +house in Westminster is let for six months from the first of March.” She +had turned to Father Robertson: “I’m only afraid----” She paused. She +looked almost disturbed. + +“What are you afraid of?” asked Canon Wilton. + +“I’m afraid of getting too fond of Welsley.” + +The Canon looked across at Father Robertson on the other side of the +fireplace. + +* * * * * + +Rosamund went back to Robin and London on the following afternoon. In +the morning she took Father Robertson to see Mrs. Browning’s house. +Canon Wilton was busy. After the morning service in the Cathedral he had +to go to a meeting of the Chapter, and later on to a meeting in the City +about something connected with education. + +“I shall be in bonds till lunch,” he said, “unless I burst them, as I’m +afraid I sometimes feel inclined to do when people talk at great length +on subjects they know nothing about.” + +“Perhaps Mrs. Leith will kindly take me to see her house and garden,” + observed Father Robertson. + +Rosamund was frankly delighted. + +“Bless you for calling them mine!” she said. “That’s just what I’m +longing to do.” + +The wind and the rain were till hanging about in a fashion rather +undecided. It was a morning of gusts and of showers. The rooks swayed in +the elm tops, or flew up under the scudding clouds of a treacherous +sky. There was a strong smell of damp earth, and the turf of the wide +spreading lawns looked spongy. + +“Oh, how English this is!” said Rosamund enthusiastically to the Father +as they set forth together. “It’s like the smell of the soul of England. +I love it. I should like to lie on the grass and feel the rain on my +face.” + +“You know nothing of rheumatism evidently,” said Father Robertson, in a +voice that was smiling. + +“No, but I suppose I should if I gave way to my impulse. And the rooks +would be shocked.” + +“Do you mean the Cathedral dignitaries?” + +They were gently gay as they walked along, but very soon Rosamund, +in her very human but wholly unconscious way, put her hand on Father +Robertson’s arm. + +“There it is!” + +“Your house?” + +“Yes. Isn’t it sweet? Doesn’t it look peacefully old? I should like to +grow old like that, calmly, unafraid and unrepining. I knew you’d love +it.” + +He had not said so, but that did not matter. + +“There’s a dear old caretaker, with only one tooth in front and such +nice eyes, who’ll let us in. Not an electric bell!” + +She gave him a look half confidential, half humorous, and wholly +girlish. + +“We have to pull it. That’s so much nicer!” + +She pulled, and the dear old caretaker, a woman in Cathedral black, with +the look of a verger’s widow all over her, showed the tooth in a smile +as she peeped round the door. + +“And now the garden!” said Rosamund, in the withdrawn voice of an +intense anticipation, half an hour later, when Father Robertson had +seen, and been consulted, about everything from kitchen to attic. + +She turned round to Mrs. Soper, as the verger’s widow--indeed she was +that!--was called. + +“Shall you mind if we stay a good while in the garden, Mrs. Soper? It’s +so delightful there. Will it bother you?” + +“Most pleased, ma’am! I couldn’t wish for anything else. You do hear +the chimes most beautiful from there. But it’s very damp. That we must +allow.” + +“Are you afraid of the damp, Father?” + +“Not a bit.” + +“I knew you wouldn’t be,” she said, almost exultantly. + +Mrs. Soper took her stand by the drawing-room window and gazed through +the lattice with the deep interest which seems peculiar to provincial +towns, and which is seldom manifested in capitals, where the curiosity +is rather of the surface than of the very entrails of humanity. She +showed the tooth as she stood, but not in a smile. She was far too +interested in the lady and the white-haired clergyman to smile. + +“I shouldn’t wonder but what they’re going to be married!” was her +feminine thought, as she watched them walking about the garden, and +presently pacing up and down one of the narrow paths, to the far-off +wall that bordered one end of the Bishop’s Palace, and back again to the +wall near the Dark Entry. Canon Wilton had not mentioned Rosamund’s name +to the verger’s widow, who had no evil thoughts of bigamy. Presently the +chimes sounded in the tower, and Mrs. Soper saw the two visitors pause +in their walk to listen. They both looked upwards towards the Cathedral, +and on the lady’s face there was a rapt expression which was remarked by +Mrs. Soper. + +“She do look religious,” murmured that lady to the tooth. “She might be +a bishop’s lady when she a-stands like that.” + +The chimes died away, the visitors resumed their pacing walk, and +Mrs. Soper presently retired to the kitchen, which looked out on the +passage-way, to cook herself “a bit of something” for the midday staying +of her stomach. + +In the garden that morning Rosamund and Father Robertson became friends. +Rosamund had never had an Anglican confessor, though she had sometimes +wished to confess, not because she was specially conscious of a burden +of sin, but rather because she longed to speak to some one of those +inmost thoughts which men and women seldom care to discuss with those +who are always in their lives. In Father Robertson she had found the +exceptional man with whom she would not mind being perfectly frank +about matters which were not for Dion, not for Beattie, not for +godfather--matters which she could never have hinted at even to Canon +Wilton, whose strong serenity she deeply admired. Had any of her nearest +and dearest heard Rosamund’s talk with Father Robertson that day, they +would have realized, perhaps with astonishment, how strong was the +reserve which underlay her forthcoming manner and capacious frankness +about the ordinary matters of everyday existence. + +“Father, a sermon from you changed my life, I think,” she said, when +they had paced up and down the path only two or three times; and, +without any self-consciousness, she told him of Dion’s proposal on that +foggy afternoon in London, of her visit to St. Mary’s, Welby Street, and +of the impression the sermon had made upon her. She described her +return home, and the painful sensation which had beset her when she +lost herself in the fog--the sensation of desertion, of a horror of +loneliness. + +“The next day I accepted my husband,” she said. “I resolved to take the +path of life along which I could walk with another. I decided to share. +Do you remember?” + +She looked at him gently, earnestly, and he understood the allusion to +his sermon. + +“Yes, I remember. But,”--his question came very gently--“in coming to +that decision, were you making a sacrifice?” + +“Yes, I was.” + +And then Rosamund made a confession such as she had never yet made to +any one, though once she had allowed Dion to know a little of what +was in her heart. She told Father Robertson of the something almost +imperious within her which had longed for the religious life. He +listened to the story of a vocation; and he was able to understand it +as certainly Canon Wilton could not have understood it. For Rosamund’s +creeping hunger had been not for the life of hard work among the poor +in religion, not for the dedication of all her energies to the lost +and unreclaimed, who are sunk in the mire of the world, but for that +peculiar life of the mystic who leaves the court of the outer things for +the court of the mysteries, the inner things, who enters into prayer as +into a dark shell filled with the vast and unceasing murmur of the voice +which is not human. + +“I wished to sing in public for a time. Something made me long to use +my voice, to express myself in singing noble music, in helping on its +message. But I meant to retire while I was still quite young. And always +at the back of my mind there was the thought--‘then I’ll leave the +world, I’ll give myself up to God.’ I longed for the enclosed life of +perpetual devotion. I didn’t know whether there was any community in our +Church which I could join, and in which I could find what I thought I +needed. I didn’t get so far as that. You see I meant to be a singer at +first.” + +“Yes, I quite understand. And the giving up of this mystical dream was a +great sacrifice?” + +“Really it was. I had a sort of absolute hunger in me to do eventually +what I have told you.” + +“I understand that hunger,” said Father Robertson. + +Just then the chimes sounded in the Cathedral, and they stopped on the +narrow path to listen, looking up at the great gray tower which held the +voices sweet to their souls. + +“I understand that hunger,” he repeated, when the chimes died away. “It +can be fierce as any hunger after a sin. In your case you felt it was +not free from egoism, this strong desire?” + +“Your sermon made me look into my heart, and I did think that perhaps I +was an egoist in my religious feeling, that I was selfishly intent on my +own soul, that in my religion, if I did what I longed presently to do, I +should be thinking almost solely of myself.” + +Rather abruptly Father Robertson put a question: + +“There was nothing else which drew you towards marriage?” + +“I liked and admired Dion very much. I thought him an exceptional sort +of man. I knew he cared for me in a beautiful sort of way. That +touched me. And”--she slightly hesitated, and a soft flush came to her +cheeks--“I felt that he was a good man in a way--I believe, I am almost +sure, that very few young men are good in the particular way I mean. Of +all the things in Dion that was the one which most strongly called to +me.” + +Father Robertson understood her allusion to physical purity. + +“I couldn’t have married him but for that,” she added. + +“If I had known you when you were a girl I believe I should not have +expected you to marry,” said Father Robertson. + +Afterwards, when he had seen Rosamund with Robin, he thought he had been +very blind when he had said that. + +“You understand me,” she said, very simply. “But I knew you would.” + +“You have given up something. Many people, perhaps most people, would +deny that. But I know how difficult it is”--his voice became lower--“to +give up retirement, to give up that food which the soul instinctively +longs to find, thinks perhaps it only can find, in silence, perpetual +meditation, perpetual prayer, in the world that is purged of the +insistent clamor of human voices. But”--he straightened himself with +a quick movement, and his voice became firmer--“a man may wish to draw +near to God in the Wilderness, or in the desert, and may find Him most +surely in”--and here he hesitated slightly, almost as a few minutes +before Rosamund had hesitated--“in the Liverpool slums. What a blessing +it is, what an unspeakable blessing it is, when one has learnt the +lesson that God is everywhere. But how difficult it is to learn!” + +They walked together for a long time in the garden, and Rosamund felt +strangely at ease, like one who has entered a haven and has found the +desired peace. She had given up something, but how much had been given +to her! In the shelter of the gray towers, and within the enclosing +walls, she would go again to some of her dreams, while the chimes marked +the passing of the quiet hours, and the watchman’s voice was lifted up +to the stars which looked down on Welsley. + +And Robin would be with her. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A little more than six months later, when a golden September lay over +the land, Rosamund could scarcely believe that she had ever lived out of +Welsley. Dion was still in South Africa, in good health and “without a +scratch.” In his last letter home he had written that he had no idea how +long the C.I.V.’s would be kept in South Africa. The war dragged on, and +despite the English successes which had followed such bitter defeats +no one could say when it would end. There was no immediate reason, +therefore, for Rosamund to move back to London. + +She dreaded that return. She loved Welsley and could not now imagine +herself living anywhere else. Robin, too was a pronounced, even an +enthusiastic, “Welsleyite,” and had practically forgotten “old London,” + as he negligently called the greatest city in the world. They were +very happy in Welsley. In fact, the Dean’s widow was the only rift in +Rosamund’s lute, that lute which was so full of sweet and harmonious +music. + +Rosamund’s lease of the house in the Precincts, “Little Cloisters,” as +it was deliciously named, had been for six months, from the 1st of March +till the 1st of September. As Dion was not coming home yet, and as he +wrote begging her to live on at Welsley if she preferred it to London, +she was anxious to “renew” for another six months. The question whether +Mrs. Duncan Browning would, or would not, renew really tormented +Rosamund, and the uncertainty in which she was living, and the misery it +caused her, showed her how much of her heart had been given to Welsley. + +The Dean’s widow was capricious and swayed by fluctuations of health. +She was “up and down,” whatever that betokened. At one moment she “saw +the sun,”--her poetical way of expressing that she began to feel pretty +well,--and thought she had had enough of the “frivolous existence one +leads in an hotel”; at another a fit of sneezing,--“was not the early +morning sneeze but the real thing,”--a pang of rheumatism, or a touch +of bronchitis, made her fear for the damp of Welsley. She would and she +would not, and Rosamund could not induce her to come to a decision, and +suffered agonies at the thought of being turned out of Little Cloisters. +When Dion came back, of course, a flitting from Welsley would have to be +faced, but to be driven away without that imperative reason would indeed +be gall and wormwood. There were days when Rosamund felt unchristian +towards Mrs. Dean, upon whom she had never looked, but with whom she had +exchanged a great many cordial letters. + +In August, under the influence of a “heavy cold, which seems the worse +because of the heat,” Mrs. Browning had agreed to let Rosamund stay on +for another month, September; and now Rosamund was anxiously awaiting +a reply to her almost impassioned appeal for a six months’ extension of +her lease. Canon Wilton was again in residence in the Precincts, and +one afternoon he called at Little Cloisters, after the three o’clock +service, to inquire what was the result of this appeal. Beatrice was +staying with her sister for a few days, and when the Canon was shown in +she was alone in the drawing-room, having just come up from the garden, +where she had been playing with Robin, whose chirping high voice was +audible, floating up from below. + +“Is your sister busy?” asked the Canon, after greeting Beatrice. + +Beatrice smiled faintly. + +“She’s in her den. What do you think she is doing?” + +The Canon looked hard at her, and he too smiled. + +“Not writing again to Mrs. Browning?” + +Beatrice nodded, and sat gently down on the window-seat. + +“Begging and praying for an extension.” + +“I’ve never seen any one so in love with a place as your sister is with +Welsley.” + +He sat down near Beatrice. + +“But it is attractive, isn’t it?” she said. + +She turned her head slowly and looked out of the open window to the +enclosed garden which was bathed in mellow sunshine. The sky above the +gray Cathedral towers was a clear and delicate, not deep, blue. Above +the mossy red wall of the garden appeared the ruined arches of the +cloisters which gave to the house its name. Among them some doves were +cooing. Up in the blue, about the pinnacles of the towers, the +rooks were busily flying. Robin, in a little loose shirt, green +knickerbockers, and a tiny soft white hat set well on the back of +his head, was gardening just below the window with the intensity that +belongs to the dawn. His bare brown legs moved rapidly, as he ran from +place to place carrying earth, a plant, a bright red watering-pot. The +gardener, a large young man, with whom Robin was evidently on the most +friendly, and even intimate, terms, was working with him, and apparently +under his close and constant supervision. A thrush with very bright eyes +looked on from an adjacent elder bush. Upon the wall, near the end of +the Bishop’s Palace, a black cat was sunning itself and lazily attending +to its toilet. + +“It’s the very place for Rosamund,” said Beatrice, after a pause, during +which she drank in Welsley. “She seems to know and love every stick and +stone in it.” + +“And almost every man, woman and child,” said the Canon. “She began by +captivating the Precincts,--not such an easy task either, for a bishop +usually has not the taste of a dean, and minor canons think very lightly +of the praises of an archdeacon,--and she has ended by captivating +the whole city. Even the wives of the clergy sing her praises with one +accord. It’s the greatest triumph in the history of the church.” + +“You see she likes them and is thoroughly interested in all their little +affairs.” + +“Yes, it’s genuine sympathy. She makes Welsley her world, and so Welsley +thinks the world of her.” + +He looked across at Beatrice for a moment meditatively, and then said: + +“And when her husband comes back?” + +“Dion! Well, then, of course----” + +She hesitated, and in the silence the drawing-room door opened and +Rosamund came in, holding an open letter in her hand, knitting her +brows, and looking very grave and intense. She greeted the Canon with +her usual warm cordiality, but still looked grave and preoccupied. + +“I’ve been writing to Mrs. Browning, about the house,” she said +earnestly. “It _is_ damp, isn’t it?” + +“Damp?” said the Canon. “I’ve never noticed it. But then do you think +the house is unwholesome?” + +“Not for _us_. What I feel is, that for a bronchial person it might be.” + +She paused, looking at her letter. + +“I’ve put just what I feel here, in a letter to Mrs. Browning. I know +the house is considered damp; by the Precincts, I mean. Mrs. Murry told +me so, and Mrs. Tiling-Smith thinks the same. Even the Bishop--why are +you smiling, Canon Wilton?” + +But she began to smile too. + +“What does the Bishop say about the danger to health of Little +Cloisters?” + +Her lips twitched, but she replied with firm sweetness: + +“The Bishop says that all, or nearly all, old houses are apt to be damp +in winter.” + +“A weighty utterance! But I’m afraid Mrs. Browning--by the way, have you +put the Bishop into your letter?” + +“I had thought of reading it to you both, but now I shall not.” + +She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it up with practical +swiftness, rang the bell for Annie and sent it to the postbox round the +corner. + +“I put the Bishop in,” she added, with a mockery of defiance that was +almost girlish, when Annie had gone out. + +“That was a mistake,” said the Canon sonorously. + +“Why?” + +“Bishops never carry weight with the wives, or widows, of deans.” + +“But why not?” asked Rosamund, with a touch of real anxiety. + +“Because the wives of deans always think their husbands ought to be +bishops instead of those who are bishops, and the widows of deans always +consider that they ought to be the widows of bishops. They therefore +very naturally feel that bishops are not entitled by merit to the +positions they hold, and could be treated with a delicate disdain.” + +“I never thought of that. I wonder if Annie----” + +“Too late!” said the Canon. “You’ll have to turn out of Little +Cloisters, I foresee that.” + +Rosamund sat down, leaned towards him with her hands clasped tightly +together, and, in her absolutely unself-conscious way, began to tell him +and Beattie what she felt about Welsley, or something of what she felt. +A good deal she could only have told to Father Robertson. When she had +finished, Canon Wilton said, in his rather abrupt and blunt way: + +“Well, but if your husband comes home unexpectedly? You can’t stay here +then, can you?” + +Beatrice, who was still on the window seat, leaned out, and began to +speak to Robin below her in a quiet voice which could scarcely be heard +within the room. + +“But Dion sees no prospect of coming home yet.” + +“I heard to-day from some one in London that the C.I.V. may be back +before Christmas.” + +“Dion doesn’t say so.” + +“It mayn’t be true.” + +“Dion writes that no one out there has any idea when the war will end.” + +“Probably not. But the C.I.V. mayn’t be needed all through the war. +Most of them are busy men who’ve given up a great deal out of sheer +patriotism. Fine fellows! They’ve done admirable work, and the War +Office may decide that they’ve done enough. Things out there have taken +a great turn since Roberts and Kitchener went out. The C.I.V. may come +marching home long before peace is declared.” + +He spoke with a certain pressure, a certain intensity, and his eyes +never left Rosamund’s face. + +“I’m glad my Dion’s one of them,” she said. “And Robin will be glad, +too, some day.” + +She said nothing more about Mrs. Browning and Little Cloisters. But when +Canon Wilton had gone she said to her sister: + +“Beattie, does it ever strike you that Canon Wilton’s rather abrupt and +unexpected sometimes in what he says?” + +“He doesn’t beat about the bush,” replied Beatrice. “Do you mean that?” + +“Perhaps I do. Now I’m going down to Robin. How strong he’s getting +here! Hark at his voice! Can’t you hear even in his voice how much good +Welsley had done him?” + +Robin’s determined treble was audible as he piped out: + +“Oh no, Fipper! Not by the Bish’s wall! Why, I say, the slugs always +comes there. They do, weally! You come and see! Come quick! I’ll +show----” + +The voice faded in the direction of the Palace. + +“I must go down and see if it’s true about the slugs,” exclaimed +Rosamund. + +And with beaming eyes she hastened out of the room. + +Beatrice looked after her and sighed. Dion’s last letter from South +Africa was lying on the writing-table close to her. Rosamund had already +given it to her to read. Now she took it up and read it carefully again. +The doves cooed in the cloisters; the bells chimed in the tower; the +mellow sunshine--already the sunshine not of full summer, but of the +dawning autumn, with its golden presage of days not golden, and of +nights heavy with dews and laden with floating leaves,--came in through +the lattice, and lay over her soft and wistful melancholy, as she read +of hardship, and dust, and blood and death, told truthfully, but always +cheerfully, as a soldier tells a thing to a woman he loves and wishes to +be sincere with. + +Dion was not in the peace. Dear Rosamund! Did she quite realize? And +then Beattie pulled herself up. A disloyal thought surely leaves a stain +on the mind through which it passes. Beattie did not want to have a +stain on her mind. She cared for it as a delicately refined woman cares +for her body, bathing it every day. + +She put Dion’s letter down. + +That evening Rosamund sang at a charity concert in the City Hall. +Her music was already a legend in Welsley and the neighborhood. Mr. +Dickinson, who always accompanied her singing, declared it emphatically +to be “great.” The wife of the Bishop, Mrs. Mabberley, pronounced the +verdict, “She sings with her soul rather than with her voice,” without +intention of paying a left-handed compliment. The Cathedral Choir boys +affirmed that “our altos are a couple of squeaks beside her.” Even Mrs. +Dickinson, “the cold douche,” as she was named in the Precincts, had +long ago “come round” about Mrs. Dion Leith, and had been heard to +say of her, “She’s got more than a contralto, she’s got a heart, and I +couldn’t say that of some women in high positions.” This was “aimed” + at the Dean’s wife, Mrs. Jasper, who gave herself musical airs, and +sometimes tried to “interfere with the Precentor’s arrangements,” which +meant falling foul of “Henry.” + +As Rosamund looked down upon the rows of friendly and familiar faces +from the platform, as she heard the prolonged applause which greeted her +before she sang, and the cries of “Encore!” which saluted her when she +finished, she felt that she had given her heart irrevocably to Welsley, +and the thought came to her, “How can I leave it?” This was cozy, +and London could never be cozy. She could identify herself with the +concentrated life here, without feeling it a burden upon her. For she +was so much beloved that people even respected her privacy, and fell in +with what she called “my absurd little ways.” In London, however many +people you knew, you saw strangers all the time, strangers with hard, +indifferent eyes and buttoned-up mouths. And one could never say of +London “my London.” + +When the concert was over she wound a veil about her pale yellow hair, +wrapped a thin cloak round her shoulders, took up her music case and +asked for Beattie. An eager boy with a smiling round face, one of the +Cathedral Choristers, darted off to find Mrs. Daventry, the sister of +“our Mrs. Leith”; Mr. Dickinson gently, but decisively, took the music +case from Rosamund’s hand with an “I’ll carry that home for you”; a thin +man, like an early primrose obliged by some inadvertence of spring to +work for its living, sidled up and begged for the name of “your most +beautiful and chaste second encore for our local paper, the ‘Welsley +Whisperer’”; and Mrs. Dickinson in a pearl gray shawl, with an +artificial pink camellia carelessly entangled in her marvelously smooth +mouse-colored hair, appeared to tell Mrs. Leith authoritatively that +“Madame Patey _in her heyday_ never sang ‘O Rest in the Lord’ as we have +heard it sung to-night.” + +Then Rosamund, pleasantly surrounded by dear provincial enthusiasts, +made her way to the door where Beattie, with more enthusiasts, was +waiting for her; and they all came out into the narrow High Street, +and found the September moon riding above their heads to give them a +greeting nobly serene and beneficent, and they set out _sans facon_, +many of them bare-headed, to walk home down tiny “Archbishop’s Lane” to +the Precincts. + +Rosamund walked with Mr. Dickinson on one side of her and the Dean +of Welsley and Mrs. Jasper on the other; Canon Wilton, Beattie, the +Archdeacon of Welsley and the Precentor were just in front; behind +peacefully streamed minor canons and their wives, young sons and +daughters of the Precincts, and various privileged persons who, though +not of the hierarchy, possessed small houses within the sacred pale. +Only the Bishop and his consort drove majestically home in “Harrington’s +Fly.” + +What a chatter of voices there was under the projecting eaves of the +dear old house! What happy laughter was wafted towards the smiling moon! +Mrs. Dickinson, presently “coming up with” Rosamund’s party, became +absolutely “waggish” (the Dean’s expression), and made Rosamund laugh +with that almost helpless spontaneity which is the greatest compliment +to a joke. And then the gate in the ancient archway was opened, and they +all passed into their great pleasaunce, and, with a sensation of joyous +proprietorship, heard the gate shut and locked behind them, and saw the +Cathedral lifting its towers to the moon. Laughter was hushed then, and +some of the voices were silent; feet went more slowly along the edges +of the velvety lawns; the spell of ancient things which are noble, and +which tell of the noble ideals of humanity, fell upon them; their hearts +within them were lifted up. + +When the Dean bade good-night to Rosamund he said: + +“Your music and you mean a great deal to Welsley.” + +“Not half as much as Welsley means to me,” she replied with earnest +sincerity. + +“We are all looking forward to greeting your gallant, self-sacrificing +husband presently, very soon I hope. Good-night to you. It has been”--he +paused, looked at Rosamund and gently pressed her hand,--“a most +fragrant evening.” + +A most fragrant evening! When Beattie and Rosamund had eaten their +sandwiches, and drunk their still lemonade and claret, and when Beattie +had gone to bed, Rosamund slipped out alone into the dear walled garden, +and paced up and down in the moonlight. + +Yes, there was something fragrant here, something that infected the +soul, something of old faiths and old holy aspirations, a murmur and a +perfume of trust and love. There might be gossip, trickling jealousies +in this little world, mean actions, even, perhaps, ugly desires and ugly +fulfilments of desire. Rosamund scarcely noticed, or did not notice, +these things. With her people were at their best. That night, when +Beattie was going to bed, Rosamund had said to her: + +“I can’t think why Mrs. Dickinson is called ‘the cold douche.’ I find +her so warm-hearted and so amusing!” + +And so it was with them all. Rosamund had the magic touch which drew +the best out of every one in Welsley, because she was happy there, and +sincerely loved the place. + +“How can I leave Welsley?” she thought now, as she walked up and down in +the garden, and heard presently the chiming of midnight and the voice +of the watchman beyond the Dark Entry. God seemed very near to her +in Welsley, God and the happiness of God. In Welsley she felt, or was +beginning to feel, that she was almost able to combine two lives, the +life she had grasped and the life she had let go. Here she was a mother +and at moments she was almost a religious too. She played with her boy, +she trained him, watched over his small body and his increasing soul; +and she meditated between the enclosing walls, listening to bells and +floating praises, to the Dresden Amen, and to the organ with its many +voices all dedicated to the service of God. Often, when she walked alone +in the garden, or sat alone in some hidden corner under the mossy walls, +she felt like a nun who had given up the world forever, and had found +the true life in God. In imagination, then, she lived the life of which +she had dreamed as a girl before any man had brought her his love. + +She could never, even in imagination, live that life truly, without +effort, in London. Welsley had made her almost hate London. She did +not know how she would be able to bear the return to it. Yet, if Canon +Wilton were right in what he had said to her that afternoon, Dion might +come back very soon, and therefore very soon she might have to leave +Welsley. + +No. 5 Little Market Street once more; vaporous Westminster leaning to +the dark river! + +Rosamund sighed deeply as she looked up again to the towers, and the +moon, and turned to go into Little Cloisters. It was difficult to +shut out such a night; it would be more difficult to give up the long +meditations, the dreams that came in this sweet retirement sheltered by +the house of God. + +* * * * * + +Two days later, at breakfast-time, Rosamund received the following +letter, written on paper scented with “Wood violet”: + + +“HOTEL PALACE-BY-THE-SEA, BOURNEMOUTH, Thursday + +“MY DEAR MRS. LEITH,--I have received your two--or is it +three?--charming letters recently written, suggesting a renewal of the +lease of Little Cloisters beyond September. At first I hesitated. The +atmosphere of a Cathedral town naturally attracts me and recalls sweet +memories of the past. On the other hand the life of a well-managed +hotel, such as this is not without its _agrements_. Frivolous it may +be (though not light); comfortable and restful it undoubtedly is. The +against and the for in a nutshell as it were! Your last letter, in +which you dwell on the dampness inevitable in old houses, and quote the +Bishop’s opinion, would, I think, have left me undisturbed in mind--I +have recently taken up the ‘new mind’ cult, which is, of course, not +antagonistic to our cherished Anglican beliefs--had it not happened to +coincide with more than a touch of bronchial asthma. The Bishop (quite +between you and me!) though a very dear man and a very good Christian, +is not a person of great intellect. My husband would never enter into +controversy with him, as he said it was useless to strive in argument +with a mind not sure of its bearings! An opinion of the Bishop’s would +not, therefore, weigh much with me. But there is an element of truth in +the contention as to the damp. Old houses _are_ damp at times. Little +Cloisters, placed as it is in the shadow of the Cathedral, doubtless +suffers in some degree from this defect. My doctor here,--_such_ a +clever man!--though very reluctant to prevent me from returning home, +confessed to-day that he thought my case needed careful watching by some +one who _knew_. Now (between you and me), nobody _knows_ in Welsley, +and therefore, after weighing pros and cons, and undergoing an hour of +mental treatment--merely the silent encouragement and purification of +the will--by an expert here, I have decided to remain for the winter. +I am willing, therefore, to extend your lease for another six months +on the terms as before. Perhaps you will kindly visit my solicitor, +Mr. Collingwood of Cattle Market Lane,--but you are sure to know his +address!--who will arrange everything legally with you.--With my +kindest regards and all good wishes, believe me, dear Mrs. Leith, always +sincerely yours, + +“IMOGENE DUNCAN BROWNING.” + + +It was Beattie’s last morning at Little Cloisters; she had settled to +go back to De Lorne Gardens in the afternoon of that day. Rosamund +read Mrs. Browning’s letter sitting opposite to her sister at the +breakfast-table in the small, paneled dining-room. At the same time +Beattie was reading a letter from Guy. As she finished it she looked up +and said: + +“Anything interesting?” + +“What does Guy say?” replied Rosamund. “Oh, here’s a letter from +godfather! Perhaps he’s coming down.” + +Rather hastily she tore open another envelope. + +Later on in the morning, when Beattie was doing mysterious things in the +garden with Robin, Rosamund slipped out alone and made her way to +Cattle Market Lane. She came back just before lunch, looking unusually +preoccupied. + +The day after Beattie had returned to London, a note from Rosamund told +her that the lease of Little Cloisters had been renewed for another six +months, till the end of March, 1901. + +“And if old Dion comes back in the meanwhile, as I fully expect he +will?” said Guy, when Beattie told him of Rosamund’s note. + +“I suppose it is possible to sublet a house,” said Beattie, looking +unusually inexpressive, Guy thought. + +“They say at the Clubs the C.I.V. will be back before Christmas, +Beattie,” said Guy. + +“The Tenbys’ lease of Number 5 is up.” + +“Yes, but do you think Dion can afford to run two houses?” + +“Perhaps----” she stopped. + +“I don’t believe Rosamund will ever be got out of Welsley,” said Guy. +“And I’m pretty sure you agree with me.” + +“I must go now,” said Beattie gently. “I’m going to Queen Anne’s +Mansions to tell the dear mother all about my visit to Welsley.” + +“When is she going there?” + +“I don’t know. She’s very lazy about moving. She’s not been out of +London since Dion sailed.” + +“I think she’s the most delicate mother-in-law--I don’t mean +physically--who has ever been born in the world.” + +Beattie looked down, and in a moment went out of the room without saying +anything more. + +“Darling Beattie,” murmured Guy, looking after his wife. “How she bears +her great disappointment.” + +For Beattie’s sake far more than for his own he longed to have a child +in his home, a child of hers and his. But that would never be. And so +Beattie gave all the mother-love that was in her to Robin, but much +of it secretly. Guy knew that, and believed he knew the secret of her +reticence even with Robin. She loved Robin, as it were, from a distance; +only his mother must love him cheek to cheek, lips to lips, heart to +heart, and his father as men love the sons they think of as the bravery +and strength of the future. + +But even Guy did not know how much his wife loved Robin, how many +buried hopes and dreams stirred in their graves when Robin threw himself +impulsively into her arms and confidentially hung on her neck and +informed her of the many important details of his life. No man knows all +that a certain type of woman is able to feel about a child. + +When Rosamund had arranged about the renewal of the lease, she tried to +feel the joy which was evidently felt by all her Welsley friends--with +one exception which, however, she either did not notice or did not seem +to notice. They were frankly delighted and enthusiastic at the prospect +of keeping her among them. She was very grateful for their affection, +so eagerly shown, but somehow, although she had signed her name in a +solicitor’s office, and her signature had been witnessed by a neat young +man with a neat bald head, she did not feel quite at ease. She found +herself looking at “my Welsley” with the anxiously loving eyes of one +who gathers in dear details before it is too late for such garnering; +she sat in the garden and listened to the beloved sounds from the +Cathedral with strained attention, like one who sets memory at its +mysterious task. + +The Dean’s widow had yielded to the suggestion of inevitable dampness in +old houses, but----! + +On September 28, towards evening, when Rosamund was in the garden with +Robin, Annie, the parlor-maid, came out holding a salver on which lay a +telegram. Rosamund opened it and read: + + +“Coming home.--DION.” + + +“Any answer, ma’am?” + +* * * * * + +“Is there any answer, ma’am? Shall I tell the boy to wait?” + +“What did you say, Annie?” + +“Shall I tell the boy to wait, ma’am?” + +“No, thank you, Annie. There’s no answer.” + +Annie turned and recrossed the garden, looking careful, as if she were +thinking of her cap, round which the airs were blowing. + +Rosamund sat for a few minutes almost motionless, with the slip of paper +lying in her lap; then the breeze came lightly, as if curious, and blew +it away. Robin saw it and ran. + +“I’ll catch it, mummie. You see! I’ll catch it!” + +The little brown legs were amazingly swift, but the telegram was elusive +because the breeze was naughty. When Robin ran up to his mother holding +it out he was almost breathless. + +“Here it is, mummie.” + +His blue eyes and his voice held triumph. + +“I said I would, and I did!” + +Rosamund put her arm round him. + +“Who do you think sent this?” + +“I dunno.” + +“Daddy sent it.” + +Robin’s eyes became round. + +“Daddy! What for?” + +“To tell us he’s coming home.” + +A deeply serious expression came to Robin’s face. + +“Have I growed much?” + +“Yes, a great deal.” + +“Will daddy see it?” + +“Yes, I’m sure he will directly he comes.” + +Robin seemed relieved. + +“Is daddy coming here?” + +“Yes.” + +“Is he goin’ to live here with us?” + +“We shall see about all that when he comes.” + +Annie, evidently still thinking about her cap, reappeared on the garden +path. + +“The Dean to see you, ma’am.” + +Rosamund got up, gave Robin a long kiss on the freckles and said: + +“Robin, I believe the Dean has come about Mr. Thrush.” + +“Does he know Mr. Thrush?” + +“Not yet. I’ll tell you something presently.” + +And she went slowly into the house. Was a scheme of hers coming to +fruition just when----? She tried to close her mind to an approaching +thought. + + + +CHAPTER V + +On the 7th of October the C.I.V. sailed from South Africa for England, +on the 19th of October they made St. Vincent; on the 23rd Dion again +looked over the sea at the dreaming hills of Madeira. The sight of these +hills made him realize the change brought about in him by the work he +had done in South Africa. As he gazed at them he suddenly and sharply +remembered the man who had gazed at them nine months before, a man +who was gathering together determination, who was silently making +preparations for progress, or for what he thought of as progress. Those +hills then had seemed to be calling to him out of the mists of heat, +and to himself he had seemed to be defying them, to be thrusting their +voices from him. For were they not the hills of a land where the lotus +bloomed, where a weariness bred of stagnant delights wrapped men in a +garment of Nessus, steeped in a subtle poison which drew from them all +their energies, which brought them not pain but an inertia more deadly +to the soul than pain? Now they had no power over him. He did not need +to defy them, because he had gained in strength. Ere they vanished from +his eyes over the sea he remembered another Island rising out of waters +that gleamed with gold. How far off now seemed to him that evening +when he had looked on it as he traveled to Greece! How much he had left +behind on the way of his life! + +The experience of separation and of war had not aged him, but it had +made him feel older. Nothing of the boy was left in him. He felt himself +of manhood all compact. He had seen men die, had seen how they were able +to die, how they met severe physical suffering; he had silently tried to +prepare himself for death, keeping a cheerful countenance; he had known, +like most brave men, the cold companionship of fear, and he had got rid +of that companionship. Knowing death better, he knew life much better +than when he had left England. + +On the voyage out he had looked at the hills of Madeira with +Worthington. Now Worthington was not with him; he had died of enteric at +Pretoria in September. Dion was carrying back to England Worthington’s +last written message to his people. He was carrying also another letter +written by an English officer, whose body lay in the earth of Africa, to +a woman at home. On the voyage Dion often thought of that dead man and +of the living woman to whom he would presently give the letter. He had +promised to deliver it personally. + +At St. Vincent he had received a welcome by cable from Rosamund, and had +sent a cable to her asking not to be met. He wished to meet her in her +home at Welsley. She had written to him enthusiastic accounts of its +peace and beauty. Her pen had been tipped with love of it. Their first +meeting, their reunion, must take place there in the midst of that +wonderful peace of green England which she loved so much. After the +heat and the dust and the pain of South Africa that would surely be very +good. + +Their reunion! + +Dion had escaped death. He had been allowed to return to Rosamund in +splendid health, without a wound, though he had been in battle. He had +a strong presentiment that he was allowed to return for some definite +purpose. Could he not now be of far more use to his little son than if +he had never volunteered for active service? Rosamund and he had looked +up together at the columns of the Parthenon and had thought of the child +who might come. Dion felt that he understood the Parthenon better now +that he had looked death in the face, now that he had been ready to +give up his life if it had been required of him. He even had a whimsical +feeling--he smiled at it seriously to himself--that the Parthenon, if he +again stood before it, would understand him better. He was not proud +of himself for what he had done. But in the depths of him he often felt +earnestly glad, almost thankful, that he had been able to do it. The +doing of it had brought a new zest into life, new meanings, a new +outlook. He seemed to feel life like something precious in his hand now; +he had not felt it so before, even when he had won Rosamund and had been +with her in Greece. + +* * * * * + +The hills of Madeira faded. Three days later there was a burial at sea +in the early morning. A private, who had been ill with enteric, had died +in the night. The body sank into the depths, the ship went on her +way and ran into a stiff gale. Already England was rousing herself to +welcome her returning sons, bruskly but lustily, in her way, which was +not South Africa’s way. Dion loved that gale though it kept him awake +all night. + +Next morning they were off the Start, and heard the voices of the sirens +bidding them good day. + +* * * * * + +On the last day of October, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, +Rosamund was waiting for Dion. He was due by the express which, when up +to time, reached Welsley Station at 3.55. She would naturally have been +at the station to meet him if she had not received a telegram from him +begging her to stay at home. + +“Would much rather meet you first in Little Cloisters,--Dion,” were the +last words of the telegram. + +So Rosamund had stayed at home. + +It was a peculiarly still autumn afternoon. A suggestion--it was +scarcely more than that--of mist made the Precincts look delicately sad, +but not to the eyes of Rosamund. She delighted in this season of tawny +colors and of fluttering leaves, of nature’s wide-eyed and contemplative +muteness. The beauty of autumn appealed to her because she possessed a +happy spirit, and was not too imaginative. She had imagination, but it +was not of the intensely sensitive and poetic kind which dies with the +dying leaves, and in the mists loses all the hopes that were born with +the birth of summer. The strong sanity which marked her, and which had +always kept her in central paths, far away from the byways in which the +neurotic, the decadent, the searchers after the so-called “new” things +loved to tread, led her to welcome each season in is turn, and to +rejoice in its special characteristics. + +So she loved the cloistral feeling autumn brought with it to Welsley. +Green summer seemed to open the doors, and one rejoiced in a golden +freedom; tawny autumn seemed softly to close the doors, and one was +happy in a sensation of being tenderly guarded, of being kept very safe +in charge for the coming winter with its fires, and its cosy joys of the +interior. + +Another reason which made Rosamund care very much for the autumn was +this: in the autumn the religious atmosphere which hung about the +Precincts of Welsley seemed to her to become more definite, more +touching, the ancient things more living and powerful in their message. + +“Welsley always sends out influences,” she had once said to Father +Robertson. “But in certain autumn days it speaks. I hear its voice in +the autumn.” + +She heard its voice now as she waited for Dion. + +The lattice window which gave on to the garden was partly open; +there was a fire in the wide, old-fashioned grate; vases holding +chrysanthemums stood on the high wood mantelpiece and on the +writing-table; the tea-table had been placed by Annie near the hearth. + +Rosamund listened to the cloistral silence, and looked at two deep, +old-fashioned arm-chairs which were drawn up by the tea-table. + +Just how much had she missed Dion? + +That question had suddenly sprung up in her mind as she looked at the +two arm-chairs. + +The first time she had been in Little Cloisters she had spoken to Canon +Wilton of Dion, had wondered if he would come back from South Africa +altered; and she had said that if she came to live in it Welsley might +alter her. Canon Wilton had made no comment on her remark. She had +scarcely noticed that at the time, perhaps had not consciously noticed +it; but her subconscious mind had recorded the fact, and she recalled it +now. + +Welsley, she thought, had changed her a good deal. She was not a +self-conscious woman as a rule, but to-day was not like other days, and +she was not quite like herself on other days. Perhaps, for once, she +was what women often call “strung up”; certainly she felt peculiarly +alive--alive specially in the nerves of her body. + +Those two arm-chairs were talking to her; they were telling her of +the imminent renewal of the life closely companioned, watched over, +protected, beloved. They were telling, and they were asking, too. She +felt absurdly that it was they who were asking how much she had missed +Dion. + +It would be good to have him back, but she now suddenly realized, in a +self-conscious way, that she had managed to be very happy without him. +But then she had always looked forward to his eventual return. Suppose +he had not come back? + +She got up restlessly, went to the window and looked out into the +garden. Robin was not there, nor was he in the house. Obedient to an +impulse which she had not understood at the time, Rosamund had arranged +a small, and rather odd, festivity for him which had taken him away from +home, and would keep him out till five o’clock: he was having tea in +a cake-shop near the top of Wesley High Street with his nurse and Mr. +Thrush, who, not unexpectedly, had arrived in Welsley. The first meeting +between his father and mother would not be complicated by his eager +young presence. + +So the garden was empty to-day. Not even the big young gardener was to +be seen; he only came on four days in the week, and this was not one of +them. As Rosamund looked down into the garden, she loved its loneliness, +its misty, autumnal aspect. It was surely not her fault if she had +a natural affection for solitude--not for the hideous solitude of a +childless mother, but for the frequent privacy of a mother who was +alone, but who knew that her child was near, playing perhaps, or gone +for a little jaunt with his faithful nurse, or sleeping upstairs. + +As she looked at the garden a faint creeping sense of something almost +like fear came to her. Since Dion had been away she had surely altered, +because she had had a new experience; she had, as it were, touched the +confines of that life which she had deliberately renounced when she had +married. + +It seemed to her, as she stood there and remembered her long meditations +in that enclosed and ancient garden, that in these months she had drawn +much nearer to God, and--could it be because of that?--perhaps had +receded a little from her husband. + +The sense of uneasiness--she could not call it fear--deepened in her. +Was the receding then implicit in the drawing near? She began to feel +almost confused. She put up a hand to her face; her cheek was hot. + +The clock in the room struck four; two minutes later the chimes sounded, +and then Big John announced the hour. + +Dion might arrive at any moment now. She turned away rather quickly from +the window. She hated the unusual feeling of self-consciousness which +had come to her. + +At ten minutes past four the door bell rang. It must be he. She went to +the drawing-room door, opened it and listened. She heard a man’s voice +and a bump; then another bump, a creaking, a sort of scraping, and the +voice once more saying, “I’ll manage, miss.” + +It was Dion’s luggage. Harrington’s man explained that the gentleman had +said he would walk to Little Cloisters. + +Rosamund went back into the drawing-room and shut the door. Now that +Dion’s luggage was actually in the house everything seemed curiously +different. A period was definitely over; her loneliness with Robin +in Little Cloisters was at an end. She sat down in one of the two +arm-chairs by the tea-table, clasped her hands together and looked at +the fire. + +If she had held to her girlish idea? If she had become a “Sister”? +But--she shook her head as she sat there alone--Robin! And then she +sighed; she had not thought, “But--Dion!” She was almost angry with +herself for being so introspective, so mentally observant of herself. +All this was surely unnatural in her. Was she going to become +morbid--she who had such a hatred of morbidity? She tried to force +herself to feel that she had missed Dion tremendously, that his return +would make things right in Little Cloisters. + +But had they ever been wrong? And, besides, Little Cloisters would +almost immediately be only a dear memory of the past. + +Rosamund began almost to hate herself. Was she capable of any sort of +treachery? Swiftly she began to dwell upon all the dear goodness of +Dion, upon his love, his admiration, his perpetual thoughtfulness, +his unselfishness, his straight purity, his chivalry, his unceasing +devotion. He was a man to trust implicitly. That was enough. She trusted +him and loved him. She thanked God that he was back in England. She had +missed him more, much more than she had realized; she was quite sure of +that now that she had recalled things. One happiness is apt to oust +the acute memory of another. That had (quite naturally) happened in her +case. It would indeed have been strange if, living in such a dear place +as “My Welsley,” with Robin the precious one, she had been a miserable +woman! And she had always known--as women know things they do not +know--that Dion would come back after behaving nobly. And that was +exactly what had happened. + +She looked at the arm-chair opposite. + +How splendid it would be to see dear, brave, good, faithful Dion +sitting in it in a moment, safe after all his hardships and dangers, +comfortable, able to rest at last in his own home. + +For Little Cloisters would be his home even if only for a few days. And +then----What about Mr. Thrush? What about--oh, so many things? + +“I’ll find the way all right,” Dion had said at the station, after he +had been assured that it was only ten minutes’ walk, “or so,” to Little +Cloisters. + +The little walk would be a preparation for the very great event. He only +knew how great it was when he got out at the Welsley Station. + +He had never seen Welsley before, though its fame had been familiar to +him from childhood. Thousands of pilgrims had piously visited it, coming +from afar; now yet another pilgrim had come from afar, sensitively eager +to approach a shrine which held something desired by his soul. + +That part of the city which immediately surrounded the station was not +attractive, but very soon Dion came into a narrow street and was aware +of an ancient flavor, wholly English, and only to be savored thoroughly +by an English palate. In this street he began to taste England. He +passed an old curiosity shop, black and white, with a projecting upper +storey, lattice windows with tiny panes, a door of black oak upon which +many people had carved their names. By the door stood a spinning-wheel. +In the window were a tea service of spode and a collection of luster +ware. There were also some Toby jugs. + +Dion went in quickly and bought one for Robin. He carried it unwrapped +in his hand as he walked on. One could do that here, in this intimate, +cozy old town of dear England. He enjoyed the light mist, the moisture +in the air. He had come to hate aridity and the acrid dryness of dust +blown by hot winds across great spaces. The moisture caressed his skin, +burnt almost to the color of copper by the African sun. + +He came into the High Street. On its farther side, straight in front of +him, the narrowest street he had ever seen, a rivulet of a street, with +leaning houses which nearly formed an arcade, stretched to a wonderful +gray gateway, immensely massive, with towers at its corners, and rows of +shields above its beetling archway. + +This must be the entrance to the Precincts. + +In the tiny street he met a verger in mufti, an old bent man, with a +chin-beard and knotty hands, English in every vein, in every sinew of +his amazingly respectable and venerable body. This worthy he stopped and +inquired of him the way to Little Cloisters. + +“Where Mrs. Leith and her boy lives, sir?” mouthed the old man, with a +kindly gaping smile. + +“That’s it.” + +“She’s a nice lady,” said the verger. “We think a lot of her here, +especially we Cathedral folk.” + +He went on to explain elaborately where Little Cloisters was, and to +describe minutely two routes, by either of which it might be come at. +It was evident that he was one of those who love to listen to themselves +and who take a pride in words. + +Dion decided for the route “round at the back” by Chantrey Lane, through +the Green Court, leaving the Deanery on the left and the Bishop’s Palace +on the right, and so by way of the Prior’s Gate and the ruins of the +Infirmary through the Dark Entry to Little Cloisters. + +“You can’t miss it. The name’s writ on the door in the wall, and a rare +old wall it is,” said the venerable man. + +Dion thanked him warmly and walked on, while the verger looked after +him. + +“I shouldn’t wonder if that’s Mrs. Leith’s husband home from the war,” + he murmured. “Looks as if he’d been fighting, he does, and burnt pretty +near to a cinder by something, the sun as like as not.” + +And he walked on down the tiny street towards the muffin which awaited +him at home, well pleased with his perspicuity, and making mental +preparations for the astonishing of his wife with a tidbit of news. + +Dion came into the Green Court, and immediately felt Welsley, felt it +in the depths of him, and understood Rosamund’s love of it so often +expressed in her letters. As he looked at the moist green lawn in the +center, at the gray and brown houses which fronted it, at the Deanery +garden full of the ruddy flowers of autumn behind the iron railings, at +the immense Cathedral with its massive and yet almost tenderly graceful +towers, a history in stone of the faithful work and the progress of men, +he knew why Rosamund had come to live here. He stood still. In the +misty air he heard the voices of the rooks. The door of a Canon’s house +opened, and two clergymen, one of them in gaiters and a shovel hat, came +out, and walked slowly away in earnest conversation. Bells sounded in +one of the towers. + +He understood. Here was a sort of essence of ecclesiasticism. It seemed +to penetrate the whole atmosphere. Rosamund was at home in it. + +He remembered his terrible thought that God had always stood between his +wife and him, dividing them. + +How would it be now? + +Again he looked up at the great house of God, and he felt almost afraid. +But he was not the man he had been when he said good-by to Rosamund; he +had gained in force of character, and he knew it. Surely out there in +South Africa, he had done what his mother had wanted him to do, he had +laid hold of his best possibilities. At any rate, he had sincerely tried +to do that. Why, then, should he be afraid--and of God? + +He walked on quickly, and came to Little Cloisters by way of the Dark +Entry. + +It was very dark that day, for the autumn evening was already making its +moist presence felt, and there was a breathing of cold from the old gray +stones which looked like the fangs of Time. + +Dion shook his broad shoulders in an irresistible shiver as he came +out into the passage-way between Rosamund’s garden wall and the ruined +cloisters, immediately beyond which rose the east end of the Cathedral. +South Africa had evidently made him sensitive to the dampness and cold +of England. + +“Little Cloisters.” The white words showed on a tall green door let into +the wall on his left; and, as the verger had said, it was a rare old +wall. So here it actually was! He was at home. His heart thumped as he +pulled at the bell, and unconsciously he gripped the Toby jug hard with +his other hand. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +“Dion! Is it you at last?” + +A warm voice called from above, and the blood rushed to his temples. + +“Yes.” + +It seemed to him that he took the old staircase in his stride, and he +had a feeling almost such as a man has when he is going into action. + +“Rose!” + +He held her in his arms and kissed her. + +“It’s--seemed a long time!” + +He felt moisture springing to his eyes. The love he felt for her almost +overwhelmed his self-control. Till this moment he had never known how +great it was. All his deprivation was in that embrace. + +“Years it’s seemed!” he said, letting her go with a little laugh, +summoned up--he did not know how--to save him from too much emotion. + +She gazed at him. + +“Oh, Dion, how you have altered!” + +“Have I?” + +“Tremendously.” + +How well he knew the kindly glance of her honest brown eyes; a thousand +times he had called it up before him in South Africa. But this was not +the glance so characteristic of her. In the firelit room her eyes looked +puzzled, almost wide, with a sort of startled astonishment. + +“You had a lot of the boy in you still when you went away. At least, I +used to think so.” + +“Haven’t I any left?” + +“I can’t see any. No, I think you’ve come back all man. And how +tremendously burnt you are.” + +“Almost black, I suppose. But I’m so accustomed to it.” + +“It’s right,” she said. “Your face tells the story of what you’ve done. +Robin”--she paused, then slowly she said--“Robin’s got almost a new +father.” + +“Where is he? He’s sure to have altered more than I have.” + +“Oh no. He’ll be in about five. I’ve sent him out to tea with some one +you know.” + +“With whom?” + +“Mr. Thrush.” + +“Mr. Thrush at Welsley?” + +“Yes. I’ll explain all that presently. I thought I’d have you all to +myself for half an hour, and then Robin should have his turn. Here comes +Annie.” + +When the two arm-chairs were occupied, Dion said: + +“And you, Rosamund?” + +“What about me?” + +“Haven’t you altered?” + +“If I have, probably you would know it and I shouldn’t.” + +“Yes, I dare say that’s true. You aren’t conscious of it, then?” + +But she was giving him his tea, and that took her mind away from his +question, no doubt. He felt a change in her, but it was not almost +fiercely marked like the change in him, on whom a Continent had written +with its sun and its wind, and with its battlefields. The body of a man +was graven by such a superscription. And no doubt even a child could +read something of it. But the writing on Rosamund was much fainter, was +far less easy to decipher; it was perhaps traced on the soul rather than +on the body. The new legend of Dion was perhaps an assertion. But this +story of Rosamund, what was it? She saw the man in Dion, lean, burnt, +strong, ardent, desirous, full of suppressed emotion that was warmly and +intensely human; he saw in her, as well as the mother, something that +was perhaps almost pale, almost elusive, like the still figure and +downbent face of a recluse seen in passing an open window. + +She saw in Dion his actions; he saw in her her meditations. Perhaps that +was it. All this time he had been living incessantly in the midst of +men, never alone, nearly always busy, often fiercely active, marching, +eating, sleeping in company. And all the time she had been here, in the +midst of this cloistral silence, and perhaps often alone. + +“You know everybody here, I suppose?” he asked, drinking his tea with +relish, and eating the toast which seemed to him crisply English, but +always faintly aware of that still figure and of that downbent face. + +“Almost everybody. I’ve sung a great deal, and got to know them all +partly through that. And they’re dear people most of them. They let one +alone when they know one wants to be alone.” + +“And I expect you can enjoy being alone here.” + +“Yes,” she said simply. “At times. It would be difficult to feel lonely, +in the miserable, dreadful way, I mean, in the Precincts. We are rather +like a big family here, each one with his, or her, own private room in +the big family house.” + +“I know you’ve always loved a certain amount of solitude, Rose,” he said +tenderly. “D’you remember that day in London when I burst in upon your +solitude with Dante, and was actually jealous of the ‘Paradiso’?” + +“Yes,” she said, smiling. + +“But you forgave me, or I shouldn’t be here now.” + +He gave her his cup for some more tea. + +“You can’t imagine how absolutely wonderful it is to me to be here after +what I’ve been through.” + +He lay back in his chair, but he still looked tremendously alert, wiry, +powerful even. + +Dion was much more impressive than he had been when he went away. +Rosamund felt a faint creeping of something that was almost like shyness +in her as she looked at him. + +“After Green Point Camp and Orange River--I shall never forget the +dust-storm we had there!--and Springfontein and Kaffir River--oh, the +heat there, Rose!--and Kaalfontein and all the rest of it. It was near +Kaalfontein that we first came under fire. I shan’t forget that.” + +He was silent for a moment. She looked at him across the tea-table. All +that he knew and she did not know now made him seem rather strange to +her. The uniting of two different, utterly different, experiences of +life, was more tremendous, more full of meaning and of mystery, than the +uniting of two bodies. This, then, was to be a second wedding-day for +her and for Dion? All their letters, in which, of course, they had tried +to tell each other something of their differing experiences, had really +told very little, almost nothing. Dion’s glance told her more than all +his letters, that and his color, and certain lines in his face, and the +altered shapes of his hands, and his way of holding himself, and his way +of speaking. Even his voice was different. He was an unconscious record +of what he had been through out there; and much of it, she felt sure, he +would never tell to her except unconsciously by being a different Dion +from the Dion who had gone away. + +“How little one can tell in letters,” she said. “Scarcely anything.” + +“You made me feel Welsley in yours.” + +“Did I? Why did you walk from the station?” + +“I wanted to taste your home, to get into your atmosphere, if I could, +before seeing you. Rose, love can make a man almost afraid at times.” + +It seemed to her that his dark eyes burned with fires they had +captured in South Africa. Sitting in the old room with its homely and +ecclesiastical look, he had an oddly remote appearance, she thought, as +if he belonged to a very different milieu. Always dark, he now looked +almost gipsy-like; yet he had the unmistakable air of a soldier. But if +there had ever been anything there was now nothing left of the business +man in Dion. + +“Won’t you find it very difficult to settle down again to the life in +Austin Friars, Dion?” she said. + +“Perhaps I should, but for one thing.” + +“What’s that?” + +“You and Robin at home when the drudgery is done.” + +Rosamund saw Welsley receding from her into darkness, with its familiar +faces and voices, its gray towers, its cloisters, its bells, the Dresden +Amen, the secret garden, the dreams she had had in the garden. + +“Number 5 is all ready to go into. It was lucky we only let it for six +months,” she said quietly. + +“Uncle Biron has given me a fortnight’s holiday, or rather gladly agreed +to my taking it. Of course I’m my own master in a way, being a partner, +but I want to consider him. He was awfully good about my going away. +Mother’s looking well. She was at our Thanksgiving Service; Beattie and +Guy too. I’ve had just a glimpse of godfather.” + +They talked about family things till Robin came in from his festivity +with Mr. Thrush, who was staying at Little Cloisters, but only till the +following day. + +That was a great moment, the moment of Robin’s arrival. Mr. Thrush did +not appear with him, but, being a man of delicate perceptions despite +his unfortunate appearance, retired discreetly to the servants’ hall, +leaving his devoted adherent free for the “family reunion,” as he called +it. + +“Go up quietly, dear,” said the nurse to Robin, “and tap at the +drawing-room door.” + +“Shall I tap?” asked Robin earnestly. + +He was looking unusually solemn, his lips were parted, and his eyes +almost stared. + +“Yes, dear. Tap prettily, like a young gentleman as you are, and when +you hear ‘Come in!’----” + +“I know then!” interrupted Robin, with an air of decision. + +He walked rather slowly upstairs, lifting one brown leg after the other +thoughtfully from step to step, till he was outside the drawing-room +door. Inside he heard the noise of a man’s voice, which sounded to him +very tremendous and important, the voice of a brave soldier. + +“That’s Fa!” he thought, and he listened for a moment as to the voice of +a god. + +Then he doubled his small fist and gave a bang to the door. Some +instinct told him not to follow nurse’s injunction, not to try to be +pretty in his tapping. The voice of the soldier ceased inside, there was +a brief sound of a woman’s voice, then came a strong “Come in!” + +Robin opened the door, went straight up to the very dark and very thin +man whom he saw sitting by the fire, and, staring at this man with +intensity, lifted up his face, at the same time saying: + +“‘Ullo, Fa!” + +There was a dropped aitch for which nurse, who was very choice in her +English, would undoubtedly have rebuked him had she been present. The +dark man did not rebuke Robin, but caught him up and enfolded him in a +hug that was powerful but not a bit rough. Robin was quite incapable of +analyzing a hug, but he loved it as he would not have loved it if it had +been rough, or if it had been merely gentle. A sense of great happiness +and of great confidence flooded him. From that moment he adored his +father as he had never adored him before. The new authority of his +father’s love for him captured him. He knew nothing about it and he +knew all about it, as is the way with children, those instinctive sparks +fresh from the great furnace. + +Long before dinner time Dion knew that he had won something beside the +D.C.M. which he had won in South Africa, something that was wonderfully +precious to him. He gave Robin the Toby jar and another gift. + +He cared for his little son that night as he had never cared for him +before. It was as if the sex in Robin spoke to the sex in him for the +first time with a clear, unmistakable voice, saying, “We’re of the +comradeship of the male sex, we’re of the brotherhood.” It was not even +a child’s voice that spoke, though it spoke in a little child. Dion +blessed South Africa that night, felt as if South Africa had given him +his son. + +That gift would surely be a weapon in his hands by means of which, or +with the help of which, he would conquer the still unconquered mystery, +Rosamund’s whole heart. South Africa had done much for Dion. Out there +in that wonderful atmosphere he had seen very clearly, his vision had +pierced great distances; he saw clearly still, in England. War, it +seemed, was so terribly truthful that it swept a man clean of lies; Dion +was swept clean of lies. He did not feel able any longer even to tell +them occasionally to himself. He knew that Rosamund’s greeting to him, +warm, sweet, sincere though it had been, had lacked something which he +had found in Robin’s. But he felt that now he had got hold of Robin so +instantly, and so completely, the conquest of the woman he had only won +must be but a question of time. That was not pride in him but instinct, +speaking with that voice which seems a stranger to the brain of man, but +a friend to something else; something universal of which in every man a +fragment is housed, or by which every man is mysteriously penetrated. + +A fortnight’s holiday--and then? + +On that first evening it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went back +to business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receive +its old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musical +with Rosamund’s voice, made gay with the busy prattle and perpetual +activities of Robin. + +For two days thereafter no reference was made by either Rosamund or +Dion to the question of moving. Dion gave himself up to Welsley, +to holiday-making. With a flowing eagerness, not wholly free from +undercurrents, Rosamund swept him sweetly through Welsley’s delights. +She inoculated him with Welsley, or at any rate did her best to +inoculate him, secretly praying with all her force that the wonderful +preparation might “take.” Soon she believed that it was “taking.” It was +evident that Dion was delighted with Welsley. On his very first day they +went together to the afternoon service in the Cathedral, and when the +anthem was given out it proved to be “The Wilderness.” Rosamund’s +quick look at Dion told him that this was her sweet doing, and that she +remembered their talk on the hill of Drouva. He listened to that anthem +as he had never listened to an anthem before. After the service Canon +Wilton, who, though no longer in residence as “three months’ Canon,” was +still staying on at his house in the Precincts for a few days, came up +to welcome him home. Then Mr. Dickinson appeared, full of that modesty +which is greedy for compliments. Mrs. Dickinson, too, drifted up the +nave in a casual way which scarcely concealed her curiosity about Mrs. +Dion’s husband; when, later, Rosamund told Dion of her Precincts’ name, +“the cold douche,” he could not see its applicability. + +“I thought her an observant but quite a warm-hearted woman,” he said. + +“She is warm-hearted; in fact she’s a dear, and I’m very fond of her,” + said Rosamund. + +“Every one here seems very fond of you,” he replied. + +Indeed, he was struck by Welsley’s evident love of Rosamund. It was like +a warm current flowing about her, and about him now, because he was her +husband. He was greeted with cordial kindness by every one. + +“It is jolly to be received like this,” he said to Rosamund. “It does +a fellow good when he’s just come home. It makes him feel that there is +indeed no place like England. But it’s all owing to you.” + +But she protested. + +“They all admire and respect you for what you’ve done,” she said. +“You’ve brought the best introductions here, your own deeds. They speak +for you.” + +He shook his head, loving her perfectly sincere modesty. + +“You may be a thousand things,” he told her, “but one thing you’ll never +be--vain or conceited.” + +The charm of her, which was compounded of beauty and goodness, mixed +with an extraordinary hold upon, and joy in, the simple and healthy +things of life, came upon him with a sort of glorious newness after his +absence in South Africa. He loved other people’s love of her and the +splendid reasons for it so apparent in her. But for Robin he might +nevertheless have felt baffled and sad even in these moments dedicated +to the joys of reunion, he might have felt acutely that the completeness +and perfection of reunion depended upon the exact type of union it +followed upon. Robin saved him from that. He hoped very much in Robin, +who had suddenly given him a confidence in himself which he had never +known till now. This was a glorious possession. It gave him force. +People in Welsley were decidedly impressed by Mrs. Leith’s husband. +Mrs. Dickinson remarked to her Henry over griddle cakes after the three +o’clock service: + +“I call Mr. Leith a very personable man. Without having Mrs. Leith’s +wonderful charm--what man could have?--he makes a distinct impression. +He has suppressed force, and that’s what women like in a man.” + +Henry took another griddle cake, and wondered whether he was wise in +looking so decided. Perhaps he ought to suppress his undoubted force; +perhaps all his life, without knowing it, he had hovered on the verge of +the blatant. + +Canon Wilton also was struck by the change in Dion, and said something, +but not just then all, of what he felt. + +“You know the phrase, ‘I’m my own man again,’ Leith, don’t you?” he +said, in his strong bass voice, looking steadily at Dion with his kindly +stern eyes. (He always suggested to Dion a man who would be very stern +with himself.) + +“Yes,” said Dion. “Why?” + +“I think South Africa’s made you your own man.” + +Dion looked tremendously, but seriously, pleased. + +“Do you? And what about the again?” + +“Cut it out. I don’t think you’d ever been absolutely your own man +before you went away.” + +“I wonder if I am now,” Dion said, but without any weakness. + +He had been through one war and had come out of it well; now he had come +home to another. The one campaign had been but a stern preparation for +the other perhaps. But Rosamund did not know that. Nevertheless, it +seemed to him that already their relation to each other was slightly +altered. He felt that she was more sensitive to him than formerly, more +closely observant of what he was and what he did, more watchful of him +with Robin, more anxious about his opinion on various matters. + +For instance, there was the matter of Mr. Thrush. + +Dion had not seen Mr. Thrush on the evening of his first day at Welsley. +He had been kept so busy by Rosamund, had done and seen so much, that +he had quite forgotten the ex-chemist. In the evening, however, before +dinner, he suddenly remembered him. + +“What’s become of Mr. Thrush?” he asked. “And, by the way, what is he +doing down here? You never told me, Rose, and even Robin’s not said a +word.” + +“I asked him not to,” said Rosamund, with her half-shrewd, half-soft +look. “The fact is----” She broke off, then continued, with her +confidential air, “Dion, when you see Mr. Thrush I want you to tell me +something truthfully. Will you?” + +“I’ll try to. What is it?” + +“I want you to look at his nose--” + +“Rosamund!” + +“No, really,” she pursued, with great earnestness. “And I want you to +tell me whether you think, honestly think, it--better.” + +“But why?” + +“It’s very important for Mr. Thrush that it should look better. He’s +down here to be seen.” + +Her voice had become almost mysterious. + +“To be seen? By whom? Is he on show in the town?” + +“No--don’t laugh. It’s really important for his future. I must tell you +something. He’s taken the modified pledge.” + +Her look said, “There! what d’you think of that?” + +“Modified!” said Dion, rather doubtfully. + +“Never between meals--never.” + +“At any rate that’s a step in the right direction.” + +“Isn’t it? I took it with him.” + +“The modified pledge?” + +“Yes,” she said, with great seriousness. + +“But you never----! To help him, of course.” + +“Yes.” + +“And has it made a difference to the nose?” + +“I think it’s made a considerable difference. But I want your opinion.” + +“I’ll give it you for what it’s worth. But who’s going to see Mr. +Thrush?” + +“The Dean. + +“The Dean! Why on earth?” + +“Almost directly there’s going to be a vacancy among the vergers, and +the Dean has promised me faithfully that if Mr. Thrush seems suitable he +shall have the post.” + +“Mr. Thrush a verger! Mr. Thrush carry a poker before a bishop!” + +“Not a poker, only a white wand. I’ve been making him practise here in +the garden, and he does it quite admirably already.” + +She spoke now with almost defiant emphasis. Dion loved her for the +defiance and for its deliciously absurd reason. + +“The Dean is away, but he’s coming back to-morrow, so I begin to feel +rather anxious. Of course, he’ll see at once that Mr. Thrush is an +educated man. I’m not afraid about that. It’s only--well, the little +failing. It would mean so much for Mr. Thrush to get the post. He’ll be +provided for for life. I’ve set my heart on it.” + +Annie came in. + +“Oh, Annie, is it Mr. Thrush?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“Please ask him to come in.” + +With a very casual air, as of one doing a thing for no particular reason +and almost without thought, she lowered the wick of the lamp which +illuminated the room. + +“We don’t want it to flare,” she said, as she came away from it. “Oh, +Mr. Thrush, here’s my husband back again!” + +With a certain unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. +He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of +which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of +diminishing gradually into what tailors call “a morning coat,” or a +morning coat which was in course of expanding gently into a frock coat; +a speckless collar with points appeared above a pair of dark worsted +gloves, and a hat which resembled a square bowler half-way on the road +to top hatdom. + +Dion felt touched by his appearance and his gait, which seemed to hint +at those rehearsals in the garden, and especially touched by the fact +that he had bought a new hat. + +“Welcome home, sir!” he said at once to Dion. “I’m sure the country is +proud of you.” + +He paid the compliment with so much sincerity that Dion did not feel +embarrassed by it. + +“Do sit down, Mr. Thrush,” said Rosamund, after hands had been +cordially shaken. “No, not there!”--as he was about to sit full in the +lamplight--“This chair will be more comfortable. Now I’ll leave you to +have a little talk with my husband.” + +With an inquiring look at Dion she went out of the room. + +Before she came back Mr. Thrush had told Dion all his hopes and fears +with regard to the Dean, and had dwelt on his overwhelming desire to +become a verger. Quite unself-conscious in his simplicity he rose almost +to dignity. He frankly confessed his “failing,” and alluded to the +taking of the modified pledge. + +“We took it together, sir, your kind lady and I, we both pledged +ourselves never to touch a drop of liquor between meals whatever the +occasion.” + +“Quite right!” said Dion, with firmness, almost with bruskness. + +“I’m glad you think so, sir. But a verger can’t be too careful. He’s +held up as an example to the whole city by his position, walking so +often in procession as he does before the eyes of all men. Even a +chemist scarcely takes so much upon himself. In respect of the body he +may, I’ll allow you,--for no verger has to do with prussic acid, iodine, +cascara and all such-like,--but in respect of what I might all the +uplifting of the soul not a doubt of it but that the verger comes far +before any chemist. It’s a solemn thing to think of, and I hope, if so +be as I’m elected, I shall be worthy of the position. I see Mr. Dean +to-morrow, sir, at eleven o’clock. I trust I shall make a favorable +impression. I lived just off Hanover Square for more years than some can +remember, and that, I hope, with a Very Reverend will tell in my favor. +None of them vergers here, though I’m sure they’re a splendid body of +men,--any one who has seen them walking before his Lordship, the Bishop, +the Canons and what not, as I did last Sunday morning, would say the +same,--but none of the vergers here can say as much. I’ve made inquiry, +but of course with all discretion. As to the duties, sir, I think I can +fulfil them. The carrying of the wand I may say I am almost perfect in +already. I’ve been at it in the garden with your kind good lady since I +came. I found it a bit difficult at first, sir. There’s what you might +call a knack to it, though from the congregation it looks simple enough. +But there, what does a congregation know of the things a verger has +to master any more than it does of what is required of a good chemist? +Often and often when I was just off Hanover Square----” + +He was still flowing on with imperturbable volubility when Rosamund came +back and sent another, more inquiring, glance to Dion. + +When Mr. Thrush had retired she at once said anxiously: + +“Well?” + +“He’s a nice old chap.” + +“Yes, isn’t he? But what did you really think?” + +“About the nose?” + +“Yes.” + +“The lamp was turned rather low, but I really believe the modified +pledge has--” + +“There! What did I say?” she interrupted triumphantly. “I knew you’d +notice the difference. It’s really very much like yours or mine now, and +I’m sure--” + +But here Dion broke in decisively. + +“No, Rosamund, I can’t let that pass. It’s not like yours yet. I say +nothing about mine. But I honestly think it’s modified and I hope the +Dean will pass it.” + +“The Dean and I are great cronies!” she murmured doubtfully. “My only +fear is that after he is a verger Mr. Thrush may--may lapse if I’m +not----” + +She stopped, looking at Dion, and again he thought that she was more +sensitive to his opinion, to his wishes, than she had formerly been. Her +slightly changed attitude made Dion gladly aware of change in himself. +He meant more to Rosamund now than he had meant when he left England. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Three days had slipped by. Dion had been accepted as one of the big +Welsley family, had been made free of the Precincts. During those three +days he had forgotten London, business, everything outside of Welsley. +It had seemed to him that he had the right to forget, and he had +exercised it. Robin had played a great part in those three days. His new +adoration of his father was obvious to every one who saw them together. +The soldier appealed to the little imagination. Robin’s ardor was +concentrated for the moment in his pride of possession. He owned a +father who--his own nurse had told him so--was not as other fathers, not +as ordinary fathers such as stumped daily about the narrow streets of +Welsley, rubicund and, many of them, protuberant in the region of the +watch-chain. They were all very well; Robin had nothing against them; +many of them were clergymen and commanded his respect by virtue of +their office, their gaiters, the rosettes and cords that decorated their +wide-winged hats. But they were not like “Fa.” They had not become lean, +and muscular, and dark, and quick-limbed, and keen-eyed, and spry, in +the severe service of their country. They had not--even the Archdeacon, +Robin’s rather special pal, had not--ever killed any wicked men who did +not like England, or gone into places where wicked men who did not like +England might have killed them. Some of them did not know much about +guns, did not seem to take any interest in guns. It was rather pitiable. +Since his father had come back Robin had had an opportunity of sounding +the Archdeacon on the subject of an advance in open order. The result +had not been satisfactory. The Archdeacon, Robin thought, had taken +the matter with a lightness, almost a levity, which one could not have +looked for from a man in his position, and when questioned as to his +methods of taking over had frankly said that he had none. + +“I like him,” Robin said ruefully. “But he’ll never be a good scout, +will he, Fa?” + +To which Dion replied with discretion. + +“There are plenty of good scouts, old boy, who would never make good +archdeacons.” + +“Is there?” said Robin. “Why not? I know what scouts does, but what does +archdeacons does?” + +And with that he had his father stumped. Dion had not been long enough +at Welsley to dive into all its mysteries. + +On the evening of the third day Dion told Rosamund that he must go to +London on the following morning. + +“I’ve got something I must do and I want to tell you about it,” he said. +“You remember Mrs. Clarke?” + +“Yes,” said Rosamund. + +“It must be more than two years since I’ve seen her. She lives a great +deal in Constantinople, you know. But she sometimes comes to London in +the winter. It’s abominably cold in Constantinople in winter. There are +perpetual winds from the Black Sea.” + +“Yes, I know there are. Esme Darlington has told me about them.” + +“Mrs. Clarke’s in London now.” + +“Did you see her when you passed through?” + +“No, but I want to see her to-morrow. Rose, I’m going to tell you +something which nobody else must know. I was asked to keep it entirely +to myself, but I refused. I was resolved to tell you, because I don’t +believe in secrets between husband and wife--about their doings, I +mean.” (Just then he had happened to think of Mrs. Clarke’s farewell +telegram to him when he had sailed for South Africa.) + +“I know how frank and sincere you always are, Dion,” she said gently. + +“I try to be. You remember that party at Mrs. Chetwinde’s where you +sang? You met Mrs. Clarke that night.” + +“Of course I remember. We had quite an interesting talk.” + +“She’s clever. Lord Brayfield was there, too, that night, a fair man. + +“I saw him. He wasn’t introduced to me.” + +“Brayfield was shot in the war. Did you know it?” + +“No. I thought I had read everything. But I didn’t happen to see it.” + +“And I didn’t mention it when I wrote. I thought I’d tell you if I came +home. Brayfield, poor fellow, didn’t die immediately. He suffered +a great deal, but he was able to write two or three letters--last +messages--home. One of these messages was written to Mrs. Clarke. He +gave it to me and made me promise to convey it to her personally, not to +put it in the post.” + +“Was Lord Brayfield in the C.I.V.?” asked Rosamund. + +“Oh no. He was a captain in the 5th Lancers. We were brigaded with them +for a bit and under fire at the same time. Brayfield happened to see me. +He knew I was an acquaintance of Mrs. Clarke’s, and when he was shot he +asked that I should be allowed to come to him. Permission was given. I +went, and he asked me if I’d give Mrs. Clarke a letter from him when I +got home. It seems none of his brother officers happened to know her. +He might have given the letter to one of them. It would have been more +natural. But”--Dion hesitated--“well, he wanted to say a word or two to +some one who knew her, I suppose.” + +Rosamund quite understood there were things Dion did not care to tell +even to her. She did not want to hear them. She was not at all a curious +woman. + +“I’m glad you are able to take the letter,” she said. + +And then she began to talk about something else. Mr. Thrush’s prospects +with the Dean, which were even yet not quite decided. + +By the quick train at nine o’clock Dion left Welsley next morning; he +was in London by half-past ten. He had of course written to Mrs. Clarke +asking if he could see her. She had given him an appointment for +three o’clock at the flat she had taken for a few months in Park +Side, Knightsbridge. Dion went first to the City, and after doing some +business there, and lunching with his uncle at the Cheshire Cheese, got +into a cab and drove to Knightsbridge. + +Mrs. Clarke’s flat was on the first floor of a building which faced the +street on one side and Hyde Park on the other. Dion rang at a large, +very solid oak door. In two or three minutes the door was opened by an +elderly maid, with high cheek-bones and long and narrow light gray +eyes, who said, with a foreign accent, that Mrs. Clarke was at home. +Afterwards Dion knew that this woman was a Russian and Mrs. Clarke’s own +maid. + +She showed Dion into a long curving hall in which a fire was burning. +Here he left his hat and coat. While he was taking the coat off he +had time to think, “What an original hall this is!” From it he got an +impression of warmth and of a pleasant dimness. He had really no time +to look carefully about, but a quick glance told him that there were +interesting things in this hall, or at any rate interestingly combined. +He was conscious of the stamp of originality. + +The Russian maid showed him into a drawing-room and went away to tell +“Madame.” She did not go out by the hall, but walked the whole length of +the long narrow drawing-room, and passed through a small doorway at its +farther end. Through this doorway there filtered into the drawing-room a +curious blue light. All the windows of the drawing-room looked into Hyde +Park, on to the damp grass, the leafless trees, the untenanted spaces of +autumn. + +Dion went to the fireplace, which faced the far doorway. There was not +a sound in the room; not a sound came to it just then from without. He +could scarcely believe he was in Knightsbridge. Not even a clock was +ticking on the mantelpiece above the fire, in which ship logs were +burning. The flames which came from them were of various shades of blue, +like magical flames conjured up by a magician. He looked round. He had +never seen a room like this before. It was a room to live in, to +hear strange music in; it was not a reception-room. Not crowded with +furniture it was not at all bare. Its “note” was not austere but quite +the contrary. It was a room which quietly enticed. Dion was not one of +those men who know all about women’s dresses, and combinations of color, +and china, and furniture, but he was observant; as a rule he noticed +what he saw. Fresh from South Africa, from a very hard life out of +doors, he looked at this room and was almost startled by it. The +refinement of it was excessive in his eyes and reminded him of something +overbred, of certain Italian greyhounds, for instance. Strange blues and +greens were dexterously combined through the room, in the carpet, +the curtains, the blinds, the stuffs which covered the chairs, sofas, +divans, cushions--blues and greens innumerable. He had never before seen +so many differing shades of the two colors; he had not known that so +many shades existed. In the china these colors were repeated. The door +by which he had come in was of thick glass in a frame of deep blue wood +and, by means of a mysterious light in the hall, was made mistily blue. +All along the windows, lilies were growing, or seemed to be growing, +in earth closely covered with green moss. There were dwarf trees, like +minute yew trees, in green and blue china pots. + +And always the ship logs in the fire gave out the magical blue flames. + +Certainly the general effect of the room was not only luxuriously +comfortable, but also strangely beautiful, though there was nothing in +it which a lover of antiques would have given his eyes for. To +Dion, fresh from South Africa, the room looked too comfortable, too +ingeniously beautiful. It struck him as ultra modern, ahead of anything +he had ever yet seen, and almost as evil. But certainly it enticed. + +He heard the distant sound of a woman’s dress and saw Mrs. Clarke coming +slowly in from the room beyond (another blue and green room perhaps), +and he thought of Brayfield dying. He thrust a hand into the +breast-pocket of his coat and brought out the dead man’s letter. + +Mrs. Clarke came up to the fire and greeted him. She did not look a +moment older than when he had seen her last at Claridge’s, or indeed +than when he had first seen her standing under the statue of Echo in +Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room. The same feverish refinement still was +with her, belonged to her; she looked as before, wasted as if by +some obscure disease, haunted, almost distressed, and yet absolutely +self-controlled, mistress of herself and unconscious of critical +observation. Not even for a moment, seeing her thus again after a long +interval of time, did Dion hesitate about her beauty. Undoubtedly she +had beauty. The shape of her head was lovely, and her profile was like a +delicate vision seen in water. The husky sound of her voice in her first +words to him took him back to the Divorce Court. + +“You haven’t changed,” she said, staring intently at him in her oddly +impersonal way, which appraised and yet held something of inwardness. + +“But people say I have changed very much.” + +“People?” + +“Well--my people.” + +“I don’t call natural development change. I saw in you very plainly when +we first met what you are now. You have got there. That’s all.” + +Her lips were very pale. How strangely unshining her hair was. + +“Yes, she looked punished!” he thought. “It’s that look of punishment +which sets her quite apart from all other women.” + +She glanced at the letter he was holding and sat down on a very broad +green divan. There were many cushions upon it; she did not heap them +behind her, but sat quite upright. She did not ask him to sit down. He +would do as he liked. Absurd formalities of any kind did not enter into +her scheme of life. + +“How is Jimmy?” he asked. + +“Brilliantly well. He’s been at Eton for a long time, doing dreadfully +at work--he’s a born dunce--and splendidly at play. How he would +appreciate you as you are now!” + +She spoke with a gravity that was both careless and intense. He sat down +near her. In his letter asking to see her he had not told her that +he had a special object in writing to visit her. By her glance at +Brayfield’s letter he knew that she had gathered it. + +They talked of Jimmy for a few minutes; then Dion said: + +“My regiment was brigaded with Lord Brayfield’s for a time in South +Africa. I was in the action in which he was shot, poor chap. He saw me +and remembered that I was a--a friend of yours. When he was dying he +wanted to see me. I was sent for, and he gave me this letter for you. He +asked me to give it to you myself if I came back.” + +He bent down to her with the letter. + +“Thank you,” she said, and she took it without looking at all surprised, +and with her habitual composed gravity. “There are Turkish cigarettes in +that ivory box,” she added, looking at a box on a table close by. + +“Thank you.” + +As Dion turned to get a cigarette he heard her tearing Brayfield’s +envelope. + +“Will you give me one?” said the husky voice. + +Without saying anything he handed to her the box, and held a lighted +match to her cigarette when it was between the pale lips. She smoked +gently as she opened and read Brayfield’s letter. When she had finished +it--evidently it was not a long letter--she put it back into the +envelope, laid it down on the green divan and said: + +“What do you think of this room? It was designed and arranged by +Monsieur de Vaupre, a French friend of mine.” + +“By a man!” said Dion, irrepressibly. + +“Who hasn’t been in the South African War. Do you like it?” + +“I don’t think I do, but I admire it a good deal.” + +He was looking at the letter lying on the divan, and Brayfield was +before him, tormented and dying. He had always disliked the look of +Brayfield, but he had felt almost a sort of affection for him when he +was dying. Foolishly perhaps, Dion wanted Mrs. Clarke to say something +kind about Brayfield now. + +“If you admire it, why don’t you like it?” she asked. “A person--I could +understand; but a room!” + +He looked at her and hesitated to acknowledge a feeling at which he knew +something in her would smile; then he thought of Rosamund and of Little +Cloisters and spoke out the truth. + +“I think it’s an unwholesome-looking room. It looks to me as if it +had been thought out and arranged by somebody with a beastly, though +artistic, mind.” + +“The inner room is worse,” she said. + +But she did not offer to show it to him, nor did she disagree with his +view. He even had the feeling that his blunt remark had pleased her. + +He asked her about Constantinople. She lived there, she told him, all +through the spring and autumn, and spent the hottest months on the +Bosphorus. + +“People are getting accustomed to my temerity,” she said. “Of course +Esme Darlington is still in despair, and Lady Ermyntrude goes about +spreading scandal. But it doesn’t seem to do much harm. She hasn’t any +more influence over my husband. He won’t hear a word against me. Like a +good dog, I suppose, he loves the hand which has beaten him.” + +“You’ve got a will of iron, I believe,” said Dion. + +She changed the subject. + +“I don’t ask you to tell me about South Africa,” she said. “Because you +told me the whole story as soon as I came into the room. But what are +you going to do now? Settle down in the Church’s bosom at Welsley?” + +There was no sarcasm in her voice. + +“Oh--I’m going back to business in a few days.” + +“You’ll run up and down, I suppose.” + +“It’s too far, an hour and a half each way. I shall have to be in +London.” + +He spoke rather indecisively. + +“I’m taking a fortnight’s holiday, and then we shall settle down.” + +“I’ve been in Welsley,” said Mrs. Clarke. “It’s beautiful but, to me, +stifling. It has an atmosphere which would soon dry up my mind. All +the petals would curl up and go brown at the edges. I’m glad you’re not +going to live there. But after South Africa you couldn’t.” + +“I don’t know. I find it very attractive,” he said, instinctively on the +defensive because of Rosamund, who had not been attacked. “The coziness +and the peace of it are very delightful after all the--well, of course, +it was a pretty stiff life in South Africa.” + +Again he looked at Brayfield’s letter. He wanted to tell Mrs. Clarke +about Brayfield, but it seemed she had no interest in the dead man. +While he was thinking this she quietly put out her hand, took the +letter, got up and dropped it into the fire among the blue flames from +the ship logs. + +“I seldom keep letters,” she said, “unless I have to answer them.” + +She turned round. + +“I’ve kept yours,” she said. + +“The one I--it was awfully good of you to send me that telegram.” + +“So Allah had you in His hand.” + +“I don’t know why when so many much better fellows----” He broke off, +and then he plunged into the matter of Brayfield. He could not go +without telling her, though hearing, perhaps, would not interest her. + +All the time he was speaking she remained standing by the fire, with +her lovely little head slightly bending forward and her profile turned +towards him. The emaciation of her figure almost startled him. She wore +a black dress. It seemed to him a very simple dress. She could have told +him that such simplicity only comes from a few very good dressmakers, +and is only fully appreciated by a very few women. + +Brayfield, though he was dying, had been very careful in what he had +said to Dion. In his pain he had shown that he had good blood in him. He +had not hinted even at any claim on Mrs. Clarke. But he had spoken of a +friendship which had meant very much to him, and had asked Dion, if he +ever had the opportunity, to tell Mrs. Clarke that when he was dying she +was the woman he was thinking about. He had not spoken interestingly; +he was not an interesting man; but he had spoken with sincerity, with +genuine feeling. + +“She’s a woman in a thousand,” he had said. “Tell her I thought so till +the last. Tell her if she had been free I should have begged her to +marry me.” + +And he had added, after a pause: + +“Not that she’d ever have done it. I’m pretty sure of that.” + +When Dion had finished, still standing by the fire, Mrs. Clarke said: + +“Thank you for remembering it all. It shows your good heart.” + +“Oh--please!” + +Why didn’t she think about Brayfield? + +She turned round and fixed her distressed eyes on him. + +“Which is best, to be charitable or to be truthful?” she said, without +any vibration of excitement. “_De Mortuis_--it’s a kindly saying. A true +Turk, one of the old Osmanlis, might have said it. If you hadn’t brought +me that letter and the message I should probably never have mentioned +Brayfield to you again. But as it is I am going to be truthful. I can +say honestly peace to Brayfield’s ashes. His death was worthy. Courage +he evidently had. But you mustn’t think that because he liked me I ever +liked him. Don’t make a mistake. I’m not a nervous suspicious fool of a +woman anxiously defending, or trying to defend, her honor--not attacked, +by the way. If Lord Brayfield had ever been anything to me I should +just be quiet, say nothing. But I didn’t like him. If I had liked him I +shouldn’t have burnt his letter. And now”--to Dion’s great astonishment +she made slowly the sign of the Cross--“_requiescat in pace_.” + +After a long pause she added: + +“Now come and see the other room. I’ll give you Turkish coffee there.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +It had been understood between Rosamund and Dion that he should spend +that night in London. He had several things to see to after his long +absence, had to visit his tailor, the dentist, the bootmaker, to look +out some things in Little Market Street, to have an interview with +his banker, et cetera. He would go back to Welsley on the following +afternoon. In the evening of that day he dined in De Lorne Gardens +with Beatrice and Guy Daventry and his mother, and again, as in +Knightsbridge, something was said about the Welsley question. Dion +gathered that Rosamund’s devotion to Welsley was no secret in “the +family.” The speedy return to Little Market Street was assumed; +nevertheless he was certain that his mother, his sister-in-law, and +Guy were secretly wondering how Rosamund would be able to endure the +departure from Welsley. Beatrice had welcomed him back very quietly, but +he had felt more definitely than ever before the strong sympathy which +existed between them. + +“I quite love Beatrice,” he said to his mother in the jobbed brougham +with the high stepping, but slow moving, horse which conveyed them to +Queen Anne’s Mansions after the dinner. + +“She is worth it,” said Mrs. Leith. “Beatrice says very little, but she +means very much.” + +“Yes. I wonder--I wonder how much of her meaning I thoroughly +understand, mater.” + +“Perhaps about five per cent of it, dee-ar,” observed Mrs. Leith in her +sweetest voice. + +And then she began to talk about Esme Darlington. + +That night Dion stayed at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and slept in his old +room. + +In her room his mother lay awake because she wished to lie awake. In +sleep she would have lost the precious sense of her boy’s nearness to +her. So she counted the hours and she thanked God; and twice in the +night she slipped out into the hall, with her ample dressing-gown folded +about her, and she looked at her boy’s coat hanging on its hook, and +she listened just outside his door. Once she felt certain she heard his +quiet breathing, and then, shutting her eyes, for a moment she was again +the girl mother with little Dion. + +Little, little Dion! The soldier, burnt and hardened and made wholly a +man by South Africa, was still that to his mother, more than ever that +since he had been to the war. + +That question of Welsley! + +Going down in the train next day Dion thought about it a great deal. +With his return the old longing, almost an old need it was, to give +Rosamund whatever she wanted, or cared at all for, had come to him +again. But something fought it, the new longing to dominate and the wish +to give Rosamund chances. Besides, how could they possibly live on in +Welsley? He could not spend from three to four hours every day in the +train. He might get away from London on Fridays and stay at Welsley +every week till Monday morning, but that would mean living alone in +Little Market Street for four days in the week. If he seemed willing to +do that, would Rosamund consent to it? + +Another test! He remembered his test before the war. + +Mrs. Clarke’s allusion to Welsley had left a rather strong impression +upon him. He did not know whether he had a great respect for her, but +he knew that he had a great respect for her mind. Like Beattie, but in +a very different way, she meant a great deal. He no longer doubted that +she liked him very much, though why he honestly did not know. When with +her he felt strongly that he was not an interesting man. Dumeny was +a beast, he felt sure, but he also felt sure that Dumeny was an +interesting man. + +Mrs. Clarke’s wild mind attracted something in him. Through her eyes he +was able to see the tameness of Welsley, a dear tameness, safe, cozy, +full of a very English charm and touched with ancient beauty, but +still----! Would the petals of Rosamund ever curl up and go brown at +the edges from living at Welsley? No, he could not imagine that ever +happening. A dried-up mind she could never have. + +He would not see Welsley through the eyes of Mrs. Clarke. + +Nevertheless when he got out of the train at Welsley Station, and saw +Robin’s pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor +canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting +him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of +professional deference, Mrs. Clarke’s verdict of “stifling” recurred to +his mind. + +Stamboul and Welsley--Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund! + +The dual comparison made him at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsley +were beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticed +by its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stability +and matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by its +obscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightful +simplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faith +and a smiling unworldliness, its harmonies of gray and of green, of +stone and verdure, its serenity lifted skywards by many bells. + +But at the heart of Stamboul the dust lay thick, and there was dew at +the heart of Welsley. + +Perhaps green Elis, with its sheep-bells, the eternal voices of its pine +trees, the celestial benignity of its Hermes, was more to be desired +than either Stamboul or Welsley. But for the moment Welsley was very +desirable. + +Dion gave his bag to an “outside porter,” and walked to the Precincts +with the Archdeacon. + +He found Rosamund uplifted and triumphant; Mr. Thrush had finally +captivated the Dean, and had been given the “situation” which Rosamund +had desired for him. Her joy was almost ebullient. She could talk of +nothing else. Mr. Thrush was to be installed on the following Sunday. + +“Installed?” said Dion. “Is the Archbishop coming down to conduct the +ceremony?” + +“No, no! What I mean is that Mr. Thrush will walk in the procession for +the first time. Oh, I shall be so nervous! If only he carries the wand +as I’ve taught him! I don’t know what Mr. Thrush would do without me. He +seems to depend on me for everything now, poor old gentleman.” + +“I’m afraid he’ll miss you dreadfully,” said Dion. + +“Miss me? When?” + +Before he could answer she said quickly: + +“Oh, by the way, Dion, while you’ve been away I’ve done something for +you.” + +“What is it, Rose?” + +She was looking gaily mysterious, and almost cunning, but in a +delightful way. + +“I don’t want you to be bored during your holiday.” + +“Bored! Don’t you realize that this is an earthly Paradise for me? You +and Robin and peace after South Africa.” + +She looked very shrewd. + +“That’s all very well, but a man, especially a soldier man, wants +sport.” + +She laid a strong and happy emphasis on the last word, and then she +disclosed the secret. A brother of “the cold douche,” a gentleman farmer +who had land some four miles from Welsley, and who was “a great +friend” of Rosamund’s--she had met him three times at the organist’s +house--hearing of Dion’s arrival, had written to say that he had some +partridges which needed “keeping down.” He himself was “laid by” with a +bad leg, but he would be very glad if Mr. Leith would “take his chance +among the birds” any day, or days, he liked while at Welsley. The +gentleman farmer could not offer much, just the ground, most of it +stubble, and a decent lot of birds. + +“Dear Mrs. Dickinson knew through me how fond of shooting you are. We +owe it all to her,” said Rosamund, in conclusion. “I’ve written to thank +him, and to say how glad you’ll be.” + +“But you must come too,” he said. “You shot in Greece, you must shoot +again here.” + +“I don’t think I will here,” said Rosamund, confidentially and rather +mysteriously. + +“Why not?” + +“Well, I don’t think the Dean would approve of it. And he’s been so +bricky about Mr. Thrush that I shouldn’t like to hurt him.” + +“I can’t go alone. I shall take Robin then.” + +He spoke half-laughingly. + +“Robin?” + +“Yes, why not? I’m sure he’d love to go.” + +“Of course he would. But how could his little legs walk over stubble? +He’s not four years old yet.” + +“Robin’s got to be Doric. He can’t begin too soon.” + +She smiled, then looked at him seriously. + +“Dion, do you know that you’ve come back much more Doric than you were +when you went out?” + +“Have I, Rose?” + +“Much more.” + +“Do you like me less because of that?” + +She blushed faintly. + +“No,” she said. + +That faint blush made Dion’s heart bound, he scarcely knew why. But he +only said soberly: + +“I’m glad of that. And now about Robin. You’re right. He can’t walk over +stubble with me, but why shouldn’t I stick him on a pony?” + +“Oh--a pony! How he would love it!” + +“Can’t I get hold of one?” + +“But Job Crickendon’s got one!” + +“Job Crick-- . . . ?” + +“Mrs. Dickinson’s brother who’s lending you the partridges. Don’t say +another word, Dion. I’ll arrange it all. Robin will be in the seventh +heaven.” + +“And you must come with us.” + +Rosamund was about to speak quickly. Dion saw that. Her eyes shone; she +opened her lips. But something, some sudden thought, stopped her. After +a minute she said quietly: + +“We’ll see.” + +And she gave Dion a curious, tender look which he did not quite +understand. Surely she was keeping some delicate secret from him, one +of those dear secrets which perhaps will never be told, but which are +sometimes happily guessed. + +Dion could not help seeing that Rosamund eagerly wanted to attach him to +Welsley. He felt that she had not honestly and fully faced the prospect +of returning to live in London. Her plan--he saw it plainly; the +partridge shooting was part of it--was to make Welsley so delightful to +him that he would not want to give up the home at Little Cloisters. +What was to be done? He disliked, he almost hated, the thought that his +return would necessitate an unpleasant change in Rosamund’s life. Yet +something within him told him that he ought to be firm. He was obliged +to live in London, and therefore it was only natural and right that +Rosamund and Robin should live in London too. After this long separation +he ought not to have to face a semi-bachelor life; three days of the +week at Little Cloisters and four days alone in Little Market Street. He +must put Rosamund to the test. That faint blush, which he would not soon +forget, made him hope that she would come out of the test triumphantly. + +If she did, how splendid it would be. His heart yearned at the thought +of a Rosamund submissive to his wish, unselfish out of the depth +of--dared he think of it as a new growth of love within her, tending +towards a great flowering which would bring a glory into two lives? But +if she yielded at once to his wish, without a word of regret, if she +took the speedy return to London quite simply as a matter of course, he +would feel almost irresistibly inclined to take her in his arms and to +say, “No, you shall stay on at Little Cloisters. We’ll manage somehow.” + Perhaps he could stand three hours daily in the train. He could read +the papers. A man must do that. As well do it in the train as in an +arm-chair at home. + +But at any rate he would put her to the test. On that he was resolved. + +At dinner that night Rosamund told him she had already written to “dear, +kind Job Crickendon” about the pony. + +“You might shoot on Monday,” she said. + +“Right you are. When we hear about the pony we’ll tell Robin.” + +“Yes. Not till it’s all delightfully settled. Robin on horseback!” + +Her eyes shone. + +“I can see him already with a gun in his hand old enough to shoot +with you,” she added. “We must bring him up to be a thorough little +sportsman; like that Greek boy Dirmikis.” + +They talked about Robin’s future till dinner was over. Dion loved their +talk, but he could not help seeing that in Rosamund’s forecast town life +held no place at all. In everything, or in almost everything, that +she said the country held pride of place. There was not one word about +Jenkins’s gymnasium, or the Open Air Club with its swimming facilities, +or riding in the Park, or fencing at Bernardi’s. Rosamund seemed tacitly +to assume that everything which was Doric was connected with country +life. + +On the following morning she hastened out “to buy riding gaiters for +Robin.” She had his “size” with her. + +Not a word had been said about Dion’s visit to Mrs. Clarke. Rosamund’s +lack of all curiosity in regard to Mrs. Clarke and himself gave him the +measure of her faith in him. Few women, he thought, would be able +to trust a man so completely. And this trust was the more remarkable +because he felt positive that Rosamund distrusted Mrs. Clarke. She had +never said so, but he considered that by her conduct she had proved her +distrust. + +It was a great virtue in Rosamund, that power she had to trust where +trust was deserved. + +Dear, kind Job Crickendon wrote that Master Robin could ride his pony, +Jane, and welcome. The letter arrived on Saturday. Rosamund read it +aloud to Dion. + +“The people about here are the dearest people I’ve ever come across,” + she said. “So different from people in London.” + +“Why, what’s the matter with people in London?” asked Dion. + +“Oh, I don’t know; they’re more artificial. They think so much about +clothes, and hats, and the way their hair’s done.” + +“The men!” + +“I was talking of the women.” + +“But is Job Crickendon a woman?” + +“Don’t be absurd, Dion. You know what I mean. The country brings out the +best that is in people.” + +“That’s a bad look out for me, who’ve lived nearly all my life in +London.” + +“You would be yourself anywhere. Now about Robin. I’ve got the gaiters. +They’re not exactly riding gaiters--they don’t make them for such little +boys--but they’ll do beautifully. But I don’t want to tell Robin +till Monday morning. You see he’s got a very exciting day before him +to-morrow, and I think to know about Monday on top of it might be almost +too much for him.” + +“But what excitement is there to-morrow?” + +She looked at him reproachfully. + +“Mr. Thrush!” + +“Oh, of course. And is Robin coming to the Cathedral?” + +“Yes, for once. It’s a terribly long service for a child, but Robin +would break his heart if he didn’t see Mr. Thrush walk in the procession +for the first time.” + +“Then we won’t tell him till Monday morning. I’ll hire a dog-cart and we +can all drive out together.” + +Again she gave him the tender look, but she did not then explain what it +meant. + +That evening they dined with Canon Wilton, who had a surprise in store +for them. Esme Darlington had come down to stay with him over Sunday, +and to have a glimpse of his dear young friends in Little Cloisters. + +The dinner was a delightful one. Mr. Darlington was benignly talkative +and full of kindly gossip; Canon Wilton almost beamed upon his guests; +after dinner Rosamund sang song after song while the three men listened +and looked. She sang her very best for them, and when she was winding +a lace shawl about her hair preparatory to the little walk home, Canon +Wilton thanked her in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks. + +“You’ve made me very happy to-night,” he said finally. And his strong +bass voice was softer than usual. + +“I’m glad.” + +“Not only by your singing,” he added. + +She looked at him inquiringly. His eyes had gone to Dion. + +“Not only by that.” + +And then he spoke almost in a murmur to her. + +“He’s come back worth it,” he said. “Good night. God bless you both.” + +The following day was made memorable by the “installation” of Mr. Thrush +as a verger of Welsley Cathedral. + +The Cathedral was not specially crowded for the occasion, but there was +a very fair congregation when Rosamund, Dion and Robin (in a sailor suit +with wide blue trousers) walked in together through the archway in the +rood-screen. One of the old established vergers, a lordly person with +a “presence” and the air of a high dignitary, met them as they stepped +into the choir, and wanted to put them into stalls; but Rosamund begged +for seats in a pew just beyond the lectern, facing the doorway by which +the procession came into the choir. + +“Robin would be swallowed up in a stall,” she whispered to Dion. + +And they both looked down at the little chap tenderly, and met his blue +eyes turned confidingly, yet almost anxiously too, up to them. He was +wondering about all this whispering with the verger, and hoping that +nothing had happened to Mr. Thrush. + +They found perfect seats in a pew just beyond the deanery stalls. Far +up in the distance above them one bell, the five minutes’ bell, was +chiming. Its voice recalled to Rosamund the “ping-ping” of the bell +of St. Mary’s Church which had welcomed her in the fog. How much had +happened since then! Robin was nestling against her. He sat between her +and his father, and was holding his father’s hand. By dividing Dion from +her he united her with Dion. She thought of the mystery of the Trinity, +and then of their mystery, the mystery of father, mother and child. +To-day she felt very happy, and happy in an unusual way. In her +happiness she know that, in a sort of under way, she had almost dreaded +Dion’s return. She had been so peacefully content, so truly at rest and +deeply serene in the life at Welsley with Robin. In her own heart she +could not deny that she had loved having her Robin all to herself; +and she had loved, too, the long hours of solitude during which, +in day-dreams, she had lived the religious life. A great peace had +enveloped those months at Welsley. In them she had mysteriously grown +into a closer relation with her little son. She had often felt in those +months that this mysterious nearness could never have become quite what +it had become to her unless she had been left alone with Robin. It was +their solitude which had enabled her to concentrate wholly on Robin, and +it was surely this exclusive concentration on Robin which had drawn him +so very close to her. All the springs of his love had flowed towards +her. + +She had been just a wee bit frightened about Dion’s return. + +And that was why at this moment, when the five minutes’ bell was +ringing, she felt so happy. For Dion’s return had not made any +difference; or, if it had made a difference, she did not actively regret +it. The child’s new adoration of his father had made her care more for +Dion, and even more for Robin; for she felt that Robin was unconsciously +loving in his father a strength and a nobility which were new in Dion, +which had been born far away across the sea. War destroys, and all the +time war is destroying it is creating. Robin was holding a little bit of +what the South African War had created as he held his father’s hand. For +are not the profound truths of the soul conveyed through all its temple? + +“Happiness is a mystery,” thought Rosamund. + +And then she silently thanked God that this mystery was within herself, +and that she felt it in Robin and in Dion. + +She looked down at her little son, and as she met his soft and yet +ardent eyes,--full of innocent anxiety, and almost of awe, about Mr. +Thrush,--she blessed the day when she had decided to marry Dion, when +she had renounced certain dreams, when she had taken the advice of the +man who was now her friend and had resolved to tread that path of life +in which she could have a companion. + +Her companion had given her another companion. In the old gray +Cathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and been +gathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way of +happiness, and she could not see its end. + +The five minutes’ bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in the +pew. The Bishop’s wife proceeded to her stall with a friend. Robin +stared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush. Miss Piper +glided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching for +a dropped pin on the pavement. She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin’s, +and he whispered to his mother: + +“Miss Piper’s come to see Mr. Thrush.” + +“Yes, darling.” + +What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend! She looked at +the freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them. +This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin’s life so far. +She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin! And over his +fair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion’s thought hand in hand +with hers. + +A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work +preluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind +the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the +Cathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin’s mind, was +for Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father’s hand tightly he joined in the +congregation’s movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robin +felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was +standing up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped at +his father and whispered: + +“May I, Fa?” + +Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the +footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly +at the head of the procession. + +At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return +stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making +a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with +calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Only +two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their +massive stalls. Mr. Thrush was--though not in Robin’s eyes--an +ordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, +mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the +procession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and +satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the +screen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding +his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but--as +Rosamund afterwards put it--“almost uplifted.” + +Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush’s shoulders the +robe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemed +as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and +dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean’s stall. But +discipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand +before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, +he evaporated with his brother vergers. + +Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet bright +triumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely less +excited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of her +rehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more than +satisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all. + +That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated to +close in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart. + +Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush was +entertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery “between the services.” + Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little in +awe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, +and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with the +Dean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to it +too; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and to +tell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the procession +and his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush received +their earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who felt +that they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all great +artists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion were +about to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the tea +and well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which did +him credit. + +“Madame!” He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice. + +“Now don’t trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?” + +Mr. Thrush looked down steadily at the “round” which glistened on his +plate. Something fell upon it. + +“Oh, Mr. Thrush----!” began Robin, and paused in dismay, looking up at +his mother. + +“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush again, still looking at the “round,” “I +haven’t felt as I do now since I stood behind my counter just off +Hanover Square, respected. Yes,” he said, and his old voice quavered +upwards, gaining in strength, “respected by all who knew me. _She_ +was with me then, and now she isn’t. But I feel--I feel--I’m respected +again.” + +Something else fell upon the toast. + +“And it’s all your doing, madam. I--all I can say is that I--all I can +say----” His voice failed. + +Rosamund put her hand on his shoulder. + +“There, Mr. Thrush, there! I know, I know just how it is.” + +“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush, with quavering emphasis, “one can depend upon +you, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, +even if it’s only the putting on his feet of--of--I never thought to be +a verger, never. I never could have looked up to such a thing but for +you. But Mr. Dean he said to me, ‘Mr. Thrush, when Mrs. Leith speaks up +for a man, even an archbishop has to listen.’” + +“Thank you, Mr. Thrush. Robin, give Mr. Thrush the brown sugar. He +always likes brown sugar in his tea.” + +“It’s more nourishing, madam,” said Mr. Thrush, with a sudden change +from emotion to quiet self-confidence. “It does more work for the +stomach. A chemist knows.” + +“Dear old man!” said Rosamund, when she and Dion were outside in the +passage. “To say all that before nurse--it was truly generous.” + +And she frankly wiped her eyes. A moment later she added: + +“I pray he doesn’t fall back into his little failing!” + +She looked at Dion interrogatively. He looked at her, understanding, he +believed, the inquiry in her eyes. Before he could say anything the kind +and careful voice of Mr. Darlington was heard below, asking: + +“Is Mrs. Dion Leith at home?” + +Mr. Darlington was delighted with Little Cloisters. He said it had a +“flavor which was quite unique,” and was so enthusiastic that Rosamund +became almost excited. Dion saw that she counted Mr. Darlington as an +ally. When Mr. Darlington’s praises sounded she could not refrain from +glancing at her husband, and when at length their guests got up to +go “with great reluctance,” she begged them to come and dine on the +following night. + +Mr. Darlington raised his ragged eyebrows and looked at Canon Wilton. + +“I’m by way of going back to town to-morrow afternoon,” he began +tentatively. + +“Stay another night and let us accept,” said Canon Wilton heartily. + +“But I’m dining with dear Lavinia Berkhamstead, one of my oldest +friends. It’s not a set dinner, but I should hardly like--” + +“For once!” pleaded Rosamund. + +Mr. Darlington wavered. He looked round the room and then at Rosamund +and Dion. + +“It’s most attractive here,” he murmured, “and Lady Berkhamstead lives +in the Cromwell Road, at the far end. I wonder--” + +“It’s settled!” Rosamund exclaimed. “Dinner at half-past seven. We keep +early hours here, and Dion goes shooting to-morrow with Robin and may +get sleepy towards ten o’clock.” + +After explanations about Robin, Mr. Darlington gracefully yielded. He +would wire to dear Lavinia Berkhamstead and explain matters. + +As he and Canon Wilton walked back to the Canon’s house he said; + +“What dear people those are!” + +“Yes, indeed,” said the Canon. + +“Happiness has brought out the very best in them both. Leith is a fine +young fellow, and she, of course, is unique, a piece of radiance, as her +beautiful mother was. It does one good to see such a happy household.” + +He gently glowed, and presently added: + +“You and I, dear Canon, have missed something.” + +After a moment the Canon’s strong voice came gravely out of the winter +darkness: + +“You think great happiness the noblest education?” + +Mr. Darlington began to pull his beard. + +“You mean, my dear Wilton----?” + +“Do you think the education of happiness is the education most likely to +bring out the greatest possibilities of the soul?” + +This was the sort of very definite question that Mr. Darlington +preferred to get away from if possible, and he was just preparing to +“hedge,” when, fortunately, they ran into the Dean, and the conversation +deviated to a discussion concerning the effect the pursuit of scientific +research was likely to have upon religious belief. + +After supper that evening--supper instead of dinner on Sundays was the +general rule in Welsley--Dion lit his pipe. It had been a very happy +day. He wished the happiness to last till sleep came to Rosamund and +to him; nevertheless he was resolved to take a risk, and to take it now +before they went to bed, while they still had two quiet hours before +them. He looked at Rosamund and reluctance surged up in him, but he beat +it back. Something told him that he had been allowed to come back from +South Africa in order that he might build firm foundations. The perfect +family life must be set upon rock. He meant to get through to the rock +if possible. Rosamund and he were beginning again. Now surely was the +day of salvation if he played the man, the man instead of merely the +lover. + +“This has been one of the happiest days of my life,” he said. + +He was standing by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing +some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored +ground in her capable hands. + +“I’m so thankful you like Welsley,” she said. + +“Won’t you hate leaving Welsley?” he asked. + +Rosamund went on quietly working for a moment. Perhaps she bent a little +lower over the embroidery. + +“I’ve made a great many friends here,” she said at length, “and----” + +She paused. + +“Yes--do tell me, Rose.” + +“There’s something here that I care for very much.” + +“Is it the atmosphere of religion? There’s a great deal here that +suggests the religious life.” + +“Yes; it’s what I care for.” + +“I was almost afraid of meeting you here when I came back, Rose. I +remembered what you had once told me, that you had had a great longing +to enter the religious life. I was half afraid that, living here all +alone with Robin, you might have become--I don’t know exactly how to +put it--become cloistral. I didn’t want to find you a sort of nun when I +came back.” + +He spoke with a gentle lightness. + +“It might have been so, mightn’t it?” + +She remembered her dreams in the walled-in garden almost guiltily. + +“No,” she said steadily--and as she spoke she felt as if she were firmly +putting those dreams behind her forever. “Motherhood changes a woman +more than men can ever know.” + +“I--I know it’s all right. Then you won’t hate me for taking you both +back to Little Market Street in a few days?” + +He saw the color deepen in her face. For an instant she went on working. +Then she put the work down, sat back in the low chair, and looked up at +him. + +“No, of course we must go back. And I was very happy in Little Market +Street.” + +And then quickly, before he could say anything, she began to recall +the pleasant details of their life in Westminster, dwelling upon every +household joy, and everything that though “Londony” had been delightful. +Having conquered, with an effort which had cost her more than even Dion +knew, a terrible reluctance she gave herself to her own generous impulse +with enthusiasm. Rosamund could not do things by halves. She might +obstinately refrain from treading a path, but if once she had set her +feet on it she hurried eagerly along it. Something to-night had made her +decide on treading the path of unselfishness, of generosity. When Dion +lit his pipe she had not known she was going to tread it. It seemed to +her almost as if she had found herself upon the path without knowing how +she had got there. Now without hesitation she went forward. + +“It was delightful in Westminster,” she concluded, “and it will be +delightful there again.” + +“And all your friends here? And Mr. Thrush?” + +“I don’t know what Mr. Thrush will do,” she said, with a change to deep +gravity. + +The two lines showed in her pure forehead. + +“I’m so afraid that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can run +down now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poor +dear old man.” + +“And your friends?” + +“Oh, well--of course I shall miss them. But I suppose there is always +something to miss. There must be a crumpled rose leaf. I am far more +fortunate than almost any woman I know.” + +Dion put down his pipe. + +“I simply can’t do it,” he said. + +“What?” + +“Take you away from here. It seems your right place. You love it; Robin +loves it. What’s to be done? Shall I run up and down?” + +“You can’t. It’s too far.” + +“I have to read the papers somewhere. Why not in the train?” + +“Three hours or more! It’s impossible. If only Welsley were nearer +London! But, then, it wouldn’t be Welsley.” + +“Now I know you’ll go I can’t take you away.” + +“Did you--what did you think I should do?” + +“How could I tell?” + +He sat down and took her hands. + +“Rose, you’ve made this the happiest day of my life.” + +“Do you mean because----?” + +She stopped. Her face became very grave, almost severe. She looked at +him, but he felt that she was really looking inward upon herself. When +at last he let go her hands she said: + +“Dion, you are very different from what you were when you went to the +war. If I seem different, too, it’s because of that, I think.” + +“War changes women, perhaps, as well as men,” he said tenderly. + +They sat by the fire in the quiet old room and talked of the future +and of all the stages of Robin: as schoolboy, as youth, as budding +undergraduate, as man. + +“Perhaps he’ll be a soldier-man as his father has been,” said Rosamund. + +“Do you wish it?” + +She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she said: + +“Yes, if it helps him as I think it has helped you. I expect when men go +to fight for their country they go, perhaps without knowing it, to fight +just for themselves.” + +“I believe everything we do for others, without any thought of +ourselves, we do for ourselves,” he said, very seriously. + +“Altruism! But then I ought to live in London for you, and you in +Welsley for me.” + +They both laughed. Nothing had been absolutely decided; and yet it +seemed as if through that laughter a decision had been reached about +everything really important. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A dogcart from Harrington’s had been ordered to be “round” the next +day at noon. Dion had decided against a long day’s shooting on Robin’s +account. He must not tire the little chap. In truth it would be +impossible to take the shooting seriously, with Robin there all the +time, clinging on to Jane and having to be looked after. + +“It’s going to be Robin’s day,” Dion said the next morning. “When are +you going to tell him?” + +“Directly after breakfast. By the way, Dion,”--she spoke carelessly, and +was opening a letter while she spoke,--“I’m not coming.” + +“Oh, but you must!” + +“No; I’ll stay quietly here. I have lots of things to do.” + +“But Robin’s first day as a sportsman!” + +“He isn’t going to shoot,” she said with a mother’s smile. + +“Why won’t you come? You’ve got some very special reason.” + +“Perhaps I have, but I’m not going to tell it. Women aren’t wanted +everywhere. Sometimes a couple of men like to be alone.” + +“Robin’s a man now?” + +“Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven’t dared +to try them on yet. And I’ve got him the dearest little whip you ever +saw.” + +“Jane will have to look to her paces. I’m sorry you’re not coming, +Rose.” + +But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a very +sweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself for +many months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now, +perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for the +education which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness--Dion +believed it was that--touched him to the heart. But it made him long to +do something, many things, for her. + +“I’m determined that you and Welsley shan’t part from each other +forever,” he said. “We’ll hit on some compromise. This house is on our +hands, anyhow, till the spring.” + +“Perhaps we could sublet it,” said Rosamund, trying to speak with brisk +cheerfulness. + +“We’ll talk it over again to-night.” + +“And now for Robin’s gaiters!” + +They fitted perfectly; “miraculously” was Rosamund’s word for the way +they fitted. + +“His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear,” was nurse’s +admirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced. + +Robin looked at his legs with deep solemnity. When the great project +for this day of days had been broken to him he had fallen upon awe. His +prattling ardors had subsided, stilled by a greater joy than any that +had called them forth in his complex past of a child. Now he gazed at +his legs, which were stretched out at right angles to his body on a +nursery chair, as if they were not his. Then he looked up at his mother, +his father, nurse; then once more down at his legs. His eyes were +inquiring. They seemed to say, “Can it be?” + +“Bless him! He can’t hardly believe in it!” muttered nurse. “And no +wonder.” + +A small sigh came from Robin. To his father and mother it came like the +whisper of happiness, that good fairy which men cannot quite get rid +of, try as they may. Two small hands went down to the little gaiters +and felt them carefully. Then Robin looked up again, this time at his +father, and smiled. Instinctively he connected his father with these +wonderful appurtenances, although his mother had bought them and put +them on him. With that smile he gave the day to his father, and Dion +took it with just a glance at Rosamund--a glance which deprecated and +which accepted. + +When the dogcart was announced by Annie, with beaming eyes, Dion got +his gun, Robin received his whip,--a miniature hunting-crop with a horn +handle,--his cap was pulled down firmly on his head by Rosamund, and +they set forth to the Green Court. Here they found Harrington’s most +fiery horse harnessed to quite a sporting dogcart and doing his very +best to champ his bit. From the ground Robin looked up at him with +solemn eyes. The occasion was almost too great. His father with a gun, +his own legs in gaiters, the whip which he felt in his hand, the packet +of sandwiches thrust tenderly by nurse into the pocket of his little +covert coat, and now this glorious animal and this high and unusual +carriage gleaming with light-colored wood between its immense wheels! +There was almost too much of meaning, too much of suggestion in it all. +No words came to him. He could only feel and gaze. + +A stableman with hard lips stood sentinel in front of the fiery horse, +and put up a red forefinger on the right side of his temple to give them +greeting. + +“I’ll get in first,” said Dion to Rosamund, “and then you can hand me up +Robin.” + +He put in his gun and took the reins, while Robin instinctively extended +his arms so that his mother could take hold of him under them. + +“Up we go!” cried Dion. + +And he mounted lightly to the high seat. + +“Now, Robin!” + +Rosamund took hold of Robin, whose short arms were still solemnly +outstretched. She was about to lift him into the cart, but, overcome by +an irresistible impulse, she paused, put one arm under the little legs +in the gaiters, drew him to her and pressed her lips on the freckled +bridge of his tiny nose. + +“You darling!” she whispered, so that only he could hear. “I love you in +your gaiters better than I ever loved you before.” Then she handed him +up to his father as if he were a dear little parcel. + +“That’s it,” said Dion. “Put your arm round here, boy. Hold on tight! +Let him go!” + +The hard-lipped man stood to one side and the horse--well, moved. Robin +gazed down at his mother with the faint hint of an almost shy smile, +Dion saluted her with his whip, and the glorious day was fairly begun. +Traveling with a sort of rakish deliberation the dogcart skirted the +velvet lawn of the Green Court and disappeared from sight beneath the +ancient archway. + +Rosamund sighed as she turned to walk back to Little Cloisters. She +had made a real sacrifice that day in giving up Robin to his father and +staying at home. Secretly she had longed to go with her “men-folk” upon +the great expedition, to be present at Robin’s initiation into the Doric +life. But something very dear in Dion had prompted her to be unselfish. +Dion was certainly much more impressive to her since his return from +the war. Even the dear things in him meant more. There seemed to be more +muscle in them than there had been when he went away. + +“Even our virtues can be weak or strong, I suppose,” Rosamund thought, +as she turned into the walled garden which she loved so much, and there +followed the thought: + +“I wonder which mine are.” + +She meant to spend that day in saying good-by to Welsley. Dion had said +they would talk things over again that night; probably he would be ready +to fall in with any desire of hers, but she felt almost sure that she +would not tell him how much she wished to stay on at Little Cloisters. + +An obscure feeling had come to her that perhaps it was not quite safe +for her to remain any longer here in the arms of the Precincts. Looking +backward to that which has been deliberately renounced is surely an act +of weakness. + +Even the imaginative effort to live a life that has been put aside is a +feeble concession to an inclination at least partially morbid. Rosamund +was in fact a mother, and yet here in Welsley, she had, as it were, +sometimes played at being one of those “Sisters” who are content to +be brides of heaven and mothers of the poor. For her own sake it was +doubtless best to renounce Welsley at once. The new meaning of Dion +would help her to do that bravely. He had often been unselfish for her; +she would try to counter his unselfishness with hers. + +When she was in the house again she had a colloquy with the cook +about the dinner for that evening. As Esme Darlington had given up an +engagement in London to come to Little Cloisters, her dinner must +be something special. She told the cook so in her cordial, almost +confidential, way, and they “put their heads together” and devised a +menu full of attractions. That done she had the day to herself. Dion +and Robin would come home some time in the afternoon, and they were all +going to have tea together up in the nursery. It might be at half-past +four, it might be at half-past five. Till then she was free. + +For a moment she thought of going to see some of her friends, of telling +Mrs. Dickinson and other adherents of hers that her days in Welsley were +numbered. But a reluctance seized her. She felt a desire to be alone. +What if instead of saying good-by to Welsley, she said good-by to her +dreams in Welsley? She summoned Annie and told her not to let any one +in. + +“I’m going to spend a quiet day, Annie,” she said. + +“Yes, ma’am,” said Annie, with an air of intelligent comprehension. + +“Though what else any one ever does in old Welsley I’m sure I couldn’t +say,” she afterwards remarked to the cook. + +“You’re a cockney at ‘eart, Annie,” repeated that functionary. “The +country says nothing to you. You want the parks, that’s what you want.” + +“Well, I was brought up in ‘em, as you may say,” said Annie, whose +father had been a park-keeper, and whose mother and grandmother were +natives of Westbourne Grove. + +By a quiet day Rosamund meant a day lived through in absolute solitude, +a day of meditation in the cloistered garden. She would not have any +lunch. Then she would have a better appetite for the nursery tea at +which Robin would relate to her all the doings of the greatest day of +his life. Precious, precious Robin! + +She went down into the garden. + +It was a mistily bright day of November. The sun shone through a +delicate veil. The air was cold but not sharp. Neither autumn nor winter +ruled. It seemed like a day which had slipped into an interstice between +two seasons, a day that was somehow rare and exceptional, holding a +faint stillness that was strange. There was in it something of the far +away. If a fairy day can be cold, it was like a fairy day. On such a day +one treads lightly and softly and at moments feels almost as if out of +the body. + +Lightly and softly Rosamund went to and fro between the high and mossy +walls of the garden, keeping to the straight paths. When the bells +chimed in the tower of the Cathedral they sounded much farther away +than usual; the song of the thrush somewhere in the elder bush near the +garden door was curiously remote; the caw-caw of the rooks dropped +down as if from an immeasurable distance. Through the mist the sunshine +filtered, lightly pale and pure, a sensitive sunshine which would surely +not stay very long in Rosamund’s garden. + +A sort of thin stillness had fallen upon the world. + +And so another chapter of life was closing, the happy chapter of +Welsley! + +Something of sadness accompanied Rosamund along the straight paths, the +delicate melancholy which attends the farewells of one who has regret +but who has hope. + +With the new Dion and with the old Robin, the Robin blessedly unchanged, +she could not be really unhappy. Yet it was sad to give up the dear +garden and all the dreams which belonged to it. Far down in her--she +knew it--there was certainly a recluse. She could see the black figure, +the sheltered face, the eyes looking down, the praying hands. It would +have been very natural to her long ago to seek God in the way of the +recluse. But not now! + +Hermes and the child came before her. In the stillness of Welsley it was +as if she heard the green stillness of Elis. She was quite alone in that +inner room where stood the messenger with the wings on his sandals. Dion +had stayed outside. He had been unselfish that day as to-day she had +been unselfish. For she had wanted to go with the little gaiters. She +could see the smiling look of eternity upon the face of the messenger. +He had no fear for the child. He had mounted on winged feet to the +region where no fear is. How his benign and eternal calm had sunk into +Rosamund’s soul that day in Elis. Far off she had seen through the frame +of the Museum doorway a bit of the valley in which the Hermes had dwelt, +and stretching across it a branch of wild olive. She had looked at it +and had thought of the victor’s Crown, a crown which had even been won +by a boy at the games. + +Already then a fore-knowledge of Robin had been in her. + +She had gazed at the branch and loved it. Certainly she had been +dreaming, as she had afterwards told Dion, and in her dream had been +Hermes and the child, and surely another child for whose future the +messenger would not fear. The branch of wild olive had, perhaps, entered +into the dream. Into a crown she had wound it to set upon the little +fair head. And that was why she had suffered, had really suffered, when +a cruel hand had come into Elis and had torn down the wild olive branch. +Dion’s hand! + +That action had been like a murder. She remembered even now her feeling +of anger and distress. She had been startled. She had been ruthlessly +torn away from the exquisite calm in which, with the Hermes, she had +been celestially dreaming. Dion had torn her away, Dion who loved her so +much. + +Why had he done it? Even now she did not know. + +He had taken her out of that dream, and now he was going to take her +away from Welsley. + +The misty brightness was already fading from the garden; the song of the +thrush was no longer audible: he had flown away from the elder bush +and from Rosamund. The coldness and silence of the day seemed to deepen +about her. Welsley was fading out of her life. She felt that. She was +going to begin again. But as she had carried Elis with her when she +left it, and the dear tombs and temples of Greece, when she had bidden +good-by to the bare and beautiful land whose winds and whose waters are +not as the winds and the waters of any other region, so she would carry +away with her Welsley, this garden with its seclusion, its old religious +atmosphere, the music of the chimes, even the thrush’s song from the +elder bush. “Farewell!” She must say that. But she had her precious +possession. Another page of the book of life would be turned. That was +all. + +That was all? She sighed. A painful sense of the impermanence of the +things of this world came suddenly upon her. Like running water life +was slipping by; its joys, the shining bubbles poised upon the surface, +drifted into the distance and--how quickly!--were out of reach. + +Perhaps the great attraction, the lure of the religious life, was the +sense felt by those who led it of having a close grip upon that which +was permanent. The joys of the world--even the natural, healthy, allowed +joys--were shut out, but there was the great compensation, companionship +with that to which no “farewell” would ever have to be said, with that +to which death only brought the human being nearer. + +Rosamund stopped in her walk, and looked up at the great Cathedral which +towered above the wall of the garden. She had been pacing to and fro +for a long time. She did not feel tired, but she was beset by an +unaccustomed sensation of weariness, mental and spiritual rather than +physical. + +After a minute she went into the house, found a rug and a book, came +back into the garden, and sat down on a bench in a corner hidden from +observation. This bench was close to the wall which divided the garden +from the “Dark Entry.” It was separated from the lawn and the view of +the house by a belt of shrubs. Rosamund was fond of this nook and had +very often sat in it, sometimes alone, sometimes with Robin. She had +told the maids never to look for her there; if any visitor came and +she was not seen in that part of the garden which was commanded by the +windows of the house, they were to conclude that she was “out.” Here, +then, she was quite safe, and could turn the last page of the chapter of +Welsley in her book of life. + +She wrapped herself up in the big and heavy rug. The sun was gone, the +mist had become slightly more dense, the air was colder. + +Presently Dion and Robin would come back; there would be tea in the warm +old-fashioned nursery, gay talk, the telling of wonderful deeds. + +If only Robin did not fall off Jane! But Dion would take care of that. +Dion certainly loved Robin very much. The bond between father and son +had evidently been strengthened by the intervention of the war, which +had broken off their intercourse for a time, and given Robin a father +changed by contact with hard realities. + +For a few minutes in imagination Rosamund followed the two figures over +the stubble, the thin strong walking figure, and the little darling +figure on pony back. Would Robin quite forget her in the midst of his +proud and triumphant joy? She wondered. Even if he did, she would not +really mind. She wanted him to be very happy indeed without her--just +for a short time: that he could not be happy without her for long she +knew very well. + +Oddly, her sensation of weariness persisted. She recognized it now +as wholly unphysical. She was certainly feeling what people call +“depressed.” No doubt this unusual depression--for she had been born +with a singularly cheerful spirit--was caused by the resolution she had +taken to give up Welsley. Perhaps Welsley meant more to her even than +she had supposed. But it was absurd--wasn’t it?--to be so dominated by +places. People, certain people, might mean everything in the life of a +woman; many women lived, really lived, only in and through their lovers, +their husbands, their children; but what woman lived in and through the +life of the place? She had only to compare mentally the loss of Welsley +with--say--the loss of Dion, the new Dion, to realize how little Welsley +really meant to her. Certainly she loved it as a place, but probably a +woman can only love a place with a bit of her. + +And yet to-day, she certainly felt depressed. Even the thought of the +nursery tea did not drive the depression from her. + +She opened the book she had brought from the house. It was a volume +of Browning’s poems. She had opened it at hap-hazard, and now her eyes +rested on these words, words loved almost above all others by one of the +greatest souls that ever spent itself for England: + + “I go to prove my soul! + I see my way as birds their trackless way + I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first + I ask not; but unless God send His Hail + Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow, + In some time, His good time!--I shall arrive: + He guides me and the bird. In His good time!” + +She read the lines three--four times. Then she laid the book down on her +knees and sat very still. Consciously she tried to withdraw herself, to +pass into meditation carrying the poem with her. + + “I see my way as birds their trackless way--I shall arrive!” + +Rosmund was gazing downward at a coping of worn brick on which she +had set her feet, but she did not see it now. She saw migratory birds +traveling steadily through a vast expanse of gray sky; birds that were +going, at the appointed time, to some far-distant place, in search of +a golden climate, in search of the sun. Inevitably they would come +into the golden climate, inevitably they would find the sun which they +needed. Like them she was traveling through a vast gray expanse, the +life of the world. Robin and Dion were with her. They were seeking the +sun which they needed. Surely, like the birds, they would find the sun +at last. She had thought to seek her way deliberately. When she was +quite a girl it had seemed to her that the human being had the power, +and was therefore almost under the obligation, to find the way to God +for herself. When she had contemplated entering the religious life the +thought at the back of her mind had perhaps been something like this: +“I’ll conquer the love and the mercy of God by my own exertions; I’ll +find the way to God by my own ingenuity and determination in searching +it out.” Possibly she had never quite simply and humbly said in her +soul, with Newman, “Be Thou my Guide.” Now, as she sat in the garden, +with the image of the migratory birds in her mind, she thought, “The +birds do that. They give themselves to the sky, and God does the rest. +He knows the way by which each human soul can best go back to that from +which once it issued forth.” Perhaps as a Sister, leading the hidden +secluded life, she could not have found the way; perhaps she had to +find it in the world, through Dion with whom she had united herself, or +through Robin to whom she had given birth. + +Through Robin! Yes, surely that was her way to God. “A little child +shall lead them.” The words started up in her mind without their +context, and she realized that, though people believe it is the mother +who teaches the child, nevertheless the mother learns the greatest +truths from the child. Who living on the earth could keep her from sin +as surely as her Robin? How could she be evil when Robin looked to her +as the embodiment of goodness. What would she not do, what would she not +give up, to increase Robin’s love for her, to give him more reason for +regarding her with innocent confidence and simple reverence? + +Yes, Robin was surely her way to God. + +And now, withdrawn into the very depths of meditation, and hearing +no longer the distant voices of the rooks as they wheeled about the +elm-tops near Canon Wilton’s house, she went onwards down the way chosen +for her by God, the “Robin-way.” + +Now Robin was a young child, and naturally looked up to her as a kind of +Providence. Presently he would be a lad; inevitably he would reach the +age when the growing mind becomes critical. Young animals gnaw hard +things to test the strength of their teeth; so do young growing minds +gnaw the bones that come in their way. Even the mother comes in for much +secret criticism from the son who loves her. Rosamund’s time for being +criticized by Robin would come in the course of the years. She must try +to get ready against that time; she must try to be worthy of Robin’s +love when he was able to be critical. And so onwards down the way across +the gray expanse, guided, like the birds! + +Rosamund saw herself now as the mother of a tall son, hardened a +little by public-school life, a cricketer, a rower, a swimmer; perhaps +intellectual too, the winner of a scholarship. There were so many hearts +and minds that the mother of a son must learn to keep, to companion, to +influence, to go forward with: the heart and the mind of the child, the +schoolboy, the undergraduate, the young man out in the world taking up +his life-task--a soldier perhaps, or a man of learning, a pioneer, a +carver of new ways for the crowd following behind. + +It was a tremendous thing to be a mother; it was a difficult way to God. +But it was the most beautiful way of all the ways, and Rosamund was +very thankful that she had been guided to take it. Robin, she knew, had +taught her already very much, but how little compared with all that he +was destined to teach her in the future! Even when her hair was white +no doubt she would still be learning from him, would still be trying to +lift herself a little higher lest he should ever have to look downward +to see her. + +For a long time she meditated on these things, for a very long while. +The sun never came back to the garden as she dreamed of the sun which +the birds were seeking, of the sun which she and Dion and Robin were +seeking; the afternoon hours passed on in a gray procession; the chimes +sounded many times, but she did not hear them. She had forgotten Welsley +in remembering how small a part Welsley must play in her mother-life, in +remembering how very small were the birds in the immense expanse of the +sky. + +In Meditation she had entered into Vastness. + +The sound of the organ in the Cathedral recalled her. It was four +o’clock. The afternoon service was just beginning. She sat still and +listened. It was growing dark now, but she had no wish to move. Probably +in half an hour Robin and Dion would come back from the shooting. From +to-day she would think of Robin in a different way. He would be even +dearer to her, even more sacred, her little teacher. What did it matter +where she lived if her little teacher was with her. The sting had +gone out of her unselfishness; she was glad she had been able to be +unselfish, to put Dion before herself. + +The organ ceased. They were praying now in the Cathedral. Presently she +heard them singing the psalms faintly. The voices of the boys came to +her with a sort of vague sweetness through the gathering darkness and +the mist. They died away; the Magnificat followed, then silence, then +the Nunc Dimittis, then another silence, presently the anthem. Finally +she heard the organ alone in a Fugue of Bach. + +The quarter to five chimed in the tower. Dion and Robin were a little +late. + +She got up, and carried the rug into the house. + +“Annie!” she called. + +Annie came. + +“When Mr. Leith and Robin come back,--they’ll be here directly,--will +you ask them to give me a call? I shall be in the garden.” + +“Very well, ma’am.” + +Again Rosamund paced up and down the paths. Now she was very conscious +of herself and of her surroundings. The long night of early winter was +falling upon Welsley. Five o’clock struck, a quarter-past five, then the +half-hour. She stood still on the path, beginning to wonder. How late +they were! Robin would surely be very tired. It would be too much for +him. Directly he had had his tea he must be put to bed. Or perhaps it +would be best to put him to bed at once. He would be disappointed, but +they could easily have tea in the night nursery. She smiled, conjuring +up a picture of Robin under the bedclothes being fed pieces of cake. He +would enjoy that. And she would hold his cup for him while he drank, so +that the bed might be safe. Meals in bed are often dangerous to the bed. +How delightful were all the little absurd things she did for Robin! + +When the chimes told her that it was a quarter to six she began to feel +puzzled, and just the least little bit anxious. It had been quite dark +for a little while now. Job Crickendon’s farm was only about four +miles from Welsley. Harrington’s horse might not be an exceptionally +fast-goer, but surely he could cover six miles in an hour. Dion and +Robin could get back in forty minutes at the most. They must have stayed +on at Job Crickendon’s till past five o’clock. Could they have had tea +there? No, she was sure they would not have done that, when they knew +she was waiting for them, was looking forward eagerly to tea in the +nursery. + +When six o’clock struck and they had not returned she felt really +uneasy, although she was not at all a nervous mother, and seldom, or +never, worried about her little son. She could not doubt any longer that +something unexpected had occurred. They were dining at half-past seven +that night. In an hour’s time at the latest she and Dion would have to +dress. The hopes she had set on the family tea were vanishing. In her +uneasiness she began to feel almost absurdly disappointed about the tea. +She was hungry, too; she had had no lunch just because of the tea. It +was to be a sort of family revel, and she had wished to enjoy it in +every way, to make of it a real meal. Her abstention from lunch now +seemed to her almost pitiful. Disappointment became acute in her. Yet +even now her uneasiness, though definite, was not strong. If it had been +she would not have been able to feel so disappointed, even so sorry for +herself. She had given up the day to Dion. The nursery tea was to have +been her little reward. Now she would be deprived of it. For a moment +she felt hurt, almost the least bit angry. + +As the words formed themselves in her mind she heard the quarter-past +six chime out in the tower. She stood still on the path. What had +happened? Perhaps Robin had fallen off Jane and hurt himself, or perhaps +there had been an accident when they were driving home. Harrington’s +horse was probably a crock. He might have fallen down. The dogcart was a +high one---- + +She pulled herself up. She had always secretly rather despised the +typical “anxious mother,” had always thought that the love which shows +itself in perpetual fear was a silly, poor sort of affection. Even when +Robin, as a baby, had once been seriously ill, at the time of the Clarke +divorce case, she had been calm, had shown complete self-control. She +had even surprised people by her fearlessness and quiet determination. + +They did not know how she had prayed, and almost agonized in secret. She +had drawn the calm at which they had wondered from prayer. She had asked +God to let Robin get well, and she had felt that her prayer had been +heard, and that God would grant her the life of her child. + +Perhaps she had exaggerated to herself the danger he was in. But he was +ill--for a short time he was very ill, and a baby’s hold on life is but +frail. + +Now she remembered her self-control during Robin’s illness, and +resolutely she banished her anxiety. There was no doubt some perfectly +simple explanation which presently would account to her for their not +coming at the tea hour. + +“Ma’am!” cried a respectable voice. “Ma-a-am!” + +“What is it, Nurse. They haven’t come back?” + +Nurse was coming down the path gingerly, with a shawl over her cap. + +“No, ma’am. Whatever can have happened? _Something’s_ a-happened, that’s +certain.” + +“Nonsense, Nurse!” + +“But whatever should keep them out till late into the night, ma’am?” + +“It’s only a little after six. It isn’t night at all.” + +“But the tea, ma’am! And Master Robin’s so regular in his habits. He’ll +be fair famished, ma’am, that he will. I----Well, ma’am, if I may say +it, I really don’t hold with all this shooting, and sport, and what not +for such young children.” + +“It’s only just for once, Nurse. Go in now. You’ll catch cold.” + +“But yourself, ma’am?” + +“I’m quite warm. I’d rather stay out.” + +Nurse stared anxiously for a moment, then turned away and went gingerly +back to the house. Her white shawl faded against the background of +darkness. With its fading Rosamund entered into--not exactly darkness, +but into deep shadows. She supposed that nurse’s fear had communicated +itself to her; she had caught the infection of fear from nurse. But when +was nurse not afraid? She was an excellent woman and absolutely devoted +to Robin, but she was not a Spartan. She leaped at sight of a mouse, and +imagined diseases to be for ever floating Robinwards on all the breezes. +Rosamund had strictly forbidden her ever to talk nonsense about illness +to Robin, and she had obeyed. But that was her one fault; she had a +timorous nature. + +Rosamund wished nurse had not come out into the garden to infect her +with foolish fear. + +Nurse’s invitation to her to come into the house had made her suddenly +know that to be shut in would be intolerable to her. Why was that? She +now knew that lately, while she had been walking in the garden, she had +been straining her ears to hear the sound of wheels in the Green Court. +She knew she would be able to hear them in the garden. In the house +that would be impossible. Therefore she could not go into the house till +Robin came back. + +All her fear was for Robin. He was so young, so tiny. Perhaps she ought +not to have allowed him to go. Perhaps nurse was right, and such an +expedition ought to have been ruled out as soon as it was suggested. +Perhaps Dion and she had been altogether too Doric. She began to think +so. But then she thought: “Robin’s with his father. What harm could come +to him with his father, and such a competent father too?” That thought +of Dion’s strength, coolness, competency reassured her; she dwelt on it. +Of course with Dion Robin must be all right. + +Presently, leaving the path in front of the house, she went again to the +seat hidden away behind the shrubs against the wall which separated the +garden from the Dark Entry. This dark entry was an arched corridor of +stone which led directly from the Green Court to the passage-way on +which the main door of the garden opened. It was paved with worn slabs +of stone upon which the feet of any one passing rang with a mournful and +hollow sound. A tiny path skirted the garden wall, running between the +hidden seat and the small belt of shrubs which shut out a view of the +house. Just before she turned into this path Rosamund looked back at the +old house, and saw a lamp gleaming in the lattice window of the nursery. +She did not sit down on the seat. She had thought to do that and to +listen. But the mist had made the wood very wet, and she had left the +rug in the house. If she walked softly up and down the little path she +would be sure to hear the hoofs of Harrington’s horse, the wheels of the +dogcart directly the wanderers drove into the Green Court. There they +would get down, and would walk home through the Dark Entry. She intended +to call out to them when she heard their footsteps ringing on the old +stones. That would surprise them. She tried to enjoy the thought of +their surprise when they heard her voice coming out of the darkness. How +Robin would jump at the sound of mummy! + +She stood just in front of the seat for two or three minutes, listening +intently in the misty darkness. She heard nothing except for a moment a +rustling which sounded like a bird moving in ivy. Then she began to walk +softly up and down passing and repassing the seat. When she came up to +the seat for the fourth time in her walk, an ugly memory--she knew not +why--rose in her mind like a weed in a pool; it was the memory of a +story which she had long ago read and disliked. She had read it, she +remembered, in a railway train on a long journey. She had had a book, +something interesting and beautiful, with her, but she had finished +it. A passenger, who had got out of the carriage, had left behind him a +paper-covered volume of short stories. She had taken it up and had read +the first story, which now, after an interval of years, recurred to her +mind. + +There was in the story a very commonplace business man, middle-aged, +quite unromantic and heavy, the sort of man who does not know what +“nerves” means, who thinks suggestion “damned nonsense,” and psychical +research, occultism, and so forth, absurdities fit only to take up the +time of “a pack of silly women.” This worthy person lived in the suburbs +of London in a semi-detached villa with a long piece of garden at the +back. On the other side of the fairly high garden wall was the garden of +his next-door neighbor, another business man of the usual suburban +type. Both men were busy gardeners in their spare time. Number one had +conceived the happy idea of putting up a tea-house in the angle of +the wall at the bottom of his lawn. Number two, having heard of this +achievement, and not wishing to be outdone, put up a very similar +tea-house in the corresponding angle on his side of the wall. The +two tea-houses stood therefore back to back with nothing but the wall +between them. Now, one warm summer evening Mr. Jenkins-Smith--Rosamund +could remember his name, though she had not thought of him for +years--had been busy watering his flowers and mowing his lawn. He had +worked really hard, and when the evening began to close in he thought +he would go into the tea-house and have a rest. On each side of the +curly-legged tea-table of unpolished wood stood a wicker arm-chair. Into +one of these chairs Mr. Jenkins-Smith sank with a sigh of content. Then +he lighted his pipe, stretched out his short legs, and, gazing at +his beautifully trimmed garden, prepared to enjoy a delicious hour of +well-earned repose. Things were going well with him; money was easy; his +health was good; when he sat down in the wicker chair and put his pipe +into his mouth he was, perhaps, as happy a man as you could find in all +Surbiton. + +But presently, in fact very soon, he became conscious of a disagreeable +feeling. A curious depression began to come upon him. He smoked +steadily, he gazed out at his garden green with turf and gay with +flowers, but his interest and pleasure in it were gone from him. He +wondered why. Presently he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. +What he was looking for he did not know; simply he felt obliged to do +what he did. He saw, of course, nothing but the curved wooden back of +the tea-house. He listened, he strained his ears, but he heard nothing +except the faint “ting-ting” of a tram-bell, and voices of some children +playing in a distant garden. His pipe had gone out. As he lit a match +and held it to his pipe bowl he saw that his hand was shaking. Whatever +had come to him? He was no drinker; he had always been a temperate man, +proud of his clear eyes and steady limbs, yet now he was shaking like a +drunkard. Perspiration burst out upon his forehead. He was seized by an +intense desire to get away from the tea-house, to get out into the open, +and he half rose from his chair, holding on to the arms and dropping +his pipe on the wooden floor. The tiny noise it made set his nerves in +a turmoil. He was afraid. But of what? He took his hands from the chair +and sat back, angry with himself, almost ashamed. That he should feel +afraid, here in his own garden, in his own cozy tea-house! It was +absurd, monstrous; it was like a sort of madness come upon him. But he +was determined not to give way to such nonsense. Just because he was +longing to go out of the tea-house he would remain in it. Let the +darkness come; he did not mind it; he was going to smoke his pipe. + +Again he stared over his shoulder, and the sweat ran down his face. Had +not he heard something in the tea-house of his neighbor on the other +side of the wall? It seemed to him that he had rather felt a sound than +actually heard it. Nausea came upon him. He got up trembling. But still +he was ashamed of himself, and he would not go out of the tea-house. +Instead he went behind the table, stood close to the wooden wall, put +his ear to it and listened intently. He heard nothing; but when he was +standing against the wall his horror and fear increased until he could +no longer combat them. He turned sharply, knocked over a chair, and +hurried out into the garden. There for a moment he stood still. Under +the sky he felt better, but not himself; he did not feel himself at +all. After a pause for consideration he put on his jacket,--he had been +gardening in his shirt-sleeves,--went into his house, out into the road, +and then up to the door of his neighbor. There he rang the bell and +knocked. A maid came. “Is your master in?” he asked. “Yes, sir, he’s +sitting in the summer-house at the end of the garden.” “How long’s he +been there?” “About half an hour, sir, as near as I can reckon.” “Could +I see him?” “Certainly, sir.” “Perhaps you’d--perhaps you’d show me to +the summer-house.” “Yes, sir.” + +Mr. Jenkins-Smith and the maid went to the end of the garden, and there, +in the summer-house, they found the corpse of a suicide hanging from a +beam in the roof. + +This was the ugly story which had come into Rosamund’s mind as she +stood by the seat close to the garden wall. On the other side of Mr. +Jenkins-Smith’s wall had been the summer-house of his neighbor; on the +other side of her wall there was the Dark Entry. She stood considering +this fact and thinking of the man’s terror in his garden. He had been +subject surely to an emanation. A mysterious message had been sent to +him by the corpse which dangled from the beam on the other side of the +wall. + +She went nearer to the wall of the garden and listened attentively. Had +she not heard a sound in the Dark Entry? It seemed to her that some one +had come into the stone corridor while she had been walking up and +down on the path, and was now standing there motionless. But how very +unlikely it was that any one would do such a thing! It must be quite +black there now, and very cold on the stone pavement, between the stone +walls, under the roof of stone. Of course no one was there. + +Nevertheless she went on listening with a sort of painful attention. And +distress came upon her. It began in a sort of physical malaise out of +which a mental dread, such as she had never yet experienced, was born. +She felt now quite certain that some one was standing still in the Dark +Entry, very close to her, but separated from her by two walls of brick +and stone; and something of this unseen person, of his attention, or +his anger, or his terror, or his criminal intent, in any case something +tremendously powerful, pierced the walls and came upon her and enveloped +her. She opened her lips, not knowing what she was going to say, and +from them came the cry: + +“Dion!” + +Silence followed her cry. + +“Dion! Dion!” she called again. + +Immediately after the third cry she heard a slow step on the stones +of the Dark Entry, passing close to her but muffled by the intervening +walls. It went on very slowly indeed; it was a dragging footfall; the +sound of it presently died away. + +Then she sat down on the bench close to the wall. She still felt +distressed, even afraid. Whoever it was--that loiterer in the Dark +Entry--he had left the corridor by the archway near Little Cloisters; he +had not gone into the Green Court. + +She sat waiting in the darkness. + +* * * * * + +That afternoon, while Rosamund was in the garden, Mr. Esme Darlington +was paying a little visit to his old friend and crony, the Dean of +Welsley. He had known the Dean--well, almost ever since he could +remember, and the Dean’s wife ever since she had married the Dean. His +delay in returning to town, caused by Rosamund’s attractive invitation, +enabled him to spend an hour at the Deanery, where he had tea in the +great drawing-room on the first floor, which looked out on the Green +Court. So pleasant were the Dean and his wife, so serenely flowed the +conversation, that the hour lengthened out into two hours, and the +Cathedral chimes announced that it was a quarter to seven before Mr. +Darlington uncrumpled his length to go. Even then Mrs. Dean begged him +to stay on a little longer. + +“It’s such a treat to hear all the interesting gossip of London,” she +said, almost wistfully. “When Dickie”--Dickie was the Dean,--“when +Dickie was at St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, we knew everything that was +going on, but here in Welsley--well, I often feel rather rusty.” + +Mr. Darlington paid the appropriate compliment, not in a banal way, +and then mentioned that at half-past seven he was dining in Little +Cloisters. + +“That delightful creature Mrs. Dion Leith!” exclaimed Mrs. Dean. +“Dickie’s hopelessly in her toils.” + +“My dear!” began the Dean, in pleased protestation. + +But she interrupted him. + +“I assure you,” she went on to Mr. Darlington, “he is always making +excuses to see her. She has even influenced him to appoint a new verger, +a most extraordinary old person, called Thrush, with a nose!” + +Mr. Darlington cocked an interrogative eyebrow. + +“My darling!” said the Dean. “He’s a good old man, very deserving, and +has recently taken the pledge.” + +“He’s a modified teetotaler!” said his wife to Mr. Darlington, patting +her husband’s arm. “You see what Dickie’s coming to. If it goes on he +will soon be a modified Dean.” + +It was past seven when they finished talking about Rosamund and Dion, +when Mr. Darlington at length tore himself delicately away from their +delightful company, and, warmly wrapped in an overcoat lined with +unostentatious sable, set out on the short walk to Canon Wilton’s house. +To reach the Canon’s house he had to pass through the Dark Entry and +skirt the garden wall of Little Cloisters. + +Now, as he came out of the Dark Entry and stepped into the passage-way, +which led by the wall and the old house into the great open space of +green lawns and elm trees round which the dwellings of the canons showed +their lighted windows to the darkness of the November evening, he was +stopped by a terrible sound. It came to him from the garden of Little +Cloisters. It was short, sharp and piercing, so piercing that for an +instant he felt as if literally it had torn the flesh of his body. He +had never before heard any sound at all like it; but, when he was able +to think, he thought, he felt almost certain, that it had come from +an animal. He shuddered. Always temperamentally averse from any fierce +demonstrations of feeling, always instinctively restrained, careful and +intelligently conventional, he was painfully startled and moved by this +terrible outcry which could only have been caused by intense agony. As +he believed that the cry had come from an animal, he naturally supposed +that the agony which had caused it was physical. He was a very humane +man, and as soon as he had mastered the feeling of cold horror which +had for a moment held him rigid, he hastened on to the door of Little +Cloisters and pulled the bell. After a pause which seemed to him long +the door was opened by Annie, Rosamund’s parlor-maid. She presented to +Mr. Darlington’s peering gaze a face full of ignorance and fear. + +“What is the matter?” he asked, in a hesitating voice. + +“Sir?” said Annie. + +“What has happened in the garden?” + +“Nothing, sir, that I know of. I have been in the house.” She paused, +then added, with a sort of timorous defiance: “I’m not one as would +listen, sir.” + +“Then you didn’t hear it?” + +“Hear what, sir?” + +Her question struck upon Mr. Darlington’s native conventionality, and +made him conscious of the fact that, perhaps almost indiscreetly, he +was bandying words with a maid-servant. He put up one hand to his beard, +pulled at it, and then said, almost in his usual voice: + +“Is Mrs. Leith in?” + +“She’s in the garden, sir.” + +“In the garden?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is--is Mr. Leith at home?” + +“He’s just come home, sir, and gone to Mrs. Leith in the garden.” + +Mr. Darlington stood for a moment pulling his beard and raising and +lowering his eyebrows. Then he said doubtfully: + +“Thank you. I won’t disturb them now. I shall be here with Canon Wilton +at half-past seven.” + +Annie stood staring at him in silence. + +“They--Mr. and Mrs. Leith expect us, I believe?” added Mr. Darlington. + +“They haven’t said anything to the contrary, sir.” + +“No?” + +Slowly Mr. Darlington turned away, slowly he disappeared into the +darkness; his head was bent, and he looked older than usual. Annie gazed +after him. Once she opened her lips as if she were going to call him +back, but no sound came from them. + +“Annie! Annie!” cried a voice in the house behind her. + +She turned sharply and confronted Robin’s nurse. + +“Where’s Master Robin?” said the nurse, almost fiercely. + +“I don’t know. He hasn’t come back with master.” + +“I’m going into the garden,” said the nurse. + +“For God’s sake, don’t!” said Annie. + +“Why not?” asked the nurse. + +Suddenly Annie began to cry. The nurse pulled her in and shut the door +of the house. + + + +CHAPTER X + +Rosamund did not know how long she sat in the garden after she had heard +the footfall in the Dark Entry. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps many more +had slipped by before she was aware of feeling cold. A chill had gone +through her mind when she heard the footfall; now her body was chilled. +She shivered and got up. She must go into the house. + +It was now very dark. The path was a pale grayish blur at her feet. On +her left the shrubs which concealed the house from her showed as a heavy +morose blackness against the softer and more mysterious blackness of +the night. The dampness which rose in the garden was like the dreary +whispering of sad earth voices. + +She shivered again. + +Then she heard a faltering step on the path beyond the shrubs. It was +certainly Dion’s step. At last they had come back! + +With a movement of her shoulders she tried to throw off her depression, +as if it were something heavy resting upon her, something which a +physical effort could get rid of. Then she called out in a brisk and +cheerful voice: + +“Dion, I’m here. How late you are! What have you shot?” + +It was too late now for the nursery tea, but they had come back and all +was well. + +“Dion!” + +The step had stopped on the path and no voice answered her. Nevertheless +she was certain that it was Dion who had come into the garden. Perhaps +Robin was with him, perhaps they were going to give her a surprise. +She waited for an instant. Something within her was hesitating. She +conquered it, not without an effort, and went round the angle of the +path. Beyond the shrubs, but not far from them, a man was standing. It +was Dion. He was alone. It was so dark that Rosamund could not see him +clearly, but she noticed at once that the outline of his figure looked +strange. His body seemed to be all awry as if he were standing in an +unnatural position. She stopped and stared at this body. + +“Is anything wrong, Dion?” she asked. “What’s the matter? Why do you +stand like that?” + +After her last quick question she heard a long-drawn quivering breath. + +“Where’s Robin?” she said sharply. + +He did not answer. She meant to go up to him; but she did not move. + +“Why are you so late? Where’s Robin?” he repeated. + +“Rosamund--” + +“Don’t move! Stand there, and tell me what it is.” + +“Haven’t I--always tried to make you happy?” + +The words came from the body before her, but she did not know the voice. +It was Dion’s voice, of course. It must be that. But she had never heard +it before. + +“Don’t come nearer to me. What have you done?” + +“Robin--I have--I have--Robin--my gun----” + +The voice failed in the darkness. Rosamund shut her eyes. She had seen +an angry hand tear down a branch of wild olive. Suddenly she knew. It +seemed to her that ever since that day long ago in Elis some part of her +had always prophetically known that Dion was fated to bring terror and +ruin into her life. This was not true, but now she felt it to be true. + +“You’ve killed Robin,” she said, quietly and coldly. + +Her brain and heart seemed to stand still, like things staring into an +immense voice. They had come to the end of their road. + +“You’ve killed Robin,” she said again. + +“Rosamund----” + +The body in front of her moved to come towards her. Then she uttered the +fearful cry which was heard by Mr. Darlington on his way home from the +Deanery, and she fled from the body which had slain Robin. + +That purely instinctive action was the beginning of Dion’s punishment. +A cry, the movement of a body, and everything which meant life to him, +everything for which he had lived, was gone. But he followed Rosamund +with a sort of blind obstinacy, driven as she was by instinct. Dimly he +knew that he was a man who only merited compassion, all the compassion +of the world. He had no horror of himself, but only a horror of that +Fate to which mortals have to submit and which had overtaken him in a +shining moment of happiness. The gun accident of which his little son +had been the victim presented itself to his erring mind as a terrific +stroke from above, or from beyond, falling equally upon father and +child. He was not responsible for it. The start of a frightened pony, +its sudden attempt to bolt, the pulling of a rein which had brought the +animal against him just as he was lifting his gun to fire at a rising +bird--what were those things? Only the clumsy machinery used by +implacable Fate to bring about that which had been willed somewhere, far +off in the dark and the distance. + +He must tell Rosamund, he must tell Rosamund. + +* * * * * + +Annie and the nurse came out to the edge of the broad path which ran +along the front of the house and peered into the darkness. Annie was +crying and holding on to the nurse, whose almost fierce determination +faded as she confronted the mystery of the night which hid her master +and mistress. + +“H’sh, Annie,” she whispered. “Where can they be? Listen, I tell you!” + +Annie strove to choke down her sobs. + +“I can hear--some one,” whispered the nurse, after a moment. “Don’t you. +Listen, I tell you! Right over by the wall near the Bishop’s!” + +The sound of steps indeed came to them through the darkness. Annie broke +away from the nurse. + +“I’m frightened! I’m frightened! I don’t know what’s come to them,” she +whispered through her teeth, resisting the impulse to cry out. “Come in, +Nurse, for God’s sake!” + +She shrank into the house. The nurse stood where she was for a moment, +but when she heard the steps a little nearer to her she, too, was +overcome by fear and followed Annie trembling, shutting the door behind +her. + +Exactly at half-past seven Mr. Darlington and Canon Wilton were outside +the door of Little Cloisters and Mr. Darlington pulled the bell. Always +the most discreet of men, he had not mentioned to his host the terrible +cry he had heard in the Leiths’ garden, or his short colloquy with +Annie. He was seriously disturbed in mind, but, being a trained man of +the world and one who prided himself upon his powers of self-control, he +had concealed this unpleasant fact from the Canon, and had talked quite +agreeably during their little walk between the two houses. The sound of +that dreadful cry still seemed to shudder through his flesh, but it was +not for him to pry into the private lives of others, even of those whom +he knew intimately, and had a great regard for. He hoped all was +well with his dear young friends, There might be some quite simple +explanation of that cry. He fervently hoped there was. In any case it +was not for him to ask questions, or to-- + +“They’re a long while answering the bell,” said Canon Wilton, in +his strong, earnest voice. “Hadn’t you better give it another tug, +Darlington?” + +Mr. Darlington started. + +“H’m--ha!” + +He raised his hand and pulled the bell a second time. + +“That’s better,” said the Canon, as he heard inside the house a long +tinkle. “Annie’s bound to come now. As a rule she’s very quick in +answering the door. Among her many virtues, Mrs. Leith counts that of +being a first-rate housewife. She trains her maids well.” + +“Does she?” murmured Mr. Darlington abstractedly, bending forward till +he seemed almost to be listening at the door. “Does she? I hear some one +coming. H’m!” + +He straightened himself. The door opened and Annie appeared. When she +saw the two men she drew back quickly to let them pass in. Canon Wilton +said kindly: “Good evening, Annie.” + +“Oh, sir,” said Annie, and began to cry audibly. + +“What’s the matter?” asked the Canon, surprised. + +They were now in the little oak paneled hall, and by the light of the +lamp they could see the tears running down the flushed face of the maid. +“Is anything wrong?” said the Canon. + +“Oh, sir, I’m so glad you’ve come! Oh, we don’t know what it is!” + +At this moment Robin’s nurse showed herself on the staircase. + +“For God’s sake, sir,” she said, with trembling lips, “do go into the +garden!” + +“Why?” said Canon Wilton, in a loud, firm voice. + +“Mr. and Mrs. Leith are both there, sir. They’ve been there this long +time. Mr. Leith he’s come back from the shooting without Master Robin. +Oh, there’s something wrong, sir, there’s something wrong!” + +“Stay here for a moment, Darlington,” said the Canon, with a sudden, +almost fiery, decision. “I’ll go at once and see what’s the matter.” + +But Mr. Darlington laid a bony hand on his friend’s arm. + +“I’ll come with you, Wilton. I’m--I’m afraid it’s something very bad.” + +He lowered his voice almost to a whisper in saying the last words. + +The Canon formed “Why?” with his lips. + +“Just now, as I was passing the garden here coming back from the +Deanery, I heard a most dreadful cry. I thought at the time that it came +from an animal, but--now----” + +The Canon stared at him almost sternly. + +“We’d better not waste time,” he said. “I wish you’d gone in then.” + +And he turned bruskly. He had opened the door, and was about to step on +to the broad path which divided the front of the house from the lawn, +when he heard steps approaching swiftly on the gravel. + +“Some one coming!” he said. “Stop where you are, Darlington. I believe +its . . .” + +Before he could finish his sentence Rosamund came upon him out of +the darkness. Her face was distorted, so distorted that he scarcely +recognized it. It seemed to have shrunk and sharpened, and it had the +look of fierceness which is characteristic of the faces of starving +people. She put out both her hands as she came up to him, pushed him +with violence into the house, and followed him. + +“Lock the door!” she whispered. “Lock it! Lock it!” + +“But----” + +Her voice rose. She seemed savage with fear. + +“Lock it, I tell you!” + +A long arm shot out and a bony hand turned the key in the door. + +“It’s the only thing to be done for the moment,” said Mr. Darlington to +the Canon. “She’s mad with fear.” + +Both the maids had disappeared, terrified by the face of their mistress. +Rosamund caught hold of the stair-rail and began to hurry upstairs, but +Mr. Darlington followed her and seized her by the arm. + +“Rosamund! Rosamund! What is it?” + +She turned. + +“I’m going to find Robin. That man’s killed Robin! Keep him out! Keep +him away from me!” + +A dreadful surreptitious expression made her face hideous. She leaned +forward, nodding her head, and whispered in Mr. Darlington’s ear: + +“_You_ keep him away from me while I find Robin. He’s killed Robin!” + +Her whole body began to shake. Mr. Darlington put one arm round her. + +“But, Rosamund----” + +Below, the handle of the door leading to the garden was turned, the door +was shaken, and there came a knocking on the wood. + +Then Mr. Darlington heard again the cry which had come to him that +evening as he passed the garden of Little Cloisters. His arm dropped. + +Rosamund went frantically up the stairs and disappeared on the dark +landing above. + + + + +BOOK IV -- THE UNKNOWN GOD + + + + +CHAPTER I + +In June of the following year two young Englishmen, who were making a +swift tour of the near East, were sitting one evening in a public garden +at Pera. The west wind, which had been blowing all day, had gone down +with the coming of night. The air was deliciously warm, but not sultry. +The travelers had dined well, but not too well, and were ready to +be happy, and to see in others the reflection of their own contented +holiday mood. It was delightful to be “on the loose,” without +responsibilities, and with a visit to Brusa to look forward to in +the immediate future. They sat under the stars, sipped their coffee, +listened to the absurd music played by a fifth-rate band in a +garishly-lighted kiosk, and watched with interest the coming and going +of the crowd of Turks and Perotes, with whom mingled from time to time +foreign sailors from ships lying off the entrance to the Golden Horn +and a few tourists from the hotels of Pera. Just behind them sat their +guide, a thin and eager Levantine, half-Greek and half-Armenian, who, +for some inscrutable reason, declared that his name was John. + +There was little romance in this garden set in the midst of the noisy +European quarter of Constantinople. The music was vulgar; Greek waiters +with dissipated faces ran to and fro carrying syrups and liqueurs; +corpulent Turks sat heavily over glasses of lager beer; overdressed +young men of enigmatic appearance, with oily thick hair, shifty eyes, +and hands covered with cheap rings, swaggered about smoking cigarettes +and talking in loud, ostentatious voices. Some women were there, fat and +garish for the most part, liberally powdered and painted, and crowned +with hats at which Paris would have stared almost in fear. There were +also children, dark, even swarthy, with bold eyes, shrill voices, +immodest bearing, who looked as if they had long since received the ugly +freedom of the streets, and learned lessons no children ought to know. + +Presently the band stopped playing and there was a general movement of +the crowd. People got up from the little tables and began to disperse. +“John” leaned forward to his employers, and in a quick and rattling +voice informed them that a “fust-rate” variety entertainment was about +to take place in another part of the garden. Would they come to see +it? There would be beautiful women, very fine girls such as can only be +gazed on in Constantinople, taking part in the “show.” + +The young men agreed to “have a look at it,” and followed John to +a place where many round tables and chairs were set out before a +ramshackle wooden barrack of a theatre, under the shade of some +pepper trees, through whose tresses the stars peeped at a throng and a +performance which must surely have surprised them. + +The band, or a portion of it, was again at work, playing an inane +melody, and upon the small stage two remarkably well-developed and +aquiline-featured women of mature age, dressed as very young children +in white socks, short skirts which displayed frilled drawers, and muslin +bonnets adorned with floating blue and pink ribbons, swayed to and fro +and joined their cracked voices in a duet, the French words of which +seemed to exhale a sort of _fade_ obscenity. While they swayed and +jigged heavily, showing their muscular legs to the staring audience, +they gazed eagerly about, seeking an admiration from which they might +draw profit when their infantile task was over. Presently they retired, +running skittishly, taking small leaps into the air, and aimlessly +blowing kisses to the night. + +“Very fine girls!” murmured John to his young patrons. “They make much +money in Pera.” + +One of the young men shrugged his shoulders with a smile. + +“Get us two Turkish coffees, John!” he said. Then he turned to his +companion. “I say, Ellis, have you noticed an English feller--at least +I take him to be English--who’s sitting over there close to the stage, +sideways to us?” + +“No; where is he?” asked his companion. + +“You see that old Turk with the double chin?” + +“Rather.” + +“Just beyond him, sitting with a guide who’s evidently Greek.” + +“I’ve got him.” + +“Watch him. I never saw such a face.” + +A blowzy young woman, in orange color and green, with short +tinsel-covered skirts, bounded wearily on to the stage, smiling, and +began to sing: + + “Je suis une boite de surprises! + O la la! O la la! + Je suis une boite de surprises.” + +Ellis looked across at the man to whom his attention had been drawn. +This man was seated by a little table on which were a siphon, a bottle +of iced water, and a tall tumbler nearly half-full of a yellow liquid. +He was smoking a large dark-colored cigar which he now and then took +from his mouth with a hand that was very thin and very brown. His face +was dark and browned by the sun, but looked startlingly haggard, as if +it were pale or even yellowish under the sunburn. About the eyes +there were large wrinkles, spraying downwards over the cheek bones and +invading the cheeks. He wore a mustache, and was well-dressed in a tweed +suit. But his low collar was not very fresh, and his tie was arranged in +a slovenly fashion and let his collar stud be seen. He sat with his +legs crossed, staring at the grimacing woman on the stage with a sort of +horribly icy intentness. The expression about his lips and eyes was more +than bitter; it showed a frozen fierceness. + +On the other side of the table was seated a lean, meager guide, +obviously one of those Greeks who haunt the quays of Constantinople +on the look out for arriving travelers. Now and then this Greek leaned +forward and, with a sort of servile and anxious intelligence, spoke to +his companion. He received no reply. The other man went on smoking and +staring at the _boite de surprises_ as if he were alone. And somehow he +seemed actually to be alone, encompassed by a frightful solitude. + +“A tragic face, isn’t it?” said the man who had first spoken. + +“By Jove it is!” returned the officer. “I wonder that woman can go on +singing so close to it.” + +“Probably she hasn’t seen him. How many years do you give him?” + +“Thirty-eight or forty.” + +“He isn’t out for pleasure, that’s certain.” + +“Pleasure! One would suppose he’d been keeping house with Medusa +and--the deuce, she’s seen him!” + +At this moment the singer looked towards the stranger, quavered, +faltered, nearly broke down, then, as if with an effort, raised her +voice more shrilly and defiantly, exaggerated her meaningless gestures +and looked away. A moment later she finished her song and turned to +strut off the stage. As she did so she shot a sort of fascinated glance +at the dark man. He took his cigar from his mouth and puffed the smoke +towards her, probably without knowing that he did so. With a startled +jerk she bounded into the wings. + +At this moment John returned with two cups of coffee. + +“You know everything, John. Tell us who that man over there is,” said +Ellis, indicating the stranger. + +John sent a devouring glance past the old Turk’s double chin, a glance +which, as it were, swallowed at one gulp the dark man, his guide, the +siphon, the water-bottle and the glass partially full of the yellow +liquid. + +“I dunno him. He is noo.” + +“Is he English?” + +“Sure!” returned John, almost with a sound of contempt. + +He never made a mistake about any man’s nationality, could even tell +a Spanish Jew from a Portuguese Jew on a dark night at ten yards’ +distance. + +“I tell you who he is later. I know the guide, a damned fool and a rogue +of a Greek that has been in prison. He robs all his people what take +him.” + +“You needn’t bother,” said Ellis curtly. + +“Of course not. Shut up, John, and don’t run down your brothers in +crime.” + +“That man my brother!” + +John upraised two filthy ringed hands. + +“That dirty skunk my brother! That son of--” + +“That’ll do, John! Be quiet.” + +“To-morrow I till you all about the gentleman. Here is another fine +girl! I know her very well.” + +A languid lady, with a face painted as white as a wall, large scarlet +lips, eyes ringed with bluish black, and a gleaming and trailing black +gown which clung closely to her long and snake-like body, writhed on to +the stage, looking carefully sinister. + +The dark man swallowed his drink, got up and made his way to the exit +from the garden. He passed close to the two young men, followed by +his Greek, at whom John cast a glance of scowling contempt, mingled, +however, with very definite inquiry. + +“By Jove! He’s almost spoilt my evening,” said Ellis. “But we made a +mistake, Vernon. He isn’t anything like forty.” + +“No; more like thirty under a cloud.” + +“By the look of things I should guess there are plenty of people under +a cloud in Pera. But that English feller stands out even here. This girl +is certainly a first-class wriggler, if she’s nothing else.” + +They did not mention the stranger again that night. But John had not +forgotten him, and when he arrived at their hotel next day he at once +opened his capacious mouth and let out the following information: + +“The gentleman’s name is Denton, his other name is Mervyn, he is three +days in Constantinople, he lives in Hughes’s Hotel in Pera, a very poor +house where chic people they never goes, he is out all day and always +walkin’, he will not take a carriage, and he is never tired, Nicholas +Gounaris--the Greek guide--he is droppin’ but the gentleman he does not +mind, he only sayin’ if you cannot walk find me another guide what can, +every night he is out, too, and he is goin’ to Stamboul when it is dark, +he is afraid of nothin’ and goin’ where travelers they never go, one +night Gounaris he had to show the traveler--” + +But at this point Ellis shut John up. + +“That’ll do,” he observed. “You’re a diligent rascal, John. One must +say that. But we aren’t a couple of spies, and we don’t want to hear any +more about that feller.” + +And John, without bearing any malice, went off to complete his +arrangements for the journey to Brusa. + +Two days later, Mrs. Clarke, who was at Buyukderer in a villa she had +taken for the summer months, but who had come into Constantinople to do +some shopping, saw “Mervyn Denton” in a side street close to the British +Embassy. Those distressed eyes of hers were very observant. There were +many people in the street, and “Denton,” who was alone, was several +yards away from her, and was walking with his back towards her; but she +immediately recognized him, quickened her steps till she was close to +him, and then said: + +“Dion Leith!” + +Dion heard the husky voice and turned round. He did not say anything, +but he took off the soft hat he was wearing. Mrs. Clarke stared at him +with the unself-conscious directness which was characteristic of her. +She saw Dion for the first time since the tragedy which had changed his +life, but she had written to him more than once. Her last letter had +come from Buyukderer. He had answered it, but he had not told her where +he was, had not even hinted to her that he might come to Constantinople. +Nevertheless, she did not now show any surprise. She just looked at him +steadily, absorbed all the change in him swiftly, and addressed herself +to the new man who stood there before her. + +“Come with me to the Hotel de Paris. I’m spending the night there, and +go back to-morrow to Buyukderer. I had something to do in town.” + +She had not given him her hand, and he did not attempt to take it. He +put on his hat, turned and walked at her side. Neither of them spoke +a word until they had come into the uproar of the Grande Rue, which +surrounded them with a hideous privacy. Then Mrs. Clarke said; + +“Where are you staying?” + +“At Hughes’s Hotel.” + +“I never heard of it.” + +“It’s in Brusa Street. It’s cheap.” + +“And horrible,” she thought. + +But she did not say so. + +“I have only been here three days,” Dion added. + +“Do you remember that I once said to you I knew you would come back to +Constantinople?” + +For a moment his face was distorted. When she saw that she looked away +gravely, at the glittering shops and at the Perotes who were passing +by with the slow and lounging walk which they affect in the Grande Rue. +Presently she heard him say: + +“You were right. It was all arranged. It was all planned out. Even then +I believe I knew it would be so, that I should come back here.” + +“Why have you come?” + +“I don’t know,” he answered, and his voice, which had been hard and +fierce, became suddenly dull. + +“He really believes that,” she thought. + +“Here is the hotel,” she said. “I’m all alone. Jimmy has been out, but +has had to go back to Eton. I wish you had seen him.” + +“Oh no!” said Dion, almost passionately. + +They went up in a lift, worked by a Montenegrin boy with a big round +forehead, to her sitting-room on the second floor. It was large, bare +and clean, with white walls and awnings at the windows. She rang the +bell. A Corsican waiter came and she ordered tea. The roar of the street +noises penetrated into the shadowy room through the open windows, +and came to Dion like heat. He remembered the silence of Claridge’s. +Suddenly his head began to swim. It seemed to him that his life, all of +it that he had lived till that moment, was spinning round him, and that, +as it spun, it gave out a deafening noise and glittered. He sat down on +a chair which was close to a small table, laid his arms on the table, +and hid his face against them. Still the deafening noise continued. The +sum of it was surely made up of the uproar of the Grand Rue with the +uproar of his spinning life added to it. He saw yellow balls ringed with +pale blue rapidly receding from his shut eyes. + +Mrs. Clarke looked at him for a moment; then she went into the adjoining +bedroom and shut the door behind her. She did not come back till the +waiter knocked and told her that tea was ready. Then she opened the +door. She had taken off her hat and gloves, and looked very white and +cool, and very composed. + +Dion was standing near the windows. The waiter, who had enormously thick +mustaches, and who evidently shaved in the evening instead of in the +morning, was going out at the farther door. He shut it rather loudly. + +“Every one makes a noise in Pera. It’s _de rigueur_,” said Mrs. Clarke, +coming to the tea-table. + +“Do you know,” said Dion, “I used to think _you_ looked punished?” + +“Punished--I!” + +There was a sudden defiance in her voice which he had never heard in it +before. He came up to the table. + +“Yes. In London I used to think you had a punished look and even a +haunted look. Wasn’t that ridiculous? I didn’t know then what it meant +to be punished, or to be haunted. I hadn’t enough imagination to know, +not nearly enough. But some one or something’s seen to it that I shall +know all about punishment and haunting. So I shall never be absurd about +you again.” + +After a pause she said: + +“I wonder why you thought that about me?” + +“I don’t know. It just came into my head.” + +“Well, sit down and let us have our tea.” + +Dion sat down mechanically, and Mrs. Clarke poured out the tea. + +“I wish it was Buyukderer,” she said. + +“Oh, I like the uproar.” + +“No, you don’t--you don’t. Pera is spurious, and all its voices are +spurious voices. To-morrow morning, before I go back, you and I will go +to Eyub.” + +“To the dust and the silence and the cypresses--O God!” said Dion. + +He got up from his chair. He was beginning to tremble. Was it coming +upon him at last then, the utter breakdown which through all these +months he had--somehow--kept at a distance? Determined not to shake, +he exerted his will violently, till he felt as if he were with dreadful +difficulty holding, keeping together, a multitude of living, struggling +things, which were trying to get away out of his grasp. And these living +things were the multitudinous parts of the whole which was himself. + +All that now was had been foreshadowed. There had been writing on the +wall. + +“I am grateful to you for several things. I’m not going to give you the +list now. Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are . . . among +the cypresses of Eyub.” + +She had said that to him in London, and her voice had been fatalistic as +she spoke; and in the street that same day, on his way home, the voice +of the boy crying the last horror had sounded to him like a voice from +the sea, a strange and sad cry lifted up between Europe and Asia. And +now---- + +“How did you know?” he said. “How did you know that we should be here +together some day?” + +“Sit down. You must sit down.” + +She put her languid and imperative hand on his wrist, and he sat down. +He took her hand and put it against his forehead for a moment. But that +was no use. For her hand seemed to add fever to his fever. + +“I have seen you standing amongst graves in the shadow of cypress +trees,” he said. “In England I saw you like that. But--how did you +know?” + +“Drink your tea. Don’t hurry. We’ve got such a long time.” + +“I have. I have all the days and nights--every hour of them--at my own +disposal. I’m the freest man on earth, I suppose. No work, no ties.” + +“You’ve given up everything?” + +“Oh, of course. That is, the things that were still left to me to give +up. They didn’t mean much.” + +“Eat something,” she said, in a casual voice, pushing a plate of +delicious little cakes towards him. + +“Thank you.” + +He took one and ate. He regained self-control, but he knew that at any +moment, if anything unusual happened, or if he dared to think, or to +talk, seriously about the horror of his life, he would probably go down +with a crash into an abyss in which all of his manhood, every scrap of +his personal dignity, would be utterly lost. And still almost blindly +he held on to certain things in the blackness which encompassed him. +He still wished to play the man, and though in bitterness he had tried +sometimes to sink down in degradation, his body--or so it had seemed to +him--had resisted the will of the injured soul, which had said to it, +“Go down into the dirt; seek satisfaction there. Your sanity and your +purity of life have availed you nothing. From them you have had no +reward. Then seek the rewards of the other life. Thousands of men enjoy +them. Join that crowd, and put all the anemic absurdities of so-called +goodness behind you.” + +He had almost come to hate the state he conceived of as goodness; yet +the other thing, its opposite, evil, he instinctively rebelled against +and even almost feared. The habit of a life-time was not to be broken in +a day, or even in many days. Often he had thought of himself as walking +in nothingness, because he rejected evil. + +Goodness had ruthlessly cast him out; and so far he had made no other +friend, had taken no other comrade to his bruised and bleeding heart. + +Mrs. Clarke began to talk to him quietly. She talked abut herself, and +he knew that she did this not because of egoism, but because delicately +she wished to give him a full opportunity for recovery. She had seen +just where he was, and she had understood his recoil from the abyss. Now +she wished, perhaps, to help him to draw back farther from it, to draw +back so far that he would no longer see it or be aware of it. + +So she talked of herself, of her life at Buyukderer in the summer, and +in Pera in the autumn and spring. + +“I don’t go out to Buyukderer till the middle of May,” she said, “and I +come back into town at the end of September.” + +“You manage to stand Pera for some months every year?” said Dion, +listening at first with difficulty, and because he was making a +determined effort. + +“Yes. An Englishwoman--even a woman like me--can’t live in Stamboul. +And Pera, odious as it is, is in Constantinople, in the city which has a +spell, though you mayn’t feel it yet.” + +She was silent for a moment, and they heard the roar from the Grande +Rue, that street which is surely the noisiest in all Europe. Hearing +it, Dion thought of the silence of the Precincts at Welsley. That sweet +silence had cast him out. Hell must be full of roaring noises and +of intense activities. Then Mrs. Clarke went on talking. There was +something very feminine and gently enticing in her voice, which +resembled no other voice ever heard by Dion. He felt kindness at the +back of her talk, the wish to alleviate his misery if only for a +moment, to do what she could for him. She could do nothing, of course. +Nevertheless he began to feel grateful to her. She was surely unlike +other women, incapable of bearing a grudge. For he had not been very +“nice” to her in the days when he was happy and she was in difficulties. +At this moment he vaguely exaggerated his lack of “niceness,” and +perhaps also her pardoning temperament. In truth, he was desperately +in need of a touch from the magic wand of sympathy. Believing, or even +perhaps knowing, that to the incurably wounded man palliatives are of no +lasting avail, he had deliberately fled from them, and gone among those +who had no reason to bother about him. But now he was grateful. + +“Go on talking,” he said once, when she stopped speaking. And she +continued talking about her life. She said nothing more about Jimmy. + +The Corsican waiter came and took away the tea things noisily. Her spell +was broken. For a moment Dion felt dazed. + +He got up. + +“I ought to go,” he said. + +“Must you?” + +“Must!--Oh no! My time is my own, and always will be, I suppose.” + +“You have thrown up everything?” + +“What else could I do? The man who killed his own son! How could I stay +in London, go among business men who knew me, talk about investments to +clients? Suppose you had killed Jimmy!” + +There was a long silence. Then he said: + +“I’ve given up my name. I call myself Mervyn Denton. I saw the name in a +novel I opened on a railway bookstall.” + +She got up and came near to him quietly. + +“This is all wrong,” she said. + +“What is?” + +“All you are doing, the way you are taking it all.” + +“What other way is there of taking such a thing?” + +“Will you come with me to Eyub to-morrow?” + +“It was written long ago that I am to go there with you. I’m quite sure +of that.” + +“I’ll tell you what I mean there to-morrow.” + +She looked towards the window. + +“It’s like the roar of hell,” he said. + +And he went away. + +That night Mrs. Clarke dined alone downstairs in the restaurant. The +cooking at the Hotel de Paris was famous, and attracted many men from +the Embassies. Presently Cyril Vane, one of the secretaries at the +British Embassy, came in to dine. He had with him a young Turkish +gentleman, who was called away by an agent from the Palace in the middle +of dinner. Vane, thus left alone, presently got up and came to Mrs. +Clarke’s table. + +“May I sit down and talk to you for a little?” he said, with a manner +that testified to their intimacy. “My guest has deserted me.” + +“Yes, do. Tell the waiter to bring the rest of your dinner here.” + +“But I have finished.” + +“Light your cigar then.” + +“If you don’t mind.” + +They talked for a few minutes about the things of every day and the +little world they both lived in on the Bosporus; then Mrs. Clarke said: + +“I met a friend from England unexpectedly to-day.” + +“Did you?” + +“A man called Dion Leith.” + +“Dion Leith?” repeated Vane. + +He looked at her earnestly. + +“Now wait a moment!” + +His large, cool blue eyes became meditative. + +“It’s on the edge of my mind who that is, and yet I can’t remember. I +don’t know him, but I’m sure I know of him.” + +“He fought in the South African War.” + +Suddenly Vane leaned forward. He was frowning. + +“I’ve got it! He fought, came back with the D.C.M., and only a few days +afterwards killed his only child, a son, out shooting. I remember the +whole thing now, the inquest at which he was entirely exonerated and the +rumors about his wife. She’s a beautiful woman, they say.” + +“Very beautiful.” + +“She took it very badly, didn’t she?” + +“What do you mean by very badly?” + +“Didn’t she bear very hard on him?” + +“She couldn’t endure to see him, or to have him near her. Is that very +wonderful?” + +“You stand up for her then?” + +“She was first and foremost a mother.” + +“Do you know,” Vane said rather dryly, “you are the only woman I +never hear speak against other women. But when the whole thing was an +accident?” + +“We can’t always be quite fair, or quite reasonable, when a terrible +shock comes to us.” + +“It’s a problem, a terrible problem of the affections,” Vane said. “Had +she loved her husband? Do you know?” + +“I know that he loved her very much,” said Mrs. Clarke. “He is here +under an assumed name.” + +Vane looked openly surprised and even, for a moment, rather disdainful. + +“But then----” He paused. + +“Why did I give him away?” + +“Well--yes.” + +“Because I wish to force him to face things fully and squarely. It’s his +only chance.” + +“Won’t he be angry?” + +“But I don’t mind that.” + +“You’ve had a reason in telling me,” said Vane quietly. “What is it?” + +“Come up to my sitting-room. We’ll have coffee there.” + +“Willingly. I feel your spell even when you’re weaving it for another +man’s sake.” + +Mrs. Clarke did not reject the compliment. She only looked at Vane, and +said: + +“Come.” + + + +CHAPTER II + +In the morning Mrs. Clarke sent a messenger to Hughes’s Hotel asking +Dion to meet her at the landing-place on the right of the Galata Bridge +at a quarter to eleven. + +“We will go to Eyub by caique,” she wrote, “and lunch at a Turkish café +I know close to the mosque.” + +She drove to the bridge. When she came in sight of it she saw Dion +standing on it alone, looking down on the crowded water-way. He was +leaning on the railing, and his right cheek rested on the palm of his +brown hand. Mrs. Clarke smiled faintly as she realized that this man who +was waiting for her had evidently forgotten all about her. + +She dismissed the carriage, paid the toll and walked on to the bridge. +As usual there was a crowd of pedestrians passing to and fro from Galata +to Stamboul and from Stamboul to Galata. She mingled with it, went up to +Dion and stood near him without uttering a word. For perhaps two minutes +she stood thus before he noticed her. Then he turned and sent her a +hard, almost defiant glance before he recognized who his companion was. + +“Oh, I didn’t know it was----Why didn’t you speak? Is it time to go? I +meant to be at the landing.” + +He spoke like a man who had been a long way off, and who returned weary +and almost dazed from that distance. He looked at his watch. + +“Please forgive me for putting you to the trouble of coming to find me.” + +“You needn’t ever ask me to forgive you for anything. Don’t let us +bother each other with all the silly little things that worry the fools. +We’ve got beyond all that long ago. There’s my caique.” + +She made a signal with her hand. Two Albanians below saluted her. + +“Shall we go at once? Or would you rather stay here a little longer?” + +“Let us go. I was only looking at the water.” + +He turned and sent a long glance to Stamboul. + +“Your city!” he said. + +“I shall take you.” + +For the first time that day he looked at her intimately, and his look +said: + +“Why do you trouble about me?” + +They went down, got into the caique, and were taken by the turmoil of +the Golden Horn. Among the innumerable caiques, the steamboats, the +craft of all kinds, they went out into the strong sunshine, guarded +on the one hand by the crowding, discolored houses of Galata rising to +Pera, on the other hand by the wooden dwellings and the enormous mosques +of Stamboul. The voices of life pursued them over the water and they sat +in silence side by side. Dion made no social attempt to entertain his +companion. Had she not just said to him that long ago they had gone +beyond all the silly little things that worry the fools? In the midst +of the fierce activity and the riot of noise which marks out the +Golden Horn from all other water-ways, they traveled towards emptiness, +silence, the desolation on the hill near the sacred place of the Turks, +where each new Sultan is girded with the sword of Osman, and where the +standard-bearer of the Prophet sleeps in the tomb that was seen in a +vision. + +In the strong heat of noon they left the caique and walked slowly +towards the hill which rises to the north-east, where the dark towers of +the cypresses watch over the innumerable graves. Mrs. Clarke had put up +a sun umbrella. Her face was protected by a thin white veil. She wore a +linen dress, pale gray in color, with white lines on it, and long +loose gloves of suede. She looked extraordinarily thin. Her unshining, +curiously colorless hair was partly covered by a small hat of burnt +straw, turned sharply and decisively up on the left side and trimmed +with a broad riband of old gold. Dion remembered that he had thought of +her once as a vision seen in water. Now he was with her in the staring +definite clearness of a land dried by the heats of summer and giving to +them its dust. And she was at home in this aridity. In the dust he was +aware of the definiteness of her. Since the blackness had overtaken him +people had meant to him less than shadows gliding on a wall mean to a +joyous man. Often he had observed them, even sharply and with a sort of +obstinate persistence; he had been trying to force them to become real +to him. Invariably he had failed in his effort. Mrs. Clarke was real to +him as she walked in silence beside him, between the handsome railed-in +mausoleums which line the empty roads from the water’s edge almost to +the mosque of the Conqueror. A banal phrase came to his lips, “You are +in your element here.” But he held it back, remembering that they walked +in the midst of dust. + +Leaving the mosque they ascended the hill and passed the Tekkeh of the +dancing dervishes. All around them were the Turkish graves with their +leaning headstones, or their headstones fallen and lying prone in the +light flaky earth above the smoldering corpses of the dead. Here and +there tight bunches of flowers were placed upon the graves. Gaunt +shadows from old cypresses fell over some of them, defining the +sunlight. Below was the narrowing sea, the shallow north-west arm of the +Golden Horn, which stretches to Kiathareh, where are the sweet waters of +Europe, and to Kiahat Haneh. + +“We’ll sit here,” said Mrs. Clarke presently. + +And she sat down, with the folding ease almost of an Oriental, on the +warm earth, and leaned against the fissured trunk of a cypress. + +Casually she had seemed to choose the resting-place, but she had chosen +it well. More times than she could count she had come to that exact +place, had leaned against that cypress and looked down the Golden +Horn to the divided city, one-half of which she loved as she loved few +things, one-half of which she endured for the sake of the other. + +“From here,” she said to Dion, “I can feel Stamboul.” + +He had lain down near to her sideways and rested his cheek on his hand. +The lower half of his body was in sunshine, but the cypress threw its +shadow over his head and shoulders. As Mrs. Clarke spoke he looked +down the Golden Horn to the Turkish city, and his eyes were held by +the minarets of its mosques. Seldom had he looked at a minaret without +thinking of prayer. He thought of prayer now, and then of his dead +child, of the woman he had called wife, and of the end of his happiness. +The thought came to him: + +“I was kept safe in the midst of the dangers of war for a reason; and +that reason was that I might go back to England and kill my son.” + +And yet every day men went up into these minarets and called upon other +men to bow themselves and pray. + +God is great. . . . + +In the sunlit silence of the vast cemetery the wheels of Dion’s life +seemed for a moment to cease from revolving. + +God is great--great in His power to inflict misery upon men. And so pray +to Him! Mount upon the minarets, go up high, till you are taken by the +blue, till, at evening, you are nearer to the stars than other men, +and pray to Him and proclaim His glory. For He is the repository of the +power to cover you with misery as with a garment, and to lay you even +with the dust. Pray then--pray! Unless the garment is upon you, unless +the dust is already about you! + +Dion lay on the warm earth and looked at the distant minarets, and +smiled at the self-seeking slave-instinct in men, which men sought to +glorify, to elevate into a virtue. + +“Why are you smiling?” said a husky voice above. + +He did not look up, but he answered: + +“Because I was looking at those towers of prayer.” + +“The minarets.” + +She was silent for a few minutes; after a while she said: + +“You remember the first time you met me?” + +“Of course.” + +“I was in difficulties then. They culminated in the scandal of my +divorce case. Tell me, how did you think I faced all that trouble?” + +“With marvelous courage.” + +“In what other way can thoroughbred people face an enemy? Suppose I had +lost instead of won, suppose Jimmy had been taken from me, do you think +it would have broken me?” + +“I can’t imagine anything breaking you,” said Dion. “But I don’t believe +you ever pray.” + +“What has that to do with it?” + +“I believe the people who pray are the potential cowards.” + +“Do you pray?” + +“Not now. That’s why I was smiling when I looked at the minarets. But I +don’t make a virtue of it. I have nothing to pray for.” + +“Well then, if you have put away prayer, that means you are going to +rely on yourself.” + +“What for?” + +“For all the sustaining you will need in the future. The people commonly +called good think of God as something outside themselves to which they +can apply in moments of fear, necessity and sorrow. If you have really +got beyond that conception you must rely on yourself, find in yourself +all you need.” + +“But I need nothing--you don’t understand.” + +“You nearly told me yesterday.” + +“Perhaps if you hadn’t gone out of the room I should have been obliged +to tell you, but not because I wished to.” + +“I understood that. That is why I went out of the room and left you +alone.” + +For the first time Dion looked up at her. She had lifted her veil, and +her haggard, refined face was turned towards him. + +“Thank you,” he said. + +At that moment he liked her as he had never liked her in the past. + +“Can you tell me now because you wish to?” + +“Here among the graves?” + +“Yes.” + +Again he looked at the distant minarets lifted towards the blue near the +way of the sea. But he said nothing. She shut her sun umbrella, laid it +on the ground beside her, pulled off her gloves and spread them out on +her knees slowly. She seemed to be hesitating; for she looked down and +for a moment she knitted her brows. Then she said; + +“Tell me why you came to Constantinople.” + +“I couldn’t.” + +“If I hadn’t met you in the street by chance, would you have come to see +me?” + +“I don’t think I should.” + +“And yet it was I who willed you to come here.” + +Dion did not seem surprised. There was something remote in him which +perhaps could not draw near to such a simple commonplace feeling in that +moment. He had gone out a long way, a very long way, from the simple +ordinary emotions which come upon, or beset, normal men living normal +lives. + +“Did you?” he asked. “Why?” + +“I thought I could do something for you. I began last night.” + +“What?” + +“Doing something for you. I told an acquaintance of mine called Vane, +who is attached to the British Embassy, that you were here.” + +A fierce flush came into Dion’s face. + +“I said you would probably come out to Buyukderer,” she continued, “and +that I wanted to bring you to the summer Embassy and to introduce you to +the Ambassador and Lady Ingleton.” + +Dion sat up and pressed his hands palm downwards on the ground. + +“I shall not go. How could you say that I was here? You know I had +dropped my own name.” + +“I gave it back to you deliberately.” + +“I think that was very brutal of you,” he said, in a low voice, tense +with anger. + +“You wanted to be very kind to me when I was in great difficulties. +Circumstances got rather in the way. That doesn’t matter. The intention +was there, though you were too chivalrous to go very far in action.” + +“Chivalrous to whom?” + +“To her.” + +His face went pale under its sunburn. + +“What are you doing?” he said, in a low voice that was almost terrible. +“Where are you taking me?” + +“Into the way you must walk in. Dion--“--even in calling him by +his Christian name for the first time her voice sounded quite +impersonal--“you’ve done nothing wrong. You have nothing, absolutely +nothing, to be ashamed of. Kismet! We have to yield to fate. If you +slink through the rest of your years on earth, if you get rid of your +name and hide yourself away, you will be just a coward. But you aren’t +a coward, and you are not going to act like one. You must accept your +fate. You must take it right into your heart bravely and proudly, or, if +you can’t do that, stoically. I should.” + +“If you had killed Jimmy?” + +She was silent. + +“If you had killed Jimmy?” he repeated, in a hard voice. + +“I should never hide myself. I should always face things.” + +“You haven’t had the blow I have had. I know I am not in fault. I know I +have nothing to blame myself for. I wasn’t even careless with my gun. If +I had been I could never have forgiven myself. But I wasn’t.” + +“It was the pony. I know. I read the account of the inquest. You were +absolutely exonerated.” + +“Yes. The coroner and the jury expressed their deep sympathy with me,” + he said, with intense bitterness. “They realized how--how I loved my +little boy. But the woman I loved more even than my boy, whom I had +loved for ever since I first saw her--well, she didn’t feel at all as +the coroner and the jury did.” + +“Where is she? I hear now and then from Beatrice Daventry, but she never +mentions her sister.” + +“She is in Liverpool doing religious work, I believe. She has given +herself to religion.” + +“What does that mean exactly?” + +“People give themselves to God, don’t they, sometimes?” + +“Do they?” said Mrs. Clarke, with her curious grave directness, which +seemed untouched by irony. + +“It seems a way out of--things. But she always had a tendency that way.” + +“Towards the religious life?” + +“Yes. She always cared for God a great deal more than she cared for me. +She cared for God and for Robin, and she seemed to be just beginning to +care for me when I deprived her of Robin. Since then she has hated me.” + +He spoke quietly, sternly. All the emotion of which she had been +conscious on the previous afternoon had left him. + +“I didn’t succeed in making her love me!” he continued. “I thought I +had gained a good deal in South Africa. When I came back I felt I was +starting again, and that I should carry things through. Robin felt the +difference in me directly. He would have got to care for me very much, +and I could have done a great deal for him when he had got older. But +God didn’t see things that way. He had planned it all out differently. +When I was with her in Greece, one day I tore down a branch of wild +olive and stripped the leaves from it. She saw me do it, and it +distressed her very much. She had been dreaming over a child, and my +action shattered her dream, I suppose. Women have dreams men can’t quite +understand--about children. She forgave me for that almost directly. +She knew I would never have done anything to make her unhappy even for +a moment, if I had thought. Now I have broken her life to pieces, and +there’s no question of forgiveness. If there were, I should not speak of +her to you. We are absolutely parted forever. She would take the hand of +the most dreadful criminal rather than my hand. She has a horror of me. +I’m the thing that’s killed her child.” + +He looked down at the dilapidated graves, and then at the lonely water +which seemed trying to hide itself away in the recesses of the bare +land. + +“That’s how it is. Robin forgave me. He was alive for a moment--after, +and I saw by his eyes he understood. Yes, he understood--he understood!” + +Suddenly his body began to shake and his arms jerked convulsively. +Instinctively, but quite quietly, Mrs. Clarke put out her hand as if she +were going to lay hold of his right arm. + +“No--don’t!” he said. “Yesterday your hand made me worse.” + +She withdrew her hand. Her face did not change. She seemed wholly +unconscious of any rudeness on his part. + +“Let’s move--let’s walk!” he said. + +He sprang up. When he was on his feet he regained control of his body. + +“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he said. “I’m not ill.” + +“My friend, it will have to come,” she said, getting up too. + +“What?” + +But she did not reply. + +“I’ve never been like this till now,” he added vaguely. + +She knew why, but she did not tell him. She was a woman who knew how to +wait. + +They wandered away through that cemetery above the Golden Horn, among +the cypresses and the leaning and fallen tombstones. Now and then they +saw veiled women pausing beside the graves with flowers in their hands, +or fading among the cypress trunks into sunlit spaces beyond. Now and +then they saw a man praying. Once they came to a tomb where children +were sitting in a circle chanting the Koran with a sound like the sound +of bees. + +Before they went down to the Turkish cafe, which is close to the holy +mosque, they stood for a long while together on the hillside, looking +at distant Stamboul. The cupolas of the many mosques and the tall and +speary minarets gave their Eastern message--that message which, even to +Protestant men from the lands of the West, is as the thrilling sound of +a still, small voice. And the voice will not be gainsaid; it whispers, +“In the East thou shalt find me if thou hast not found me in the West.” + +“Why do you care for Stamboul so much?” Dion asked his companion. “I +think you are utterly without religion. I may be wrong, but I think you +are. And Stamboul is full of calls to prayer and of places for men to +worship in.” + +“Oh, there is something,” she answered. “There is the Unknown God.” + +“The Unknown God?” he repeated, with a sort of still bitterness. + +“And His city is Stamboul--for me. When the _muezzin_ calls I bow myself +in ignorance. What _He_ is, I don’t know. All I know is that men cannot +explain Him to me, or teach me anything about Him. But Stamboul has +lures for me. It is not only the city of many prayers, it is also the +city of many forgetfulnesses. The old sages said, ‘Eat not thy heart +nor mourn the buried Past.’ Stay here for a time, and learn to obey that +command. Perhaps, eventually, Stamboul will help you.” + +“Nothing can help me,” he answered. + +They went down the hill by the Tekkeh of the Dancing Dervishes. + +* * * * * + +Mrs. Clarke did not go back to her villa at Buyukderer that day. It was +already late in the afternoon when her caique touched the wharf at the +foot of the Galata bridge. + +“I shall stay another night at the hotel,” she said to Dion. “Will you +drive up with me?” + +He assented. When they reached the hotel he said: + +“May I come in for a few minutes?” + +“Of course.” + +When they were in the dim, rather bare room with the white walls, +between which the fierce noises from the Grande Rue found a home, he +said: + +“I feel before I leave I must speak about what you did last night, the +message you gave to Vane of our Embassy. I dare say you are right +and that I ought to face things. But no one can judge for a man in my +situation, a man who’s had everything cut from under him. I haven’t +ended it. That proves I’ve got a remnant of something--you needn’t call +it strength--left in me. Since you’ve told my name, I’ll take it back. +Perhaps it was cowardly to give it up. I believe it was. Robin might +think so, if he knew. And he may know things. But I can’t meet casual +people.” + +“I’m afraid I did what I did partly for myself,” she said, taking off +her little hat and laying it, with her gloves, on a table. + +“For yourself? Why?” + +“I’ll explain to-morrow. I shall see you before I go. Come for me at +ten, will you, and we’ll drive to Stamboul. I’ll tell you there.” + +“Please tell me now, if you’re not tired after being out all day.” + +“I’m never tired.” + +“Once Mrs. Chetwinde told me that you were made of iron.” + +Mrs. Clarke sent him a curious keen glance of intense and almost lambent +inquiry, but he did not notice it. The strong interest that notices +things was absent from him. Would it ever be in him again? + +“I suppose I have a great deal of stamina,” she said casually. “Well, +sit down, and I’ll try to explain.” + +She lit a cigarette and sat on a divan in the far corner of the large +room, between one of the windows and the door which led into the +bedroom. Dion sat down, facing her and the noise from the Grande Rue. He +wondered for a moment why she had chosen a place so close to the window. + +“I had a double reason for doing what I did,” she said. “One part +unselfish, the other not. I’ll be very frank. I willed that you should +come here.” + +“Why did you do that?” + +“I wanted to see you. I wanted to help you. You don’t think I, or any +one, can do that. You think everything is over for you--” + +“I know it is,” he interrupted, in a voice which sounded cold and dull +and final. + +“You think that. Any man like you, in your situation, would think that. +Let us leave it for the moment. I wished you to come here, and willed +you to come here. For some reason you have come. You didn’t let me know +you were here, but, by chance as it seems, we met. I don’t mean to lose +sight of you. I intend that you shall come either to Buyukderer, or to +some place on the Bosporus not far off that’s endurable in the summer, +and that you shall stay there for a time.” + +“Why?” + +“I want to find out if I can be of any good to you.” + +“You can’t. I don’t even know why you wish to. But you can’t.” + +“We’ll leave that,” she said, with inflexible composure. “I don’t much +care what you think about it. I shan’t be governed, or affected even, +by that. The point is, I mean you to come. How are you to come, +surreptitiously or openly, sneaking in by-ways, your real name +concealed, or treading the highway, your real name known? For your own +sake it must be openly and with your own name, and for my sake too. You +need to face your great tragedy, to stand right up to it. It’s your only +chance. A man is always pursued by what he runs away from; he can always +make a friend of what he stands up to.” + +“A friend?” + +His voice broke in with the most piercing and bitter irony through the +many noises in the room--sounds of cries, of carriage wheels, of horses’ +hoofs ringing on an uneven pavement, of iron shutters being pulled +violently down over shop fronts, of soldiers marching, of distant bugles +calling, of guitars and mandolins accompanying a Neapolitan song. + +“Yes, a friend,” said the husky and inflexible, but very feminine voice, +which resembled no other voice of woman that he had ever heard. “So much +for my thought of you. And now for my thought of myself. I am a woman +who has faced a great scandal and come out of it the winner. I +was horribly attacked, and I succeeded in what the papers call +reestablishing my reputation. You and I know very well what that means. +I know by personal experience, you by the behavior of your own wife.” + +Dion moved abruptly like a man in physical pain, but Mrs. Clarke +continued: + +“I don’t ask you to forgive me for hurting you. You and I must be frank +with each other, or we can be of no use to each other. After what has +happened many women might be inclined to avoid me as your wife did. +Fortunately I have so many friends who believe in me that I am in a +fairly strong position. I don’t want to weaken that position on account +of Jimmy. Now, if you came to Buyukderer under an assumed name, I +couldn’t introduce you to any one, or explain you without telling lies. +Gossip runs along the shores of the Bosporus like fire along a hayrick. +How can I be seen perpetually with a man whom I never introduce to any +of my friends, who isn’t known at his own Embassy? Both for your own +sake and for mine we must be frank about the whole thing.” + +“But I never said I should come to Buyukderer,” he said. + +And there was a sort of dull, lifeless obstinacy in his voice. + +“You have come to Constantinople and you will come to Buyukderer,” she +replied quietly. + +He looked at her across the room. The light was beginning to fade, but +still the awnings were drawn down beyond the windows, darkening +the large bare room. He saw her as a study in gray and white, with +colorless, unshining hair, a body so thin and flexible that it was +difficult to believe it contained nerves like a network of steel and +muscles capable of prolonged endurance, a face that was haggard in its +white beauty, eyes that looked enormous and fixed in the twilight. The +whole aspect of her was melancholy and determined, beautiful and yet +almost tragic. He felt upon him the listless yet imperative grasp which +he had first known in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room, the grasp which +resembled Stamboul’s. + +“I suppose I shall go to Buyukderer,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know +why you wish it.” + +“I have always liked you.” + +“Yes, I think you have.” + +“I don’t care to see a man such as you are destroyed by a good woman.” + +He got up. + +“No one is destroying me,” he said, with a dull and hopeless defiance. + +“Dion, don’t misunderstand me. It wouldn’t be strange if you thought I +bore your wife a grudge because she didn’t care about knowing me. But, +honestly, I am indifferent to a great many things that most women fuss +about. I quite understood her reluctance. Directly I saw her I knew that +she had ideals, and that she expected all those who were intimately in +her life to live up to them. Instead of accepting the world as it has +been created, such women must go one better than the Creator (if there +is one), and invent an imaginary world. Now I shouldn’t be at home in +an imaginary world. I’m not good enough for that, and don’t want to be. +Your wife is very good, but she lives for herself, for her own virtues +and the peace and happiness she gets out of them.” + +“She lived for Robin,” he interrupted. + +“Robin was a part of herself,” Mrs. Clarke said dryly. “Women like that +don’t know how to love as lovers, because they care for the virtues in +men rather than for the men themselves. They are robed in ideals, and +they are in mortal fear of a speck of dust falling on the robe. The dust +of my scandal was upon me, so your wife avoided me. That I was innocent +didn’t matter. I had been mixed up with something ugly. Your chivalry +was instinctively on the side of justice. Her virtue inclined to the +other side. Her virtue is destructive.” + +He was silent. + +“Now it has driven you out like a scapegoat into the wilderness!” + +“No, no!” he muttered, without conviction. + +“But don’t let it destroy you. I would rather deliberately destroy +myself than let any one destroy me. In the one case there’s strength of +a kind, in the other there’s no strength at all. I speak very plainly, +but I’m not a woman full of ideals. I accept the world just as it is, +men just as they are. If a speck of dust alights on me, I don’t think +myself hopelessly befouled; and if some one I loved made a slip, I +should only think that it is human to err and that it’s humanity I +love.” + +“Humanity!” he repeated, looking down. “Ah!” He sighed deeply. + +He raised his head. + +“And if some one you loved killed your Jimmy?” + +“As you----?” + +“Yes--yes?” + +“I should love him all the more because of the misery added to him,” she +said firmly. “There’s only one thing a really great love can’t forgive.” + +“What is it?” + +“The deliberate desire and intention to hurt it and degrade it.” + +“I never had that.” + +“No.” + +“Then--then you think she never loved me at all?” + +But Mrs. Clarke did not answer that question. + +The daylight was rapidly failing. She seemed almost to be fading away in +the dimness and in the noises of evening which rose from the Grande Rue. +Yet something of her remained and was very definite, so definite that +even Dion, broken on the wheel and indifferent to casual influences +as few men are ever indifferent, felt it almost powerfully--the +concentration of her will, the unyielding determination of her mind, +active and intense behind the pale mask of her physical body. + +He turned away and went to the window farthest from her. He leaned out +to the Grande Rue. Above his head was the sloping awning. It seemed to +him to serve as a sounding-board to the fierce noises of the mongrel +city. + +“Start again!” + +Surely among the voices of the city now filling his ears there was a +husky voice which had said that. + +Had Mrs. Clarke spoken? + +“Start again.” + +But not on the familiar road! To do that would be impossible. If there +were indeed any new life for him it must be an utterly different life +from any he had known. + +He had tried the straight life of unselfishness, purity, fidelity and +devotion--devotion to a woman and also to a manly ideal. That life had +convulsively rejected him. Had he still within him sufficient energy of +any kind to lay hold on a new life? + +For a moment he saw before him under the awning Robin’s eyes as they had +been when his little son was dying in his arms. + +He drew back from the street. The sitting-room was empty, but the door +between it and the bedroom was open. No doubt Mrs. Clarke had gone in +there to put away her hat. As he looked at the door the Russian maid, +whom he had seen at Park Side, Knightsbridge, came from the inner room. + +“Madame hopes Monsieur will call to see her to-morrow before she starts +to Buyukderer,” she said, with her strong foreign accent. + +“Thank you,” said Dion. + +As he went out the maid shut the bedroom door. + + + +CHAPTER III + +Two days later Mrs. Clarke sat with the British Ambassadress in the +British Palace at Therapia, a building of wood with balconies looking +over the Bosporus. She was alone with Lady Ingleton in the latter’s +sitting-room, which was filled with curious Oriental things, with +flowers, and with little dogs of the Pekinese breed, who lay about in +various attitudes of contentment, looking serenely imbecile, and as if +they were in danger of water on the brain. + +Lady Ingleton was an old friend of Mrs. Clarke, and was a woman wholly +indifferent to the prejudices which govern ordinary persons. She had +spent the greater part of her life abroad, and looked like a weary +Italian, though she was half English, a quarter Irish, and a quarter +French. She was very dark, and had large, dreamy dark eyes which knew +how to look bored, a low voice which could say very sharp things at +times, and a languid manner which concealed more often than it betrayed +an intelligence always on the alert. + +“What is it, Cynthia?” said Lady Ingleton. “But first tell me if you +like this Sine carpet. I found it in the bazaar last Thursday, and +it cost the eyes out of my head. Carey, of course, has said for the +hundredth time that I am ruining him, and bringing his red hair in +sorrow to the tomb. Even if I am, it seems to me the carpet is worth +it.” + +Mrs. Clarke studied the carpet for a moment with earnest attention. +She even knelt down to look closely at it, and passed her hands over it +gently, while Lady Ingleton watched her with a sort of dark and still +admiration. + +“It’s a marvel,” she said, getting up. “If you had let it go I should +almost have despised you.” + +“Please tell that to Carey when he comes to you to complain. And now, +what is it?” + +“You remember several months ago the tragedy of a man called Dion Leith, +who fought in the South African War, came home and almost immediately +after his return killed his only son by mistake out shooting?” + +“Yes. You knew him, I think you said. He was married to that beautiful +Rosamund Everard who used to sing. I heard her once at Tippie +Chetwinde’s. Esme Darlington was a great admirer or hers, of course +_pour le bon motif_.” + +“Dion Leith’s here.” + +“In Therapia?” + +“No, in a hideous little hotel in Constantinople.” + +“Why?” + +“I don’t think he knows. His wife has given him up. She was a mother, +not a lover, so you can imagine her feelings about the man who killed +her child. It seems she was _une mere folle_. She has left him and, +according to him, has given herself to God. He’s in a most peculiar +condition. He was a model husband, absolutely devoted and entirely +irreproachable. Even before marriage, I should think he had kept out of +the way of--things. The athlete with ideals--he was that, one supposes.” + +“How extraordinarily attractive!” said Lady Ingleton, in a lazy and +rather drawling voice. + +“So he had a great deal to fasten on the woman who has cast him out. +Just now, like the coffin of Mohammed, he’s suspended. That’s the +impression I get from him.” + +“Do you want to bring him down to earth?” + +“All he’s known and cared for in life has failed him. He was traveling +under an assumed name even, for fear people should point him out as the +man who killed his own son. All that sort of thing is no use. I gave his +secret away deliberately to young Vane, and asked him to speak to the +Ambassador. And now I’ve come to you. I want you to have him here once +or twice and be nice to him. Then I can see something of him, poor +fellow, and do something for him.” + +A faint smile curved Lady Ingleton’s sensitive lips. + +“Of course. Then he’s coming to the Bosporus?” + +“He’ll probably spend some time at Buyukderer. He must face his fate and +take up life again.” + +“He doesn’t intend to do what his wife has done?” + +Lady Ingleton was still smiling faintly. + +“I should say his experience rather inclines him to take an opposite +direction.” + +“Is he good-looking?” + +“What he has been through has ravaged his face.” + +“That probably makes him much handsomer than he ever was before.” + +“He hates the thought of meeting any one. But if you will have him here +once or twice, and people know it, it will make things all right.” + +“Will he come?” + +“Yes.” + +“You know I always do what you want.” + +“I never want you to do dull things.” + +“That’s true. The dogs don’t come into play against the people you bring +here.” + +It was a legend in Constantinople in Embassy circles that Lady Ingleton +always “set the dogs” at bores. Even at official dinners, when she had +as much as she could stand of the heavy bigwigs whom she was obliged +to invite, she surreptitiously touched a bell. This was a signal to +the footman to bring in the dogs, who were trained to yap at and to +investigate closely visitors. The yapping and the investigations created +a feeling of general restlessness and an almost inevitable movement, +which invariably led to the speedy departure of the unwelcome guests; +who went, as Lady Ingleton said, “not knowing why.” Enough that they +went! The dogs were rewarded with lumps of sugar as are the canine +performers in a circus. Sir Carey complained that it was bad +diplomacy, but he was devoted to his wife, and even secretly loved her +characteristic selfishness. + +“Let Dion Leith come and I’ll cast my mantle over him--for your sake, +Cynthia. You are a remarkable woman.” + +“Why?” + +But Lady Ingleton did not say why. There were immense reticences between +her and Cynthia Clarke. + +Dion left Hughes’s Hotel and went to Buyukderer. + +He had not consciously known why he did this. Until he met Mrs. Clarke +near the British Embassy he had scarcely been aware how sordid and ugly +and common under its small ostentations Hughes’s Hotel was. She made +him see the dreariness of his surroundings, although she had never seen +them; she made him again aware of things. That she was able to affect +him strongly, although he did not care for her, he knew by the sudden +approach to the brink of a complete emotional breakdown which she had +brought about in him at their first meeting. He remembered the hand +he had taken and had put against his forehead. There had been no +cool solace in it for the fever within him. Why, then, did he go to +Buyukderer? Certainly he did not go in hope. He was dwelling in a region +far beyond where hope can live. + +But here was some one who was far away from the land that had seen his +tragedy, and who meant something in connexion with him, who intended +something which had to do with him. In England his mother had been +powerless to help him; Beattie had been powerless to help him. Canon +Wilton had tried to use his almost stern power of manly sincerity on +behalf of the soul of Dion. He and Dion had had a long interview after +the inquest on the little body of Robin was over, and he had drawn +nearer to the inmost chamber than any one else had, though Bruce Evelin, +even in his almost fierce grief for Robin, had been wonderfully kind +and understanding. But even Canon Wilton had utterly failed to be of any +real use. Perhaps he had known Rosamund too well. + +Till now Mrs. Clarke was the one human being who had succeeded in making +a definite impression on Dion since Robin’s death and Rosamund’s fearful +reception of the news of it. He felt her will, and perhaps he felt +something else in her without telling himself that he did so: her +knowledge of a life absolutely different from the life he had hitherto +known, absolutely different, too, from the life known to, and lived by, +those who had been nearest to him and with whom he had been most closely +intimate. The old life with all its associations had cast him out. That +was his feeling. Possibly, without being aware of it, and driven by the +necessity that is within man to lay hold of something, to seek +after refuge in the blackest moments of existence, he was feebly and +instinctively feeling after an unknown life which was represented to +his imagination by the pale beauty of Mrs. Clarke. She had described +his situation as one of suspension between the heaven and the earth. +His heaven had certainly rejected him. Possibly, without knowing it, and +without any hope of future happiness or even of future peace, he faintly +descried her earth; possibly, in going to Buyukderer, he was making an +unconscious effort to gain it. + +He wondered about this afterwards, but not at all in the moment of his +going. Things were not clear to him then. He was still in the vague, +but he was not to walk in vagueness forever. Fate which, by its malign +action, had caused him to inflict a frightful injury upon the good woman +he loved still held in reserve for him new and tremendous experience. He +thought that in Welsley he had reached the ultimate depths which a man +can sound. It was not so. + +Dion came to Buyukderer on a breezy blue day, a day which seemed full +of hope and elation, which was radiant with sunlight and dancing waters, +and buoyant with ardent life. Gone were those delicate dreamy influences +which sometimes float over the Bosporus even in the noontides of summer, +when the winds are still, and the long shores of Asia seem to lie +wrapped in a soft siesta, holding their secrets of the Orient closely +hidden from the eyes of Europe. Europe gazes at Asia, but Asia is +gravely indifferent to Europe; she listens only to the voices which come +to her from her own depths, and, like an Almeh reclining, is stirred +only by music unknown to the West. + +As the steamer on which he traveled voyaged towards the Black Sea, Dion +paced up and down the deck and looked always at the shore of Asia. That +line of hills represented to him the unknown. If he could only lose +himself in Asia and forget! But there was nothing passionate in his +longing. It was only a gray desire born in a broken mind and a broken +nature. + +Once during the voyage he thought of Robin. Did Robin know where he was, +whither he was going? Since Rosamund had utterly rejected him, strangely +his dead boy and he had at moments seemed to Dion to be near to each +other encompassed by the same thick darkness. Even once he had seemed +to see Robin groping, like one lost and vainly seeking after light. His +vagueness was broken upon sometimes by fantastic visions. But to-day +he had no consciousness at all of Robin. The veil of death which hung +between him and the child he had slain seemed to be of stone, absolutely +impenetrable. And all his visions had left him. + +Palaces and villas came into sight and vanished; Yildiz upon its hill +scattered among the trees of its immense park; Dolmabaghcheh stretched +out along the water’s edges, with its rose-beds before it; and its +gravely staring sentinels; Beylerbey Serai on the Asian shore, with its +marble quay and its terraced gardens, not far from Kandili and the sweet +waters of Asia. Presently the Giant’s Mountain appeared staring across +the water at Buyukderer. The prow of the steamer was headed for the +European shore. Dion saw the bay opening to receive them under its +wooded hills which are pierced by the great valley. It stretched its +arms as if in welcome, and very calm was the water between them. Here +the wind failed. Along the shore were villas, and gardens rising +in terraces, where roses, lemon trees, laurels grew in almost rank +abundance. Across the water came the soft sound of music, a song of +Greece lifted above the thrumming of guitars. And something in the +aspect of this Turkish haven, sheltered from the winds of that Black Sea +which had come into sight off Kirech Burnu, something in the song which +floated over the water, struck deep into Dion’s heart. Abruptly he +was released from his frozen detachment; tears sprang into his eyes, +memories surged up in his mind--memories of a land not very far from +this land; of the maidens of the Porch; of the hill of Drouva kept by +the stars and the sleeping winds; of Zante dreaming of the sunset; of +Hermes keeping watch over the child in the green recesses of Elis. + +“Why do I come here? What have I to do here, or in any place dedicated +to beauty and to peace?” + +His brown face twitched, and the wrinkles which sprayed out from his +eyelids over his thin cheeks worked till the network of them seemed to +hold an independent and furious life. + +“If I were a happy traveler as I once was!” + +The thought pierced him, and was followed immediately by the remembrance +of some words spoken by Mrs. Clarke: + +“My friend, it will have to come.” + +That which had to come, would it come here, in this sheltered place, +where the song died away like a thing enticed by the long valley to +be kept by the amorous trees? Mrs. Clarke’s voice had sounded full of +inflexible knowledge when she had spoken these words, and she had looked +at him with eyes that were full of knowledge. It was as if those eyes +had seen the weeping of many men. + +The steamer drew near to the shore. The bright bustle of the quay was +apparent. Dion made his effort and conquered himself. But he felt almost +afraid of Buyukderer. In the ugly roar of the Grande Rue he had surely +been safer than he would be here in this place which seemed planned for +intimate happiness. + +The steamer came alongside the pier. + +When Dion stepped on to the quay a tall young Englishman with broad +shoulders, rather a baby face, and large intelligent blue eyes +immediately walked up to him. + +“Are you Mr. Dion Leith?” + +Dion, startled, was about to say “No” with determined hostility when he +remembered Mrs. Clarke. He had come here; he was, he supposed, going to +stay here for some days at least; of course he must face things. + +“Yes,” he said gruffly. + +In an easy, agreeable manner the stranger explained that he was Cyril +Vane, second secretary of the British Embassy, and a friend of Mrs. +Clarke’s, and that he had come down at her request to meet Dion, and to +tell him that there was a charming room reserved for him at the Belgrad +Hotel. + +“I’ll walk up with you if you like,” he added, in a casual voice. “It’s +no distance. That your luggage?” + +He put it in the charge of a porter from the hotel. + +“I’m over at Therapia just now. The Ambassador hopes to see you. He’s a +delightful fellow.” + +He talked pleasantly, and looked remarkably unobservant till they +reached the hotel, where he parted from Dion. + +“I dare say I shall see you soon. Very glad to do anything I can for +you. Mrs. Clarke lies at the Villa Hafiz. Any one can tell you where it +is.” + +He walked coolly away in the sun, looking like an immense fair baby in +his thin, light-colored clothes. + +“Does he know?” thought Dion, looking after him. + +Then he went up into his bedroom which looked out upon the sea. When the +luggage had been brought in and the door was shut, he sat down on the +edge of the bed and stared at the polished uncarpeted floor. + +“Why have I come here? What have I to do here?” he thought. + +He missed the uproar of Pera. It had exercised a species of pressure +upon his soul, a deadening influence. + +Ever since Robin’s death he had lived in towns, and had walked about +streets. He had been for a time in Paris, then in Marseilles, where he +had stayed for more than two months haunted by an idea of crossing over +to Africa and losing himself in the vastness of the lands of the +sun. But something had held him back, perhaps a dread of the immense +loneliness which would surely beset him on the other side of the sea; +and he had gone to Geneva, then to Zurich, to Milan, Genoa, Naples, +Berlin and Budapest. From Budapest he had come to Constantinople. He had +known the loneliness of cities, but an instinct had led him to avoid +the loneliness of the silent and solitary places. There had been +an atmosphere of peace in quiet Welsley. He was afraid of such an +atmosphere and had sought always its opposite. + +“Why have I come here?” he thought again. + +In this small place he felt exposed, almost as if he were naked and +could be seen by strangers. In Pera at least he was covered. + +“I shall have to go away from here,” he thought. + +He got up from the bed and began to unpack. As he did this, the +uselessness of what he was doing, the arid futility of every bit of the +web of small details which, in their sum, were his life, flowed upon +his soul like stagnant water forced into movement by some horrible +machinery. He was like something agitating in a vast void, something +whose incessant movements produced no effect, had no sort of relation +to anything. In his loneliness of the cities he had begun to lose that +self-respect which belongs to all happy Englishmen of his type. Mrs. +Clarke had immediately noticed that certain details in his dress showed +a beginning of neglect. Since he had met her he had rectified them, +almost unconsciously. But now suddenly the burden of detail seemed +unbearable. + +It was only by an almost fierce exercise of the will that he forced +himself to finish unpacking, and to lay his things out neatly in drawers +and on the dressing-table. Then he took off his boots and his jacket, +stretched himself out on the bed with his arms behind him and his hands +grasping the bedstead, and shut his eyes. + +There was something shameful in his flaccid idleness, in the aimlessness +of his whole life now, devoid of all work, undirected towards any +effort. But that was not his fault. He had worked with energy in +business, with equal energy in play, worked for self’s sake, for love’s +sake, and for country’s sake. And for all he had done, for his effort of +purity as a boy and a youth, for his effort of love as a husband and a +father, for his effort of valor as a soldier, he had been rewarded +with the most horrible punishment which can fall upon a man. Effort, +therefore, on his part was useless; it was worse than useless, it was +grotesque. Let others make their efforts, his were done. + +He wished that he could sleep. + +* * * * * + +The dreadful inertia of Dion did not seem to be dreadful to Mrs. Clarke. +Perhaps she was more intelligent than most women, and generated within +herself so much energy of some kind that she was not driven to seek for +it in others; or perhaps she was more sympathetic, more imaginative, +than most women, and pardoned because she understood. At any rate, she +accepted Dion as he was, and neither criticized him, attempted to bully +him, nor seemed to wish to change him. + +She had indeed insisted that he must face his fate and had ruthlessly +given him back his name; she had also deliberately set about to entangle +him in the silken cords of a social relation. But he knew within a +couple of days of his arrival at Buyukderer that he did not fear her. +No woman perhaps ever lived who worried a man less in friendship, or who +gave, without any insistence upon it, a stronger impression of loyalty, +of tenacity in affection to those for whom she cared. Although often +almost delicately blunt in words, in action she was full of tact. She +was one of those rare women who absolutely understand men, and who know +how to convey to men instantly the fact of their understanding. Such +women are always attractive to men. Even if they are plain, and not +otherwise specially clever, they possess for men a lure. + +Mrs. Clarke had told Dion in Constantinople that she meant him to come +to Buyukderer. This was an almost insolent assertion of will-power. But +when he was there she let him alone. On the day of his arrival there +had come no message from the Villa Hafiz to his hotel. He had, perhaps, +expected one; he knew that he was relieved not to receive it. Late in +the afternoon he went for a solitary walk up the valley, avoiding the +many people who poured forth from the villas and hotels to take their +air, as the sun sank low behind Therapia, and the light upon the water +lost in glory and gained in magic. Gay parties embarked in caiques. +Some people drove in small victorias drawn by spirited, quick-trotting +horses; others rode; others strolled up and down slowly by the edge of +the sea. A gay brightness of sociable life made Buyukderer intimately +merry as evening drew on. Instinctively Dion left the laughter and the +voices behind him. + +His wandering led him to the valley of roses, where he sat down by the +stream, and for the first time tasted something of the simplicity and +charm of Turkish country life. It did not charm him, but in a dim way +he felt it, was faintly aware of a soothing influence which touched him +like a cool hand. For a long time he stayed there, and he thought, “If I +remain at Buyukderer I shall often visit this place beside the stream.” + Once he was disturbed by the noise of a cantering horse in the lane +close by, but otherwise he was fortunate that day; few people came +to his retreat, and none of them were foreigners. Two or three Turks +strolled by, holding their beads; and once some veiled women came, +escorted by a eunuch, threw some petals of flowers upon the surface of +the tinkling water, and walked on up the narrow valley, chattering in +childish voices, and laughing with a twitter that was like the twitter +of birds. + +In the soft darkness he walked slowly back to his hotel. And that night +he slept better than he had ever slept in Pera. + +On the following day there was still no message from the Villa Hafiz, +and he did not see Mrs. Clarke. He took a row boat, with a big Albanian +boatman for company, and rowed out on the Bosporus till they came in +sight of the Black Sea. The wind got up; Dion stripped to his shirt and +trousers, rolled his shirt sleeves up to the shoulders, and had a long +pull at the oars. He rowed till the perspiration ran down his lean body. +The boatman admired his muscles and his strength. + +“Inglese?” he asked. + +Dion nodded. + +“Les Inglesi tres forts, molto forte!” he observed, mixing French with +Italian to show his linguistic accomplishments, “Moi tres fort aussi.” + +Dion talked to the man. When he left the boat at the quay he said +he would take it again on the morrow. The intention to go away from +Buyukderer, to drown himself again in the uproar of Pera, was already +fading out of his mind. Mrs. Clarke’s silence had, perhaps, reassured +him. The Villa Hafiz did not summon him. He could seek it if he would. +Evidently it was not going to seek him. + +Again he felt grateful to Mrs. Clarke. Her silence, her neglect of him, +increased his faith in her friendship for him. + +His second day in Buyukderer dawned; in the late afternoon of it, now +sure of his freedom, he went to the Villa Hafiz. + +He did not know that Mrs. Clarke was rich. Indeed he had heard in London +that she only had a small income, but that she “did wonders” with it. +In London he had seen her at Claridge’s and at the marvelous flat +in Knightsbridge. Now, at Buyukderer, he found her in a small, but +beautifully arranged and furnished, villa with a lovely climbing garden +behind it. Evidently she could not live in ugly surroundings or among +cheap and unbeautiful things. He saw at a glance that the rugs and +carpets on the polished floors of the villa were exquisite, that the +furniture was not merely graceful and in place but really choice and +valuable, and that the few ornaments and pieces of china scattered +about, with the most deft decision as to the exactly right place for +each mirror, bowl, vase and incense holder, were rarely fine. Yet in the +airy rooms there was no dreary look of the museum. On the contrary, they +had an intimate, almost a homely air, in spite of their beauty. Books +and magazines were allowed their place, and on a grand piano, almost +in the middle of the largest room, which opened by long windows into an +adroitly tangled rose garden where a small fountain purred amongst blue +lilies, there was a quantity of music. The whole house was strongly +scented with flowers. Dion was greeted at its threshold by a wave of +delicious perfume. + +Mrs. Clarke received him in her most casual, most impersonal manner, and +made no allusion to the fact that she knew he had already been for two +days in Buyukderer without coming near her. She asked him if his room at +the hotel was all right, and when he thanked her for bothering about him +said that Cyril Vane had seen to it. + +“He’s a kind, useful sort of boy,” she added, “and often helps me with +little things.” + +That day she said nothing about the Ambassador and Lady Ingleton, and +showed no disposition to assume any proprietorship over Dion. She took +him over the house, and also into the garden. + +Upon the highest terrace of the latter, far above the house, between two +magnificent cypresses, there stood a pavilion. It was made of the wood +of the plane tree, was painted dull green, had trees growing thickly at +its back, and was partially concealed by a luxuriant creeper with deep +orange-colored flowers, not unlike orange-colored jasmine, which Mrs. +Clarke had seen first in Egypt and had acclimatized in Turkey. The +center of the front of this pavilion was open to the terrace, but could +be closed by sliding doors which, when pushed back, fitted into the +hollow walls on either side. The interior was furnished with bookcases, +divans covered with cushions and embroideries, coffee tables, and +Eastern rugs. Antique bronze lamps hung by chains from the painted +ceiling, which was divided into lozenges alternately dull green and dull +gold. The view from this detached library was very beautiful. Over the +roof of the villa, beyond the broad white road and the quay, the long +bay stretched out into the Bosporus. Across its tranquil waters, and the +waters beaten up into waves by the winds from the Black Sea, rose the +shores of Asia, Beikos, Anadoli Kavak, Anadoli Fanar, with lines of +hills and the Giant’s Mountain. Immediately below, and stretching away +to right and left, were the curving shores of Europe, with the villas +and palaces of Buyukderer held between the blue sea and the tree-covered +heights of Kabatash; the park of the Russian Palace, the summer home +of Russia’s representative at the Sublime Porte, gardens of many rich +merchants of Constantinople and of Turkish, Greek and Armenian magnates, +and the fertile and well-watered country extending to Therapia, Stania +and Bebek on the one hand, and to Rumili Kavak, with the great Belgrad +forest behind it, and to Rumili Fanar, where the Bosporus flows into the +Black Sea, on the other. + +“Come up here whenever you like,” Mrs. Clarke said to Dion. “You can +ring at the side gate of the garden, and come up without entering the +house or letting me know you are here. I have my own sitting-room on the +first floor of the villa next to my bedroom, the little blue-and-green +room I showed you just now. The books I’m reading at present are there. +No one will bother you, and you won’t bother any one.” + +He thanked her, not very warmly, perhaps, but with a genuine attempt +at real gratitude, and said he would come. They walked up and down the +terrace for a little while, in silence for the most part. Before they +went down he mentioned that he had been out rowing. + +“I ride for exercise,” said Mrs. Clarke. “You can easily hire a good +horse here, but I have one of my own, Selim. Nearly every afternoon I +ride.” + +“Were you riding the day before yesterday?” Dion asked. + +“Yes, in the Kesstane Dereh, or Valley of Roses, as many people call +it.” + +“Were you alone?” + +“Yes.” + +Dion had thought of the cantering horse which he had heard in the lane +as he sat beside the stream. He felt sure it was Selim he had heard. +Mrs. Clarke did not ask the reason for his questions. She seemed to him +a totally incurious woman. Presently they descended to the house, and +he wished her good-by. She did not ask him to stay any longer, did not +propose any expedition, or any day or hour for another meeting. She just +let him go with a grave, and almost abstracted good-by. + +When he was alone he realized something; she had assumed that he was +going to make a long stay in Buyukderer. Once, in speaking of the +foliage, she had said, “You will notice in September----” Why was she +so certain he would stay on? There was nothing to prevent him from going +away by the steamer on the morrow. She did nothing to curb his freedom; +she seemed almost indifferent to the fact of his presence there; yet +she had told him he would come, and was evidently certain that he would +stay. + +He wondered a little, but only a little, about her will. Then his mind +returned to an old haunt in which continually it wandered, obsessed by +a horror that seemed already ancient, the walled garden at Welsley in +which he had searched in the dark for a fleeing woman. Perpetually he +heard the movement of that woman’s dress as she disappeared into the +darkness, and the sound of a door, the door of his own home, being +locked against him to give her time to escape from him. That sound had +cut his life in two. He saw, as he had seen many times in the past, the +falling downwards of edges that bled, the edges of his severed life. + +And he forgot the garden of the Villa Hafiz, the pavilion which stood on +the hill looking over the sea to Asia, the grave woman who had told him, +indifferently, that he could go to it when he would. + +Nevertheless on the following day he found himself at the garden +gate; he rang the bell; he was admitted by Osman, the placidly smiling +gardener, and he ascended to the pavilion. No one was there. He stayed +for three hours, and nobody came to interrupt him. Down below the wooden +villa held closely the secret of its life. Once, as he gazed down on +it, he wondered for a moment about Mrs. Clarke, how she passed her +hours without a companion, which she was doing just then. The siren of +a steamer sounded in the bay. He went into the pavilion. On one of the +coffee-tables he found lying a small thin book bound in white vellum. He +took it up and read the name in gold letters: “The Kasidah of Haji Abdu +El-Yezdi.” It was the book he had found Beattie reading on the night +when Robin was born, on the night when Bruce Evelin and Guy had +discussed Mrs. Clarke’s divorce case and Mrs. Clarke. He shuddered in +the warmth of the pavilion. Then resolutely he picked the book up. +At the beginning, after some blank pages, there was a portrait of Sir +Richard Burton. Dion looked at the strong, tragic face, with its burning +expression, for a long time. Then he stretched himself on one of the +divans and began to read the book. + +Down below, in the villa, Mrs. Clarke was sitting in the green-and-blue +room in the first floor with Lady Ingleton, and they were talking about +Dion. + +“He’s here now,” said Mrs. Clarke to her friend. + +“Where?” + +“In the garden. I haven’t seen him, but Osman tells me he has gone up to +the pavilion.” + +“We can stroll up there later on, and then you can introduce him if you +want to.” + +“No.” + +Lady Ingleton did not look surprised on receiving this brusk negative. + +“Shall I get Carey to see him first?” she asked, in her lazy voice. +“Cyril Vane has prepared the way before him, and Carey is all sympathy +and readiness to do what he can. The Greek tragedy of the situation +appeals to him tremendously, and of course he has a hundredfold more +tact than I have.” + +“Mr. Leith must go to the Embassy. But what he has been through has +developed in him a sort of wildness that is almost like that of an +animal. If he saw an outstretched hand he would probably bolt.” + +“And yet he’s sitting in your pavilion.” + +“Because he knows he won’t see any outstretched hand there. He was here +for two days without coming near me, and even then he only came because +I had taken no notice of him.” + +“I know. You spread the food outside, go indoors and close the shutters, +and then, when no one is looking, it creeps up, takes the food, and +vanishes.” + +“A very great grief eats away the conventions, and beneath the +conventions there is always something strongly animal.” + +For a moment Lady Ingleton looked at Mrs. Clarke and was silent. Then +she said, very quietly and simply: + +“Does he realize yet how cruel you are?” + +“He isn’t thinking about me.” + +“But he will.” + +Mrs. Clarke stared at the wall for a minute. Then she said: + +“Ask the Ambassador if he will ride with me to-morrow afternoon, will +you, unless he’s engaged?” + +“At what time?” + +“Half-past four. Perhaps he’ll dine afterwards.” + +“Very well. And now I’m going up to the pavilion.” + +But she did not go, although she was genuinely curious about the man who +had killed his son and had been cast out by the woman he loved. Secretly +Lady Ingleton was much more softly romantic than Mrs. Clarke was. She +was hard on bores, and floated in an atmosphere of delicate selfishness, +but she could be very kind if her imagination was roused, and though +almost strangely devoid of prejudices she had instincts that were not +unsound. + +That evening she gave Mrs. Clarke’s message to her husband. + +“To-morrow--to-morrow?” he said, in his light tenor voice, inquiringly. +“Yes, I can go. As it happens, I’m breakfasting with Borinsky at +the Russian Palace, so I shall be on the spot. John can meet me with +Freddie.” + +Freddie was the Ambassador’s favorite horse. + +“But can Borinsky put up with you till half-past four?” + +“Cynthia Clarke won’t mind if I turn up before my time.” + +“No. She’s devoted to you, and you know it, and love it.” + +Sir Carey smiled. He and his wife were happy people, and he never wished +to stray from his path of happiness, not even with Mrs. Clarke. But +he had been a beautiful youth, whom many women had loved, and was +a remarkably handsome man, although his red hair was turning gray. +Honestly he liked to be admired by women, and to feel that his +fascination for them was still intact. And he did not actively object +to the fact of his wife’s being aware of it. For he loved her very much, +and he knew that a woman does not love a man less because other women +feel his power. + +He appreciated Mrs. Clarke, and thought her full of intelligence, of +nuances, and _tres fine_. Her husband had been his right-hand man at +the Embassy, but he had taken Mrs. Clarke’s part when the divorce +proceedings were initiated, and had stood up for her ever since. Like +Esme Darlington he believed that she was a wild mind in an innocent +body. + +On the following day he rode with her towards Rumili Kavak, and +presently, returning, to the four cross-roads at the mouth of the Valley +of Roses. A Turkish youth was standing there. Mrs. Clarke spoke to him +in Turkish and he replied. She turned to the Ambassador. + +“You do want a cup of coffee, don’t you?” + +“If you tell me I do.” + +“By the stream just beyond the lane. And I’ll ride home. I’ve ordered +all the things you like best for dinner. Ahmed Bey and Madame Davroulos +will make a four.” + +“And Delia and Cyril Vane a two!” + +“You must try to control your very natural jealousy.” + +“I will.” + +He dismounted and gave the reins to the Turkish youth. + +Sitting very erect on her black Arab horse, Mrs. Clarke watched him +disappear down the lane in which Dion had heard the cantering feet of a +horse as he sat alone beside the stream. + +Then she rode back to Buyukderer. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Whether Mrs. Clarke had put “The Kasidah” in a conspicuous place in the +pavilion with a definite object, or whether she had been reading it and +by chance had laid it down, Dion could not tell. He believed, however, +that she had intended that this book should be read by him at this +crisis in his life. She had frankly acknowledged that she wished to +rouse him out of his inertia; she was a very mental woman; a book was a +weapon that such a woman would be likely to employ. + +At any rate, Dion felt her influence in “The Kasidah.” + +The book took possession of him; it burnt him like a flame; even it made +him for a short time forget. That was incredible, yet it was the fact. + +It was an antichristian book. A woman’s love of God had made Dion in his +bitterness antichristian. It was an enormously vital book, and called to +the vitality which misery had not killed within him. There were passages +in it which seemed to have been written specially for him--passages that +went into him like a sword and drew blood from out of the very depths of +him. + +“Better the worm of Izrail than Death that walks in form of life”--that +was for him. He had substituted for death, swift, easy, a mere nothing, +the long, slow terrific something. Death that walks in form of life. +Deliberately he had chosen that. + + “On thought itself feed not thy thought; nor turn + From Sun and Light to gaze + At darkling cloisters paved with tombs where rot + The bones of bygone days----” + +What else had he done since he had wandered in the wilderness? + + “There is no Good, there is no Bad, these be + The whims of mortal will: + What works me weal that call I ‘good,’ what harms + And hurts I hold as ‘ill.’” + +These words drove out the pale Fantasy he had fallen down and worshiped. +It had harmed and hurt him. Haji Abdu El-Yezdi bade him henceforth hold +it as “ill.” If he could only do that, would not gates open before him, +would not, perhaps, the power to live again in a new way arise within +him? + + “Do what thy Manhood bids thee do, from + None but self expect applause; + He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes + And keeps his self-made laws. + + All other Life is living Death, a world where + None but Phantoms dwell, + A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling + Of the Camel bell.” + +He had lived the other life, for he had lived for another; he had lived +to earn the applause of affection from Rosamund; he had striven always +to fit his life into her pattern; now he was alone with the result. + + “Pluck the old woman from thy breast: be + Stout in woe, be stark in weal-- . . . . . . . spurn + Bribe of Heav’n and threat of Hell.” + +He had chosen the death that walks in the form of life; now something +powerful, stirred from sleep by the influence of one not dead, rose up +in him to reject that death. And it was the same thing that long ago +had enabled him to be pure before his marriage, the same thing which had +enabled him to put England before even Rosamund, the same thing which +had held him up in many difficult days in South Africa, and had kept him +cheerful and bravely gay through the long separation from all he cared +for, the same thing which had begun to dominate Rosamund during those +few short days at Welsley, the brief period of reunion in happiness +which had preceded the crash into the abyss; it was the fiery spark +of Dion’s strength which not all his weakness had succeeded in +extinguishing, a strength which had made for good in the past, a +strength which might make for evil in the future. + +Did Mrs. Clarke know of this strength, and was she subtly appealing to +it? + +“Pluck the old woman from thy breast.” + +Again and again Dion repeated those words to himself, and he saw +himself, an ineffably tragic, because a weak figure, feebly drifting +with his black misery through cities which knew him not, wandering +alone, sitting alone, peering at the lives of others, watching their +vices without interest, without either approval or condemnation, staring +with dull eyes at their fetes and their funerals, their affections, +their cruelties, their passions, their crimes. He saw himself in a +garden at Pera staring at painted women, neither desiring them nor +turning from them with any disgust. He saw himself--as an old woman. A +smoldering defiance within him sent out a spurt of scorching flame. + +* * * * * + +Sitting alone by the stream in the Valley of Roses Dion heard the +sound of steps, and presently saw a slight, very refined-looking man +in riding-breeches, with a hunting-crop in his hand, coming down to the +bank. He sat down on a rough wooden bench under a willow tree, lit a +cigar and gazed into the water. He had large, imaginative gray eyes. +There was something military and something poetic in his manner and +bearing and in his whole appearance. Almost directly from a little +rustic cafe close by a Greek lad came, carrying a wooden stool. On it he +placed a steaming brass coffee pot, a cup and saucer, sugar, a stick of +burning incense in a tiny vase, and a rose with a long stalk. Then he +went swiftly away, looking very intelligent. The stranger--obviously +an Englishman--picked up the rose, held it, smelt it, laid it down and +began to sip his coffee. Then in a very casual, easy-going way, like a +man who was naturally sociable, and who enjoyed having a word with any +one whom he came across, he began to speak to Dion. + +When that day died Dion stood alone looking down into the stream. He +looked till he saw in it the face of night. Broken stars quivered in the +water; among them for a moment he perceived the eyes of a child, of a +child who had been able to love him as a woman had not been able to love +him, and to forgive him as a woman could not forgive him. + +When Dion walked back to his hotel the candlelight glimmered over the +dining-table at the Villa Hafiz where Mrs. Clarke sat with her +three guests--the Ambassador, Madame Davroulos, the wife of a Greek +millionaire whose home was at Smyrna, and Ahmed Bey, one of the Sultan’s +adjutants. + +Hadi Bey had long ago passed out of her life. + +That evening the Ambassador got up to go rather early. His caique was +lying against the quay. + +“Come out by the garden gate, won’t you?” said Mrs. Clarke to him, and +she led the way to the tangled rose garden, where sometimes she sat and +read the poems of Hafiz. + +Madame Davroulos was smoking a large cigar in a corner of the +drawing-room and talking volubly to Ahmed Bey, who was listening as +only a Turk can listen, with a smiling and immense serenity, twisting a +string of amber beads in his padded fingers. + +“He was there?” said Mrs. Clarke, in her quietest and most impersonal +manner. + +“Yes--he was there.” + +The Ambassador paused by the fountain, and stood with one foot on the +marble edge of the basin, gazing down on the blue lilies whose color +looked dull and almost black in the night. + +“He was there. I talked with him for quite half an hour. He seemed glad +to talk; he talked almost fiercely.” + +Mrs. Clarke’s white face looked faintly surprised. + +“Eventually I told him who I was, and he told his name to me, watching +me narrowly to see how I should take it. My air of complete serenity +over the revelation seemed to reassure him. I said I knew he was a +friend of yours and that my wife and I would be very glad to see him at +Therapia, and at the Embassy in Pera later on. He said he would come to +Therapia to-morrow.” + +This time Mrs. Clarke looked almost strongly surprised. + +“What did you talk about?” she asked. + +“Chiefly about a book he seems to have been reading recently, Richard +Burton’s ‘Kasidah.’ You know it, of course?” + +“I remember Omar Khayyam much better.” + +“He spoke strangely, almost terribly about it. Perhaps you know +how converts to Roman Catholicism talk in the early days of their +conversion, as if they alone understood the true meaning of being safe +in sunlight, cradled and cherished in the blaze, as it were. Well, he +spoke like one just converted to a belief in the all-sufficiency of +this life if it is thoroughly lived; and, I confess, he gave me the +impression of being cradled and cherished in thick darkness.” + +Sir Carey was silent for a moment. Then he said: + +“What was this man, Leith?” + +“Do you mean----?” + +“Before his married life came to an end?” + +“The straight, athletic, orthodox young Englishman; very sane and +simple, healthily moral; not perhaps particularly religious, but full +of sentiment and trust in a boyish sort of way. I remember he read +Christian morals into Greek art.” + +Sir Carey raised his eyebrows. + +“One could sum him up by saying that he absolutely believed in and +exclusively adored a strong religious, beautiful, healthy-minded +and healthy-bodied Englishwoman, who has now, I believe, entered a +sisterhood, or something of the kind. She colored his whole life. He +saw life through her eyes, and believed through her faith. At least, I +should think so.” + +“Then he’s an absolutely different man from what he was.” + +“The strong religious, beautiful, healthy-minded and bodied Englishwoman +has condemned as a crime a mere terrible mistake. She has taken herself +away from her husband and given herself to God. She cared for the +child.” + +Mrs. Clarke laid a curious cold emphasis on the last sentence. + +“Horrible!” said Sir Carey slowly. “And so now he turns from the +Protestant’s God to Destiny playing with the pawns upon the great +chessboard. But if he’s a man of sentiment, and not an intellectual, +he’ll never find this life all-sufficient, however he lives it. The +darkness will never be enough for him.” + +“It has to be enough for a great many of us,” said Mrs. Clarke. + +There was a long pause, which she broke by saying, in a lighter voice: + +“As he’s going to visit you, I can go on having him here. You’ll let +people know, won’t you?” + +“That he’s a friend of ours? Of course.” + +“That will make things all right.” + +“You run your unconventionalities always on the public race-course, in +sight of the grand stand packed with the conventionalities.” + +“What else can I do? Besides, secret things are always found out.” + +“You never went in for them.” + +“And yet my own husband misunderstood me.” + +“Poor Beadon! He was an excellent councilor.” + +“And an excellent husband.” + +“But he made a great fool of himself.” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Clarke, without any animus. “And so Mr. Leith made a +sad impression upon you?” + +“A few men can be tormented. He is one of them. He has gone down into +the dark places. Perhaps the Furies are with him there, the attendants +of the Goddess of Death.” + +He glanced at his companion. She was standing absolutely still, gazing +down into the water. Her white face looked beautiful, but strangely +haggard and implacable in the night. And for a moment his mind dwelt on +the image conjured up by his last words, and he thought of her as the +Goddess of Death. + +“Well,” he said, “I must go, or Delia will be wondering. She knows your +power.” + +“And knows I am too faithful to her not to resist yours.” + +He pressed her hand, then said rather abruptly: + +“Are you feverish to-night?” + +“No,” said Mrs. Clarke, almost with the hint of a sudden irritation. “I +am never feverish.” + +Sir Carey went away to his caique. + +When he had gone Mrs. Clarke stood alone by the fountain for a moment, +frowning, and with her thin lips closely compressed, almost, indeed, +pinched together. She gazed down at her hands. They were lovely hands, +small, sensitive, refined; they looked clever, too, not like tapering +fools. She knew very well how lovely they were, yet now she looked at +them with a certain distaste. Betraying hands! Abruptly she extended +them towards the fountain, and let the cool silver of the water spray +over them. And as she watched the spray she thought of the wrinkles +about Dion’s eyes. + +“Ah, ma chere, qu’est que vous faites la toute seule? Vous prenez un +bain?” + +The powerful contralto of Madame Davroulos flowed out from the +drawing-room, and her alluring mustache appeared at the lighted French +windows. + +Mrs. Clarke dried her hands with a minute handkerchief, and, without +troubling about an explanation, turned away from the rose garden. But +when her two guests were gone she told her Greek butler to bring out an +arm-chair and a foot-stool, and the Russian maid, whom Dion had seen, to +bring her a silk wrap. Then she sent them both to bed, lit a cigarette +and sat down by the fountain, smoking cigarette after cigarette quickly. +Not till the freshness of dawn was in the air, and a curious living +grayness made the tangled rose bushes look artificial and the fountain +strangely cold, did she get up to go to bed. + +She looked very tired; but she always looked tired, although she +scarcely knew what physical fatigue was. The gray of dawn grew about her +and emphasized her peculiar pallor, the shadows beneath her large eyes, +the haunted look about her cheeks and her temples. + +As she went into the house she pulled cruelly at a rose bush. A white +rose came away from its stalk in her hand. She crushed its petals and +flung them away on the sill of the window. + +While Mrs. Clarke was sitting by the fountain in the garden of the Villa +Hafiz, Dion was sleepless in his bedroom at the Hotel Belgrad. He was +considering whether he should end his life or whether he should change +the way of his life. He was not conscious of struggle. He did not feel +excited. But he did feel determined. The strength he possessed was +asserting itself. It had slumbered within him; it had not died. + +Either he would die now or he would genuinely live, would lay a grip on +life somehow. + +If he chose to die how would Mrs. Clarke take the news of his death? He +imagined some one going to the Villa Hafiz from the Hotel Belgrad with +a message: “The English gentleman Mr. Vane took the room for has just +killed himself. What is to be done with the body?” What would Mrs. +Clarke say? What would she look like? What would she do? He remembered +the sign of the cross she had made in the flat in Knightsbridge. With +that sign she had dismissed the soul of Brayfield into the eternities. +Would she dismiss the soul of Dion Leith with the sign of the cross? + +If she heard of his death, Rosamund would of course be unmoved, or +would, perhaps, feel a sense of relief. And doubtless she would offer +up to God a prayer in which his name would be mentioned. Women who loved +God were always ready with a prayer. If it came too late, never mind! It +was a prayer, and therefore an act acceptable to God. + +But Mrs. Clarke? Certainly she would not pray about it. Dion had a +feeling that she would be angry. He had never seen her angry, but he +felt sure she could be enraged in a frozen, still, terrible way. If he +died perhaps a thread would snap, the thread of her design. For she had +some purpose in connexion with him. She had willed him to come to this +place; she was willing him to remain in it. Apparently she wished to +raise him out of the dust. He thought of Eyub, of Mrs. Clarke walking +beside him on the dusty road. She had seemed very much at home in the +dust. But she was not like Rosamund; she was not afraid of a speck of +dust falling upon the robe of her ideals. What was Mrs. Clarke’s purpose +in connexion with him? He did not pursue that question, but dismissed +it, incurious still in his misery, which had become more active since +his strength had stirred out of sleep. If he did not die how was he +going to live? He had lived by the affections. Could he live by the +lusts? He had no personal ambitions; he had no avarice to prompt him to +energy; he was not in love with himself. Suddenly he realized the value +of egoism to the egoist, and that he was very poor because he was really +not an egoist by nature. If he had been, if he were, perhaps things +would have gone better for him in the past, would be more endurable now. +But he had lived not to himself but to another. + +He told himself that to do that was the rankest folly. At any rate he +would never do that again. But the unselfishness of love had become a +habit with him. Even in his extreme youth he had instinctively saved +up, moved, no doubt, by an inherent desire to have as large a gift as +possible ready when the moment for giving came. + +If he lived on he must live for himself; he must reverse all his rules +of conduct; he must fling himself into the life of self-gratification. +He had come to believe that the men who trample are the men who succeed +and who have the happiest lives. Sensitiveness does not pay; loving +consideration of others brings no real reward; men do not get what they +give. It is the hard and the passionate man who is the victor in life, +not the man who is tender, thoughtful, even unselfish in the midst +of his passion. Self-control--what a reward Dion had received for the +self-control of his youth! + +If he lived he would cast it away. + +He sat at his window till dawn, till the sea woke and the hills of Asia +were visible under a clear and delicate sky. He leaned out and felt the +atmosphere of beginning that is peculiar to the first hour of daylight. +Could he begin again? It seemed impossible. Yet now he felt he could +not deprive himself of life. Suicide is a cowardly act, even though +a certain kind of courage must prompt the pulling of the trigger, the +insertion of the knife, or the pouring between the lips of the poison. +Dion had not the courage of that cowardice, or the cowardice of that +courage. Perhaps, without knowing it, in deciding to live he was only +taking one more step on the road whose beginning he had seen in Elis, +as he waited alone outside of the house where Hermes watched over the +child; was saving the distant Rosamund from a stroke which would pierce +through her armor even though she knelt before the throne of God. But he +was conscious only of the feeling that he could not kill himself, though +he did not know why he could not. The capacity for suicide evidently +was not contained in his nature. He rejected the worm of Izrail; he +rejected, too, the other death. He must, then, live. + +He washed and lay down on his bed. And directly he lay down he wondered +why he had been sitting up and mentally debating a great question. For +in the Valley of Roses he had surely decided it before he spoke to Sir +Carey Ingleton. When he said he would visit Lady Ingleton he must have +decided. That visit would mean the return to what is called normal life, +the exit from the existence of a castaway, the entrance into relations +with his kind. He dreaded that visit, but he meant to pay it. In paying +it he would take his first step away from the death that walks in form +of life. + +He could not sleep, and soon he got up again and went to the window. A +gust of wind came to him from the sea. It seemed to hint at a land that +was cold, and he thought of Russia, and then again of the distant places +in which he might lose himself, places in which no one would know who he +was, or trouble about the past events of his life. There before him was +Asia rising out of the dawn. He had only to cross a narrow bit of sea +and a continent was ready to receive him and to hide him. So he had +thought of Africa on many a night as he sat in the Hotel des Colonies at +Marseilles. But he had not crossed to Africa. + +The wind died away. It had only been a capricious gust, a wandering +guest of the morning. Down below in the Bay of Buyukderer the waters +were quiet; the row boats lay still at the edge of the quay; the small +yachts, with their sails furled, slept at their moorings. The wind had +been like a summons, a sudden tug at him as of a hand saying, with its +bones, its muscles, its nerves, its sinews, “Come with me!” + +Once before he had felt something like that in a London Divorce Court, +but it had been fainter, subtler and perhaps warmer. The memory of his +curiosity about the unwise life returned to him, somehow linked with the +wandering wind. In his months of the living death he had often looked on +at it in the cities through which he had drifted, but he had never taken +part in it. He had been emptied of the force to do that by his misery. +Now he was conscious of force though his misery was not lessened, seemed +to him even to have increased. He had often been dulled by grief; now he +felt cruelly alive. + +He went down to the sea, found the Albanian boatman with whom he had +rowed on his first day at Buyukderer, took his boat out and bathed from +it. The current beyond the bay was strong. He had a longing to let it +take him whither it would. If only he could find an influence to which +he could give himself, an influence which would sweep him away! + +If only he could get rid of his long fidelity! + +When he climbed dripping, and with his hair plastered down on his +forehead, into the boat, the Albanian stared at him as if in surprise. + +“What’s the matter?” said Dion in French, when he was dry and getting +into his clothes. + +But the man only replied: + +“Monsieur tres fort molto forte, moi aussi tres fort. Monsieur venez +sempre con moi!” + +And he smiled with the evident intention of being agreeable to a +valuable client. Dion did not badger him with any more questions. As the +boat touched the quay he told the man to be ready to start for Therapia +that day at any time after three o’clock. + +When he reached the summer villa of the Ambassador he was informed by a +tall English footman that Lady Ingleton was at home. She received Dion +in the midst of the little dogs, but after he had been with her for a +very few minutes she rang for a servant and banished them. Secretly she +was deeply interested in this man who had killed his son, but she gave +Dion no reason to suppose that she was concentrating on him. Her lazy, +indifferent manner was perfectly natural, but perhaps now and then she +was more definitely kind than usual; and she managed somehow to show +Dion that she was ready to be his friend. + +“If you stay long we must take you over one day on the yacht to Brusa,” + she said presently. “Cynthia loves Brusa, and so does my husband. We +went over there once with Pierre Loti. Cynthia and poor Beadon Clarke +were of the party, I remember. We had a delightful time.” + +“Why do you say poor Beadon Clarke?” asked Dion abruptly. + +That day he was at a great parting of the ways. He was concentrated upon +himself and his own decision, so concentrated that the conventions +meant little to him. He was totally unaware of the bruskness of such a +question asked of a woman whom he had never seen before. + +“One pities a thoroughly good fellow who does a thoroughly foolish +thing. It was a very, very foolish thing to do to attack Cynthia.” + +“I was in court during part of the trial.” + +“Well, then, you know how foolish it was. Some people can’t be attacked +with impunity.” + +The inflexion of Lady Ingleton’s voice at that moment made Dion think of +Mrs. Chetwinde. Once or twice Mrs. Chetwinde’s voice had sounded almost +exactly like that when she had spoken of Mrs. Clarke. + +“Especially people who are innocent,” he said. + +“Naturally, as Cynthia was. Beadon Clarke made a terrible mistake, poor +fellow.” + +When Dion got up to go she again alluded to his staying on at +Buyukderer, with an “if” attached to the allusion, and her dark eyes, +which looked like an Italian’s, rested upon him with a soft, but very +intelligent, scrutiny. He had an odd feeling that she had taken a liking +to him, and yet that she did not wish him to stay on in Buyukderer. + +“I don’t quite know what I am going to do,” he said. + +As he spoke the hideous freedom of his empty life seemed to gather +itself together, and to flow stealthily upon him like a filthy wave +bearing refuse upon its surface. + +“I’m a free agent,” he added, looking hard at Lady Ingleton. “I have no +ties.” + +He shook her hand and went away. + +That evening she said to her husband: + +“I have felt sorry for myself occasionally, and for other people in my +Christian moments, but I have never in the past felt so sorry for any +one as I feel now for Mr. Leith.” + +“Because of the tragedy which has marred his life?” + +“It isn’t only that. He’s on the edge of so much.” + +“You don’t mean----?” + +Sir Carey paused. + +“No, no,” Lady Ingleton said, almost impatiently. “Life hasn’t done with +that man yet. I could almost find it in my heart to wish it had. Shall +we take him to Brusa on the yacht? That would advertise our acquaintance +with him to all the gossips on the Bosporus. I promised Cynthia I would +throw my mantle over him.” + +“I’m always ready for a visit to your only rival,” said Sir Carey. + +“La Mosquee Verte! I’ll think about it. We might go for three or four +days.” + +Her warm voice sounded rather reluctant; yet her husband knew that she +wished to go. + +“It would be an excellent way of showing your mantle to the gossips,” he +remarked. “But you always think of excellent ways.” + +Two days later the Embassy yacht, the “Leyla,” having on board Sir Carey +and Lady Ingleton, Mrs. Clarke, Cyril Vane, Dion, and Turkish Jane, the +doyenne of the Pekinese, sailed for Mudania on the sea of Marmora, which +is the Port of Brusa. + + + +CHAPTER V + +On the day after the return of the “Leyla” from Mudania, Mrs. Clarke +asked Dion if he would dine with her at the Villa Hafiz. She asked him +by word of mouth. They had met on the quay. It was morning, and Dion was +about to embark in the Albanian’s boat for a row on the Bosporus when +he saw Mrs. Clarke’s thin figure approaching him under a white umbrella +lined with delicate green. She was wearing smoked spectacles, which +made her white face look strange and almost forbidding in the strong +sunlight. + +“I can’t come,” he said. + +And there was a sound almost of desperation in his voice. + +“I can’t.” + +She said nothing, but she stood there beside him looking very +inflexible. Apparently she was waiting for an explanation of his +refusal, though she did not ask for it. + +“I can’t be with people. It’s no use. I’ve tried it. You didn’t know--” + +“Yes, I did,” she interrupted him. + +“You did know?” + +He stood staring blankly at her. + +“Surely I--I tried my best. I did my utmost to hide it.” + +“You couldn’t hide it from me.” + +“I must go away,” he said. + +“Come to-night. Nobody will be there.” + +“It isn’t a party?” + +“We shall be alone.” + +“You meant to ask people?” + +“I won’t. I’ll ask nobody. Half-past eight?” + +“I’ll come,” he said. + +She turned away without another word. + +Just after half-past eight he rang at the door of the villa. + +As he went into the hall and smelt the strong perfume of flowers he +wondered that he had dared to come. But he had been with Mrs. Clarke +when she was in horrible circumstances; he had sat and watched her when +she was under the knife; he had helped her to pass through a crowd of +people fighting to stare at her and making hideous comments upon her. +Then why, even to-night, should he dread her eyes? His remembrance of +her tragedy made him feel that hers was the one house into which he +could enter that night. + +As he walked into the drawing-room he recollected walking into Mrs. +Chetwinde’s drawing-room, full of interest in the woman who was in +sanctuary, but who was soon to be delivered up, stripped by a man of +the law’s horrible allegations, to the gaping crowd. Now she was living +peacefully among her friends, the custodian of her boy, a woman who had +won through; and he was a wanderer, a childless father, the slayer of +his son. + +Mrs. Clarke kept him waiting for a few minutes. He stood at the French +window and listened to the fountain. In the fall of the water there +was surely an undertune. He seemed to know that it was there and yet he +could not hear it; and he felt baffled as if by a thin mystery. + +Then Mrs. Clarke came in and they went at once to dinner. + +During dinner they talked very little. She spoke when the Greek butler +was in the room, and Dion did his best in reply; nevertheless the +conversation languished. Although Dion had so few words to give to his +hostess he felt abnormally alive. The whole of him was like a quivering +nerve. + +When dinner was over Mrs. Clarke said to the butler: + +“Osman will make the coffee for us. He knows about it. We shall have it +in the pavilion.” + +The butler, who, although a Greek, looked at that moment almost +incredibly stolid, moved his rather pouting lips, no doubt in assent, +and was gone. They saw him no more that night. + +They walked slowly from terrace to terrace of the climbing garden till +they came to the height on which the pavilion stood guarded by the +two mighty cypresses. There was no moon, and the night was a very dark +purple night, with stars that looked dim and remote, like lost stars in +the wilderness of infinity. From the terraces came the scent of flowers. +In the pavilion one hanging lamp gave a faint light which emphasized the +obscurity. It shone through colored panes and drew thick shadows on +the floor and on sections of the divans. The heaps of cushions were +colorless, and had a strange look of unyielding massiveness, as if +they were blocks of some hard material. Osman stood beside one of the +coffee-tables. + +As soon as his mistress appeared he began to make the coffee. Dion +stayed upon the terrace, and Mrs. Clarke went into the pavilion and sat +down. + +The cypresses were like dark towers in the night. Dion looked up +at them. Their summits were lost in the brooding purple darkness. +Cypresses! Why had he thought of cypresses in England in connexion with +Mrs. Clarke? Why had he seen her standing among cypresses, seen himself +coming to her and with her in the midst of the immense shadows they +cast? No doubt simply because he knew she lived much in Turkey, the land +of the cypress. That must have been the reason. Nevertheless now he was +oppressed by a weight of mystery somehow connected with those dark and +gigantic trees; and he remembered the theory that the past, the present +and the future are simultaneously in being, and that those who are said +to read the future in reality possess only the power of seeing what +already is on another plane. Had he in England, however vaguely, however +dimly, seen as through a crack some blurred vision of what was already +in existence? He felt almost afraid of the cypresses. Nevertheless, as +he stood looking up at them, his sense almost of fear tempted him +to make an experiment. He remained absolutely still, and strove to +concentrate all his faculties. After a long pause he shut his eyes. + +“If the far future is even now in being,” he said mentally, “let me look +upon it now.” + +He saw nothing; but immediately he heard the sound of wind among pine +trees, as he had heard it with Rosamund in the green valley of Elis. It +rose in the silent night, that long murmur of eternity, and presently +faded away. + +He shuddered and turned sharply towards the pavilion. + +Osman had gone, and Mrs. Clarke was pouring the coffee into the tiny +cups. + +“There’s no wind, is there--is there?” he asked her. + +She looked up at him. + +“But not a breath!” she said. + +After a pause she added: + +“Why do you ask such a thing?” + +“I heard wind in--in the tops of trees,” he almost stammered. + +“That’s impossible.” + +“But I say I did!” he exclaimed, with violence. “In pine trees.” + +“There are no pine trees here,” she said, in her husky voice. “Sit down +and have your coffee.” + +He obeyed her and sat down quickly, and quickly he took the coffee-cup +from her. + +“Have a little _mastika_ with it,” she said. + +And she pushed a tall liqueur-glass full of the colorless liquid towards +him. + +“Yes,” he said. + +As he drank he looked out sideways through the wide opening in the +pavilion. There was not a breath of wind. + +“I can’t understand why I heard the noise of wind in pine trees,” he +forced himself to say. + +“Seemed to hear it,” she corrected him. “Perhaps you were thinking of +it.” + +“But I wasn’t!” + +A jeweled gleam from the lamp fell upon one side of her face. She moved, +and the light dropped away from her. + +“What were you thinking of?” she asked. + +“Of the future.” + +“Ah!” + +“That’s why it is inexplicable.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“Don’t let us talk about it any more,” he said, in an almost terrible +voice. “I must have had an hallucination.” + +“Have you ever before thought you were the victim of an hallucination?” + she asked. + +“Yes. Several times I have seen the eyes of my little boy. I saw them +a few nights ago in the stream that flows through the Valley of Roses, +just after Sir Carey had left me.” + +“Don’t look into water again except in daylight. It is the night that +brings fancies with it. If you gaze very long at anything in a dim light +you are sure to see something strange or horrible.” + +“But an hallucination of sound! I must go away from here! Perhaps in +some other place--” + +But she interrupted him inflexibly. + +“Going away would be absolutely useless. A man can’t travel away from +himself.” + +“But I can’t lead a normal life. It’s impossible. Those horrible nights +on the ‘Leyla’----” + +He stopped. The effort he had made during the trip to Brusa seemed +to have exhausted the last remnants of any moral force he had still +possessed when he started on that journey. + +“I had made up my mind to begin again, to lay hold on some sort of real +life,” he continued, after a pause. “I was determined to face things. I +called at Therapia. I accepted Lady Ingleton’s invitation. I’ve done +all I can to make a new start. But it’s no use. I can’t keep it up. I +haven’t the force for it. It was hell--being with happy people.” + +“You mean the Ingletons. Yes, they are very happy.” + +“And Vane, who’s just engaged to be married. I saw her photograph in +his cabin. They were all--all very kind. Lady Ingleton did everything to +make me feel at ease. He’s a delightful fellow--the Ambassador, I mean. +But I simply can’t stand mingling my life with lives that are happy. So +I had better go away and be alone again.” + +“And lives that are unhappy?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Can’t you mingle your life with them, or with one of them?” + +He was silent, looking towards her. She was wearing a very dark blue +tea-gown of some thin material in which her thin body seemed lost. +He saw the dark folds of it flowing over the divan on which she was +leaning, and trailing to the rug at her feet. Her face was a faint +whiteness under her colorless hair. Her eyes were two darknesses in it. +He could not see them distinctly, but he knew they were looking intent +and distressed. + +“Haven’t you told me I look punished?” said the husky voice. + +“Are you unhappy?” he asked. + +“Do you think I have much reason to be happy?” + +“You have your boy.” + +“For a few weeks in the year. I have lost my husband in a horrible way, +worse than if he had died. I live entirely alone. I can’t marry again. +And yet I’m not at all old, and not at all finished. But perhaps you +have never really thought about my situation seriously. After all, why +should you? Why should any one? I won my case, and so of course it’s all +right.” + +“Are _you_ unhappy, then?” + +“What do you suppose about me?” + +“I know you’ve gone through a great deal. But you have your boy.” + +There was a sound almost of dull obstinacy in his voice. + +“Some women are not merely mothers, or potential mothers!” said an +almost fierce voice. “Some women are just women first and mothers +second. There are women who love men for themselves, not merely because +men are possible child-bringers. To a real and complete woman no child +can ever be the perfect substitute for a husband or a lover. Even nature +has put the lover first and the child second. I forbid you to say that +I have my boy, as if that settled the question of my happiness. I forbid +you.” + +He heard her breathing quickly. Then she added: + +“But how could you be expected to understand women like me?” + +The intensity of her sudden outburst startled him as the strength of the +current in the Bosporus had startled him when he plunged into the sea +from the Albanian’s boat. + +“You have been brought up in another school,” she continued slowly, and +with a sort of icy bitterness. “I forgive you.” + +She got up from the divan and went out upon the terrace, leaving him +alone in the pavilion, which seemed suddenly colder when she had left +it. + +He did not follow her. A breath from a human furnace had scorched +him--had scorched the nerve, and the nerve quivered. + +“You have been brought up in a different school.” Welsley and +Stamboul--Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke. Once, somewhere, he had made that +comparison. As he sat in the pavilion it seemed to him that for a moment +he heard the cool chiming of bells in a gray cathedral tower, the faint +sound of the Dresden Amen. But he looked out through the opening in the +pavilion, and far down below he saw lights on the Bay of Buyukderer, +the vague outlines of hills; and the perfume that came to him out of the +night was not the damp smell of an English garden. + +An English garden! In the darkness of a November night he stood within +the walls of an English garden; he heard a cry, saw the movement of a +woman’s body, and knew that his life was in ruins. The woman fled, but +he followed her blindly; he sought for her in the dark. He wanted to +tell her that he had been but the instrument of Fate, that he was not to +blame, that he needed compassion more than any other man living. But +she eluded him in the darkness, and presently he heard a key grind in a +lock. A friend had locked the door of his home against him in order that +his wife might have time to escape from him. + +Then he heard a husky voice say, “My friend, it will have to come.” And, +suddenly it came. + +He broke down absolutely, threw himself on his face on the divan with +his arms stretched out beyond his head, grasped the cushions and sobbed. +His body shook and twitched; his face was contorted; his soul writhed. +A storm that came from within him broke upon him. He crashed into +the abyss. Down, down he went, till the last faint ray from above was +utterly blotted out. She whom he had loved so much sent him down, she +who far away had given herself to God. He felt her ruthless hands--the +hands of a good woman, the hands of a loving mother--pressing him +down. Let her have her will. He would go into the last darkness. Then, +perhaps, she would be more at ease; then, perhaps, she would know the +true peace of God. He would pay to the uttermost farthing both for +himself and for her. + +Outside, just hidden from him by the pavilion wall, Mrs. Clarke stood +in the shadow of one of the cypresses, and listened. The trip on the +“Leyla” had served two purposes. It was better so. When a thing must +be, the sooner it is over the better. And she had waited for a very long +time. She drew her brows together as she thought of the long time she +had waited. Then she moved and walked away down the terrace. She had +heard enough. + +She went to the far end of the terrace. A wooden seat was placed there +in the shadow of a plane tree. She sat down on it, rested her pointed +chin in the palm of her right hand, with her elbow on her knee, and +remained motionless. She was giving him time; time to weep away the past +and the good woman who had ruined his life. Even now she knew how to be +patient. In a way she pitied him. If she had not had to be patient for +such a long time she would have pitied him much more. But he had often +hurt her; and, as Lady Ingleton had said, she was by nature a cruel +woman. Nevertheless she pitied him for being, or for having been, so +exclusive in love. And she wondered at him not a little. + +Lit-up caiques glided out on the bay far beneath her. A band was playing +on the quay. She wished it would stop, and she glanced at a little watch +which Aristide Dumeny had given her, and which was pinned among the dark +blue folds of her gown. But she could not see its face clearly, and she +lit a match. A quarter-past ten. The band played till eleven. She lit a +cigarette and stared down the hill at the moving lights in the bay. + +She had made many water excursions at night. Some of them--two or three +at least--had been mentioned in the Divorce Court. She had had a narrow +escape that summer in London. It had given her a lesson; but she still +had much to learn before she could be considered a past mistress in the +school of discretion. Almost ever since she could remember she had +been driven by the reckless spirit within her. But she had been given +a compensation for that in the force of her will. That force had done +wonders for her all through her life. It had even captured and retained +for her many women friends. Driven she had been, and no doubt would +always be, but she believed that she would always skirt the precipices +of life, and would never fall into the abysses. + +The timorous and overscrupulous women were the women who missed their +footing, because, when they made a false step, they made it in fear and +trembling, with the shadow of regret always dogging their heels. And +yet, now Jimmy was getting a big boy, even she knew moments of fear. + +She moved restlessly. The torch was luring her on, and yet now, for +an instant, she was conscious of holding back. August was not far off; +Jimmy was coming out to her for his holidays. Suppose, after all, she +gave it up? A word from her--or merely a silence--and that man in the +pavilion close by would go away from Buyukderer and would probably never +come back. If, for once in her life, she played for safety? + +The sound of the band on the quay--there had been a short interval of +silence--came up to her again. Forty minutes more! She would give that +man in the pavilion and herself forty minutes. She could see the +lights which outlined the kiosk. When they went out she would come to +a decision. Till then, sitting alone, she could indulge in a mental +debate. The mere fact that, at this point, she debated the question +which filled her mind proved Jimmy’s power over her. As she thought that +she began to resent her boy’s power. And it would grow; inevitably it +would grow. She moved her thin shoulders. Then she sat very still. + +If only she didn’t love Jimmy so much! Suppose she had lost her case in +the Divorce Case and Jimmy had been taken away from her? Even now she +shuddered when she thought of the risk she had run. She remembered again +the period of waiting when the jury could not come to an agreement. What +torture she had endured, though no one knew it, or, perhaps, ever would +know it! Had not that torture been a tremendous warning to her against +the unwise life? Why go into danger again? But perhaps there was no +danger any more. A man who has tried to divorce his wife once, and has +failed, is scarcely likely to try again. Nevertheless she was full of +hesitation to-night. + +This fact puzzled and almost alarmed her, for she was not given to +hesitation. She was a woman who thought clearly, who knew what she +wanted and what she did not want, and who acted promptly and decisively. +Perhaps she hesitated now because she had been forced to remain inactive +in this particular case for such a long time; or perhaps she had +received an obscure warning from something within her which knew what +she--the whole of her that was Cynthia Clarke--did not consciously know. + +The leaves of the plane tree rustled above her head, and she sighed. As +she sat there in the purple darkness she looked like a victim; and for a +moment she thought of herself as a victim. + +Even that man in the pavilion who was agonizing had said to her that she +looked “punished.” She had been surprised, almost startled, by his flash +of discernment. But she was sure he thought that matter only a question +of coloring, of emaciation, of the shapes of features, and of the way +eyes were set in the head. + +When would the lights far below go out? She hated her indecision. It was +new to her, and she felt it to be a weakness. Whatever she had been till +now, she had certainly never been a weak woman, except perhaps from +the absurd point of view of the Exeter Hall moralist. Scruples had been +strangers to her, a baggage she had not burdened herself with on her +journey. + +Jimmy! That night Dion Leith had told her that he had seen the eyes of +his boy in the stream that flowed through the Kesstane Dereh. She looked +out into the purple night, and somewhere in the dim vastness full of +mysteries and of half revelations she saw the frank and merciless eyes +of a young Eton boy. + +Should she be governed by them? Could she submit to the ignorant +domination of a child who knew nothing of the complications of human +life, nothing of the ways in which human beings are driven by imperious +desires, or needs, which have perhaps been sown in ground of flesh and +blood by dead parents, or by ancestors laid even with the dust? Could +she immolate herself before the altar of the curious love which grew +within her as Jimmy grew? + +She was by nature perverse, and it was partly her love for Jimmy which +pushed her towards the man who killed his son. But she had not told that +even to herself. And she never told her secrets to other people, not +even when they were women friends! + +The lights on the kiosk on the quay went out. Mrs. Clarke was startled +by the leaping up of the darkness which seemed to come from the sea. +For her ears had been closed against the band, and she had forgotten the +limit she had mentally put to her indecision. Eleven o’clock already! +She got up from her seat. But still she hesitated. She did not know +what she was going to do. She stood for a moment. Then she walked softly +towards the pavilion. When she was near to it she stopped and listened. +She did not hear any sound from within. There was nothing to prevent her +from descending to the villa, from writing a note to Dion Leith asking +him to leave Buyukderer on the morrow, and from going up to her bedroom. +He would find the note in the hall when he came down; he would go away; +she need never see him again. If she did that it would mean a new life +for her, free from complications, a life dedicated to Jimmy, a life +deliberately controlled. + +It would mean, too, the futile close of a long pursuit; the crushing of +an old and hitherto frustrated desire; the return, when Jimmy went back +to England after the holidays, to an empty life which she hated, +more than hated, a life of horrible restlessness, a life in which the +imagination preyed, like a vulture, upon the body. It would mean the +wise, instead of the unwise, life. + +She stood there. With one hand she felt the little watch which Dumeny +had given her. It was cold to the touch of her dry, hot hand. She felt +the rough emerald set in the back of it. She and Dumeny had found that +in the bazaars together, in those bazaars which Dumeny changed from +Eastern shops into the Arabian Nights. Dion Leith could never do such a +thing for her. But perhaps she could do it for him. The thought of that +lured her. She stood at the street corner; it was very dark and still; +she knew that the strange ways radiated from the place where she stood, +but there was no one to go with her down them. She waited--waited. And +then she saw far off the gleam of the torch from which spring colored +fires. It flitted through the darkness; it hovered. The gleam of it lit +up, like a goblin light, the beginnings of the strange ways. She saw +shadowy forms slipping away stealthily into their narrow and winding +distances; she saw obscure stairways, leaning balconies full of soft +blackness. She divined the rooms beyond. And whispering voices came to +her ears. + +All the time she was feeling the watch with its rough uncut emerald. + +Government came upon her. She felt, as often before, a great hand catch +her in a grip of iron. She ceased to resist. + +Still holding the watch, she went to the opening in the pavilion. + +The hanging lamp had gone out. For a moment she could only see darkness +in the interior. It looked empty. There was no sound within. Could the +man she had been thinking about, debating about, have slipped away while +she was sitting under the plane tree? She had been thinking so deeply +that she had not heard the noise of the band on the quay; she might not +have heard his footsteps. While she had been considering whether she +should leave him perhaps he had fled from her. + +This flashing thought brought her back at once to her true and +irrevocable self, and she was filled instantly with fierce determination +and a cold intense anger. Jimmy was forgotten. He was dead to her at +that moment. She leaned forward, peering into the darkness. + +“Dion!” she said. “Dion!” + +There was no answer, but she saw something stir within, something low +down. He was there--or something was there, something alive. She went +into the pavilion, and knelt down by it. + +“Dion!” she said. + +He raised himself on the divan, and turned on his side. + +“Why are you kneeling down?” he said. “Don’t kneel. I hate to see a +woman kneeling, and I know _you_ never pray. Get up.” + +He spoke in a voice that was new to her. It seemed to her hot and hard. +She obeyed him at once and got up from her knees. + +“What did you mean just now when you asked me whether I couldn’t mingle +my life with an unhappy life? Sit here beside me.” + +She sat down on the edge of the divan very near to him. + +“What do you suppose I meant?” + +“Do you mean to say you like me in that way?” + +“Yes.” + +“That you care about me?” + +“Yes.” + +“You said you willed me to come out to Constantinople. Was it for that +reason?” + +She hesitated. She had an instinctive understanding of men, but she knew +that, in one way, Dion was not an ordinary man; and even if he had been, +the catastrophe in his life might well have put him for the time beyond +the limits of her experience, wide though they were. + +“No,” she said, at last. “I didn’t like you in that way till I met you +in the street, and saw what she had done to you.” + +“Then it was only pity?” + +“Was it? I knew your value in England.” + +She paused, then added, in an almost light and much more impersonal +voice: + +“I think I may say that I’m a connoisseur of values. And I hate to see a +good thing flung away.” + +“I’m not a good thing. Perhaps I might have become one. I believe I was +on the way to becoming worth something. But now I’m nothing, and I wish +to be nothing.” + +“I don’t wish you to be anything but what you are.” + +“Once you telegraphed to me--‘May Allah have you in His hand.’” + +“I remember.” + +“It’s turned out differently,” he said, almost with brutality. + +“We don’t know that. You came back.” + +“Yes. I was kept safe for a very good reason. I had to kill my child. +I’ve accomplished that mission, and now, perhaps, Allah will let me +alone.” + +She could not see his face or the expression in his eyes clearly, but +now she saw his body move sharply. It twisted to the right and back +again. She put out her hand and took his listlessly, almost as she had +taken it in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room when she had met him for the +first time. + +“Your hand is like fire,” he whispered. + +“Do you think I am ice?” she whispered back, huskily. + +“Once I tried to take my hand away from yours.” + +“Try to take it away now, if you wish.” + +As she spoke she closed her hand tenaciously upon his. Her little +fingers felt almost like steel on his hand, and he thought of the +current of the Bosporus which had pulled at his swimming body. + +To be taken and swept away! That at least would be better than +drifting, better than death in the form of life, better than slinking in +loneliness to watch the doings of others. + +“I don’t wish to take it away,” he said. + +And with the words mentally he bade an eternal farewell to Rosamund and +to all the aspirations of his youth. From her and from them he turned +away to follow the gleam of the torch. It flickered through the +darkness; it wavered; it waited--for him. He had tried the life of +wisdom, and it had cast him out; perhaps there was a place for him in +the unwise life. He felt spiritually exhausted; but there was within +him a physical fever which answered to the fever in the hand which had +closed on his. + +“Let the spirit die,” he thought, “that the body may live!” + +He put one arm round his companion. + +“If you want me----” he whispered, on a deep breath. + +His voice died away in the darkness between the giant cypresses, those +trees which watch over the dead in the land of the Turk. + +_She_ had said once that the human being can hurt God. + +Obscurely he wished to do that. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Mrs. Clarke looked up from a letter written in a large boyish hand which +had just been brought out on the terrace of the fountain by the butler. + +“Jimmy will be here on Thursday--that is, in Constantinople. The train +ought to be in early in the morning.” + +Her eyes rested on Dion for a moment; then she looked down again at the +letter from Eton. + +“He’s in a high state of spirits at the prospect of the journey. But +perhaps I oughtn’t to have had him out; perhaps I ought to have gone to +England for his holidays.” + +“Do you mean because of me?” said Dion. + +“I was thinking of cricket,” she replied impassively. + +He was silent. After a moment she continued: + +“There are no suitable companions for him out here. I wish the Ingletons +had a son. Of course there is riding, swimming, boating, and we can make +excursions. You’ll be good to him, won’t you?” + +She folded the letter up and put it into the envelope. + +“I always keep all Jimmy’s letters,” she said. + +“Look here!” Dion said in a hard voice. “I think I’d better go.” + +“Why?” + +“You know why.” + +“Have I asked you to go?” + +“No, but I think I shall clear out. I don’t feel like acting a part to a +boy. I’ve never done such a thing, and it isn’t at all the sort of thing +I could do well.” + +“There will be no need to act a part. Be with Jimmy as you were in +London.” + +“Look at me!” he exclaimed with intense bitterness. “Am I the man I was +in London?” + +“If you are careful and reasonable, Jimmy won’t notice any difference. +Hero worship doesn’t look at things through a microscope. Jimmy’s got +his idea of you. It will be your fault if he changes it.” + +“Did you tell him I should be here during the holidays?” + +“Yes.” + +“I can’t help that,” he said, almost brutally. + +“What do you mean?” + +“I mean that you answered for me before you knew where I should be.” + +He got up from the straw chair on which he was sitting, almost as if he +meant to go away from her and from Buyukderer at once. + +“Dion, you mustn’t go,” she said inflexibly. “I can’t let you. For if +you go, you will never come back.” + +“How do you know that?” + +“I do know it.” + +They looked at each other across the fountain; his eyes fell at last +almost guiltily before her steady glance. + +“And you know it too,” she said. + +“I may go, nevertheless. Who is to prevent me?” + +She got up, went to the other side of the fountain, and put her hand +behind his arm, after a quick glance round to make sure that no eyes +were watching her. She pushed her hand down gently and held his wrist. + +“Do you realize how badly you sometimes treat me?” she said. + +“Yes.” + +She pulled his soft cuff with her little fingers. + +“I do realize it, but I can’t help it. I have to do it.” + +“If I didn’t know that I should mind it much more,” she said. + +“I never thought I had it in me to treat a woman as I sometimes treat +you. I used--to be so different.” + +“You were too much the other way. But yours is a nature of extremes. +That’s partly why I----” + +She did not finish the sentence. + +“Then you don’t resent my beastliness to you?” he asked. + +“Not permanently. Sometimes you are nice to me. But if you were ever +to treat me badly when Jimmy was with me, I don’t think I could ever +forgive you.” + +“I dread his coming,” said Dion. “I had much better go. If you don’t let +me go, you may regret it.” + +In saying that he acknowledged the power she had already obtained over +him, a power from which he did not feel sure that he could break away, +although he was acutely aware of it and sometimes almost bitterly +resented it. Mrs. Clarke knew very well that most men can only be held +when they do not know that they are held, but Dion, in his present +condition, was not like any other man she had known. More than once in +the earliest stages of their intimacy she had had really to fight to +keep him near her, and so he knew how arbitrary she could be when her +nature was roused. + +Sometimes he hated her with intensity, for she had set herself to +destroy the fabric of his spirit, which not even Rosamund had been able +entirely to destroy by her desertion of him. Sometimes he felt a sort of +ugly love of her, because she was the agent through whom he was learning +to get rid of all that Rosamund had most prized in him. It was as if he +called out to her, “Help me to pull down, to tear down, all that I built +up in the long years till not one stone is left upon another. What I +built up was despised and rejected. I won’t look upon it any more. I’ll +raze it to the ground. But I can’t do that alone. Come, you, and help +me.” And she came and she helped in the work of destruction, and in an +ugly, horrible way he loved her for it sometimes, as a criminal might +love an assistant in his crime. + +But from such a type of love there are terrible reactions. During these +reactions Dion had treated Cynthia Clarke abominably sometimes, showing +the hatred which alternated with his ugly love, if love it could +properly be called. He hated her in such moments for the fierce lure she +had for the senses, a lure which he felt more and more strongly as +he left farther behind him the old life of sane enjoyments and of the +wisdom which walks with restraint; he hated her for the perversity which +he was increasingly conscious of as he came to know her more intimately; +he hated her because he had so much loved the woman who would not make +a friend of her; he hated her because he knew that she was drawing him +into a path which led into the center of a maze, the maze of hypocrisy. + +Hitherto Dion had been essentially honest and truthful, what men call +“open and above-board.” He had walked clear-eyed in the light; he had +had nothing dirty to hide; what his relations with others had seemed +to be that they had actually been. But since that first night in the +pavilion Cynthia Clarke had taught him very thoroughly the hypocrisy a +man owes to the woman with whom he has a secret liaison. + +He still believed that till that night she had been what the world calls +“a straight woman.” She did not ape a rigid morality for once betrayed +by passion, or pretend to any religious scruples, or show any fears of +an eventual punishment held in reserve for all sinners by an implacable +Power; she did not, when Dion was brutal to her, ever reproach him with +having made of her a wicked or even a light woman. But she made him feel +by innumerable hints and subtleties that for him she had exchanged a +safe life for a life that was beset with danger, the smiled-on life of +a not too conventional virtue for something very different. She seemed +sometimes uneasy in her love, as if such a love were an error new to her +experience. + +Jimmy was her chief weapon against Dion’s natural sincerity. Dion +realized that she was passionately attached to her boy, and that +she would make almost any sacrifice rather than lose his respect and +affection. Nevertheless, she was ready to take great risks. The risks +she was not prepared to take were the smaller risks. And in connexion +with them her call for hypocrisy was incessant. If Dion ever tried to +resist her demands for small lies and petty deceptions, she would look +at him, and say huskily: + +“I have to do these things now because of Jimmy. No one must ever have +the least suspicion of what we are to each other, or some day Jimmy +might get to know of it. It isn’t my husband I’m afraid of, it’s Jimmy.” + +If Dion had been by nature a suspicious man, or if he had had a wider +experience with women, Mrs. Clarke’s remarkable ingenuity in hypocrisy +would almost certainly have suggested to him that she was no novice in +the life of deception. Her appearance of frankness, even of bluntness, +was admirable. To every one she presented herself as a woman of strong +will and unconventional temperament who took her own way openly, having +nothing to conceal, and therefore nothing to fear. She made a feature +of her friendship with the tragic Englishman; she even dwelt upon it +and paraded it for the pretense of blunt and Platonic friendship was the +cloud with which she concealed the fire of their illicit relation. The +trip on the “Leyla” to Brusa had tortured Dion. Since the episode in +the pavilion a more refined torment had been his. Mrs. Clarke had not +allowed him to escape from the social ties which were so hateful to him. +She had made him understand that he must go among her acquaintances +now and then, that he must take a certain part in the summer life +of Therapia and Buyukderer, that the trip to Brusa had been only a +beginning. More than once he had tried to break away, but he had not +succeeded in his effort. Her will had been too strong for his, not +merely because she did not fear at moments to be fierce and determined, +but because behind her fierceness and determination was an unuttered +plea which his not dead chivalry heard; “For you I have become what I +was falsely accused of being in London.” He remembered the wonderful +fight she had made then; often her look and manner, when they were alone +together, implied, “I couldn’t make such a fight now.” She never said +that, but she made him float in an atmosphere of that suggestion. + +He believed that she loved him. Sometimes he compared her love with the +affection which Rosamund had given him, and then it seemed to his not +very experienced heart that perhaps intense love can only show itself +by something akin to degradation, by enticements which a genuinely +pure nature could never descend to, by perversities which the grand +simplicity and wholesomeness of goodness would certainly abhor. Then a +distortion of love presented itself to his tragic investigation as +the only love that was real, and good and evil lost for him their true +significance. He had said to himself, “Let the spirit die that the body +may live.” He had wished, he still wished, to pull down. He had a sort +of demented desire for ruins and dust. But he longed for action, on +the grand scale. Small secrecies, trickeries, tiptoeing through the +maze--all these things revolted that part of his nature which was, +perhaps, unchangeable. They seemed to him unmanly. In his present +condition he could quite easily have lain down in the sink of Pera’s +iniquity, careless whether any one knew; but it was horribly difficult +to him to dine with the Ingletons and Vane at the Villa Hafiz, to say +“Good night” to Mrs. Clarke before them, to go away, leaving them in +the villa, and then, very late, to sneak back, with a key, to the garden +gate, when all the servants were in bed, and to creep up, like a thief, +to the pavilion. Some men would have enjoyed all the small deceptions, +would have thought them good fun, would have found that they added a +sharp zest to the pursuit of a woman. Dion loathed them. + +And now he was confronted with something he was going to loathe far +more, something which would call for more sustained and elaborate +deception than any he had practised yet. He feared the eyes of an +English boy more than he feared the eyes of the diplomats and the +cosmopolitans of varying types who were gathered on the Bosporus during +the months of heat. He detested the idea of playing a part to a boy. How +could a mother lay plots to deceive her son? And yet Mrs. Clarke adored +Jimmy. + +Rosamund and Robin started up in his mind. He saw them before him as he +had seen them one night in Westminster when Rosamund had been singing +to Robin. Ah, she had been a cruel, a terribly cruel, wife, but she had +been an ideal mother! He saw her head bent over her child, the curve of +her arm round his little body. A sensation of sickness came upon him, of +soul-nausea; and again he thought, “I must get away.” + +The night before the day on which Jimmy was due to arrive, Mrs. Clarke +was in Constantinople. She had gone there to meet Jimmy, and had started +early in the morning, leaving Dion at Buyukderer. When she was gone he +took the Albanian’s boat and went out on the Bosporus for a row. The man +and he were both at the oars, and pulled out from the bay. When they had +gone some distance--they had been rowing for perhaps ten minutes--the +man asked: + +“Ou allons-nous, Signore?” + +“Vers Constantinople,” replied Dion. + +“Bene!” replied the man. + +That night Mrs. Clarke had just finished dinner when a waiter tapped at +her sitting-room door. + +“What is it?” she asked. + +“A gentleman asks if he can see you, Madame.” + +“A gentleman? Have you got his card?” + +“No, Madame; he gave no card.” + +“What is he like?” + +“He is English, I think, very thin and very brown. He looks very +strong.” + +The waiter paused, then added: + +“He has a hungry look.” + +Mrs. Clarke stared at the man with her very wide-open eyes. + +“Go down and ask him to wait.” + +“Yes, Madame.” + +The man went out. When he had shut the door Mrs. Clarke called: + +“Sonia!” + +Her raised voice was rather harsh. + +The bedroom door was opened, and the Russian maid looked into the +sitting-room. + +“Sonia,” said Mrs. Clarke rapidly in French, “some one--a man--has +called and asked for me. He’s waiting in the hall. Go down and see who +it is. If it’s Mr. Leith you can bring him up.” + +“And if it is not Monsieur Leith?” + +“Come back and tell me who it is.” + +The maid came out of the bedroom, shut the door, crossed the +sitting-room rather heavily on flat feet, and went out on to the +landing. + +“Shut the door!” Mrs. Clarke called after her. + +When the sitting-room door was shut she sat waiting with her forehead +drawn to a frown. She did not move till the sitting-room door was opened +by the maid and a man walked in. + +“Monsieur Leith,” said the maid. + +And she disappeared. + +“Come and sit down,” said Mrs. Clarke. “Why have you come to Pera?” + +“I wanted to speak to you.” + +“How tired you look! Have you had dinner?” + +“No, I don’t want it.” + +“Did you come by steamer?” + +“No, I rowed down.” + +“All the way?” + +He nodded. + +“Where are you staying?” + +“I haven’t decided yet where I shall stay. Not here, of course.” + +“Of course not. Dion, sit down.” + +He sat down heavily. + +“If you haven’t decided about an hotel, where is your luggage?” + +“I haven’t brought any.” + +She said nothing, but her distressed eyes questioned him. + +“I started out for a row. The current set towards Constantinople, so I +came here.” + +“I’m glad,” she said. + +But she did not look glad. + +“We can spend a quiet evening together,” she added nonchalantly. + +“I didn’t come for that,” he said. + +He began to get up, but she put one hand on him. + +“Do sit still. What is it, then? Whatever it is, tell me quietly.” + +He yielded to her soft but very imperative touch, and sat back in his +chair. + +“Now, what is it?” + +“I’m sure you know. It’s Jimmy.” + +She lowered her eyelids, and her pale forehead puckered. + +“Jimmy! What about Jimmy?” + +“I don’t want to be at Buyukderer while he’s with you.” + +“And you have rowed all the way from Buyukderer to Constantinople, +without even a brush and comb, to tell me that!” + +“I told you at Buyukderer.” + +“And we decided that it would be much jollier for Jimmy to have you +there for his holidays. I depend upon you to make things tolerable +for Jimmy. You know how few people there are near us who would trouble +themselves about a boy. You will be my stand-by with Jimmy all through +his holidays.” + +She spoke serenely, even cheerfully, but there was a decisive sound in +her voice, and the eyes fixed upon him were full of determination. + +“I can’t understand how you can be willing to act a lie to your own boy, +especially when you care for him so much,” said Dion, almost violently. + +“I shall not act a lie.” + +“But you will.” + +“Sometimes you are horribly morbid,” she said coldly. + +“Morbid! Because I want to keep a young schoolboy out of--” + +“Take care, Dion!” she interrupted hastily. + +“If you--you don’t really love Jimmy,” he said. + +“I forbid you to say that.” + +“I will say it. It’s true.” + +And he repeated with a cruelly deliberate emphasis: + +“You don’t really love Jimmy.” + +Her white face was suddenly flooded with red, which even covered her +forehead to the roots of her hair. She put up one hand with violence and +tried to strike Dion on the mouth. He caught her wrist. + +“Be quiet!” he said roughly. + +Gripping her wrist with his hard, muscular brown fingers he repeated: + +“You don’t love Jimmy.” + +“Do you wish me to hate you?” + +“I don’t care. I don’t care what happens to me.” + +She sat looking down. The red began to fade out of her face. Presently +she curled her fingers inwards against his palm and smiled faintly. + +“I am not going to quarrel with you,” she said quietly. + +He loosened his grip on her; but now she caught and held his hand. + +“I do love Jimmy, and you know it when you aren’t mad. But I care for +you, too, and I am not going to lose you. If you went away while Jimmy +was out here I should never see you again. You would disappear. Perhaps +you would cross over to Asia.” + +Her great eyes were fixed steadily upon him. + +“Ah, you have thought of that!” she said, almost in a whisper. + +He was silent. + +“Women would get hold of you. You would sink; you would be ruined, +destroyed. I know!” + +“If I were it wouldn’t matter.” + +“To me it would. I can’t risk it. I am not going to risk it.” + +Dion leaned forward. His brown face was twitching. + +“Suppose you had to choose between Jimmy and me!” + +He was thinking of Robin and Rosamund. A child had conquered him once. +Now once again a child--for Jimmy was no more than a child as yet, +although he thought himself important and almost a young man--intruded +into his life with a woman. + +“I shall not have to choose. But I have told you that a child is not +enough for the happiness of a woman like me. You know what I am, and you +must know I am speaking the truth.” + +“Did you love your husband?” he asked, staring into her eyes. + +“Yes,” she replied, without even a second of hesitation. “I did till he +suspected me.” + +“And then----” + +“Not after that,” she said grimly. + +“I wonder he let you do all you did.” + +“What do you mean?” + +She let his hand go. + +“I would never have let you go about with other men, however innocently. +I thought about that at your trial.” + +“I should never let any one interfere with my freedom of action. If a +man loves me I expect him to trust me.” + +“You don’t trust me.” + +“Sometimes you almost hate me. I know that.” + +“Sometimes I hate everybody, myself most of all. But I should miss you. +You are the only woman in all the world who wants me now.” + +Suddenly a thought of his mother intruded into his mind, and he added: + +“Wants me as a lover.” + +She got up quickly, almost impulsively, and went close to him. + +“Yes, I want you, I want you as a lover, and I can’t let you go. That is +why I ask you, I beg you, to stay with me while Jimmy’s here.” + +She leaned against him, and put her small hands on his shoulders. + +“How can a child understand the needs of a woman like me and of a man +like you? How can he look into our hearts or read the secrets of our +natures--secrets which we can’t help having? You hate what you call +deceiving him. But he will never think about it. A boy of Jimmy’s age +never thinks about his mother in that way.” + +“I know. That’s just it!” + +“What do you mean?” + +But he did not explain. Perhaps instinctively he felt that her natural +subtlety could not be in accord with his natural sincerity, felt that in +discussing certain subjects they talked in different languages. She put +her arms round his neck. + +“I need the two lives,” she said, in a very low voice. “I need Jimmy and +I need you. Is it so very wonderful? Often when a woman who isn’t old +loses her husband and is left with her child people say, ‘It’s all +right for her. She has got her child.’ And so she’s dismissed to her +motherhood, as if that must be quite enough for her. Dion, Dion, the +world doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how women suffer. Women don’t speak +about such things. But I am telling you because I don’t want to have +secrets from you. I have suffered. Perhaps I have some pride in me. +Anyhow, I don’t care to go about complaining. You know that. You must +have found that out in London. I keep my secrets, but not from you.” + +She put her white cheek against his brown one. + +“It’s only the two lives joined together that make life complete for +a woman who is complete, who isn’t lopsided, lacking in something +essential, something that nature intends. I am a complete woman, and I’m +not ashamed of it. Do you think I ought to be?” + +She sighed against his cheek. + +“You are a courageous woman,” he said; “I do know that.” + +“Don’t _you_ test my courage. Perhaps I’m getting tired of being +courageous.” + +She put her thin lips against his. + +“It’s acting--deception I hate,” he murmured. “With a boy especially I +like always to be quite open.” + +Again he thought of Robin and of his old ideal of a father’s relation +to his son; he thought of his preparation to be worthy of fatherhood, +worthy to guide a boy’s steps in the path towards a noble manhood. And a +terrible sense of the irony of life almost overcame him. For a moment +he seemed to catch a glimpse of the Creator laughing in darkness at the +aspiration of men; for a moment he was beset by the awful conviction +that the world is ruled by a malign Deity. + +“All the time Jimmy is at Buyukderer we’ll just be friends,” said the +husky voice against his cheek. + +The sophistry of her remark struck home to him, but he made no comment +upon it. + +“There are white deceptions,” she continued, “and black deceptions, as +there are white and black lies. Whom are we hurting, you and I?” + +“Whom are we hurting?” he said, releasing himself from her. + +And he thought of God in a different way--in Rosamund’s way. + +“Yes?” + +He looked at her as if he were going to speak, but he said nothing. He +felt that if he answered she would not understand, and her face made him +doubtful. Which view of life was the right one, Rosamund’s or Cynthia +Clarke’s? Rosamund had been pitiless to him and Cynthia Clarke was +merciful. She put her arms round his neck when he was in misery, she +wanted him despite the tragedy that was his perpetual companion. Perhaps +her view of life was right. It was a good working view, anyhow, and was +no doubt held by many people. + +“We can base our lives on truth,” she continued, as he said nothing. “On +being true to ourselves. That is the great truth. But we can’t always +tell it to all the casual people about us, or even to those who are +closely in our lives, as for instance Jimmy is in mine. They wouldn’t +understand. But some day Jimmy will be able to understand.” + +“Do you mean----” + +“I mean just this: if Jimmy were twenty-one I would tell him +everything.” + +He looked down into her eyes, which never fell before the eyes of +another. + +“I believe you would,” he said. + +She continued looking at him, as if tranquilly waiting for something. + +“I’ll--I’ll go back to Buyukderer,” he said. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +In his contrition for the attack which he had made upon the honor of his +wife at his mother’s instigation, Beadon Clarke had given up all +claims on his boy’s time. Actually, though not legally, Mrs. Clarke had +complete control over Jimmy. He spent all his holidays with her, and +seldom saw his father, who was still attached to the British Embassy in +Madrid. He had never been allowed to read any reports of the famous case +which had been fought out between his parents, and was understood to +think that his father and mother had, for some mysterious reason, found +it impossible to “hit it off together,” and had therefore decided +to live apart. He was now rather vaguely fond of his father, whom he +considered to be “quite a good sort,” but he was devoted to his mother. +Mrs. Clarke’s peculiar self-possession and remarkably strong will made a +great impression on Jimmy. “It’s jolly difficult to score my mater off, +I can tell you,” he occasionally remarked to his more intimate chums at +school. He admired her appearance, her elegance, and the charm of her +way of living, which he called “doing herself jolly well”; even her +unsmiling face and characteristic lack of what is generally called +vivacity won his approval. “My mater’s above all that silly gushing and +giggling so many women go in for, don’t you know,” was his verdict on +Mrs. Clarke’s usually serious demeanor. Into her gravity boyishly he +read dignity of character, and in his estimation of her he set her very +high. Although something of a pickle, and by nature rather reckless +and inclined to be wild, he was swiftly obedient to his mother, partly +perhaps because, understanding young males as well as she understood +male beings of all ages, she very seldom drew the reins tight. He knew +very well that she loved him. + +On the evening of his arrival at Buyukderer for the summer holidays +Jimmy had a confidential talk with his mother about “Mr. Leith,” whom +he had not yet seen, but about whom he had been making many anxious +inquiries. + +“I’ll tell you to-night,” his mother had replied. And after dinner she +fulfilled her promise. + +“You’ll see Mr. Leith to-morrow,” she said. + +“Well, I should rather think so!” returned Jimmy, in an injured voice. +“Where is he?” + +“He’s living in rooms in the house of a Greek not far from here.” + +“I thought he was in the hotel. I say, mater, can’t I have a cigarette +just for once?” + +“Yes, you may, just for once.” + +Jimmy approached the cigarette box with the air of a nonchalant +conqueror. As he opened it with an apparently practised forefinger he +remarked: + +“Well, mater?” + +“He’s left the hotel. You know, Jimmy, Mr. Leith has had great +misfortunes.” + +Jimmy had heard of the gun accident and its terrible result, and he now +looked very grave. + +“I know--poor chap!” he observed. “But it wasn’t his fault. It was the +little brute of a pony. Every one knows that. It was rotten bad luck, +but who would be down on a fellow for bad luck?” + +“Exactly. But it’s changed Mr. Leith’s life. His wife has left him. He’s +given up his business, and is, consequently, less well off than he was. +But this isn’t all.” + +Jimmy tenderly struck a match, lighted a cigarette, and, with +half-closed eyes, blew forth in a professional manner a delicate cloud +of smoke. He was feeling good all over. + +“First-rate cigarettes!” he remarked. “The very best! Yes, mater?” + +“He’s rather badly broken up.” + +“No wonder!” said Jimmy, with discrimination. + +“You’ll find him a good deal changed. Sometimes he’s moody and even +bad-tempered, poor fellow, and he’s fearfully sensitive. I’m trying my +best to buck him up.” + +“Good for you, mater! He’s our friend. We’re bound to stand by him.” + +“And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. When he’s a little difficult, +doesn’t take things quite as one means them--you know?” + +“Rather! Do I?” + +“I put it down to all the trouble he’s been through. I never resent it. +Now I ought really to have got out a holiday tutor for you.” + +“Oh, I say, after I’ve swotted my head off all these months! A chap +needs some rest if he’s to do himself justice, hang it, mater, now!” + +“I know all about that!” + +She looked at him shrewdly, and he smiled on one side of his mouth. + +“Go on, mater!” + +“But having Mr. Leith here I thought I wouldn’t do that. Mr. Leith’s +awfully fond of boys, and it seemed to me you might do him more good +than any one else could.” + +“Well, I’m blowed! D’you really think so?” + +Jimmy came over and sat on the arm of her chair, blowing rings of smoke +cleverly over her lovely little head. + +“Put me up to it, mater, there’s a good girl. I’m awfully keen on Mr. +Leith, as you know. He’s got the biggest biceps I ever saw, and I’m +jolly sorry for him. What can I do? Put me up to it.” + +And Mrs. Clarke proceeded to put Jimmy up to it. She had told Dion that +Jimmy wouldn’t see the difference in him. Now she carefully prepared +Jimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part she +wished him to play. Jimmy felt very important as he listened to her +explanations, trifling seriously with his cigarette, and looking very +worldly-wise. + +“I twig!” he interrupted occasionally, nodding his round young head, +which was covered with densely thick, rather coarse hair. “I’ve got it.” + +And he went off to bed very seriously, resolved to take Mr. Leith in +hand and to do his level best for him. + +So it was that when Dion and he met next day he was not surprised at +the change in Dion’s appearance and manner. Nor were his young eyes +merciless in their scrutiny. Just at first, perhaps, they stared with +the unthinking observation of boyhood, but almost immediately Jimmy had +taken the cue his mother had given him, and had entered into his part of +a driver-away of trouble. + +He played it well, with a tact that was almost remarkable in so young +a boy; and Dion, ignorant of what Mrs. Clarke had done on the night of +Jimmy’s arrival, was at first surprised at the ease with which they +got on together. He had dreaded Jimmy’s coming, partly because of the +secrets he must keep from the boy, but partly also because of Robin. +A boy’s hands would surely tear at the wound which was always open. +Sometimes Dion felt horribly sad when he was in contact with Jimmy’s +light-hearted and careless gaiety; sometimes he felt the gnawing +discomfort of one not by nature a hypocrite forced into a passive +hypocrisy; nevertheless there were moments when the burden of his life +was made a little lighter on his shoulders by the confidence his young +companion had in him, by the admiration for him showed plainly by Jimmy, +by the leaping spirits which ardently summoned a reply in kind. + +The subtlety of Mrs. Clarke, too, helped Dion at first. + +Since her son’s arrival, without ostentation she had lived for him. She +entered into all Jimmy’s plans, was ready to share his excitements and +to taste, with him, those pleasures which were possible to a woman as +well as to a boy. But she was quick to efface herself where she saw +that she was not needed or might even be in the way. As a mother she was +devoid of jealousy, was unselfish without seeming to be so. She did +not parade her virtue. Her reticence was that of a perfectly finished +artist. When she was wanted she was on the spot; when she was not +wanted she disappeared. She sped Dion and Jimmy on their way to boating, +shooting, swimming expeditions, with the happiest grace, and never +assumed the look and manner of the patient woman “left behind.” + +Not once, since Jimmy’s arrival, had she shown to Dion even a trace of +the passionate and perverse woman he now knew her to be under her pale +mask of self-controlled and very mental composure. At the hotel in +Constantinople she had said to Dion, “All the time Jimmy’s at Buyukderer +we’ll just be friends.” Now she seemed utterly to have forgotten that +they had ever been what the world calls lovers, that they had been +involved in scenes of passion, and brutality, and exhaustion, that they +had torn aside the veil of reticence behind which women and men hide +from each other normally the naked truth of what they can be. She +treated Dion casually, though very kindly, as a friend, and never, even +by the swift glance or a lingering touch of her fingers, reminded him of +the fires that burned within her. Even when she was alone with him, when +Jimmy ran off, perhaps, unexpectedly in the wake of a passing caprice, +she never departed from her role of the friend who was before all things +a mother. + +So perfect was her hypocrisy, so absolutely natural in its +manifestation, that sometimes, looking at her, Dion could scarcely +forbear from thinking that she had forgotten all about their illicit +connexion; that she had put it behind her forever; that she was one +of those happy people who possess the power of slaying the past and +blotting the murder out of their memories. + +That scene between them in Constantinople on the eve of Jimmy’s +arrival--had it ever taken place? Had she really ever tried to strike +him on the mouth? Had he caught her wrist in a grip of iron? It seemed +incredible. + +And if he was involved in a great hypocrisy since the boy’s arrival he +was released from innumerable lesser hypocrisies. His life at present +was what it seemed to be to the little world on the Bosporus. + +Just at first he did not realize that though Mrs. Clarke genuinely loved +her son she was not too scrupulous to press his unconscious services in +aid of her hypocrisy. + +The holiday tutor whom she ought to have got out from England to improve +the shining hour on Jimmy’s behalf was replaced by Dion in the eyes of +Mrs. Clarke’s world. + +One day she said to Dion: + +“Will you do me a good turn?” + +“Yes, if I can.” + +“It may bore you.” + +“What is it?” + +“Read a little bit with Jimmy sometimes, will you? He’s abominably +ignorant, and will never be a scholar, but I should like him just to +keep up his end at school.” + +“But I haven’t got any school-books.” + +“I have. He’s specially behindhand with his Greek. His report tells me +that. If you’ll do a little Greek grammar and construing with him in the +mornings now and them, I shall be tremendously grateful. You see, +owing to my miserable domestic circumstances, Jimmy is practically +fatherless.” + +“And you ask me to take his father’s place!” was in Dion’s mind. + +But she met his eyes so earnestly and with such sincerity that he only +said: + +“Of course I’ll read with him in the mornings.” + +Despite the ardent protests to Jimmy Dion kept his promise. Soon Mrs. +Clarke’s numerous acquaintances knew of the morning hours of study. She +had happened to tell Sir Carey Ingleton about Jimmy’s backwardness in +book-learning and Mr. Leith’s kind efforts to “get him on during the +holidays.” Sir Carey had spoken of it to Cyril Vane. The thing “got +about.” The name of Dion Leith began to be connected rather with Jimmy +Clarke than with Mrs. Clarke. Continually Dion and Jimmy were seen about +together. Mrs. Clarke, meanwhile, often went among her friends alone, +and when they asked about Jimmy she would say: + +“Oh, he’s gone off somewhere with Mr. Leith. I don’t know where. Mr. +Leith’s a regular boy’s man and was a great chum of Jimmy’s in London; +used to show him how to box and that sort of thing. It’s partly for +Jimmy that he came to Buyukderer. They read together in the mornings. +Mr. Leith’s getting Jimmy on in Greek.” + +Sometimes she would add: + +“Mr. Leith loves boys, and since his own child died so sadly I think +he’s taken to Jimmy more than ever.” + +Soon people began to talk of Dion Leith as “Jimmy Clarke’s holiday +tutor.” Once, when this was said in Lady Ingleton’s drawing-room at +Therapia, she murmured: + +“I don’t think it quite amounts to that. Mr. Leith has never been a +schoolmaster.” + +And there she left it, with a faint smile in which there was just the +hint of an almost cynical sadness. + +Since the trip to Brusa on the “Leyla” she had thought a great deal +about Dion Leith, and she was very sorry for him in a rather unusual +way. Out of her happiness with her husband she seemed to draw an +instinctive knowledge of what such a nature as Dion Leith’s wanted and +of the extent of his loss. Once she said to Sir Carey, with a sort of +intensity such as she seldom showed: + +“Good women do terrible things sometimes.” + +“Such as----?” said Sir Carey, looking at her almost with surprise in +his eyes. + +“I think Mrs. Leith has done a terrible thing to her husband.” + +“Perhaps she loved the child too much.” + +“Even love can be almost abominable,” said Lady Ingleton. “If we had a +child, and you had done what poor Dion Leith has done, do you think I +should have cast you out of my life?” + +“But--are you a good woman?” he asked her, smiling. + +“No, or you should never have bothered about me.” + +He touched her hand. + +“When you do that,” Lady Ingleton said, “I could almost cry over poor +Dion Leith.” + +Sir Carey bent down and kissed her with a very tender gallantry. + +“You and I are secretly sentimentalists, Delia,” he said. “That is why +we are so happy together.” + +“Why doesn’t Dion Leith go to England?” she exclaimed, almost angrily. + +“Perhaps England seems full of his misery. Besides, his wife is there.” + +“He ought to go to her. He ought to force her to see the evil she is +doing.” + +“Leith will never do that, I feel sure,” said Sir Carey gravely. “And in +his place I don’t know that I could.” + +Lady Ingleton looked at him with an almost sharp impatience such as she +seldom showed him. + +“When a man has right on his side he ought to browbeat a woman!” she +exclaimed. “And even if he is in the wrong it’s the best way to make +a woman see things through his eyes. Dion Leith is too delicate with +women.” + +After a moment she added: + +“At any rate with some women, the first of whom is his own wife. A man +should always put up a big fight for a really big thing, and Dion Leith +hasn’t done that!” + +“He fought in South Africa for England.” + +“Ah,” she said, lifting her chin, “that sort of thing is so different.” + +“Tell him what you think,” said the Ambassador. + +“I know him so little. But perhaps--who knows--some day I shall.” + +She said no more on that subject. + +Meanwhile Dion was teaching Jimmy, who was really full of the happiest +ignorance. Jimmy’s knowledge of Greek was a minus quantity, and he said +frankly that he considered all that kind of thing “more or less rot.” + Nevertheless, Dion persevered. One morning when they were going to get +to work as usual in the pavilion,--chose by Mrs. Clarke as the suitable +place for his studies,--taking up the Greek Grammar Dion opened it +by chance. He stood by the table from which he had picked the book up +staring down at the page. By one of those terrible rushes of which the +mind is capable he was swept back to the famous mound which fronts the +plain of Marathon; he saw the curving line of hills, the sea intensely +blue and sparkling, empty of ships, the river’s course through the +tawny land marked by the tall reeds and the sedges; he heard the distant +lowing of cattle coming from that old battlefield, celebrated by poets +and historians. And then he heard, as if just above him, the dry crackle +of brushwood--Rosamund moving in the habitation of Arcady. And he +remembered the cry, the intense human cry which had echoed in the +recesses of his soul on that day long--how long--ago in Greece, +“Whither? Whither am I and my great love going? To what end are we +journeying?” + +He heard again that cry of his soul in the pavilion at Buyukderer, and +beneath the sunburn his lean cheeks went lividly pale. + +Reluctantly Jimmy was getting an exercise book and a pen and ink out of +the drawer of a table, which Mrs. Clarke had had specially made for the +lessons by a little Greek carpenter who sometimes did odd jobs for her. +He found the ink bottle almost empty. + +“I say,” he began. + +He looked up. + +“I say, Mr. Leith----” + +His voice died away and he stared. + +“What’s wrong?” he managed to bring out at last. + +He thrust out a hand and laid hold of the grammar. Dion let it go. + +His eyes searched the page. + +“What’s up, Mr. Leith?” + +He looked frankly puzzled and almost afraid. He had never seen any one +look just like that before. + +There was a moment of silence. Then, with a sudden change of manner, +Dion exclaimed: + +“Come on, Jimmy! I don’t feel like doing lessons this morning. I vote +we go out. I’m going to ask your mother if we can ride to the Belgrad +forest. Perhaps she’ll come with us.” + +He was suddenly afraid to remain alone with the boy, and he felt that +he could not stay in that pavilion full of the atmosphere of feverish +passion, of secrecy, of betrayal. Yes, of betrayal! For there he had +betrayed the obstinate love, which he had felt at Marathon as a sort of +ecstasy, and still felt, but now like a wound, within him in spite of +Rosamund’s rejection of him. Not yet had the current taken him and swept +him away from all the old landmarks. Perhaps it never would. And yet he +had given himself to it, he had not tried to resist. + +Jimmy jumped up with alacrity, though he still looked rather grave and +astonished. They went down the terraced garden to the villa. + +“Run up and ask your mother,” said Dion. “Probably she’s in her +sitting-room. I’ll wait here to know what she says.” + +“Right you are!” + +He went off, looking rather relieved. + +Robin at fifteen! Dion shut his eyes. + +Jimmy was away for more than ten minutes. Then he came back to say that +his mother would come with them to the forest and would be ready in an +hour’s time. + +“I’ll go back to my rooms, change my breeches, and order the horses,” + said Dion. + +He was longing to get away from the scrutiny which at this moment Jimmy +could not forego. He knew that Jimmy had been talking about him to Mrs. +Clarke, had probably been saying how “jolly odd” he had been in +the pavilion. For once the boy’s tact had failed him, and Dion’s +sensitiveness tingled. + +An hour later they were on horseback and rode into the midst of the +forest. At the village of Belgrad they dismounted, left the horses in +the care of a Turkish stableman, and went for a walk among the trees. +It was very hot and still, and presently Mrs. Clarke said she would sit +down and rest. + +“You and Jimmy go on if you want to,” she said. + +But Jimmy threw himself down on the ground. + +“I’m tired. It’s so infernally hot.” + +“Take a nap,” said his mother. + +The boy laid his head on his curved arms sideways. Mrs. Clarke leaned +down and put his panama hat over his left cheek and eye. + +“Thank you, mater,” he murmured. + +He lay still. + +Dion had stood by with an air of hesitation during this little talk +between mother and son. Now he looked away to the forest. + +“You go,” Mrs. Clarke said to him. “You’ll find us here when you come +back. The Armenians call the forest _Defetgamm_. Perhaps you will come +under its influence.” + +“_Defetgamm_! What does that mean?” + +“Dispeller of care.” + +He stood looking at her for a moment; then, without another word, he +turned quickly away and disappeared among the trees. + +Jimmy slept with his face hidden, and Mrs. Clarke, with wide-open eyes, +sat motionless staring into the forest. + +When they reached the Villa Hafiz late in the afternoon Dion helped +Mrs. Clarke to dismount. As she slid down lightly from the saddle she +whispered, scarcely moving her lips: + +“The pavilion to-night eleven. You’ve got the key.” + +She patted Selim’s glossy black neck. + +“Come, Jimmy!” she said. “Say good night to Mr. Leith. I’m sure he’s +tired and has had more than enough of us for to-day. We’ll give him a +rest from us till to-morrow.” + +And Jimmy bade Dion good-by without any protest. + +As Dion rode off Mrs. Clarke did not turn to look after him. She had +not troubled even to question him with her eyes. She had assumed that he +would do what she wanted. Would he do that? + +At first he believed that he would not go. He had been away in the +forest with his misery for nearly two hours, struggling among the +shadows of the trees. Jimmy had seen in the pavilion that morning that +his “holiday tutor” was strangely ill at ease, and had discussed the +matter with his mater, and asked her why on earth the sight of a page +of Greek grammar should make a fellow stand staring as if he were +confronted by a ghost. But Jimmy had no conception of what Dion had +been through in the forest, where happy Greeks and Armenians were lazily +enjoying the empty hours of summer, forgetting yesterday, and serenely +careless of to-morrow. + +In the forest Dion had fought with an old love of which he began to be +angrily ashamed, with a love which was now his greatest enemy, a thing +contemptible, inexplicable. In the pavilion that morning it had suddenly +risen up before him strong, intense, passionate. It seemed irresistible. +But he was almost furiously resolved not merely to resist it, but to +crush it down, to break it in pieces, or to drive it finally out of his +life. + +And he had fought with it alone in the forest which the Armenians call +_Defetgamm_. And in the forest something--some adherent, it seemed--had +whispered to him, “To kill your enemy you must fill your armory with +weapons. The woman who came to you when you were neither in one world +nor in the other is a weapon. Why have you ceased to use her?” + +And now, as if she had heard the voice of that adherent, and had known +of the struggle in the forest, the woman herself had suddenly broken +through the reserve she had imposed upon them both since the coming of +her son. + +In a hideous way Dion wanted to see her, and yet he shrank from going +back to her secretly. The coming of Jimmy, his relations with the boy, +the boy’s hearty affection for him and admiration for him, had roused +into intense activity that part of his nature which had always loved, +which he supposed always must love, the straight life; the life with +morning face and clear, unfaltering eyes; the life which the Hermes +suggested, immune from the fret and fever of secret vices and passions, +lifted by winged sandals into a region where soul and body were in +perfect accord, and where, because of that, there was peace; not a peace +of stagnation, but a peace living and intense. But that part of his +nature had led him even now instinctively back to the feet of Rosamund. +And he revolted against such a pilgrimage. + +“The pavilion to-night eleven; you’ve got the key.” + +Her face had not changed as she whispered the words, and immediately +afterwards she had told a lie to her boy, or had implied a lie. She had +made Jimmy believe the thing that was not. Loving Jimmy, she did not +scruple to play a part to him. + +Dion ate no dinner that night. After returning to his rooms and getting +out of his riding things into a loose serge suit he went out again and +walked along the quay by the water. He paced up and down, ignoring the +many passers-by, the boatmen and watermen who now knew him so well. + +He was considering whether he should go to the pavilion at the appointed +hour or whether he should leave Buyukderer altogether and not return to +it. This evening he was in the mood to be drastic. He might go down to +Constantinople and finally cast his burden away there, never to take it +up again--the burden of an old love whose chains still hung about him; +he might plunge into the lowest depths, into depths where perhaps the +remembrance of Rosamund and the early morning would fade away from him, +where even Mrs. Clarke would not care to seek for him, although her will +was persistent. + +He fully realized now her extraordinary persistence, the fierce firmness +of character that was concealed by her quiet and generally impersonal +manner. Certainly she had the temperament of a ruler. He remembered--it +seemed to him with a bizarre abruptness--the smile on Dumeny’s lips in +the Divorce Court when the great case had ended in Mrs. Clarke’s favor. + +Did he really know Cynthia Clarke even now? + +He walked faster. Now he saw Hadi Bey before him, self-possessed, firm, +with that curiously vivid look which had attracted the many women in +Court. + +And Jimmy believed in his mother. Perhaps, until Dion’s arrival in +Buyukderer, the boy had had reason in his belief--perhaps not. Dion was +very uncertain to-night. + +A sort of cold curiosity was born in him. Until now he had accepted Mrs. +Clarke’s presentment of herself to the world, which included himself, +as a genuine portrait; now he began to recall the long speech of Beadon +Clarke’s counsel. But the man had only been speaking according to his +brief, had been only putting forth all the ingenuity and talent which +enabled him to command immense fees for his services. And Mrs. Clarke +had beaten him. The jury had said that she was not what he had asserted +her to be. + +Suppose they had made a mistake, had given the wrong verdict, why +should that make any difference to Dion? He had definitely done with the +goodness of good women. Why should he fear the evil of a woman who was +bad? Perhaps in the women who were called evil by the respectable, or by +those who were temperamentally inclined to purity, there was more warm +humanity than the women possessed who never made a slip, or stepped +out of the beaten path of virtue. Perhaps those to whom much must be +forgiven were those who knew how to forgive. + +If Mrs. Clarke really were what Beadon Clarke’s counsel had suggested +that she was, how would it affect him? Dion pondered that question on +the quay. Mrs. Clarke’s pale and very efficient hypocrisy, which he had +been able to observe at close quarters since he had been at Buyukderer, +might well have been brought into play against himself, as it had been +brought into play against the little world on the Bosporus and against +Jimmy. + +Dion made up his mind that he would go to the pavilion that night. The +cold curiosity which had floated up to the surface of his mind enticed +him. He wanted to know whether he was among the victims, if they could +reasonably be called so, of Mrs. Clarke’s delicate hypocrisy. He was +still thinking of Mrs. Clarke as a weapon; he was also thinking that +perhaps he did not yet know exactly what type of weapon she was. He must +find that out to-night. Not even the thought of Jimmy should deter him. + +At a few minutes before eleven he went back to his rooms, unlocked his +despatch box, and drew out the key of the gate of Mrs. Clarke’s garden. +He thrust it into his pocket and set out on the short walk to the Villa +Hafiz. The night was dark and cloudy and very still. Dion walked quickly +and surreptitiously, not looking at any of the people who went by him +in the darkness. All the windows of the villa which faced the sea were +shuttered and showed no lights. He turned to the right, stood before the +garden gate and listened. He heard no sound except a distant singing on +the oily waters of the Bay. Softly he put his key into the gate, gently +unlocked it, stepped into the garden. A few minutes later he was on the +highest terrace and approached the pavilion. As he did so Mrs. Clarke +came out of the drawing-room of the villa, passed by the fountain, and +began to ascend the garden. + +She was dressed in black and in a material that did not rustle. Her thin +figure did not show up against the night, and her light slow footfall +was scarcely audible on the paths and steps as she went upward. Jimmy +had gone to bed long ago, tired out with the long ride in the heat. +She had just been into his bedroom, without a light, and had heard his +regular breathing. He was fast asleep, and once he was asleep he never +woke till the light of day shone in at the window. It was a comfort that +one could thoroughly rely on the sleeping powers of a healthy boy of +fifteen. + +She sighed as she thought of Jimmy. The boy was going to complicate +her life. She was by nature an unusually fearless woman, but she was +beginning to realize that there might come a time when she would know +fear--unless she could begin to live differently as Jimmy began to +grow up. But how could she do that? There are things which seem to be +impossible even to strong wills. Her will was very strong, but she had +always used it not to renounce but to attain, not to hold her desires in +check but to bring them to fruition. And it was late in the day to begin +reversing the powerful engine of her will. She was not even sure that +she could reverse it. Hitherto she had never genuinely tried to do that. +She did not want to try now, partly--but only partly--because she hated +to fail in anything she undertook. And she had a suspicion, which she +was not anxious to turn into a certainty, that she who had ruled many +people was only a slave herself. Perhaps some day Jimmy would force her +to a knowledge of her exact condition. + +For the first time in her life she was half afraid of that mysterious +energy which men and women call love; she began to understand, with +a sort of ample fulness of comprehension, that of all loves the most +determined is the love of a mother for her only son. A mother may, +perhaps, have a son and not love him; but if once she loves him she +holds within her a thing that will not die while she lives. + +And if the thing that was without lust stood up in battle against the +thing that was full of lust--what then? + +The black and still night seemed a battlefield. + +Softly she stepped upon the highest terrace and stood for a moment under +the great plane tree, where was the wooden seat on which she had waited +for Dion to weep away the past and the good woman who had ruined his +life. To-night she was invaded by an odd uncertainty. If she went to the +pavilion and Dion were not there? If he did not come? Would some part +of her, perhaps, be glad, the part that in a mysterious way was one with +Jimmy? She stared into the darkness, looking towards the pavilion. Dion +Leith had once said she looked punished. Perhaps when he had said that +he had shown that he had intuition. + +Was he there? It was past eleven now. She had assumed that he would +come, and she was inclined to believe that he had come. If so she need +not see him even now. There was still time for her to go back to the +villa, to shut herself in, to go to bed, as Jimmy had gone to bed. But +if she did that she would not sleep. All night long she would lie wide +awake, tossing from side to side, the helpless prey of her past life. + +She frowned and slipped through the darkness, almost like a fluid, to +the pavilion. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +She came so silently that Dion heard nothing till against the background +of the night he saw a shadow, her thin body, a faint whiteness, her +face, motionless at the opening of the pavilion; from this shadow and +this whiteness came a voice which said: + +“Did you come under the influence of _Defetgamm_?” + +“It’s impossible that you see me!” he said. + +“I see you plainly with some part of me, not my eyes.” + +He got up from the divan where he had been sitting in the dark and went +to the opening of the pavilion. + +“Did you come under the influence of _Defetgamm_?” she repeated. + +“You know I didn’t.” + +He paused, then added: + +“I nearly didn’t come to-night.” + +“And I nearly went down, after I had come up here, without seeing you. +And yet--we are together again.” + +“Why do you want to see me here? We agreed--” + +“Yes, we agreed; but after to-day in the forest that agreement had to be +broken. When you left me under the trees you looked like a man who was +thinking of starting on a very long journey.” + +She spoke with a peculiar significance which at once conveyed her full +meaning to him. + +“No, I shall never do that,” he said. “If I had been capable of it, I +should have done it long ago.” + +“Yes? Let me in.” + +He moved. She slipped into the pavilion and sat down. + +“How can you move without making any sound?” he asked somberly. + +There had been in her movement a sort of perfection of surreptitiousness +that was animal. He noticed it, and thought that she must surely be +accustomed to moving with precaution lest she should be seen or heard. +Rosamund could not move like that. A life story seemed to him to be +faintly traced in Mrs. Clarke’s manner of entering the pavilion and of +sitting down on the divan. + +He stood beside her in the dark. She returned no answer to his question. + +“You spoke of a journey,” he said. “The only journey I have thought +of making is short enough--to Constantinople. I nearly started on it +to-night.” + +“Why do you want to go to Constantinople?” + +He was silent. + +“What would you do there?” + +“Ugly things, perhaps.” + +“Why didn’t you go? What kept you?” + +“I felt that I must ask you something.” + +He sat down beside her and took both her hands roughly. They were dry +and burning as if with fever. + +“You trick Jimmy,” he said. “You trick the Ingletons, Vane, all the +people here--” + +“Trick!” she interrupted coldly, almost disdainfully. “What do you +mean?” + +“That you deceive them, take them in.” + +“What about?” + +“You know quite well.” + +After a pause, which was perhaps--he could not tell--a pause of +astonishment, she said: + +“Do you really expect me to go about telling every one that I, a lonely +woman, separated from my husband, unable to marry again, have met a man +whom I care for, and that I’ve been weak enough--or wicked enough, if +you like--to let him know it?” + +Dion felt his cheeks burn in the darkness. Nevertheless, something drove +him on, forced him to push his way hardily through a sort of quickset +hedge of reluctance and shame. + +“No, I don’t expect absurdities. I am not such a fool. But--but you do +it so well!” + +“Do what well?” + +“Everything connected with deception. You are such a mistress of it.” + +“Well?” + +“Isn’t that rather strange?” + +“Do you expect a woman like me, a woman who can’t pretend to stupidity, +and who has lived for years in the diplomatic world, to blunder in what +she undertakes?” + +“No, I don’t. But you are too competent.” + +He spoke with hard determination, but his cheeks were still burning. + +“It’s impossible to be too competent. If I make up my mind that a thing +must be done I resolve to do it thoroughly and to do it well. I despise +blunderers and women who are afraid of what they do. I despise those who +give themselves and others away. I cared for you. I saw you needed me +and I gave myself to you. I am not sorry I did it, not a bit sorry. I +had counted the cost before I did it.” + +“Counted the cost? But what cost is there? Neither of us loses +anything.” + +“I risk losing almost everything a woman cares for. I don’t want to +dwell upon it. I detest women who indulge in reproaches, or who try +to make men value them by pointing out how much they stand to lose by +giving themselves. But you are so strange to-night. You have attacked +me. I don’t know why.” + +“I’ve been walking on the quay and thinking.” + +“What about?” + +“You!” + +“Go on.” + +“I’ve been thinking that, as you take in Jimmy and all the people here +so easily, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be taking me in too.” + +In the dark a feeling was steadily growing within him that his companion +was playing with him as he knew she had played with others. + +“I’m forced to deceive the people here and my boy. My relation with you +obliges me to do that. But nothing forces me to deceive you. I have been +sincere with you. Ever since I met you in the street in Pera I’ve been +sincere, even blunt. I should think you must have noticed it.” + +“I have. In some ways you are blunt, but in many you aren’t.” + +“What is it exactly that you wish to know?” + +For a moment Dion was silent. In the darkness of the pavilion he saw +Dumeny’s lips smiling faintly, Hadi Bey’s vivid, self-possessed eyes, +the weak mouth of Brayfield and his own double. Was he a member of an +ugly brotherhood, or did he stand alone? He wanted to know, yet he felt +that he could not put such a hideous question to his companion. + +“Tell me exactly what it is,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. I wish to be +quite sincere with you, though you think I don’t. It is no pleasure +to me to deceive people. What I do in the way of deception I do in +self-defense. Circumstances often push us into doing what we don’t enjoy +doing. But you and I ought to be frank with one another.” + +Her hands tightened on his. + +“Go on. Tell me.” + +“I’ve been wondering whether your husband ought to have won his case,” + said Dion, in a low voice. + +“Is that all?” she said, very simply and without any emotion. + +“All?” + +“Yes. Do you suppose, when I gave myself to you, I didn’t realize that +my doing it was certain to make you doubt my virtue? Dion, you don’t +know how boyish you still are. You will always be in some ways a boy. +I knew you would doubt me after all that had happened. But what is the +good of asking questions of a women whom you doubt? If I am what you +suspect, of course I shall tell lies. If I am not, what is the good of +my telling you the truth? What is to make you believe it?” + +He was silent. She moved slightly and he felt her thin body against his +side. What sort of weapon was she? That was the great question for +him. Since his struggle in the forest of _Defetgamm_ he had come to +the resolve to strike fierce and reiterated blows on that disabling and +surely contemptible love of his, that love which had confronted him like +a specter when he was in the pavilion with Jimmy. He was resolved at +last upon assassination, and he wanted a weapon that could slay, not a +weapon that would bend, or perhaps break, in his hand. + +“I don’t want to believe I am only one among many,” he said at last. + +The sound of his voice gave her the cue to his inmost feeling. She had +been puzzled in the forest, she had been half afraid, seeing that he +had arrived at an acute emotional crisis and not understanding what had +brought him to it. She did not understand that now, but she knew that he +was asking from her more than he had ever asked before. He had been +cast out and now he was knocking hard on her door. He was knocking, but +lingering remnants of the influence of the woman who had colored his +former life hung about him like torn rags, and his hands instinctively +felt for them, pulled at them, to cover his nakedness. Still, while he +knocked, he looked back to the other life. Nevertheless--she knew this +with all there was of woman in her--he wanted from her all that the good +woman had never given to him, was incapable of giving to him or to any +one. He wanted from her, perhaps, powers of the body which would suffice +finally for the killing of those powers of the soul by which he was +now tormented ceaselessly. The sound of his voice demanded from her +something no other man had ever demanded from her, the slaughter in him +of what he had lived by through all his years. Nevertheless he was still +looking back to all the old purities, was still trying to hear all the +old voices. He required of her, as it were, that she should be good in +her evil, gentle while she destroyed. Well, she would even be that. A +rare smile curved her thin lips, but he did not see it. + +“Suppose I told you that you were one of many?” she said. “Would you +give it all up?” + +“I don’t know. Am I?” + +“No. Do you think, if you were, I should have kept my women friends, +Tippie Chetwinde, Delia Ingleton and all the rest?” + +“I suppose not,” he said. + +But he remembered tones in Mrs. Chetwinde’s voice when she had spoken of +“Cynthia Clarke,” and even tones in Lady Ingleton’s voice. + +“They stuck to me because they believed in me. What other reason could +they have?” + +“Unless they were very devoted to you.” + +“Women aren’t much given to that sort of thing,” she said dryly. + +“I think you have an unusual power of making people do what you wish. +It is like an emanation,” he said slowly. “And it seems not to be +interfered with by distance.” + +She leaned till her cheek touched his. + +“Dion, I wish to make you forget. I know how it is with you. You suffer +abominably because you can’t forget. I haven’t succeeded with you yet. +But wait, only wait, till Jimmy goes, till the summer is over and we can +leave the Bosporus. It’s all too intimate--the life here. We are all too +near together. But in Constantinople I know ways. I’ll stay there all +the winter for you. Even the Christmas holidays--I’ll give them up for +once. I want to show you that I do care. For no one else on earth would +I give up being with Jimmy in his holidays. For no one else I’d risk +what I’m risking to-night.” + +“Jimmy was asleep when you came?” + +“Yes, but he might wake. He never does, but he might wake just +to-night.” + +“Suppose he did! Suppose he looked for you in your room and didn’t find +you! Suppose he came up here!” + +“He won’t!” + +She spoke obstinately, almost as if her assertion of the thing’s +impossibility must make it impossible. + +“And yet there’s the risk of it,” said Dion--“the great risk.” + +“There are always risks in connection with the big things in life. We +are worth very little if we won’t take them.” + +“If it wasn’t for Jimmy would you come and live with me? Would you drop +all this deception? Would you let your husband divorce you? Would you +give up your place in society for me? I am an outcast. Would you come +and be an outcast with me?” + +“Yes, if it wasn’t for Jimmy.” + +“And for Jimmy you’d give me up for ever in a moment, wouldn’t you?” + +“Why do you ask these questions?” she said, almost fiercely. + +“I want something for myself, something that’s really mine. Then +perhaps----” + +He stopped. + +“Perhaps what?” + +“Perhaps I could forget--sometimes.” + +“And yet when you knew Jimmy was coming here you wanted to go away. You +were afraid then. And even to-day--” + +“I want one thing or the other!” he interrupted desperately. “I’m sick +of mixing up good and bad. I’m sick of prevarications and deceptions. +They go against my whole nature. I hate struggling in a net. It saps all +my strength.” + +“I know. I understand.” + +She put her arm round his neck. + +“Perhaps I ought to give you up, let you go. I’ve thought that. But I +haven’t the courage. Dion, I’m lonely, I’m lonely.” + +He felt moisture on his cheek. + +“About you I’m absolutely selfish,” she said, in a low, swift voice. +“Even if all this hypocrisy hurts you I can’t give you up. I’ve told you +a lie--even you.” + +“When?” + +“I said to you on _that_ night----” + +She waited. + +“I know,” he said. + +“I said that I hadn’t cared for you till I met you in Pera, and saw +what _she_ had done to you. That was a lie. I cared for you in England. +Didn’t you know it?” + +“Once or twice I wondered, but I was never at all sure.” + +“It was because I cared that I wanted to make friends with your wife. +I had no evil reason. I knew you and she were perfectly happy together. +But I wanted just to see you sometimes. She guessed it. That was why she +avoided me--the real reason. It wasn’t only because I’d been involved +in a scandal, though I told you once it was. I’ve sometimes lied to you +because I didn’t want to feel myself humiliated in your eyes. But now +I don’t care. You can know all the truth if you want to. You pushed +me away--oh, very gently--because of her. Did you think I didn’t +understand? You were afraid of me. Perhaps you thought I was a nuisance. +When I came back from Paris on purpose for Tippie Chetwinde’s party +you were startled, almost horrified, when you saw me. I saw it all so +plainly. In the end, as you know, I gave it up. Only when you went to +the war I had to send that telegram. I thought you might be killed, and +I wanted you to know I was remembering you, and admiring you for what +you had done. Then you came with poor Brayfield’s letter----” + +She broke off, then added, with a long, quivering sigh: + +“You’ve made me suffer, Dion.” + +“Have I?” + +He turned till he was facing her in the darkness. + +“Then at last you were overtaken by your tragedy, and she showed you her +cruelty and cast you out. From that moment I was resolved some day +to let you know how much I cared. I wanted you in your misery. But I +waited. I had a conviction that you would come to me, drawn, without +suspecting it, by what I felt for you. Well, you came at last. And now +you ask me whether you are one of many.” + +“Forgive me!” he whispered. + +“But of course I shall always forgive you for everything. Women who care +for men always do that. They can’t help themselves. And you--will you +forgive me for my lies?” + +He took her in his arms. + +“Life’s full of them. Only don’t tell me any more, and make me forget if +you can. You’ve got so much will. Try to have the power for that.” + +“Then help me. Give yourself wholly to me. You have struggled against me +furtively. You thought I didn’t know it, but I did. You look back to the +old ways. And that is madness. Turn a new page, Dion. Have the courage +to hope.” + +“To--hope!” + +Her hot hands closed on him fiercely. + +“You shall hope. I’ll make you. Cut out the cancer that is in you, and +cut away all that is round it. Then you’ll have health again. She never +knew how to feel in the great human way. She was too fond of God ever to +care for a man.” + +Let that be the epitaph over the tomb in which all his happiness was +buried. + +In silence he made his decision, and Cynthia Clarke knew it. + +The darkness covered them. + +* * * * * + +Down below in the Villa Hafiz Jimmy was sleeping peacefully, tired by +the long ride to and from the forest in the heat. He had gone to bed +very early, almost directly after dinner. His mother had not advised +this. Perhaps indeed, if she had not been secretly concentrated on +herself and her own desires that evening, she would have made Jimmy stay +up till at least half-past ten, even though he was “jolly sleepy.” + He had slept for at least two hours in the forest. She ought to have +remembered that, but she had forgotten it, and when, at a quarter to +nine, on an enormous yawn, Jimmy had announced that he thought he would +“turn in and get between the sheets,” she had almost eagerly acquiesced. +She wanted her boy asleep, soundly asleep that night. When the clock had +struck nine he had already traveled beyond the land of dreams. + +The night was intensely hot and airless. No breath of wind came from the +sea. Drops of perspiration stood on the boy’s forehead as he slept, with +nothing over him but a sheet. He lay on his side, with his face towards +the open window and one arm outside the sheet. + +People easily fall into habits of sleeping. Jimmy was accustomed to +sleep for about eight hours “on end,” as he put it. When he had had his +eight hours he generally woke up. If he was not obliged to get up he +often went to sleep again after an interval of wakefulness, but he +seldom slept for as much as nine hours without waking. + +On this night between two o’clock and three it seemed as if a layer of +sleep were gently lifted from him. He sighed, stirred, turned over and +began to dream. + +He dreamed confusedly about Dion, and there were pain and apprehension +in his dream. In it Dion seemed to be himself and yet not himself, to be +near and at the same time remote, to be Jimmy’s friend and yet, in some +strange and horrible way, hostile to Jimmy. No doubt the boy was haunted +in his sleep by an obscure phantom bred of that painful impression of +the morning, when his friend had suddenly been changed in the pavilion, +changed into a tragic figure from which seemed to emanate impalpable +things very black and very cold. + +In the dream Jimmy’s mother did not appear as an active figure; yet the +dreamer seemed somehow to be aware of her, to know faintly that she was +involved in unhappy circumstances, that she was the victim of distresses +he could not fathom. And these distresses weighed upon him like a +burden, as things weigh upon us in dreams, softly and heavily, and with +a sort of cloudy awfulness. He wanted to strive against them for his +mother, but he was held back from action, and Dion seemed to have +something to do with this. It was as if his friend and enemy, Dion +Leith, did not wish his mother to be released from unhappiness. + +Jimmy moved, lay on his back and groaned. His eyelids fluttered. +Something from without, something from a distance, was pulling at him, +and the hands of sleep, too inert, perhaps, for any conflict, relaxed +their hold upon him. Thoughts from two minds in a dark pavilion were +stealing upon him, were touching him here and there, were whispering to +him. + +Another layer of sleep was softly removed from him. + +He clenched his large hands--he had already the hands and feet almost +of the man he would some day grow into--and his eyes opened wide for a +moment. But they closed again. He was not awake yet. + +At three o’clock he woke. He had slept for six hours in the villa and +for two hours in the forest. He lay still in the dark for a few minutes. +A faint memory of his dream hung about him like a tattered mist. He felt +anxious, almost apprehensive, and strained his ears expectant of some +sound. But the silence of the airless night was deep and large all about +him. He began to think of his mother. What had been the matter with +her? Who, or what, had persecuted her? He realized now that he had been +dreaming, said to himself, with a boy’s exaggeration, that he had had “a +beastly nightmare!” Nevertheless his mother still appeared to him as the +victim of distresses. He could not absolutely detach himself from the +impressions communicated to him in his dream. He was obliged to think of +his mother as unhappy and of Dion Leith as not wholly friendly either to +her or to himself. And it was all quite beastly. + +Presently, more fully awake, he began to wonder about the time and to +feel tremendously thirsty, as if he could “drink the jug.” + +He stretched out a hand, found the matches and struck a light. It went +out with a sort of feeble determination. + +“Damn!” he muttered. + +He struck another match and lit the candle. His silver watch lay +beside it, and marked five minutes past three. Jimmy was almost angrily +astonished. Only that! He now felt painfully wide awake, as if his sleep +were absolutely finished. What was to be done? He remembered that he had +slept in the forest. He had had his eight hours. Perhaps that was the +reason of his present wakefulness. Anyhow, he must have a drink. +He thrust away the sheet, rolled out of bed, and went to the +washhand-stand. There was plenty of water in his bottle, but when he +poured it into the tumbler he found that it was quite warm. He was +certain warm water wouldn’t quench his ardent thirst. Besides, he +loathed it. Any chap would! How beastly everything was! + +He put down the tumbler without drinking, went to the window and looked +out. The still hot darkness which greeted him made him feel again the +obscure distress of his dream. He was aware of apprehension. Dawn could +not be so very far off; yet he felt sunk to the lips in the heavy night. + +If only he could have a good drink of something very cold! This wish +made him think again of his mother. He knew she did not require much +sleep, and sometimes read during part of the night; he also knew that +she kept some iced lemonade on the table beside her bed. Now the thought +of his mother’s lemonade enticed him. + +He hesitated for a moment, then stuck his feet into a pair of red +Turkish slippers without heels, buttoned the jacket of his pyjamas, +which he had thrown open because of the heat, took his candle in +hand, and shuffled--he always shuffled when he had on the ridiculous +slippers--to the door. + +There he paused. + +The landing was fairly wide. It looked dreary and deserted in the +darkness defined by the light from his candle. He could see the head +of the staircase, the shallow wooden steps disappearing into the empty +blackness in which the ground floor of the house was shrouded; he could +see the door of his mother’s bedroom. As he stared at it, considering +whether his thirst justified him in waking her up--for, if she were +asleep, he felt pretty sure she would wake however softly he crept into +her room--he saw that the door was partly open. Perhaps his mother had +found the heat too great, and had tried to create a draught by opening +her door. There was darkness in the aperture. She wasn’t reading, then. +Probably she was asleep. He was infernally thirsty; the door was open; +the lemonade was almost within reach; he resolved to risk it. Carefully +shading the candle with one hand he crept across the landing, adroitly +abandoned his slippers outside the door, and on naked feet entered his +mother’s room. + +His eyes immediately rested on the tall jug of lemonade, which stood on +a small table, with a glass and some books, beside the big, low bed. +He stole towards it, always shielding the candle with his hand, and not +looking at the bed lest his glance might, perhaps, disturb the sleeper +he supposed to be in it. He reached the table, and was about to lay a +desirous hand upon the jug, when it occurred to him that, in doing this, +he would expose the candle ray. Better blow the candle out! He located +the jug, and was on the edge of action--his lips were pursed for the +puff--when the dead silence of the room struck him. Could any one, +even his remarkably quiet mother, sleep without making even the tiniest +sound? He shot a glance at the bed. There was no one in it. He bent +down. It had not been slept in that night. + +Jimmy stood, with his mouth open, staring at the large, neat, unruffled +bed. What the dickens could the mater be up to? She must, of course, be +sitting up in her small sitting-room next door to the bedroom. Evidently +the heat had made her sleepless. + +He took a pull at the lemonade, went to the sitting-room door and softly +opened it, at the same time exclaiming, “I say, mater----” + +Darkness and emptiness confronted him. + +He shut the door rather hurriedly, and again stood considering. +Something cracked. He started, and the candle rattled in his hand. A +disagreeable sensation was stealing upon him. He would not, of course, +have acknowledged that an unpleasant feeling of loneliness, almost of +desertion. The servants slept in a small wing of the villa, shut off +from the main part of the house by double doors. Mrs. Clarke detested +hearing the servants at night, and had taken good care to make such +hearing impossible. Jimmy began to feel isolated. + +Where could the mater be? And what could she be doing? + +For a moment he thought of returning to his room, shutting himself in +and waiting for the dawn, which would change everything--would make +everything seem quite usual and reasonable. But something in the depths +of him, speaking in a disagreeably distinct voice, remarked, “That’s +right! Be a funk stick!” And his young cheeks flushed red, although he +was alone. Immediately he went out on to the landing, thrust his feet +again into the red slippers, and boldly started down the stairs into the +black depths below. Holding the candle tightly, and trying to shuffle +with manly decision, he explored the sitting-rooms and the dining-room. +All of them were empty and dark. + +Now Jimmy began to feel “rotten.” Horrid fears for his mother bristled +up in his mind. His young imagination got to work and summoned up +ugly things before him. He saw his mother ravished away from him +by unspeakable men--Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Albanians--God knows +whom--and carried off to some unknown and frightful fate; he saw her +dead, murdered; he saw her dead, stricken by some sudden and horrible +illness. His heart thumped. He could hear it. It seemed to be beating +in his ears. And then he began to feel brave, to feel an intrepidity of +desperation. He must act. That was certain. It was his obvious business +to jolly well get to work and do something. His first thought was to +rush upstairs, to rouse the servants, to call up Sonia, his mother’s +confidential maid, to--the pavilion! + +Suddenly he remembered the pavilion, and all the books on its shelves. +His mother might be there. She might have been sleepless, might have +felt sure she couldn’t sleep, and so have stayed up. She might be +reading in the darkness. She was afraid of nothing. Darkness and +solitude wouldn’t hinder her from wandering about if the fancy to wander +took her. She wouldn’t, of course, go outside the gates, but--he now +felt sure she was somewhere in the garden. + +He looked round. He was standing by the grand piano in the drawing-room, +and he now noticed for the first time that the French window which gave +on to the rose garden was open. That settled it. He put the candle down, +hurried out into the garden and called, “Mater!” + +No voice replied except the fountain’s voice. The purring water rose +in the darkness and fell among the lilies, rose and fell, active and +indifferent, like a living thing withdrawn from him, wrapped in its own +mystery. + +“Mater!” he called again, in a louder, more resolute, voice. “Mater! +Mater!” + +* * * * * + +In an absolutely still night a voice can travel very far. On the highest +terrace of the garden in the blackness of the pavilion Mrs. Clarke moved +sharply. She sat straight up on the divan, rigid, with her hands pressed +palm downwards on the cushions. Dion had heard nothing, and did not +understand the reason for her abrupt, almost violent, movement. + +“Why . . . ?” he began. + +She caught his wrist and held it tightly, compressing her fingers on it +with a fierce force that amazed him. + +“Mater!” + +Had he really heard the word, or had he imagined it? + +“Mater!” + +He had heard it. + +“It’s Jimmy!” + +She had her thin lips close to his ear. She still held his wrist in a +grip of iron. + +“He’s at the bottom of the garden. He’ll come up here. He won’t wait. Go +down and meet him.” + +“But----” + +“Go down! I’ll hide among the trees. Let him come up here, or bring him +up. He must come. Be sure he comes inside. While you go I’ll light the +lamp. I can do it in a moment. You couldn’t sleep. You came here to +read. Of course you know nothing about me. Keep him here for five or +ten minutes. You can come down then and help him to look for me. Go at +once.” + +She took away her hand. + +“My whole future depends upon you!” + +Dion got up and went out. As he went he heard her strike a match. + +Scarcely knowing for a moment what he was doing, acting mechanically, +in obedience to instinct, but always feeling a sort of terrible driving +force behind him, he traversed the terrace on which the pavilion stood, +passed the great plane tree and the wooden seat, and began to descend. +As he did so he heard again Jimmy’s voice crying: + +“Mater!” + +“Jimmy!” he called out, in a loud voice, hurrying on. + +As the sound died away he knew it had been nonchalant. Surely she had +made it so! + +“Jimmy!” he called again. “What’s up. What’s the matter?” + +There was no immediate reply, but in the deep silence Dion heard +hurrying steps, and then: + +“Mr. Leith!” + +“Hallo!” + +“Mr. Leith--it is you, is it?” + +“Yes. What on earth’s the matter?” + +“Stop a sec! I----” + +The feet were pounding upward. Almost directly, in pyjamas and the +slippers, which somehow still remained with him, Jimmy stood by Dion in +the dark, breathing hard. + +“Jimmy, what’s the matter? What has happened?” + +“I say, why are you here?” + +“I couldn’t sleep. The night was so hot. I had nothing to read in my +rooms. Besides they’re stuck down right against the quay. You know your +mother’s kind enough to let me have a key of the garden gate. I thought +I might get more air on the top terrace. I was reading in the pavilion +when I thought I heard a call.” + +“Then the mater isn’t there?” + +“Your mother?” + +“Yes!” + +“Of course not. Come on up!” + +Dion took the boy by the arm with decision, and slowly led him upwards. + +“What’s this about your mother? Do you mean she isn’t asleep?” + +“Asleep? She isn’t in her bedroom! She hasn’t been there!” + +“Hasn’t been there?” + +“Hasn’t been to bed at all! I’ve been to her sitting-room--you know, +upstairs--she isn’t there. I’ve been in all the rooms. She isn’t +anywhere. She must be somewhere about here.” + +They had arrived in front of the pavilion backed by trees. Looking in, +Dion saw a lighted lamp. The slide of jeweled glass had been removed +from it. A white ray fell on an open book laid on a table. + +“I was reading here”--he looked--“a thing called ‘The Kasidah.’ Sit +down!” He pulled the boy down. “Now what is all this? Your mother must +be in the house.” + +“But I tell you she isn’t!” + +Dion had sat down between Jimmy and the opening on to the terrace. It +occurred to him that he ought to have induced the boy to sit with his +back to the terrace and his face turned towards the room. It was too +late to do that now. + +“I tell you she isn’t!” Jimmy repeated, with a sort of almost fierce +defiance. + +He was staring hard at Dion. His hair was almost wildly disordered, and +his face looked pale and angry in the ray of the lamp. Dion felt that +there was suspicion in his eyes. Surely those eyes were demanding of him +the woman who was hiding among the trees. + +“Where have you looked?” he said. + +“I tell you I’ve looked everywhere,” said Jimmy, doggedly. + +“Did you mother go to bed when you did?” + +“No. I went very early. I was so infernally sleepy.” + +“Where did you leave her?” + +“In the drawing-room. She was playing the piano. But what’s the good of +that? What time did you come here?” + +“I! Oh, not till very late indeed.” + +“Were there any lights showing when you came?” + +“Lights! No! But it was ever so much too late for that.” + +“Did you go on to the terrace by the drawing-room?” + +“No. I came straight up here. It never occurred to me that any one +would be up at such an hour. Besides, I didn’t want to disturb any one, +especially your mother.” + +“Well, just now I found the drawing-room window wide open, and mater’s +bed hasn’t been touched. What do you make of that?” + +Before Dion could reply the boy abruptly started up. + +“I heard something. I know I did.” + +As naturally as he could Dion got between Jimmy and the opening on to +the terrace, and, forestalling the boy, looked out. He saw nothing; he +could not have said with truth that any definite sound reached his +ears; but he felt that at that exact moment Mrs. Clarke escaped from the +terrace, and began to glide down towards the house below. + +“There’s nothing! Come and see for yourself,” he said casually. + +Jimmy pushed by him, then stood perfectly still, staring at the darkness +and listening intently. + +“I don’t hear it now!” he acknowledged gruffly. + +“What did you think you heard?” + +“I _did_ hear something. I couldn’t tell you what it was.” + +“Have you looked all through the garden?” + +“You know I haven’t. You heard me calling down at the bottom. You must +have, because you answered me.” + +“We’d better have a good look now. Just wait one minute while I put out +the lamp. I’ll put away the book I was reading, too.” + +“Right you are!” said the boy, still gruffly. + +He waited on the terrace while Dion went into the pavilion. As Dion took +up “The Kasidah” he glanced down at the page at which Mrs. Clarke had +chanced to set the book open, and read: + + “Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from + None but self expect applause----” + +With a feeling of cold and abject soul-nausea he shut the book, put +it away on a bookshelf in which he saw a gap, and went to turn out the +lamp. As the flame flickered and died out he heard Jimmy’s foot shift on +the terrace. + + +“Do what thy manhood bids thee do----” + + +Dion stood for a moment in the dark. He was in a darkness greater than +any which reigned in the pavilion. His soul seemed to him to be pressing +against it, to be hemmed in by it as by towering walls of iron. For +an instant he shut his eyes. And when he did that he saw, low down, a +little boy’s figure, two small outstretched hands groping. + +Robin! + +“Aren’t you coming, Mr. Leith? What’s the matter?” + +“I was just seeing that the lamp was thoroughly out.” + +“Well----” + +Dion came out. + +“We’ll look all over the garden. But if your mother had been in it she +must have heard you calling her. I did, although I was inside there +reading.” + +“I know. I thought of that too,” returned Jimmy. + +And Dion fancied that the boy’s voice was very cold; Dion fancied this +but he was not sure. His conscience might be tricking him. He hoped that +it was tricking him. + +“We’d better look among the trees,” he said. “And then we’ll go to the +terrace below.” + +“It’s no use looking among the trees,” Jimmy returned. “If she was up +here she must have heard us talking all this time.” + +Abruptly he led the way to the steps near the plane tree. Dion followed +him slowly. Was it possible that Jimmy had guessed? Was it possible that +Jimmy had caught a glimpse of his mother escaping? The boy’s manner was +surely almost hostile. + +They searched the garden in silence, and at length found themselves by +the fountain close to the French window of the drawing-room. + +“You mother must be in the house,” said Dion firmly. + +“But I know she isn’t!” Jimmy retorted, with a sort of dull fixed +obstinacy. + +“Did you rouse the servants?” + +“No.” + +“Where do they sleep?” + +“Away from us, by themselves.” + +“You’d better go and look again. If you can’t find your mother perhaps +you’d better wake the servants.” + +“I know,” said Jimmy, in a voice that had suddenly changed, become +brighter, more eager--“I’ll go to Sonia.” + +“Your mother’s maid? That’s it. She may know something. I’ll wait down +here at the window. Got a candle?” + +“Yes. I left it in there by the piano.” + +He felt his way in and, almost immediately, struck a light. The candle +flickered across his face and his disordered hair as he disappeared. + +Dion waited by the fountain. + +Where would Mrs. Clarke be? How would she explain matters? Would she +have had time to----? Oh yes! She would have had time to be ready with +some quite simple, yet quite satisfactory, piece of deception. Jimmy +would find her, and she would convince him of all that it was necessary +he should be convinced of. + +Dion’s chin sank down and his head almost drooped. He felt mortally +tired as he waited here. Already a very faint grayness of the coming +dawn was beginning to filter in among the darknesses. + +Another day to face! How could he face it? He had, he supposed, been +what is called “true” to the woman who had given herself to him, but how +damnably false he had been to himself that night! + +Meanwhile Jimmy went upstairs, frowning and very pale. He went again to +his mother’s bedroom and found it empty. The big bed, turned down, had +held no sleeper. Nothing had been changed in the room since he had +been away in the garden. He did not trouble to look once more in the +adjoining sitting-room, but hurried towards the servants’ quarters. The +double doors were shut. Softly he opened them and passed through into +a wooden corridor. At the far end of it were two rooms sacred to Sonia, +the Russian maid. The first room she slept in; the second was a large +airy chamber lined with cupboards. In this she worked. She was a very +clever needlewoman, expert in the mysteries of dressmaking. + +As Jimmy drew near to the door of Sonia’s workroom he heard a low murmur +of voices coming from within. Evidently Sonia was there, talking to some +one. He crept up and listened. + +Very tranquil the voices sounded. They were talking in French. One was +his mother’s, and he heard her say: + +“Another five minutes, Sonia, and perhaps I shall be ready for bed. At +last I’m beginning to feel as if I might be able to sleep. If only +I were like Jimmy! He doesn’t know anything about the torments of +insomnia.” + +“Poor Madame!” returned Sonia, in her rather thick, but pleasantly soft, +voice. “Your head a little back. That’s better!” + +Jimmy was aware of an odd, very faint, sound. He couldn’t make out what +it was. + +“Mater!” he said. + +And he tapped on the door. + +“Who’s that?” said Sonia’s voice. + +“It’s Jimmy!” + +The door was opened by the maid, and he saw his mother in a long, very +thin white dressing-gown, seated in an arm-chair before a mirror. Her +colorless hair flowed over the back of the chair, against which her +little head was leaning, supported by a silk cushion. Her face looked +very white and tired, and the lids drooped over her usually wide-open +eyes, giving her a strange expression of languor, almost of drowsiness. +Sonia held a silver-backed brush in each hand. + +“Monsieur Jimmy!” she said. + +“Jimmy!” said Mrs. Clarke. “What’s the matter?” + +She lifted her head from the cushion, and sat straight up. But she still +looked languid. + +“What is it? Are you ill?” + +“No, mater! But I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” + +There was a boyish reproach in his voice. + +“Looking for me in the middle of the night! Why?” + +Jimmy began to explain matters. + +“At last I thought I’d look in the garden. I shouted out for you, and +who should answer but Mr. Leith?” he presently said. + +His mother--he noticed it--woke up fully at this point in the narrative. + +“Mr. Leith!” she said, with strong surprise. “How could he answer you?” + +“He was up in the pavilion reading a book.” + +Mrs. Clarke looked frankly astonished. Her eyes traveled to Sonia, whose +broad face was also full of amazement. + +“At this hour!” said Mrs. Clarke. + +“He couldn’t sleep either,” said Jimmy, quite simply. “He’s waiting out +there now to know whether I’ve found you.” + +Mrs. Clarke smiled faintly. + +“What a to do!” she said, with just a touch of gentle disdain. “And all +because I suffer from insomnia. Run down to him, Jimmy, and tell him +that as I felt it was useless to go to bed I sat by the fountain till I +was weary, then read in my sitting-room, and finally came to Sonia to be +brushed into sleep. Set his mind at rest about me if you can.” + +She smiled again. + +Somehow that smile made Jimmy feel very small. + +“And go back to bed, dear boy.” + +She put out one hand, drew him to her, and gave him a gentle kiss with +lips which felt very calm. + +“I’m sorry you were worried about me.” + +“Oh, that’s all right, mater!” said Jimmy, rather awkwardly. “I didn’t +know what to think. You see--” + +“Of course you couldn’t guess that I was having my hair brushed. Now +go straight to bed, after you’ve told Mr. Leith. I’m coming too in a +minute.” + +As Jimmy left the room Sonia was again at work with the two +hair-brushes. + +A moment later Jimmy reappeared at the French window of the +drawing-room. Dion lifted his head, but did not move from the place +where he was standing close to the fountain. + +“It’s all right, Mr. Leith,” said Jimmy. “I’ve found mater.” + +“Where was she?” + +“In Sonia’s room having her hair brushed.” + +Dion stared towards him but said nothing. + +“She told me I was to set your mind at rest.” + +“Did she?” + +“Yes. I believe she thought us a couple of fools for kicking us such a +dust about her.” + +Dion said nothing. + +“I don’t know, but I’ve an idea girls and women often think they can +laugh at us,” added Jimmy. “Anyhow, it’ll be a jolly long time before +I put myself in a sweat about the mater again. I thought--I don’t know +what I thought, and all the time she was half asleep and having her hair +brushed. She made me feel ass number one. Good night.” + +“Good night.” + +The boy shut the window, bent down and bolted it on the inside. + +Dion looked at the gray coming of the new day. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Liverpool has a capacity for looking black which is perhaps, only +surpassed by Manchester’s, and it looked its blackest on a day at the +end of March in the following year, as the afternoon express from London +roared into the Lime Street Station. The rain was coming down; it was +small rain, and it descended with a sort of puny determination; it was +sad rain without any dash, any boldness; it had affinities with +the mists which sweep over stretches of moorland, but its power of +saturation was remarkable. It soaked Liverpool. It issued out of +blackness and seemed to carry a blackness with it which descended into +the very soul of the city and lay coiled there like a snake. + +Lady Ingleton was very sensitive to her surroundings, and as she lifted +the rug from her knees, and put away the book she had been reading, +she shivered. A deep melancholy floated over her and enveloped her. She +thought, “Why did I come upon this adventure? What is it all to do +with me?” But then the face of a man rose up before her, lean, brown, +wrinkled, ravaged, with an expression upon it that for a long time had +haunted her, throwing a shadow upon her happiness. And she felt that +she had done right to come. Impulse, perhaps, had driven her; sentiment +rather than reason had been her guide. Nevertheless, she did not regret +her journey. Even if nothing good came of it she would not regret it. +She would have tried for once at some small expense to herself to do a +worthy action. She would for once have put all selfishness behind her. + +A white-faced porter, looking anxious and damp, appeared at the door of +the corridor. Lady Ingleton’s French maid arrived from the second class +with Turkish Jane on her arm. + +“Oh, Miladi, how black it is here!” she exclaimed, twisting her pointed +little nose. “The black it reaches the heart.” + +That was exactly what Lady Ingleton was thinking, but she said, in a +voice less lazy than usual. + +“There’s a capital hotel, Annette. We shall be very comfortable.” + +“Shall we stay here long, Miladi?” + +“No; but I don’t know how long yet. Is Jane all right?” + +“She has been looking out of the window, Miladi, the whole way. She is +in ecstasy. Dogs have no judgment, Miladi.” + +When Lady Ingleton was in her sitting-room at the Adelphi Hotel, and had +had the fire lighted and tea brought up, she asked to see the manager +for a moment. He came almost immediately, a small man, very smart, very +trim, self-possessed as a attache. + +“I hope you are quite comfortable, my lady,” he said, in a thin voice +which held no note of doubt. “Can I do anything for you?” + +“I wanted to ask you if you knew the address of some one I wish to send +a note to--Mr. Robertson. He’s a clergyman who--” + +“Do you mean Father Robertson, of Holy Cross, Manxby Street, my lady?” + +“Of Holy Cross; yes, that’s it.” + +“He lives at--” + +“Wait a moment. I’ll take it down.” + +She went to the writing-table and took up a pen. + +“Now, please!” + +“The Rev. George Robertson, Holy Cross Rectory, Manxby Street, my lady.” + +“Thank you very much.” + +“Can I do anything more for you, my lady?” + +“Please send me up a messenger in twenty minutes. Mr. Robertson is in +Liverpool, I understand?” + +“I believe so, my lady. He is generally here. Holidays and pleasure are +not much in his way. The messenger will be up in twenty minutes.” + +He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and went softly out, holding +himself very erect. + +Lady Ingleton sat down by the tea-table. Annette was unpacking in the +adjoining bedroom, and Turkish Jane was reposing in an arm-chair near +the hearth. + +“What would Carey think of me, if he knew?” was her thought, as she +poured out the tea. + +Sir Carey was at his post in Constantinople. She had left him and come +to England to see her mother, who had been very ill, but who was now +much better. When she had left Constantinople she had not known she was +coming to Liverpool, but she had known that something was intruding upon +her happiness, was worrying at her mind. Only when she found herself +once more in England did she understand that she could not return to +Turkey without making an effort to do a good deed. She had very little +hope that her effort would be efficacious, but she knew that she had to +make it. + +It was quite a new role for her, the role of Good Samaritan. She smiled +faintly as she thought that. How would she play it? + +After tea she wrote this note: + + +“ADELPHI HOTEL, Tuesday + +“DEAR MR. ROBERTSON,--As you will not know who I am, I must explain +myself. My husband, Sir Carey Ingleton, is Ambassador at Constantinople. +Out there we have made acquaintance with Mr. Dion Leith, who had the +terrible misfortune to kill his little boy nearly a year and a half ago. +I want very much to speak to you about him. I will explain why when I +see you if you have the time to spare me an interview. I would gladly +welcome you here, or I could come to you. Which do you prefer? I am +telling the messenger to wait for an answer. To be frank, I have come to +Liverpool on purpose to see you.--Yours sincerely, + +“DELIA INGLETON” + + +The messenger came back without an answer. Father Robertson was out, but +the note would be given to him as soon as he came home. + +That evening, just after nine o’clock, he arrived at the hotel, and sent +up his name to Lady Ingleton. + +“Please ask him to come up,” she said to the German waiter who had +mispronounced his name. + +As she waited for her visitor she was conscious of a faint creeping of +shyness through her. It made her feel oddly girlish. When had she last +felt shy? She could not remember. It must have been centuries ago. + +The German waiter opened the door and a white-haired man walked in. +Directly she saw him Lady Ingleton lost her unusual feeling. As she +greeted him, and made her little apology for bothering him, and thanked +him for coming out at night to see a stranger, she felt glad that she +had obeyed her impulse and had been, for once, a victim to altruism. +When she looked at his eyes she knew that she would not mind saying to +him all she wanted to say about Dion Leith. They were eyes which shone +with clarity; and they were something else--they were totally incurious +eyes. Perhaps from perversity Lady Ingleton had always rebelled against +giving to curious people the exact food they were in search of. + +“He won’t be greedy to know,” she thought. “And so I shan’t mind telling +him.” + +Unlike a woman, she came at once to the point. Although she could be +very evasive she could also be very direct. + +“You know Mrs. Dion Leith,” she said. “My friend Tippie Chetwinde, Mrs. +Willie Chetwinde, told me she was living here. She came here soon after +the death of her child, I believe.” + +“Yes, she did, and she has been here ever since.” + +“Do you know Dion Leith, Mr. Robertson?” she asked, leaning forward in +her chair by the fire, and fixing her large eyes, that looked like an +Italian’s, upon him. + +“No, I have never seen him. I hoped to, but the tragedy of the child +occurred so soon after his return from South Africa that I never had an +opportunity.” + +“Forgive me for correcting you,” she said, gently but very firmly. “But +it is not the tragedy of a child. It’s the tragedy of a man. I am going +to talk very frankly to you. I make no apology for doing so. I am what +is called”--she smiled faintly--“a woman of the world, and you, I +think, are an unworldly man. Because I am of the world, and you, in +spirit”--she looked at him almost deprecatingly--“are not of it, I can +say what I have come here to try to say. I couldn’t say it to a man of +the world, because I could never give a woman away to such a man. Tell +me though, first, if you don’t mind--do you care for Mrs. Dion Leith?” + +“Very much,” said Father Robertson, simply and warmly. + +“Do you care for her enough to tell her the truth?” + +“I never wish to tell her anything else.” + +Suddenly Lady Ingleton’s face flushed, her dark eyes flashed and then +filled with tears, and she said in a voice that shook with emotion: + +“Dion Leith killed a body by accident, the body of his little boy. She +is murdering a soul deliberately, the soul of her husband.” + +She did not know at all why she was so suddenly and so violently moved. +She had not expected this abrupt access of feeling. It had rushed upon +her from she knew not where. She was startled by it. + +“I don’t know why I should care,” she commented, as if half ashamed of +herself. + +Then she added, with a touch of almost shy defiance: + +“But I do care, I do care. That’s why I’ve come here.” + +“You are right to care if it is so,” said Father Robertson. + +“Such lots of women wouldn’t,” she continued, in a quite different, +almost cynical, voice. “But that man is an exceptional man--not in +intellect, but in heart. And I’m a very happy woman. Perhaps you wonder +what that has to do with it. Well sometimes I see things through my +happiness, just because of it; sometimes I see unhappiness through it.” + +Her voice had changed again, had become much softer. She drew her chair +a little nearer to the fire. + +“Do you ever receive confessions, Mr. Robertson--as a priest, I mean?” + she asked. + +“Yes, very often.” + +“They are sacred, I know, even in your church.” + +“Yes,” he said, without emphasis. + +His lack of emphasis decided her. Till this moment she had been +undecided about a certain thing, although she herself perhaps was not +fully aware of her hesitation. + +“I want to do a thing that I have never yet done,” she said. “I want to +be treacherous to a friend, to give a friend away. Will you promise to +keep my treachery secret forever? Will you promise to treat what I am +going to tell you about her as if I told it to you in the confessional?” + +“If you tell it to me I will. But why must you tell it to me? I don’t +like treachery. It’s an ugly thing.” + +“I can’t help that. I really came here just for that--to be +treacherous.” + +She looked into the fire and sighed. + +“I’ve covered a great sin with my garment,” she murmured slowly, “and I +repent me!” + +Then, with a look of resolve, she turned to her white-haired companion. + +“I’ve got a friend,” she said--“a woman friend. Her name is Cynthia +Clarke. (I’m in the confessional now!) You may have heard of her. She +was a _cause celebre_ some time ago. Her husband tried to divorce her, +poor man, and failed.” + +“No, I never heard her name before,” said Father Robertson. + +“You don’t read _causes celebres_. You have better things to do. Well, +she’s my friend. I don’t exactly know why. Her husband was Councillor in +my husband’s Embassy. But I knew her before that. We always got on. She +has peculiar fascination--a sort of strange beauty, a very intelligent +mind, and the strongest will I have ever known. She has virtues of a +kind. She never speaks against other women. If she knew a secret of mine +I am sure she would never tell it. She is thoroughbred. I find her a +very interesting woman. There is absolutely no one like her. She’s a +woman one would miss. That’s on one side. On the other--she’s a cruel +woman; she’s a consummate hypocrite; she’s absolutely corrupt. You +wonder why she’s my friend?” + +“I did not say so.” + +“Nor look it. But you do. Well, I suppose I haven’t many scruples except +about myself. And I have been trained in the let-other-people-alone +tradition. Besides, Cynthia Clarke never told me anything. No one has +told me. Being a not stupid woman, I just know what she is. I’ll put +it brutally, Mr. Robertson. She is a huntress of men. That is what she +lives for. But she deceives people into believing that she is a purely +mental woman. All the men whom she doesn’t hunt believe in her. Even +women believe in her. She has good friends among women. They stick to +her. Why? Because she intends them to. She has a conquering will. And +she never tells a secret--especially if it is her own. In her last +sin--for it is a sin--I have been a sort of accomplice. She meant me to +be one and”--Lady Ingleton slightly shrugged her shoulders--“I yielded +to her will. I don’t know why. I never know why I do what Cynthia +Clarke wishes. There are people like that; they just get what they want, +because they want it with force, I suppose. Most of us are rather weak, +I think. Cynthia Clarke hunted Dion Leith in his misery, and I helped +her. Being an ambassadress I have social influence on the Bosporus, and +I used it for Cynthia. I knew from the very first what she was about, +what she meant to do. Directly she mentioned Dion Leith to me and asked +me to invite him to the Embassy and be kind to him I understood. But +I didn’t know Dion Leith then. If I had thoroughly known him I should +never have been a willing cat’s-paw in a very ugly game. But once I had +begun--I took them both for a yachting trip--I did not know how to +get out of it all. On that yachting trip--I realized how that man was +suffering and what he was. I have never before known a man capable of +suffering so intensely as Dion Leith suffers. Does his wife know how he +loves her? Can she know it? Can she ever have known it?” + +Father Robertson was silent. As she looked at his eyelids--his eyes no +longer met hers with their luminous glowing sincerity--Lady Ingleton +realized that he was the Confessor. + +“Sometimes I have been on the verge of saying to him, ‘Go back to +England, go to your wife. Tell her, show her what she has done. Put up +a big fight for the life of your soul.’ But I have never been able to +do it. A grief like that is holy ground, isn’t it? One simply can’t set +foot upon it. Besides, I scarcely ever see Dion Leith now. He’s gone +down, I think, gone down very far.” + +“Where is he?” + +“In Constantinople. I saw him by chance in Stamboul, near Santa Sophia, +just before I left for England. Oh, how he has changed! Cynthia Clarke +is destroying him. I know it. Once she told me he had been an athlete +with ideals. But now--now!” + +Again the tears started into her eyes. Father Robertson looked up and +saw them. + +“Poor, poor fellow!” she said. “I can’t bear to see him destroyed. Some +men--well, they seem almost entirely body. But he’s so different!” + +She got up and stood by the fire. + +“I have seen Mrs. Leith,” she said. “I once heard her sing in London. +She is extraordinarily beautiful. At that time she looked radiant. What +did you say?” + +“Please go on,” Father Robertson said, very quietly. + +“And she had a wonderful expression of joyous goodness which marked her +out from other women. You have a regard for her, and you are good. But +you care for truth, and so I’m going to tell you the truth. She may be a +good woman, but she has done a wicked action. Can’t you make her see it? +Or shall I try to?” + +“You wish to see her?” + +“I am ready to see her.” + +Father Robertson again looked down. He seemed to be thinking deeply, +to be genuinely lost in thought. Lady Ingleton noticed this and did not +disturb him. For some minutes he sat without moving. At last he looked +up and put a question to Lady Ingleton which surprised her. He said: + +“Are you absolutely certain that your friend Mrs. Clarke and Dion Leith +have been what people choose to call lovers?” + +“Have been and are--absolutely certain. I could not prove it, but I know +it. He lives in Constantinople only for her.” + +“And you think he has deteriorated?” + +“Terribly. I know it. The other day he looked almost degraded; as men +look when they let physical things get absolute domination over them. +It’s an ugly subject, but--you and I know of these things.” + +In her voice there was a sound of delicate apology. It was her tribute +to the serene purity of which she was aware in this man. + +Again he seemed lost in thought. She trusted in his power of thought. He +was a man--she was certain of it--who would find the one path which led +out of the maze. His unself-conscious intentness was beautiful in its +unconventional simplicity, and was a tribute to her sincerity which she +was subtle enough to understand, and good woman enough to appreciate. He +was concentrated not upon her but upon the problem which was troubling +her. + +“I am very glad you have come to Liverpool,” he said at length. “Very +glad.” + +He smiled, and she, without exactly knowing why, smiled back at him. And +as she did so she felt extraordinarily simple, almost like a child. + +“How long are you going to stay?” + +“Till I know whether I can do any good,” she said, “till I have done it, +if that is possible.” + +“Without mentioning any names, may I, if I think it wise, tell Mrs. +Leith of the change in her husband?” + +“Oh, but would it be wise to say exactly what the nature of the change +is? I’ve always heard that she is a woman with ideals, an exceptionally +pure-natured woman. She might be disgusted, even revolted, perhaps, +if--” + +“Forgive me!” Father Robertson interrupted, rather abruptly. “What was +your intention then? What did you mean to tell Mrs. Leith if you saw +her?” + +“Of his great wretchedness, of his broken life--I suppose I--I should +have trusted to my instinct what to do when I saw her.” + +“Ah!” + +“But I can leave it to you,” she said, but still with a faint note of +hesitation, of doubt. “You know her.” + +“Yes, I know her.” + +He paused. Then, with an almost obstinate firmness, a sort of pressure, +he added, “Have I your permission--I may not do it--to tell Mrs. +Leith that her husband has been unfaithful to her with some one in +Constantinople?” + +Lady Ingleton slightly reddened; she looked down and hesitated. + +“It may be necessary if your purpose in coming here is to be achieved,” + said Father Robertson, still with pressure. + +“You may do whatever you think best,” she said, with a sigh. + +He got up to go. + +“Would you mind very much staying on here for two or three days, even +for a week, if necessary?” + +“No, no.” + +He smiled. + +“A whole week of Liverpool!” he said. + +“How many years have you been here?” + +“A good many. I’m almost losing count.” + +When he was gone Lady Ingleton sat for a long while before the fire. + +The sad influence of the blackness of rainy Liverpool had lifted from +her. Her impulse had received a welcome which had warmed her. + +“I love that man,” she thought. “Carey would love him too.” + +He had said very little, and how loyal he had been in his silence, how +loyal to the woman she had attacked. In words he had not defended her, +but somehow he had conveyed to Lady Ingleton a sense of his protective +love and immense pity for the woman who had been bereft of her child. +How he had conveyed this she could not have said. But as she sat there +before the fire she was aware that, since Father Robertson’s visit, she +felt differently about Dion Leith’s wife. Mysteriously she began to feel +the sorrow of the woman as well as, and side by side with, the sorrow of +the man. + +“If it had been my child?” she thought. “If my husband had done it?” + + + +CHAPTER X + +[Page missing in original book.] + +Since the death of Robin and Rosamund’s arrival in Liverpool, Father +Robertson had made acquaintance with her sister and with the mother of +Dion. And both these women had condemned Rosamund for what she had done, +and had begged him to try to bring about a change in her heart. Both of +them, too, had dwelt upon the exceptional quality of Dion’s love for +his wife. Mrs. Leith had been unable to conceal the bitterness of her +feeling against Rosamund. The mother in her way, was outraged. Beatrice +Daventry had shown no bitterness. She loved and understood her sister +too well to rage against her for anything that she did or left undone. +But this very love of her sister, so clearly shown, had made her +condemnation of Rosamund’s action the more impressive. And her pity +for Dion was supreme. Through Beatrice Father Robertson had gained an +insight into Dion’s love, and into another love, too; but of that he +scarcely allowed himself even to think. There are purities so intense +that, like fire, they burn those who would handle them, however +tenderly. About Beatrice Father Robertson felt that he knew something +he dared not know. Indeed, he was hardly sincere about that matter with +himself. Perhaps this was his only insincerity. + +With his friend, Canon Wilton, too, he had spoken of Rosamund, and had +found himself in the presence of a sort of noble anger. Now, in his +little room, as he knelt in meditation, he remembered a saying of the +Canon’s, spoken in the paneled library at Welsley: “Leith has a great +heart. When will his wife understand its greatness?” + +Father Robertson pressed his thin hands upon his closed eyes. He longed +for guidance and he felt almost distressed. Rosamund had submitted +herself to him, had given herself into his hands, but tacitly she had +kept something back. She had never permitted him to direct her in regard +to her relation with her husband. It was in regard to her relation with +God that she had submitted herself to him. + +How grotesque that was! + +Father Robertson’s face burned. + +Before Rosamund had come to him she had closed the book of her married +life with a frantic hand. And Father Robertson had left the book closed. +He saw his delicacy now as cowardice. In his religious relation with +Rosamund he had been too much of a gentleman! When Mrs. Leith, Beatrice, +Canon Wilton had appealed to him, he had said that he would do what he +could some day, but that he felt time must be given to Rosamund, a long +time, to recover from the tremendous shock she had undergone. He had +waited. Something imperative had kept him back from ever going fully +with Rosamund into the question of her separation from her husband. He +had certainly spoken of it, but he had never discussed it, had never got +to the bottom of it, although he had felt that some day he must be quite +frank with her about it. + +Some day! No doubt he had been waiting for a propitious moment, that +moment which never comes. Or had his instinct told him that anything he +could say upon that subject to Rosamund would be utterly impotent, that +there was a threshold his influence could not cross? Perhaps really his +instinct had told him to wait, and he was not a moral coward. For to +strive against a woman’s deep feeling is surely to beat against the +wind. When men do certain things all women look upon them with an +inevitable disdain, as children being foolish in the dark. + +Had he secretly feared to seem foolish in Rosamund’s eyes? + +He wondered, genuinely wondered. + +On the following morning he wrote to Rosamund and asked her to come to +the vicarage at any hour when she was free. He had something important +to say to her. She answered, fixing three-thirty. Exactly at that time +she arrived in Manxby Street and was shown into Father Robertson’s +study. + +Rosamund had changed, greatly changed, but in a subtle rather than a +fiercely definite way. She had not aged as many women age when overtaken +by sorrow. Her pale yellow hair was still bright. There was no gray in +it and it grew vigorously upon her classical head as if intensely alive. +She still looked physically strong. She was still a young and beautiful +woman. But all the radiance had gone out from her. She had been full of +it; now she was empty of it. + +In the walled garden at Welsley, as she paced the narrow walks and +listened to the distant murmur of the organ, and the faint sound of the +Dresden Amen, in her joy she had looked sometimes almost like a nun. +She had looked as if she had the “vocation” for religion. Now, in her +“sister’s” dress, she had not that inner look of calm, of the spirit +lying still in Almighty arms, which so often marks out those who have +definitely abandoned the ordinary life of the world for the dedicated +life. Rosamund had taken no perpetual vows; she was free at any moment +to withdraw from the Sisterhood in which she was living with many +devoted women who labored among the poor, and who prayed, as some people +work, with an ardor which physically tired them. But nevertheless she +had definitely retired from all that means life to the average woman of +her type and class, with no intention of ever going back to it. She had +taken a step towards the mystery which many people think of casually on +appointed days, and which many people ignore, or try to ignore. Yet now +she did not look as if she had the vocation. When she had lived in the +world she had seemed, in spite of all her _joie de vivre_, of all her +animation and vitality, somehow apart from it. Now she seemed, somehow, +apart from the world of religion, from the calm and laborious world in +which she had chosen to dwell. She looked indeed almost strangely +pure, but there was in her face an expression of acute restlessness, +perpetually seen among those who are grasping at passing pleasures, +scarcely ever seen among those who have deliberately resigned them. + +This was surely a woman who had sought and who had not found, who was +uneasy in self-sacrifice, who had striven, who was striving still, to +draw near to the gates of heaven, but who had not come upon the path +which led up the mountain-side to them. Sorrow was stamped on the face, +and something else, too--the seal of that corrosive disease of the soul, +dissatisfaction with self. + +This was not Rosamund; this was a woman with Rosamund’s figure, face, +hair, eyes, voice, gestures, movements--one who would be Rosamund but +for some terrible flaw. + +She was alone in the little study for a few minutes before Father +Robertson came. She did not sit down, but moved about, looking now at +this thing, now at that. In her white forehead there were two vertical +lines which were never smoothed out. An irreligious person, looking at +her just then, might have felt moved to say, with a horrible irony, “And +can God do no more than that for the woman who dedicates her life to His +service?” + +The truth of the whole matter lay in this: that whereas once God had +seemed to stand between Rosamund and Dion, now Dion seemed to stand +between Rosamund and God. + +But even Father Robertson did not know this. + +Presently the door opened and the Father came in. + +Instantly Rosamund noticed that he looked slightly ill at ease, almost, +indeed, embarrassed. He shook hands with her in his gentle way and made +a few ordinary remarks about little matters in which they were mutually +interested. Then he asked her to sit down, sat down near her and was +silent. + +“What is it?” she said, at last. + +He looked at her, and there was something almost piercing in his eyes +which she had never noticed in them before. + +“Last night,” he said, “when I came home I found here a note from a +stranger, asking me to visit her at the Adelphi Hotel where she was +staying. She wrote that she had come to Liverpool on purpose to see +me. I went to the hotel and had an interview with her. This interview +concerned you.” + +“Concerned me?” said Rosamund. + +Her voice did not sound as if she were actively surprised. There was a +lack of tone in it. It sounded, indeed, almost dry. + +“Yes. Did you ever hear of Lady Ingleton?” + +After an instant of consideration Rosamund said: + +“Yes. I believe I met her somewhere once. Isn’t she married to an +ambassador?” + +“To our Ambassador at Constantinople.” + +“I think I sang once at some house where she was, in the days when I +used to sing.” + +“She has heard you sing.” + +“That was it then. But what can she want with me?” + +“Your husband is in Constantinople. She knows him there.” + +Rosamund flushed to the roots of her yellow hair. When he saw that +painful wave of red go over her face Father Robertson looked away. All +the delicacy in him felt the agony of her outraged reserve. Her body had +stiffened. + +“I must speak about this,” he said. “Forgive me if you can. But even if +you cannot, I must speak.” + +She looked down. Her face was still burning. + +“You have let me know a great deal about yourself,” he went on. “That +fact doesn’t give me any right to be curious. On the contrary! But I +think, perhaps, your confidence has given me a right to try to help you +spiritually even at the cost of giving you great mental pain. For a long +time I have felt that perhaps in my relation to you I have been morally +a coward.” + +Rosamund looked up. + +“You could never be a coward,” she said. + +“You don’t know that. Nobody knows that, perhaps, except myself. However +that may be, I must not play the coward now. Lady Ingleton met your +husband in Turkey. She brings very painful news of him.” + +Rosamund clasped her hands together and let them lie on her knees. She +was looking steadily at Father Robertson. + +“His--his misery has made such an impression upon her that she felt +obliged to come here. She sent for me. But her real object in coming was +to see you, if possible. Will you see her?” + +“No, no; I can’t do that. I don’t know her.” + +“I think I ought to tell you what she said. She asked me if you had ever +understood how much your husband loves you. Her exact words were, ‘Does +his wife know how he loves her? Can she know it? Can she ever have known +it?’” + +All the red had died away from Rosamund’s face. She had become very +pale. Her eyes were steady. She sat without moving, and seemed to be +listening with fixed, even with strained, attention. + +“And then she went on to tell me something which might seem to a great +many people to be quite contradictory of what she had just said--and she +said it with the most profound conviction. She told me that your husband +has fallen very low.” + +“Fallen----?” Rosamund said, in a dim voice. + +“Just before she left Constantinople she saw him in Stamboul by chance. +She said that he had the dreadful appearance that men have when they are +entirely dominated by physical things.” + +“Dion!” she said. + +And there was sheer amazement in her voice now. + +After an instant she added: + +“I don’t believe it. It wasn’t Dion.” + +“I must tell you something more,” said Father Robertson painfully. “Lady +Ingleton knows that your husband has been unfaithful to you; she +knows the woman with whom he has been unfaithful. That unfaithfulness +continues. So she affirms. And in spite of that, she asks me whether you +can know how much your husband loves you.” + +While he had been speaking he had been looking down. Now he heard a +movement, a rustling. He looked up quickly. Rosamund was going towards +the door. + +“Please--don’t--don’t!” she whispered, turning her face away. + +And she went out. + +Father Robertson did not follow her. + +Early in the following morning he received this note: + + +“ST. MARY’S SISTERHOOD, LIVERPOOL, Thursday + +“DEAR FATHER ROBERTSON,--I don’t think I can see Lady Ingleton. I am +almost sure I can’t. Perhaps she has gone already. If not, how long does +she intend to stay here? + +“R. L.” + + +The Father communicated with Lady Ingleton, and that evening let +Rosamund know that Lady Ingleton would be in Liverpool for a few more +days. + +When Rosamund read his letter she wished, or believed that she wished, +that Lady Ingleton had gone. Then this matter which tormented her would +be settled, finished with. There would be nothing to be done, and +she could take up her monotonous life again and forget this strange +intrusion from the outside world, forget this voice from the near East +which had told such ugly tidings. Till now she had not even known where +Dion was. She knew he had given up his business in London and had left +England; but that was all. She had refused to have any news of him. She +had made it plainly understood long ago, when the wound was fresh in her +soul, that Dion’s name was never to be mentioned in letters to her. She +had tried by every means to blot his memory out of her mind as she had +blotted his presence out of her life. In this effort she had totally +failed. Dion had never left her since he had killed Robin. In the flesh +he had pursued her in the walled garden at Welsley on that dark night +of November when for her the whole world had changed. In another +intangible, mysterious guise he had attended her ever since. He had been +about her path and about her bed. Even when she knelt at the altar in +the Supreme Service he had been there. She had felt his presence as she +touched the water, as she lifted the cup. Through all these months she +had learnt to know that there are those whom, once we have taken them +in, we cannot cast out of our lives. + +Since the death of Robin, in absence Dion had assumed a place in +her life which he had never occupied in the days of their happiness. +Sometimes she had bitterly resented this; sometimes she had tried to +ignore it; sometimes, like a cross, she had taken it up and tried to +bear it with patience or with bravery. She had even prayed against it. + +Never were prayers more vain than those which she put up against this +strange and terrible possession of herself by the man she had tried +to cast out of her life. Sometimes even it seemed to her that when +she prayed thus Dion’s power to affect her increased. It was as if +mysteriously he drew nearer to her, as if he enveloped her with an +influence from which she could not extricate herself. There were hours +in the night when she felt afraid of him. She knew that wherever he +was, however far off, his mind was concentrated upon her. She grew to +realize, as she had never realized before, what mental power is. She had +separated her body from Dion’s, but his mind would not leave her alone. +Often she was conscious of hostility. When she strove to give herself +absolutely and entirely to the life of religion and of charity she +was aware of a force holding her back. This force--so it seemed to +her--would not permit her to enter into the calm and the peace of the +dedicated life. She was like some one looking in at a doorway, desirous +of entering a room. She saw the room clearly; she saw others enjoying +its warmth and its shelter and its serene and guarded tranquillity; but +she was unable to cross the threshold. + +That warm and sheltered room was not for her. And it was Dion’s force +which held her back from entering it and from dwelling in it. + +She could not give herself wholly to God because of Dion. + +Of her struggle, of her frustration, of her mental torment in this +connexion she had never spoken to Father Robertson. Even in confession +she had been silent. He knew of her mother-agony; he did not know of the +stranger, more subtle agony beneath it. He did not know that whereas the +one agony with the lapse of time was not passing away--it would never +do that--but was becoming more tender, more full of tears and of sweet +recollections, the other agony grew harsher, more menacing. + +Rosamund had gradually come to feel that Robin had been taken out of her +arms for some great, though hidden, reason. And because of this feeling +she was learning to endure his loss with a sort of resignation. She +often thought that perhaps she had been allowed to have this consolation +because she had made an immense effort. When Robin died she had driven +Dion, who had killed her child, out of her life, but she had succeeded +in saying to God, “Thy will be done!” She had said it at first as a mere +formula, had repeated it obstinately again and again, without meaning +it at all, but trying to mean it, meaning to mean it. She had made a +prodigious, a truly heroic effort to conquer her powerfully rebellious +nature, and, in this effort, she had been helped by Father Robertson. He +knew of the anger which had overwhelmed her when her mother had died, of +how she had wished to hurt God. He knew that, with bloody sweat, she had +destroyed that enemy within her. She had wished to submit to the will of +God when Robin had been snatched from her, and at last she had actually +submitted. It was a great triumph of the spirit. But perhaps it had +left her exhausted. At any rate she had never been able to forgive God’s +instrument, her husband. And so she had never been able to know the +peace of God which many of these women by whom she was surrounded knew. +In her misery she contemplated their calm. To labor and to pray--that +seemed enough to many of them, to most of them. She had known calm in +the garden at Welsley; in the Sisterhood she knew it not. + +The man who was always with her assassinated calm. She felt strangely +from a distance the turmoil of his spirit. She knew of his misery +occultly. She did not deduce it from her former knowledge of what he +was. And his suffering made her suffer in a terrible way. He was her +victim and she was his. + +_Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder._ + +In the Sisterhood Rosamund had learnt, always against her will and +despite the utmost effort of her obstinacy, the uselessness of that +command; she had learnt that those whom God hath really joined together +cannot be put asunder by man--or by woman. Dion had killed her child, +but she had not been able to kill what she was to Dion and what Dion was +to her. Through the mingling of their two beings there had been born a +mystery which was, perhaps, eternal like the sound of the murmur in the +pine trees above the Valley of Olympia. + +She could not trample it into nothingness. + +At first, after the tragedy of which Robin had been the victim, Rosamund +had felt a horror of Dion which was partly animal. She had fled from him +because she had been physically afraid of him. He had been changed for +her from the man who loved her, and whom she loved in her different way, +into the slayer of her child. She knew, of course, quite well that Dion +was not a murderer, but nevertheless she thought of him as one thinks of +a murderer. The blood of her child was upon his hands. She trembled at +the thought of being near him. Nevertheless, because she was not mad, +in time reason asserted itself within her. Dion disappeared out of her +life. He did not put up the big fight for the big thing of which Lady +Ingleton had once spoken to her husband. His type of love was far too +sensitive to struggle and fight on its own behalf. When he had heard the +key of his house door turned against him, when, later, Mr. Darlington +with infinite precautions had very delicately explained to him why it +had been done, Rosamund had attained her freedom. He had waited on for +a time in England, but he had somehow never been able really to hope for +any change in his wife. His effort to make her see the tragedy in its +true light had exhausted itself in the garden at Welsley. Her frantic +evasion of him had brought it to an end. He could not renew it. Even if +he had been ready to renew it those about Rosamund would have dissuaded +him from doing so. Every one who was near her saw plainly that “for the +present”--as they put it--Dion must keep out of her life. + +And gradually Rosamund had lost that half-animal fear of him, gradually +she had come to realize something of the tragedy of his situation. A +change had come about in her almost in despite of herself. And yet she +had never been able to forgive him for what he had done. Her reason knew +that she had nothing to forgive; her religious sense, her conception of +God, obliged her to believe that Dion had been God’s instrument when +he had killed his child; but something within her refused him pardon. +Perhaps she felt that pardon could only mean one thing--reconciliation. +And now had come Lady Ingleton’s revelation. Instinctively as Rosamund +left Father Robertson’s little room she had tried to hide her face. She +had received a blow, and the pain of it frightened her. She was startled +by her own suffering. What did it mean? What did it portend? She had no +right to feel as she did. Long ago she had abandoned the right to such a +feeling. + +The information Lady Ingleton had brought outraged Rosamund. Anger and a +sort of corrosive shame struggled for the mastery within her. + +She felt humiliated to the dust. She felt dirty, soiled. + +Dion had been unfaithful to her. + +With whom? + +The white face of Mrs. Clarke came before Rosamund in the murky street, +two wide-open distressed and intent eyes started into hers. + +The woman was Mrs. Clarke. + +Mrs. Clarke--and Dion. Mrs. Clarke had succeeded in doing what long ago +she had designed to do. She had succeeded in taking possession of Dion. + +“Because I threw him away! Because I threw him away!” + +Rosamund found herself repeating those words again and again. + +“I threw him away, I threw him away. Otherwise----” + +She reached the Sisterhood and went to her little room. How she +got through the remaining duties of that day she never remembered +afterwards. The calmness of routine flagellated her nerves. She felt +undressed and feared the eyes of the sisters. After the evening service +in the little chapel attached to the Sisterhood she was unable either to +meditate, to praise, or to pray. During the long pause for silent prayer +she felt like one on a galloping horse. In the intense silence her ears +seemed to hear the beating of hoofs on an iron road. And the furious +horse was bearing her away into some region of darkness and terror. + +There was a rustling movement. The sisters slowly rose from their knees. +Again Rosamund was conscious of feeling soiled, dirty, in the midst of +them. As they filed out, she with them, a burning hatred came to her. +She hated the woman who was the cause of her feeling dirty. She wanted +to use her hands, to tear something away from her body--the dirt, the +foulness. For she felt it actually on her body. Her physical purity was +desecrated by--she wouldn’t think of it. + +When she was alone in her little sleeping-room, the door shut, one +candle burning, her eyes went to the wooden crucifix beneath which every +night before getting into her narrow bed she knelt in prayer, and she +began to cry. She sat down on the bed and cried and cried. All her flesh +seemed melting into tears. + +“My poor life! My poor life!” + +That was the interior cry of her being, again and again repeated--“My +poor life--stricken, soiled, crushed down in the ooze of a nameless +filth.” + +Childless and now betrayed! How terrible had been her happiness on the +edge of the pit! The days in Greece--Robin--Dion’s return from the war! +And she had wished to live rightly; she had loved the noble things; she +had had ideals and she had tried to follow them. Purity before all she +had---- + +She sickened; her crying became violent. Afraid lest some of the sisters +should hear her, she pressed her hands over her face and sank down on +the bed. + +Presently she saw Mrs. Clarke before her, the woman whom she had thought +to keep out of her life--the fringe of her life--and who had found the +way into the sacred places. + +She cried for a long while, lying there on the bed, with her face +pressed against her hands, and her hands pressed against the pillow; but +at least she ceased from crying. She had poured out all the tears of her +body. + +She sat up. It was long past midnight. The house was silent. Slowly she +began to undress, hating her body all the time. She bathed her face +and hands in cold water, and, when she felt the water, shivered at the +thought of the stain. When she was ready for bed she looked again at the +crucifix. She ought to pray, she must pray. She went to the crucifix and +stood in front of it, but her knees refused to bend. Her pride of woman +had received a terrific blow that day, and just because of that she felt +she could not humble herself. + +“I cannot pray--I won’t pray,” she whispered. + +And she turned away, put out the light and got into bed. + +That Dion should have done that, should have been able to do that! + +And she remembered what it was she had first loved in Dion, the thing +which had made him different from other men; she remembered the days and +the nights in Greece. She saw two lovers in a morning land descending +the path from the hill of Drouva, going down into the green recesses of +quiet Elis. She saw Hermes and the child. + +All that night she lay awake. In the morning she sent the note to Father +Robertson. + +She could not see Lady Ingleton and yet she dreaded her departure. She +wanted to know more, much more. A gnawing hunger of curiosity assailed +her. This woman had been with Dion--since. This woman knew of his +infidelity; yet she affirmed his love for his wife. But the one +knowledge surely gave the lie to the other. + +Why did she care? Why did she care so much? Rosamund asked herself the +question almost with terror. + +She found no answer. + +But she could not pray. Whenever she tried to pray Mrs. Clarke came +before her, and a man--could it be Dion?--stamped with the hideous +imprint of physical lust. + +* * * * * + +Father Robertson was startled by the change in Rosamund’s appearance +when she visited him two days after she had sent him the note. She +looked physically ill. Her color had gone. Her eyes were feverish and +sunken, and the skin beneath them was stained with that darkness which +betokens nights without sleep. Her lips and hands twitched with a +nervousness that was painful. But that which distressed him more than +any other thing was the expression in her face--the look of shame and of +self-consciousness which altered her almost horribly. Even in her most +frantic moments of grief for Robin there had always been something +of directness, of fearlessness, in her beauty. Now something furtive +literally disfigured her, and she seemed trying to cover it with a +dogged obstinacy which suggested a will stretched to the uttermost, +vibrating like a string in danger of snapping. + +“Has Lady Ingleton gone?” she asked, directly she was inside the room. + +“No, not yet. You remember I wrote to you that she would stay on for a +few days.” + +“But she might have gone unexpectedly.” + +“She is still here.” + +“I believe I shall have to see her,” Rosamund said, with a sort of hard +abruptness and determination. + +“Go to see her,” said Father Robertson firmly. “Perhaps she was sent +here.” + +“Sent here?” said Rosamund, with a sharpness of sudden suspicion. + +“Oh, my child,”--he put his hand on her arm, and made her sit +down,--“not by a human being.” + +Rosamund looked down and was silent. + +“Before you go, if you are going,” Father Robertson continued, sitting +down by the deal table on which he wrote his letters, “I must do what I +ought to have done long ago; I must speak to you about your husband.” + +Rosamund did not look up, but he saw her frown, and he saw a movement of +her lips; they trembled and then set together in a hard line. + +“I know what he was, not from you but from others; from his mother, +from your sister, and from Canon Wilton. I’m going to tell you something +Wilton said to me about you and him after you had separated from him.” + +Father Robertson stopped, and fidgeted for a moment with the papers +lying in disorder on his table. He hated the task he had set himself +to do. All the tenderness in him revolted against it. He knew what this +woman whom he cared for very much had suffered; he divined what she +was suffering now. And he was going to add to her accumulated misery by +striking a tremendous blow at the most sacred thing, her pride of woman. +Would she be his enemy after he had spoken? It was possible. Yet he must +speak. + +“He said to me--‘Leith has a great heart. When will his wife understand +its greatness?’” + +There was a long silence. Then, without changing her position or lifting +her head, Rosamund said in a hard, level voice: + +“Canon Wilton was right about my husband.” + +“He loved you. That’s a great deal. But he loved you in a very beautiful +way. And that’s much more.” + +“Who told you--about the way he loved me?” + +“Your sister, Beatrice.” + +“Beattie! Yes, she knew--she understood.” + +She bent her head a little lower, then added: + +“Beattie is worth more than I am.” + +“You are worth a great deal, but--but I want to see you rise to the +heights of your nature. I want to see you accomplish the greatest task +of all.” + +“Yes?” + +“Conquer the last citadel of your egoism. _Ego dormio et cor meum +vigilat_--Send the insistent I to sleep. I said it to you long ago +before I knew you. I say it to you now when I do know you, when I know +the deep waters you have passed through, and the darkness that has beset +you. Fetter your egoism. Release your heart and your spirit in one great +action. Don’t let him go down forever because of you. I believe +your misery has been as nothing in comparison with his. If he has +fallen--such a man--why is it?” + +“I know why,” she almost whispered. + +“You can never mount up while you are driving a soul downwards. Do you +remember those words in the Bible: ‘Where thou goest I will go’?” + +“Yes.” + +“Perhaps they might be changed in respect of you and the man who loved +you so much and in such a beautiful way. You were linked; can the link +ever be broken? You have tried to break it, but have you succeeded? And +if not, wouldn’t it be true, drastically true, if you said--Where thou +goest I _must_ go? If he goes down because of you I think you’ll go down +with him.” + +Rosamund sat absolutely still. When Father Robertson paused again there +was not a sound in the little room. + +“And one thing more,” he said, not looking towards her. “There’s the +child, your child and his. Is it well with the child?” + +Rosamund moved and looked up. Then she got up from her chair. + +“But--but--Robin’s----” + +She stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Father Robertson. He looked up and +met her eyes, and she saw plainly the mystic in him. + +“What do we know?” he said. “What do we know of the effects of our +actions? Can we be certain that they are limited to this earth? Is it +well with the child? I say we don’t know. We dare not affirm that we +know. He loved his father, didn’t he?” + +Rosamund looked stricken. He let her go. He could not say any more to +her. + +That evening Lady Ingleton called in Manxby Street and asked for Father +Robertson. He happened to be in and received her at once. + +“I’ve had a note from Mrs. Leith,” she said. + +“I am not surprised,” said Father Robertson. “Indeed I expected it.” + +“She wishes to see me to-morrow. She writes that she will come to the +hotel. How have you persuaded her to come?” + +“I don’t think I have persuaded her though I wish her to see you. But I +have told her of her husband’s infidelity.” + +“You have told her----!” + +Lady Ingleton stopped short. She looked unusually discomposed, even +nervous and agitated. + +“I said you might,” she murmured. + +“It was essential.” + +“If Cynthia knew!” said Lady Ingleton. + +“I mentioned no name.” + +“She must have guessed. It’s odd, when I told you I didn’t feel +treacherous--not really! But now I feel a brute. I’ve never done +anything like this before. It’s against all my code. I’ve come here, +done all this, and now I dread meeting Mrs. Leith. I wish you could be +there when she comes.” + +She sent him a soft glance out of her Italian eyes. + +“You make me feel so safe,” she added. + +“You and she must be alone. Remember this! Mrs. Leith must go out to +Constantinople.” + +“Leave the Sisterhood! Will she ever do that?” + +“You came here with the hope of persuading her, didn’t you?” + +“A hope was it? A forlorn hope, perhaps.” + +“Bring it to fruition.” + +“But Cynthia! If she ever knows!” + +Suddenly Father Robertson looked stern. + +“If what you told me is true----” + +“It is true.” + +“Then she is doing the devil’s work. Put away your fears. They aren’t +worthy of you.” + +As she took his hand in the saying of good-by she said: + +“Your code is so different from ours. We think the only possible thing +to do--where a friend is concerned--is to shut the eyes and the lips, +and to pretend, and to keep on always pretending. We call that being +honorable.” + +“Poor things!” said Father Robertson. + +But he pressed her hand as he said it, and there was an almost tender +smile on his lips. + +“But your love of truth isn’t quite dead yet,” he added, on the +threshold of the door, as he let her out into the rain. “You haven’t +been able to kill it. It’s an indomitable thing, thank God.” + +“I wish I--why do you live always in Liverpool?” she murmured. + +She put up her little silk umbrella and was gone. + +There was a fire in her sitting-room on the following-morning. The day +was windy and cold, for March was going out resentfully. Before the fire +lay Turkish Jane on a cushion, blinking placidly at the flames. Already +she had become reconciled to her new life in this unknown city. Her +ecstasy of the journey had not returned, but the surprise which had +succeeded to it was now merged in a stagnant calm, and she felt no +objection to passing the remainder of her life in the Adelphi Hotel. She +supposed that she was comfortably settled for the day when she heard her +mistress call for Annette and give the most objectionable order. + +“Please take Jane away, Annette,” said Lady Ingleton. + +“Miladi!” + +“I don’t want her here this morning. I’m expecting a visitor, and Jane +might bark. I don’t wish to have a noise in the room.” + +Annette, who looked decidedly sulky, approached the cushion, bent down, +and rather abruptly snatched the amazed doyenne of the Pekinese from her +voluptuous reveries. + +“We shall probably leave here to-morrow,” Lady Ingleton added. + +Annette’s expression changed. + +“We’re going back to London, Miladi?” + +“I think so. I’ll tell you this afternoon.” + +She glanced at her watch. + +“I don’t wish to be disturbed for an hour. Don’t leave Jane in my +bedroom. Take her away to yours.” + +“Very well, Miladi.” + +Annette went out looking inquisitive, with Turkish Jane on her arm. + +When she was gone Lady Ingleton took up “The Liverpool Mercury” and +tried to read the news of the day. The March wind roared outside and +made the windows rattle. She listened to it and forgot the chronicle of +the passing hour. She was a women who cared to know the big things that +were happening in the big world. She had always lived among men who were +helping to make history, and she was intelligent enough to understand +their efforts and to join in their discussions. Her husband had often +consulted her when he was in a tight place, and sometimes he had told +her she had the brain of a man. But she had the nerves and the heart of +a woman, and at this moment public affairs and the news of the day did +not interest her at all. She was concentrated on woman’s business. +Into her hands she had taken a tangled love skein. And she was almost +frightened at what she had ventured to do. Could she hope to be of any +use, of any help, in getting it into order? Was there any chance for the +man she had last seen in Stamboul near Santa Sophia? She almost dreaded +Rosamund Leith’s arrival. She felt nervous, strung up. The roar of the +wind added to her uneasiness. It suggested turmoil, driven things, the +angry passions of nature. Beyond the Mersey the sea was raging. She had +a stupid feeling that nature and man were always in a ferment, that it +was utterly useless to wish for peace, or to try to bring about peace, +that destinies could only be worked out to their appointed ends in +darkness and in fury. She even forgot her own years of happiness for a +little while and saw herself as a woman always anxious, doubtful, and +envisaging untoward things. When a knock came on the door she started +and got up quickly from her chair. Her heart was beating fast. How +ridiculous! + +“Come in!” she said. + +A waiter opened the door and showed in Rosamund + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Lady Ingleton looked swiftly at the woman coming in at the doorway clad +in the severe, voluminous, black gown and cloak, and black and white +headgear, which marked out the members of the Sisterhood of St. Mary’s. +Her first thought was “What a cold face!” It was succeeded immediately +by the thought, “But beautiful even in its coldness.” She met Rosamund +near the door, took her hand, and said: + +“I am glad you were able to come. I wanted very much to meet you. I +came here really with the faint hope of seeing you. Let me take your +umbrella. What a day it is! Did you walk?” + +“I came most of the way by tram. Thank you,” said Rosamund, in a +contralto voice which sounded inflexible. + +Lady Ingleton went to “stand” the umbrella in a corner. In doing +this she turned away from her visitor for a moment. She felt more +embarrassed, more “at a loss” than she had ever felt before; she even +felt guilty, though she had done no wrong and was anxious only to do +right. Her sense of guilt, she believed, was caused by the fact that +in her heart she condemned her visitor, and by the additional, more +unpleasant fact that she knew Rosamund was aware of her condemnation. + +“It’s hateful--so much knowledge between two women who are strangers to +each other!” she thought, as she turned round. + +“Do sit down by the fire,” she said to Rosamund, who was standing near +the writing-table immediately under a large engraving of “Wedded.” + +She wished ardently that Rosamund wore the ordinary clothes of a +well-dressed woman of the world. The religious panoply of the “sister’s” + attire, with its suggestion of a community apart, got on her nerves, and +seemed to make things more difficult. + +Rosamund went to a chair and sat down. She still looked very cold, but +she succeeded in looking serene, and her eyes, unworldly and pure, did +not fall before Lady Ingleton’s. + +Lady Ingleton sat down near her and immediately realized that she had +placed herself exactly opposite to “Wedded.” She turned her eyes away +from the large nude arms of the bending man and met Rosamund’s gaze +fixed steadily upon her. That gaze told her not to delay, but to go +straight to the tragic business which had brought her to Liverpool. + +“You know of course that my husband is Ambassador at Constantinople,” + she began. + +“Yes,” said Rosamund. + +“You and I met--at least we were in the same room once--at Tippie +Chetwinde’s,” said Lady Ingleton, almost pleading with her visitor. “I +heard you sing.” + +“Yes, I remember. I told Father Robertson so.” + +“I dare say you think it very strange my coming here in this way.” + +In spite of the strong effort of her will Lady Ingleton was feeling with +every moment more painfully embarrassed. All her code was absolutely +against mixing in the private concerns of others uninvited. She had a +sort of delicate hatred of curiosity. She longed to prove to the woman +by the fire that she was wholly incurious now, wholly free from the +taint of sordid vulgarity that clings to the social busybody. + +“I’ve done it solely because I’m very sorry for some one,” she +continued; “because I’m very sorry for your husband.” + +She looked away from Rosamund, and again her eyes rested on the +engraving of “Wedded.” The large bare arms of the man, his bending, +amorous head, almost hypnotized her. She disliked the picture of +which this was a reproduction. Far too many people had liked it; their +affection seemed to her to have been destructive, to have destroyed any +value it had formerly had. Yet now, as she looked almost in despite of +herself, suddenly she saw through the engraving, through the symbol, +to something beyond; to the prompting conception in the painter’s mind +which had led to the picture, to the great mystery of the pathetic +attempt of human beings who love, or who think they love, to unite +themselves to each other, to mingle body with body and soul with soul. +She saw a woman in the dress of a “sister,” the woman who was with her; +she saw a man in an Eastern city; and abruptly courage came to her on +the wings of a genuine emotion. + +“I don’t know how to tell you what I feel about him, Mrs. Leith,” she +said. “But I want to try to. Will you let me?” + +“Yes. Please tell me,” said Rosamund, in a level, expressionless voice. + +“Remember this; I never saw him till I saw him in Turkey, nor did my +husband. We were not able to draw any comparison between the unhappy man +and the happy man. We were unprejudiced.” + +“I quite understand that; thank you.” + +“It was in the summer. We were living at Therapia on the Bosporus. He +came to stay in a hotel not far off. My husband met him in a valley +which the Turks call Kesstane Dereh. He--your husband--was sitting there +alone by a stream. They talked. My husband asked him to call at our +summer villa. He came the next day. Of course I--I knew something of +his story”--she hurried on--“and I was prepared to meet a man who was +unhappy. (Forgive me for saying all this.)” + +“But, please, I have come to hear,” said Rosamund, coldly and steadily. + +“Your husband--I was alone with him during his first visit--made an +extraordinary impression upon me. I scarcely know how to describe it.” + She paused for a moment. “There was something intensely bitter in his +personality. Bitterness is an active principle. And yet somehow he +conveyed to me an impression of emptiness too. I remember he said to me, +‘I don’t quite know what I am going to do. I’m a free agent. I have no +ties.’ I shall never forget his look when he said those words. I never +knew anything about loneliness--anything really--till that moment. And +after that moment I knew everything. I asked him to come on the yacht to +Brusa, or rather to Mudania; from there one goes to Brusa. He came. +You may think, perhaps, that he was eager for society, for pleasure, +distraction. It wasn’t that. He was making a tremendous, a terrible +effort to lay hold on life again, to interest himself in things. He was +pushed to it.” + +“Pushed to it!” said Rosamund, still in the hard level voice. “Who +pushed him?” + +“I can only tell you it was as I say,” said Lady Ingleton, quickly and +with embarrassment. “We were very few on the yacht. Of course I saw a +good deal of your husband. He was absolutely reserved with me. He +always has been. You mustn’t think he has ever given me the least bit +of confidence. He never has. I am quite sure he never would. We are only +acquaintances. But I want to be a friend to him now. He hasn’t a friend, +not one, out there. My husband, I think, feels rather as I do about him, +in so far as a man can feel in our sort of way. He would gladly be more +intimate with your husband. But your husband doesn’t make friends. He’s +beyond anything of that kind. He tried, on the yacht and at Brusa. He +did his utmost. But he was held back by his misery. I must tell you +(it’s very uninteresting)”--her voice softened here, and her face +slightly changed, became gentler, more intensely feminine--“that my +husband and I are very happy together. We always have been; we always +shall be; we can’t help it. Being with us your husband had to--to +contemplate our happiness. It--I suppose it reminded him----” + +She stopped; she could not bring herself to say it. Again her eyes +rested upon “Wedded,” and, in spite of her long conviction of its +essential banality--she classed it with “The Soul’s Awakening,” + “Harmony,” and all the things she was farthest away from--she felt what +it stood for painfully, almost mysteriously. + +“One day,” she resumed, speaking more slowly, and trying to banish +emotion from her voice, “I went out from the hotel where we stayed at +Brusa, quite alone. There’s a mosque at Brusa called Jeshil Jami, +the Green Mosque. It stands above the valley. It is one of the most +beautiful things I know, and quite the most beautiful Osmanli building. +I like to go there alone. Very often there is no one in the mosque. +Well, I went there that day. When I went in--the guardian was on the +terrace; he knows me and that I’m the British Ambassadress, and never +bothers me--I thought at first the mosque was quite empty. I sat down +close to the door. After I had been there two or three minutes I felt +there was some one else in the mosque. I looked round. Before the Mihrab +there was a man. It was your husband. He was kneeling on the matting, +but--but he wasn’t praying. When I knew, when I heard what he was doing, +I went away at once. I couldn’t--I felt that----” + +Again she paused. In the pause she heard the gale tearing at the +windows. She looked at the woman in the sister’s dress. Rosamund was +sitting motionless, and was now looking down. Lady Ingleton positively +hated the sister’s dress at that moment. She thought of it as a sort +of armor in which her visitor was encased, an armor which rendered her +invulnerable. What shaft could penetrate that smooth black and white, +that flowing panoply, and reach the heart Lady Ingleton desired to +pierce? Suddenly Lady Ingleton felt cruel. She longed to tear away from +Rosamund all the religion which seemed to be protecting her; she longed +to see her naked as Dion Leith was naked. + +“I didn’t care to look upon a man in hell,” she said, in a voice which +had become almost brutal, a voice which Sir Carey would scarcely have +recognized if he had heard it. + +Rosamund said nothing, and, after a moment, Lady Ingleton continued: + +“With us on the yacht was one of my husband’s secretaries of Embassy, +Cyril Vane, who had just become engaged to be married. He is married +now. In his cabin on the yacht he had a photograph of the girl. One +night he was walking up and down on deck with your husband, and your +husband--I’d just told him about Vane’s engagement--congratulated him. +Vane invited Mr. Leith into the cabin and showed him the photograph. +Vane told me afterwards that he should never forget the look on your +husband’s face as he took the photograph and gazed at it. When he put it +down he said to Vane, ‘I hope you may be happy. She looks very kind, and +very good, too; but there’s no cruelty on earth like the cruelty of a +good woman.’” (Did the sister’s dress rustle faintly?) “Vane--he’s only +a boy--was very angry for a moment, though he’s usually imperturbable. +I don’t know exactly what he said, but I believe he made a rather strong +protest about knowing his fiancee’s character _au fond_. Anyhow, your +husband took hold of his arm and said to him, ‘Don’t love very much +and you may be happy. That’s the only chance for a man--not to love the +woman very much.’ Vane came to me and told me. I remember it was late at +night and my husband was there. When Vane was leaving us Carey said to +him, ‘Forget the advice that poor fellow gave you. Love her as much +as you can, my boy. Dion Leith speaks out of the bitterness that is +destroying him. But very few men can love as he can, and very few men +have been punished by their love as he has been punished by his. His +sorrow is altogether exceptional, and has made him lose the power of +moral vision. His soul has been poisoned at the source.’ My husband was +right.” + +“You came here to tell me that?” said Rosamund, lifting her head and +speaking coldly and very clearly. + +“I didn’t know what I was going to tell you. At the time I am speaking +of I had no thought of ever trying to see you. That thought came to me +long afterwards.” + +“Why?” + +“I’m a happy woman. In my happiness I’ve learnt to respect love very +much, and I’ve learnt to recognize it at a glance. Your husband is the +victim of a great love, Mrs. Leith. I feel as if I couldn’t stand by and +see him utterly destroyed by it.” + +“Father Robertson tells me----” said Rosamund. + +And then she was silent. All this time she was struggling almost +furiously against pride and an intense reserve which seemed trying to +suffocate every good impulse within her. She held on to the thought of +Father Robertson (she was unable to hold on to the thought of God); +she strove not to hate the woman who was treading in her sanctuary, and +whose steps echoed harshly and discordantly to its farthest, its holiest +recesses; but she felt herself to be hardening against her will, to be +congealing, turning to ice. Nevertheless she was resolute not to leave +the room in which she was without learning all that this woman had to +tell her. + +“Yes?” said Lady Ingleton. + +And the thought went through her mind: + +“Oh, how she is hating me!” + +“Father Robertson told me there was someone else.” + +“Yes, there is. Otherwise I might never have come here. I’m partly to +blame. But I--but I can’t possibly go into details. You mustn’t ask me +for any details, please. Try to accept the little I can say as truth, +though I’m not able to give you any proof. You must know that women who +are intelligent, and have lived long in the--well, in the sort of world +I’ve lived in, are never mistaken about certain things. They don’t need +what are called proofs. They know certain things are happening, or not +happening, without holding any proofs for or against. Your husband has +got into the wrong hands.” + +“What do you mean by that?” said Rosamund steadily, even obstinately. + +“In his misery and absolute loneliness he has allowed himself to be +taken possession of by a woman. She is doing him a great deal of harm. +In fact she is ruining him.” + +She stopped. Perhaps she suspected that Rosamund, in defiance of her +own denial of proofs, would begin asking for them; but Rosamund said +nothing. + +“He is going down,” Lady Ingleton resumed. “He has already deteriorated +terribly. I saw him recently by chance in Stamboul (he never comes to +us now), and I was shocked at his appearance. When I first met him, in +spite of his bitterness and intense misery I knew at once that I was +with a man of fine nature. There was something unmistakable, the rare +imprint; that’s fading from him now. You know Father Robertson very +well. I don’t. But the very first time I was with him I knew he was +a man who was seeking the heights. Your husband now is _seeking_ the +depths, as if he wanted to hide himself and his misery in them. Perhaps +he hasn’t found the lowest yet. I believe there is only one human being +who can prevent him from finding it. I’m quite sure there is only one +human being. That’s why I came here.” + +She was silent. Then she added: + +“I’ve told you now what I wished to tell you, all I can tell you.” + +In thinking beforehand of what this interview would probably be like +Lady Ingleton had expected it to be more intense, charged with greater +surface emotion than was the case. Now she felt a strange coldness in +the room. The dry rattling of the window under the assault of the gale +was an interpolated sound that was in place. + +“Your husband has never mentioned your name to me,” she said, influenced +by an afterthought. “And yet I’ve come here, because I know that the +only hope of salvation for him is here.” + +Again her eyes went to “Wedded,” and then to the sister’s dress and +close-fitting headgear which disguised Rosamund. And suddenly the +impulsiveness which was her inheritance from her Celtic and Latin +ancestors took complete possession of her. She got up swiftly and went +to Rosamund. + +“You hate me for having come here, for having told you all this. You +will always hate me, I think. I’ve intruded upon your peaceful life in +religion--your peaceful, comfortable, sheltered life.” + +Her great dark eyes fixed themselves upon the cross which lay on +Rosamund’s breast. She lifted her hand and pointed to it. + +“You’ve nailed _him_ on a cross,” she said, with almost fierce +intensity. “How can you be happy in that dress, worshiping God with a +lot of holy women?” + +“Did I tell you I was happy?” said Rosamund. + +She got up and stood facing Lady Ingleton. Her face still preserved +something of the coldness, but the color had deepened in the cheeks, and +the expression in the eyes had changed. They looked now much less like +the eyes of a “sister” than they had looked when she came into the room. + +“Take off that dress and go to Constantinople!” said Lady Ingleton. + +Rosamund flushed deeply, painfully; her mouth trembled, and tears came +into her eyes, but she spoke resolutely. + +“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “You were right to come here and +to tell me. If I hate you, as you say, that’s my fault, not yours.” + +She paused. It was evident that she was making a tremendous effort to +conquer something; she even shut her eyes for a brief instant. Then she +added in a very low voice; + +“Thank you!” + +And she put out her hand. + +Tears started into Lady Ingleton’s eyes as she took the hand. Rosamund +turned and went quickly out of the room. + +Some minutes after she had gone Lady Ingleton heard rain beating upon +the window. The sound reminded her of the umbrella she had “stood” + in the corner of the room when Rosamund came in. It was still there. +Impulsively she went to the corner and took it up; then, realizing that +Rosamund must already be on her way, she laid it down on the table. She +stood for a moment looking from “Wedded” to the damp umbrella. + +Then she sat down on the sofa and cried impetuously. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +It was the month of May. Already there had been several unusually hot +days in Constantinople, and Mrs. Clarke was beginning to think about the +villa at Buyukderer. She was getting tired of Pera. She had fulfilled +her promise to Dion Leith. She had given up going to England for Jimmy’s +Christmas holidays and had spent the whole winter in Constantinople. But +now she had had enough of it for the present, indeed more than enough of +it. + +She was feeling weary of the everlasting diplomatic society, of the +_potins_ political and social, of the love affairs and intrigues of her +acquaintances which she knew of or divined, of the familiar voices +and faces. She wanted something new; she wanted to break away. The +restlessness that was always in her, concealed beneath her pale aspect +of calm, was persecuting her as the spring with its ferment drew near to +the torrid summer. + +The spring had got into her veins and had made her long for novelty. + +One morning when Sonia came into Mrs. Clarke’s bedroom with the coffee +she brought a piece of news. + +“Miladi Ingleton arrived at the Embassy from England yesterday,” said +Sonia, in her thick, soft voice. + +The apparent recovery of Lady Ingleton’s mother had been a deception. +She had had a relapse almost immediately after Lady Ingleton’s return +from Liverpool to London; an operation had been necessary, and Lady +Ingleton had been obliged to stay on in England several weeks. +During this time Mrs. Clarke had had no news from her. Till Sonia’s +announcement she had not known the date fixed for her friend’s return. +She received the information with her usual inflexibility, and merely +said: + +“I’ll go to see her this afternoon.” + +Then she took up a newspaper which Sonia had brought in with her and +began to sip the coffee. + +As soon as she was dressed she sent a note to the British Embassy to ask +if her friend would be in at tea-time. + +Lady Ingleton drew her brows together when she read it. She was +delighted to be again in Constantinople, for she had missed Carey quite +terribly, but she wished that Cynthia Clarke was anywhere else. Ever +since her visit to Liverpool she had been dreading the inevitable +meeting with the friend whose secret she had betrayed. Yet the meeting +must take place. She would be obliged some day to look once more into +Cynthia Clarke’s earnest and distressed eyes. When that happened +would she hate herself very much for what she had done? She had often +wondered. She wondered now, as she read the note written in her friend’s +large upright hand, as she wrote a brief answer to say she would be in +after five o’clock that day. + +She was troubled by the fact that her visit to Liverpool had not yielded +the result she had hoped for. Rosamund Leith had not sought her husband. +But she had taken off the sister’s dress and had given up living in the +north. + +Lady Ingleton knew this from Father Robertson, with whom she +corresponded. She had never seen Rosamund or heard from her since the +interview in the Adelphi Hotel. And she was troubled, although she +had recently received from Father Robertson a letter ending with these +words: + + +“Pressure would be useless. I have found by experience that one cannot +hurry the human soul. It must move at its own pace. You have done your +part. Try to leave the rest with confidence in other hands. Through you +she knows the truth of her husband’s condition. She has given up the +Sisterhood. Surely that means that she has taken the first step on the +road that leads to Constantinople.” + + +But now May was here with its heat, and its sunshine, and its dust, and +Lady Ingleton must soon meet the eyes of Cynthia Clarke, and the man she +had striven to redeem was unredeemed. + +She sighed as she got up from her writing-table. Perhaps perversely she +felt that she would mind meeting Cynthia Clarke less if her treachery +had been rewarded by the accomplishment of her purpose. A useless +treachery seemed to her peculiarly unpardonable. She hated having done +a wrong without securing a _quid pro quo_. Even if Father Robertson was +right, and Rosamund Leith’s departure from the Sisterhood were the first +step on the road to Constantinople, she might arrive too late. + +Although she was once more with Carey, Lady Ingleton felt unusually +depressed. + +Soon after five the door of her boudoir was opened by a footman, and +Mrs. Clarke walked slowly in, looking Lady Ingleton thought, even +thinner, even more haggard and grave than usual. She was perfectly +dressed in a gown that was a marvel of subtle simplicity, and wore a hat +that drew just enough attention to the lovely shape of her small head. + +“Certainly she has the most delicious head I ever saw,” was Lady +Ingleton’s first (preposterous) thought. “And the strongest will I ever +encountered,” was the following thought, as she looked into her friend’s +large eyes. + +After they had talked London and Paris for a few minutes Lady Ingleton +changed the subject, and with a sort of languid zest, which was intended +to conceal a purpose she desired to keep secret, began to speak of +Pera and of the happenings there while she had been away. Various +acquaintances were discussed, and presently Lady Ingleton arrived, +strolling, at Dion Leith. + +“Mr. Leith is still here, isn’t he?” she asked. “Carey hasn’t seen him +lately but thinks he is about.” + +“Oh yes, he is still here,” said Mrs. Clarke’s husky voice. + +“What does he do? How does he pass his time?” + +“I often wonder,” replied Mrs. Clarke, squeezing a lemon into her cup, +which was full of clear China tea. + +She put the lemon, thoroughly squeezed, down on its plate, looking +steadily at her friend, and continued: + +“You remember last summer when I asked you to be kind to him, and told +you why I was interested in him, poor fellow?” + +“Oh yes.” + +“I really thought at that time it would be possible to assist him to get +back into life, what we understand by life. You helped me like a true +friend.” + +“Oh, I really did nothing.” + +“You enabled me to continue my acquaintance with him here,” said Mrs. +Clarke inflexibly. + +Lady Ingleton was silent, and Mrs. Clarke continued: + +“You know what I did, my efforts to interest him in all sorts of things. +I even got Jimmy out because I knew Mr. Leith was fond of him, threw +them together, even tried to turn Mr. Leith into a sort of holiday +tutor. Anything to take him out of himself. Later on, when Jimmy went +back to England, I though I would try hard to wake up Dion Leith’s +mind.” + +“Did you?” said Lady Ingleton, in her most languid voice. + +“I took him about in Stamboul. I showed him all the interesting things +that travelers as a rule know nothing about. I tried to make him feel +Stamboul. I even spent the winter here chiefly because of him, though, +of course, nobody must know that but you.” + +“Entendu, ma chere!” + +“But I’ve made a complete failure of it all.” + +“You meant that Mr. Leith can’t take up life again?” + +“He simply doesn’t care for the things of the mind. He has very few +mental resources. I imagined that there was very much more in him +to work upon than there is. If his heart receives a hard blow, an +intellectual man can always turn for consolation to the innumerable +things of art, philosophy, literature, that are food for the mind. +But Mr. Leith unfortunately isn’t an intellectual man. And another +thing----” + +She had been speaking very quietly; now she paused. + +“Yes?” said Lady Ingleton. + +“Jimmy came out for the Easter holidays. It was absurd, because they’re +so short, but I had to see him, and I couldn’t very well go to England. +Well, Jimmy’s taken a violent dislike to Mr. Leith.” + +“I thought Jimmy was very fond of him.” + +“He was devoted to him, but now he can’t bear him. In fact, Jimmy won’t +have anything to do with Dion Leith. I suppose--boys of that age are +often very sharp--I suppose he sees the deterioration in Mr. Leith and +it disgusts him.” + +“Deterioration!” said Lady Ingleton, leaning forward, and speaking more +impulsively than before. + +“Yes. It is heart-rending.” + +“Really!” + +“And it makes things difficult for me.” + +“I’m sorry for that.” + +There was a moment of silence; then, as Mrs. Clarke did not speak, but +sat still wrapped in a haggard immobility, Lady Ingleton said: + +“When do you go to Buyukderer?” + +“I shall probably go next week. I’ve very tired of Pera.” + +“You look tired.” + +“I didn’t mean physically. I’m never physically tired.” + +“Extraordinary woman!” said Lady Ingleton, with a faint, unhumorous +smile. “Come and see some Sevres I picked up at Christie’s. Carey is +delighted with it, although, of course, horrified at the price I paid +for it.” + +She got up and went with Mrs. Clarke into one of the drawing-rooms. Dion +Leith was not mentioned again. + +That evening the Ingletons dined alone. Sir Carey said he must insist +on a short honeymoon even though they were obliged to spend it in an +Embassy. They had dinner in Bohemian fashion on a small round table in +Lady Ingleton’s boudoir, and were waited upon by Sir Carey’s valet, a +middle-aged Italian who had been for many years in his service and who +had succeeded, in the way of Italian servants, in becoming one of the +family. The Pekinese lay around solaced by the arrival of their mistress +and of their doyenne. + +When dinner was over and Sir Carey had lit his cigar, he breathed a sigh +of contentment. + +“At last I’m happy once more after all those months of solitude!” + +He looked across at his wife, and added: + +“But are you happy at being with me again?” + +She smiled. + +“Yes,” he said, “I know, of course.” + +“Then why do you ask?” + +“Well, I’m a trained observer, like every competent diplomatist, +and--there’s something. I see in the lute of your happiness a tiny rift. +It’s scarcely visible, but--I see it.” + +“I’m not quite happy to-night.” + +“And you won’t tell me why, on our honeymoon?” + +“I want to tell you but I can’t. I have no right to tell you.” + +“You only can judge of that.” + +“I’ve done something that even you might think abominable, something +treacherous. I had a great reason--but still!” She sighed. “I shall +never be able to tell you what it is, because to do that would increase +my sin. To-night I’m realizing that I’m not at all sorry for what I +have done. And that not being sorry--as well as something else--makes me +unhappy in a new way. It’s all very complicated.” + +“Like Balkan politics! Shall we”--he looked round the room +meditatively--“shall we set the dogs at it?” + +She smiled. + +“Even they couldn’t drive my _tristesse_ quite away. You have more power +with me than many dogs. Read me something. Read me ‘Rabbi ben Ezra.’” + +Sir Carey went to fetch the exorcizer. + +The truth was that Lady Ingleton’s interview with Cynthia Clarke had +made her realize two things: that since she had come to know Father +Robertson, and had betrayed to him the secret of her friend’s life, any +genuine feeling of liking she had had for Cynthia Clarke had died; and +that Cynthia Clarke was tired of Dion Leith. + +That day Mrs. Clarke’s hypocrisy had, perhaps, for the first time, +absolutely disgusted, and even almost horrified, Lady Ingleton. For +years Lady Ingleton had known of it, but for years she had almost +admired it. The cleverness, the subtlety, the competence of it had +entertained her mind. She had respected, too, the courage which never +failed Mrs. Clarke. But she was beginning to see her with new eyes. +Perhaps Father Robertson had given his impulsive visitor a new moral +vision. + +During the conversation that afternoon at certain moments Lady Ingleton +had almost hated Cynthia Clarke--when Cynthia had spoken of trying to +wake up Dion Leith’s mind, of his not being an intellectual man, of +Jimmy Clarke’s shrinking from him because of his deterioration. And when +Cynthia had said that deterioration was “heart-rending” Lady Ingleton +had quite definitely detested her. This feeling of detestation had +persisted while, in the drawing-room, Cynthia was lovingly appreciating +the new acquisition of Sevres. Lady Ingleton sickened now when she +thought of the lovely hands sensitively touching, feeling, the thin +china. There really was something appalling in the delicate mentality, +in the subtle taste, of a woman in whom raged such devastating physical +passions. + +Lady Ingleton shuddered as she remembered her conversation with her +“friend.” But it had brought about something. It had driven away any +lingering regret of hers for having spoken frankly to Father Robertson. +Cynthia was certainly tired of Dion Leith. Was she about to sacrifice +him as she had sacrificed others? Lady Ingleton dreaded the future. For +during the interview at the Adelphi Hotel she had realized Rosamund’s +innate and fastidious purity. To forgive even one infidelity would be +a tremendous moral triumph in such a woman as Rosamund. But if Cynthia +Clarke threw Dion Leith away, and he fell into promiscuous degradation, +then surely Rosamund’s nature would rise up in inevitable revolt. Even +if she came to Constantinople then it would surely be too late. + +Lady Ingleton had seen clearly enough into the mind of Cynthia Clarke, +but there was hidden from her the greater part of a human drama not yet +complete. + +Combined with the ugly passion which governed her life, Mrs. Clarke had +an almost wild love of personal freedom. As much as she loved to fetter +she hated to be fettered. This hatred had led her into many difficulties +during the course of her varied life, difficulties which had always +occurred at moments when she wanted to get rid of people. Ever since she +had grown up there had been recurring epochs when she had been tormented +by the violent desire to rid herself of some one whom she had formerly +longed for, whom she had striven to bind to her. Until now she had +always eventually succeeded in breaking away from those who were +beginning to involve her in weariness or to disgust her. There had +sometimes been perilous moments, painful scenes, bitter recriminations. +But by the exercise of her indomitable power of will, helped by her +exceptional lack of scruple, she had always managed to accomplish her +purpose. She had always found hitherto that she was more pitiless, +and therefore more efficient, than anyone opposed to her in a severe +struggle of wills. But Dion Leith was beginning to cause her serious +uneasiness. She had known from the beginning of their acquaintance that +he was an exceptional man; since his tragedy she had realized that the +exceptional circumstances of his life had accentuated his individuality. +In sorrow, in deterioration, he had broken loose from restraint. She had +helped to make him what he had now become, the most difficult man she +had ever had to deal with. When he had crossed the river to her he +had burnt all the boats behind him. If he had sometimes been weak in +goodness, in those former days long past, in what he considered +as evil--Mrs. Clarke did not see things in white and black--he had +developed a peculiar persistence and determination which were very like +strength. + +Looking back, Mrs. Clarke realized that the definite change in Dion, +which marked the beginning of a new development, dated from the night in +the garden at Buyukderer when Jimmy had so nearly learnt the truth. On +that night she had forced Dion to save her reputation with her child +by lying and playing the hypocrite to a boy who looked up to him and +trusted in him. Dion had not forgotten his obedience. Perhaps he hated +her because of it in some secret place of his soul. She was sure that +he intended to make her pay for it. He had obeyed her in what she +considered as a very trifling matter. (For of course Jimmy had to be +deceived.) But since then he had often shown a bitter, even sometimes a +brutal, disposition to make her obey him. She could not fully understand +the measure of his resentment because she had none of his sense of honor +and did not share his instinctive love of truth. But she knew he had +suffered acutely in tricking and lying to Jimmy. + +On that night, then, he had burnt his boats. She herself had told him +to do it when she had said to him, “Give yourself wholly to me.” She was +beginning to regret that she had ever said that. + +At first, in her perversity, she had curiously enjoyed Dion’s misery. It +had wrapped him in a garment that was novel. It had thrown about him +a certain romance. But now she was becoming weary of it. She had had +enough of it and enough of him. That horrible process, which she knew +so well, had repeated itself once more: she had wanted a thing; she had +striven for it; she had obtained it; she had enjoyed it (for she knew +well how to enjoy and never thought that the game was not worth the +candle). And then, by slow, almost imperceptible degrees, her power of +enjoyment had begun to lessen. Day by day it had lost in strength. She +had tried to stimulate it, to deceive herself about its decay, but the +time had come, as it had come to her many times in the past, when she +had been forced to acknowledge to herself that it was no longer living +but a corpse. Dion Leith had played his part in her life. She wished now +to put him outside of her door. She had made sacrifices for him; for +him she had run risks. All that was very well so long as he had had +the power to reward her. But now she was beginning to brood over those +risks, those sacrifices, with resentment, to magnify them in her mind; +she was beginning to be angry as she dwelt upon that which distortedly +she thought of as her unselfishness. + +After Jimmy had left Turkey to go back to Eton, and the summer had died, +Mrs. Clarke had fulfilled her promise to Dion. She had settled at Pera +for the winter, and she had arranged his life for him. From the moment +of Jimmy’s departure Dion had given himself entirely to her. He had +even given himself with a sort of desperation. She had been aware of his +fierce concentration, and she had tasted it with a keenness of pleasure, +she had savored it deliberately and fully in the way of an epicure. The +force of his resolution towards evil--it was just that--had acted upon +her abominably sensitive temperament as a strong tonic. That period had +been the time when, to her, the game was worth the candle, was worth a +whole blaze of candles. + +Already, then, Dion had begun to show the new difficult man whom she, +working hand in hand with sorrow, had helped to create within him; +but she had at first enjoyed his crudities of temper, his occasional +outbursts of brutality, his almost fierce roughness and the hardness +which alternated with his moments of passion. + +She had understood that he was flinging away with furious hands all the +baggage of virtue he had clung to in the past, that he was readjusting +his life, was reversing all the habits which had been familiar and +natural to him in the existence with Rosamund. So much the better, she +had thought. The fact that he was doing this proved to her her power +over him. She had smiled, in her unsmiling way, upon his efforts to do +what she had told him to do, to cut away the cancer that was in him and +to cut away all that was round it. Away with the old moralities, the +old hatred of lies and deceptions, the old love of sanity and purity of +life. + +But away, too, with the old reverence for, and worship of, the woman +possessed. + +Dion had taken to heart a maxim once uttered to him by Mrs. Clarke in +the garden at Buyukderer. Mention had been made of the very foolish +and undignified conduct of a certain woman in Pera society who had been +badly treated by a young diplomat. In discussing the matter Dion had +chanced to say: + +“But if she does such things how can any man respect her?” + +Mrs. Clarke’s reply, spoken with withering sarcasm, had been: + +“Women don’t want to be _respected_ by men.” + +Dion had not forgotten that saying. It had sunk deep into his heart. +He had come to believe it. Even when he thought of Rosamund still he +believed it. He had respected her, and had shown his respect in the +most chivalrous way at his command, and she had never really loved him. +Evidently women were not what he had thought they were. Mrs. Clarke knew +what they were and a thousand things that he did not know. He grasped +at her cynicism, and he often applied it, translated through his +personality, to herself. He even went farther in cynicism than she had +ever gone, behaving like a convert to a religion which had the charm +of novelty. He praised her for her capacities as a liar, a hypocrite, a +subtle trickster, a thrower of dust in the eyes of her world. One of his +favorite names for her was “dust-thrower.” Sometimes he abused her. She +believed that at moments he detested her. But he clung to her and he did +not mean to give her up. And she knew that. + +After that horrible night when Jimmy had waked up she had succeeded in +making Dion believe that he was deeply loved by her. She had really had +an ugly passion for him, and she had contrived easily enough to dress +it up and present it as love. And he clung to that semblance of love, +because it was all that he had, because it was a weapon in his hand, and +because he had made for it a sacrifice. He had sacrificed the truth that +was in him, and he had received in part payment the mysterious dislike +of the boy who had formerly looked up to him. + +Jimmy had never been friendly with Dion since the night of their search +for his mother in the garden. + +His manner towards his mother had changed but little. He was slightly +more reserved with her than he had been. Her faint air of sarcasm when, +in Sonia’s room, he had shown her his boyish agitation, had made a +considerable impression upon him. He was unable to forget it. And he was +a little more formal with his mother; showed her, perhaps, more respect +than before. But the change was trifling. His respect for Dion, however, +was obviously dead. Indeed he had begun to show a scarcely veiled +hostility towards Dion in the summer holidays, and in the recent Easter +holidays, spent by him in Pera, he had avoided Dion as much as possible. + +“That fellow still here!” he had said, with boyish gruffness, when his +mother had first mentioned Dion’s name immediately after his arrival. +And when he had seen Dion he had said straight out to his mother that he +couldn’t “stand Leith at any price now.” She had asked him why, fixing +her eyes upon him, but the only reply she had succeeded in getting had +been that he didn’t trust the fellow, that he hadn’t trusted Leith for a +long time. + +“Since when?” she had said. + +“Can’t remember,” had been the non-committal answer. + +It seemed as if Jimmy had seen through Dion’s insincerity in the garden +at Buyukderer. Yet there was nothing to show that he had not accepted +his mother’s insincerity in Sonia’s room at its face value. Even Mrs. +Clarke had not been able to understand exactly what was in her boy’s +mind. But Jimmy’s hostility to Dion had troubled her obscurely, and had +added to her growing weariness of this intrigue something more vital. +Her intelligence divined, rather than actually perceived, the coming +into her life of a definite menace to her happiness, if happiness it +could be called. She felt as if Jimmy were on the track of her secret, +and she was certain that Dion was the cause of the boy’s unpleasant new +alertness. In the past she had taken risks for Dion. But she had had +the great reason of what she chose to call passion. That reason was gone +now. She was resolved not to take the greatest of all risks for a man +whom she wanted to get rid of. + +She was resolved; but she encountered now in Dion a resolve which she +had not suspected he was capable of, and which began to render her +seriously uneasy. + +Lady Ingleton’s remark, “you look tired,” had struck unpleasantly on +Mrs. Clarke’s ears, and she came away from the Embassy that day with +them in her mind. She was on foot. As she came out through the great +gateway of the Embassy she remembered that she had been coming from it +on that day in June when she had seen Dion Leith for the first time in +Pera. A sharp thrill had gone through her that day. He had come. He had +obeyed the persistent call of her will. What she had desired for so +long would be. And she had been fiercely glad for two reasons; one an +ordinary reason, the other less ordinary. A mysterious reason of the +mind. If her will had played her false for once, had proved inadequate, +she would have suffered strangely. When she knew it had not she had +triumphed. But now, as she walked onward slowly, she wished she had +never seen Dion Leith in Pera, she wished that her will had played +her false. It would have been better so, for she was in a difficult +situation, and she foresaw that it was going to become more difficult. +She was assailed by that recurring desire which is the scourge of the +sensualist, the desire to rid herself violently, abruptly and forever +of the possession she had schemed and made long efforts to obtain. Her +torch was burnt out. She wished to stamp out the flame of another torch +which still glowed with a baleful fire. + +“And Delia has noticed something!” she thought. + +The thought was scarcely out of her mind when she came face to face with +Dion Leith. He stopped before her. + +“Have you been to the Embassy?” he said. + +“Yes. Delia Ingleton came back yesterday. You aren’t going to call +there?” + +“Of course not. I happened to see you walking in that direction, so I +thought I would wait for you.” + +With the manner of a man exercising a right he turned to walk back +with her. A flame of irritation scorched her, but she did not show any +emotion. She only said quietly: + +“You know I am not particularly fond of being seen with men in the +Grande Rue.” + +“Very well. If you like, I’ll come to your flat by a round-about way. +I’ll be there five minutes after you are.” + +Before she had time to say anything he was gone, striding through the +crowd. + +Mrs. Clarke walked on and came into the Grande Rue. + +She lived in a flat in a street which turned out of the Grande Rue on +the left not very far from the Taxim Garden. As she walked on slowly she +was trying to make up her mind to force a break with Dion. She had +great courage and was naturally ruthless, yet for once she was beset +by indecision. She did not any longer feel sure that she could dominate +this man. She had bent him to her will when she took him; but could she +do so when she wished to get rid of him? + +When she reached the house, on the second floor of which was her flat, +she found him there waiting for her. + +“You must have walked very quickly, Dion,” she said. + +“No, I didn’t,” he replied bruskly. “You walked very slowly.” + +“I feel tired to-day.” + +“I thought you were never tired.” + +“Every woman is tired sometimes.” + +They began to ascend the staircase. There was no lift. + +“Are you going out to-night?” she heard him say behind her. + +“No. I shall go to bed early.” + +“I’ll stay till then.” + +“You know you can’t stay very late here.” + +She heard him laugh. + +“When you’ve just said you are going to bed early!” + +She said nothing more till they reached the flat. He followed her in and +put his hat down. + +“Will you have tea?” + +“No, thanks; nothing.” + +“Go into the drawing-room. I’ll come in a moment.” + +She left him and went into her bedroom. + +He waited for her in the drawing-room. At first he sat down. The room +was full of the scent of flowers, and he remembered the strong flowery +scent which had greeted him when he visited the villa at Buyukderer +for the first time. How long ago that seemed--aeons ago! A few minutes +passed, registered by the ticking of a little clock of exquisite bronze +work on the mantelpiece. She did not come. He felt restless. He always +felt restless in Constantinople. Now he got up and walked about the +room, turning sharply from time to time, pausing when he turned, then +resuming his walk. Once, as he turned, he found himself exactly opposite +to a mirror. He stared into it and saw a man still young, but lined, +with sunken eyes, a mouth drooping and bitter, a head on which the dark +hair was no longer thick and springy. His hair had retreated from the +temples, and this fact had changed his appearance, had lessened his good +looks, and at the same time had given to his face an odd suggestion +of added intellectuality which was at war with the plain stamp of +dissipation imprinted upon it. Even in repose his face was almost +horribly expressive. + +As he stared into the glass he thought: + +“If I cut off my mustache I should look like a tragic actor who was a +thorough bad lot.” + +He turned away, frowning, and resumed his walk. Presently he stood still +and looked about the room. He was getting impatient. Irritability crept +through him. He almost hated Mrs. Clarke for keeping him waiting so +long. + +“Why the devil doesn’t she come?” he thought. + +He stood trying to control his nervous anger, clenching his muscular +hands, and looking from one piece of furniture to another, from one +ornament to another ornament, with quickly shifting eyes. + +His attention was attracted by something unusual in the room which he +had not noticed till now. On a writing-table of ebony near one of the +windows he saw a large photograph in a curious frame of ruddy arbutus +wood. He had never before seen a photograph in any room lived in by Mrs. +Clarke, and he had heard her say that photographs killed a room, and +might easily kill, too, with their staring impotence, any affection one +felt for the friends they represented. Whose photograph could this be +which triumphed over such a dislike? He walked to the table, bent down +and saw a standing boy in flannels, bare-headed, with thick, disordered +hair and bare arms, holding in his large hands a cricket bat. It was +Jimmy, and his eyes looked straight into Dion’s. + +A door clicked. There was a faint rustling. Mrs. Clarke walked into the +room. + +Dion turned round. + +“What’s this photograph doing here?” he asked roughly. + +“Doing?” + +“Yes. You hate photographs. I’ve heard you say so.” + +“Jimmy gave it to me on my birthday just before he left for England. +It’s quite a good one.” + +“You are going to keep it here?” + +“Yes. I am going to keep it here. Come and sit down.” + +He did not move. + +“Jimmy loathes me,” he said. + +“Nonsense.” + +“He does. Through you he has come to loathe me, and you keep his +photograph here----” + +“I don’t allow any one to criticize what I do in my own drawing-room,” + she interrupted. “You are really childish to-day.” + +His intense irritability had communicated itself to her. She felt +an almost reckless desire to get rid of him. His look of embittered +wretchedness tormented her nerves. She wondered how it had ever been +able to interest her, even to lure her. She was amazed at her own +perversity. + +“I cannot allow you to come here if you are going to try to interfere +with my arrangements,” she added, with a sort of fierce coldness. + +“I have a right to come here.” + +“You have not. You have no rights over me, none at all. I have made a +great many sacrifices for you, far too many, but I shall never sacrifice +my complete independence for you or for any one.” + +“Sacrifices for me!” he exclaimed. + +He snatched up the photograph, held it with both his hands, exerted his +strength, smashed the glass, broke the frame, tore the photograph in +half, and threw it, the fragments of red wood and the bits of glass on +the table. + +“You’ve made your boy hate me, and you shan’t have him there,” he said +savagely. + +“How dare you!” she exclaimed, in a low, hoarse voice. + +She flung out her hands. In snatching at the ruined photograph she +picked up with it a fragment of glass. It cut her hand slightly, and a +thin thread of blood ran down over her white skin. + +“Oh, your hand!” exclaimed Dion, in a changed voice. “It’s bleeding!” + +He pulled out his handkerchief. + +“Leave it alone! I forbid you to touch it!” + +She put the fragments of the photograph inside her dress, gently, +tenderly even. Then she turned and faced him. + +“To-morrow I shall telegraph to England for another photograph to be +sent out, and it will stand here,” she said, pointing with her bleeding +hand at the writing-table. “It will always stand on my table here and in +the Villa Hafiz.” + +Then she bound her own handkerchief about her hand and rang the bell. +Sonia came. + +“I’ve stupidly cut my hand, Sonia. Come and tie it up. Mr. Leith is +going in a moment, and then you shall bathe it.” + +Sonia looked at Dion, and, without a word, adjusted the handkerchief +deftly, and pinned it in place with a safety-pin which she drew out of +her dress. Then she left the room with her flat-footed walk. As she shut +the door Dion said doggedly: + +“You’d better let her bathe it now, because I’m not going in a moment.” + +“When I ask you to go you will go.” + +“Sit down. I must speak to you.” + +He pointed to a large sofa. She went very deliberately to a chair and +sat down. + +“Why don’t you sit on the sofa?” + +“I prefer this.” + +He sat on the sofa. + +“I must speak to you about Jimmy.” + +“Well?” + +“What’s the matter with him? What have you been up to with him?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Then why should he turn against me and not against you?” + +“I don’t understand what you mean.” + +“You do. It’s since that night in the garden when you made me lie to +him. Ever since that night he’s been absolutely different with me. You +know it.” + +“I can’t help it.” + +“He believed your lies to him, apparently. Why doesn’t he believe mine?” + +“Of course he believed what you told him.” + +“He didn’t, or he wouldn’t have changed. He hates your having anything +to do with me. He’s told you so. I’m sure of it.” + +“Jimmy would never dare to do that.” + +“Anyhow, you know he does.” + +She did not deny it. + +“Remember this,” Dion said, looking straight at her, “I’m not going to +be sacrificed a second time on account of a child.” + +After a long pause, during which Mrs. Clarke sat without moving, her +lovely head leaning against a cushion which was fastened near the top of +the back of the chair, she said: + +“What do you mean exactly by being sacrificed, Dion?” + +Her manner had changed. The hostility had gone out of it. Her husky +voice sounded gentle almost, and she looked at him earnestly. + +“I mean just this: my life with the woman I once cared for was smashed +to pieces by a child, my own dead child. I’m not going to allow my +life with you to be smashed to pieces by Jimmy. Isn’t a man more than a +child? Can’t he feel more than a child feels, give more than a child can +give? Isn’t a thing full grown as valuable, as worth having as a thing +that’s immature?” + +He spoke with almost passionate resentment. + +“D’you mean to tell me that a man’s love always means less to a woman +than a child’s love means?” + +Silently, while he spoke, she compared the passion she had had for Dion +Leith with the love she would always have for Jimmy. The one was dead; +the other could not die. That was the difference between such things. + +“The two are so different that it is useless to compare them,” she +replied. “Surely you could not be jealous of a child.” + +“I could be jealous of anything that threatened me in my life with you. +It’s all I’ve got now, and I won’t have it interfered with.” + +“But neither must you attempt to interfere with my life with my child,” + she said, very calmly. + +“You dragged me into your life with Jimmy. You have always used Jimmy as +a means. It began long ago in London when you were at Claridge’s.” + +“There is no need--” + +“There is need to make you see clearly why I have every right to take a +stand now against--against----” + +“Against what?” + +“I feel you’re changing. I don’t trust you. You are not to be trusted. +Since Jimmy has been here again I feel that you are different.” + +“I am obliged to be specially careful now the boy is beginning to grow +up. He notices things now he wouldn’t have noticed a year or two ago. +And it will get worse from year to year. That isn’t my fault.” + +His sunken eyes looked fixedly at her from the midst of the network of +wrinkles which disfigured his face. + +“Now what are you trying to lead up to?” he said. + +“It’s very foolish of you to be always suspicious. Only stupid people +are always suspecting others of sharp practise.” + +“I’m stupid compared with you, but I’m not so stupid that I haven’t +learnt to know you better than other people know you, better, probably, +than any one else on earth knows you. It is entirely through you that +Jimmy has got to hate me. I’m not going to let you use his hatred of +me as a weapon against me. I’ve been wanting to tell you this, but I +thought I’d wait till he had gone.” + +“Why should I want to use a weapon against you?” + +“I don’t know. It isn’t always easy to know why you want things. You’re +such an inveterate liar, and so tricky that you’d puzzle the devil +himself.” + +“Do you realize that all you are saying to-day implies something? It +implies that in your opinion I am not a free agent, that you consider +you have a right to govern my actions. But I deny that.” + +She spoke firmly, but without any heat. + +“Do you mean to say that what we are to each other gives me no more +rights over you than mere acquaintances have?” + +“It gives you no more rights over me than mere acquaintances have.” + +He sat looking at her for a minute. Then he said: + +“Cynthia, come and sit here, please, beside me.” + +“Why should I?” + +“Please come.” + +“Very well.” + +She got up, came to the sofa with a sort of listless decision, and sat +down beside him. He took her uninjured hand. His hand was burning with +heat. He closed and unclosed his fingers as he went on speaking. + +“What is there in such a relation as ours if it carries no rights? +You have altered my whole life. Is that nothing? I live out here only +because of you. I have nothing out here but you. All these months, ever +since we left Buyukderer, I’ve lived just as you wished. I went into +society at Buyukderer because you wished me to. When you didn’t care any +more about my doing that I lived in the shade in Galata. I’ve fallen +in with every deception you thought necessary, I’ve told every lie you +wished me to tell. Ever since you made me lie to Jimmy I haven’t cared +much. But you’ll never know, because you can’t understand such things, +what the loss of Jimmy’s confidence and respect has meant to me. +However, that’s all past. I’m as much of a hypocrite as you are; I’m +as false as you are; I’m as rotten as you are--with other people. But +don’t, for God’s sake, let’s be rotten with each other. That would be +too foul, like thieves falling out.” + +“I’ve always been perfectly straight with you,” she said coldly. “I have +nothing to reproach myself with.” + +The closing of his fingers on her hand, and their unclosing, irritated +her whole body. To-day she disliked his touch intensely, so intensely +that she could scarcely believe she had ever liked it, longed for it, +schemed for it. + +“Please keep your hand still!” she said. + +“What?” + +“It makes me nervous your doing that. Either hold my hand or don’t hold +it.” + +“I don’t understand. What was I doing?” + +“Oh, never mind. I’ve always been straight with you. I don’t know why +you are attacking me.” + +“I feel you are changing towards me. So I thought I’d tell you that I +don’t intend to be driven out a second time by a child. It’s better you +should know that. Then you won’t attempt the impossible.” + +She looked into his sunken eyes. + +“Jimmy has got to dislike you,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, but it +can’t be helped. I don’t know exactly why it is so. It may be because +he’s older, just at the age when boys begin to understand about men and +women. You’re not always quite so careful before him as you might be. +I don’t mean in what you say, but in your manner. I think Jimmy fancies +you like me in a certain way. I think he probably took it into his head +that you were hanging about the garden that night because perhaps you +hoped to meet me there. A very little more and he might begin to suspect +me. You have been frank with me to-day. I’ll be frank with you. I want +you to understand that if there ever was a question of my losing Jimmy’s +love and respect I should fight to keep them, sacrifice anything to +keep them. Jimmy comes first with me, and always will. It couldn’t be +otherwise. I prefer that you should know it.” + +He shot a glance at her that was almost cunning. She had been prepared +for a perhaps violent outburst, but he only said: + +“Jimmy won’t be here again for some time, so we needn’t bother about +him.” + +She was genuinely surprised, but she did not show it. + +“It was you who brought up the question,” she said. + +“Never mind. Don’t worry about it. If Jimmy comes out for the summer +holidays----” + +“He will, of course.” + +“Then I can go away from Buyukderer just for those few weeks.” + +“I----” She paused; then went on: “I must tell you that you mustn’t come +to Buyukderer again this summer.” + +“Then you won’t go there?” + +“Of course I must go. I have the villa. I am going there next week.” + +“If you go, then I shall go. But I’ll leave when Jimmy comes, as you are +so fussed about him.” + +She could scarcely believe that it was Dion who was speaking to her. +Often she had heard him speak violently, irritably, even cruelly and +rudely. But there was a sort of ghastly softness in his voice. His hand +still held hers, but its grasp had relaxed. In his touch, as in his +voice, there was a softness which disquieted her. + +“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you come to Buyukderer this summer,” she +said. “Once did not matter. But if you came again my reputation would +suffer.” + +“Then I’ll stay at some other place on the Bosporus and come over.” + +“That would be just as bad.” + +“Do you seriously mean that we are to be entirely separated during the +whole of this summer?” + +“I must be careful of my reputation now Jimmy’s growing up. The Bosporus +is the home of malicious gossip.” + +“Do answer my question. Do you mean that we are to be separated during +the summer?” + +“I don’t see how it can be helped.” + +“It can be helped very easily. Don’t go to Buyukderer.” + +“I must. I have the villa.” + +“Let it.” + +“I couldn’t possibly stand Constantinople in the summer.” + +“There’s no need to do that. There are other places besides +Constantinople and Buyukderer. You might go to one of them. Or you might +travel.” + +She sat down for a moment looking down. + +“Do you mean that I might travel with you?” she said, at last. + +“Not with me. But I could happen to be where you are.” + +“That’s not possible. Some one would get to know of it.” + +“How absurdly _ingenue_ you have become all of a sudden!” he said, with +soft, but scathing, irony. + +And he laughed, let out a long, low, and apparently spontaneous laugh, +as if he were genuinely amused. + +“Really one would hardly imagine that you were the heroine of the famous +divorce case which interested all London not so very long ago. When +I remember the life you acknowledged you had lived, the life you were +quite defiant about, I can’t help being amused by this sudden access +of conventional Puritanism. You declared then that you didn’t choose +to live a dull, orthodox life. One would suppose that the leopard could +change his spots after all.” + +While he was speaking she lifted her head and looked fixedly at him. + +“It’s just that very divorce case which has made me alter my way of +living,” she said. “Any one who knew anything of the world, any one but +a fool, could see that.” + +“Ah, but I am a fool,” he returned doggedly. “I was a fool when I ran +straight, and it seems I’m a fool when I run crooked. You’ve got to make +the best of me as I am. Take your choice. Go to Buyukderer if you like. +If you do I shall stay on the Bosporus. Or travel if you like, and I’ll +happen to be where you are. It’s quite easy. It’s done every day. But +you know that as well as I do. I can’t give you points in the game of +throwing dust in the eyes of the public.” + +“It’s too late now to let the villa, even if I cared to. And I can’t +afford to shut it up and leave it standing empty while I wander about in +hotels. I shall go to Buyukderer next week.” + +“All right. I’ll go back to the rooms I had last year, and we can live +as we did then. Give me the key of the garden gate and I can use the +pavilion as my sitting-room again. It’s all quite simple.” + +A frown altered her white face. His mention of the pavilion had suddenly +recalled to her exactly what she had felt for him last year. She +compared it with what she felt for him now. With an impulsive movement +she pulled her hand away from his. + +“I shall not give you the key. I can’t have you there. I will not. +People have begun to talk.” + +“I don’t believe it. They never see us together here. You have taken +good care of that in the last few months. Why, we’ve met like thieves in +the night.” + +“Here, yes. In a great town one can manage, but not in a place like +Buyukderer.” + +He leaned forward and said, with dogged resolution: + +“One thing is certain--I will not be separated from you during the +summer. Do whatever you like, but remember that. Make your own plans. I +will fall in with them. But I shall pass the summer where you pass it.” + +“I--really I didn’t know you cared so much about me,” she murmured, with +a faint smile. + +“Care for you!” + +He stared into her face and the twinkles twitched about his eyes. + +“How should I not care for you?” + +He gripped her hand again. + +“Haven’t you taught me how to live in the dust? Haven’t you shown me the +folly of being honorable and the fun of deceiving others? Haven’t you +led me into the dark and made me able to see in it? And there’s such +a lot to see in the dark! Why, good God, Cynthia, you’ve made a man in +your own image and then you’re surprised at his worshipping you. Where’s +your cleverness?” + +“I often believe you detest me.” + +“Oh, as for that, a woman such as you are can be loved and hated almost +at the same time. But she can’t be given up. No!” + +As she looked at him she saw the red gleam of the torch he carried. Hers +had long ago died out into blackness. + +“Is it possible that you really wish to ruin my reputation?” + +“Not a bit of it! You’re so clever that you can always guard against +that.” + +“Yes, I can when I’m dealing with gentlemen,” she said, with sudden, +vicious sharpness. “But you are behaving like a cad. Of all the men I--” + +She stopped. A sort of nervous fury possessed her. It had nearly driven +her to make a false step. And yet--would it be a false step? As she +paused, looking at Dion, marking the hard obstinacy in his eyes, feeling +the hard, hot grip of his hand, it occurred to her that perhaps she had +blundered upon the one way out, the way of escape. Amid the wreckage of +his beliefs she knew that Dion still held to one belief, which had been +shaken once, but which her cool adroitness had saved and made firm in a +critical moment. If she destroyed it now would he let her go? Just how +low had he fallen through her? She wished she knew. But she did not +know, and she waited, looking at him. + +“Go on!” he said. “Of all the men you--what?” + +“How low down is he? How low down?” she asked herself. + +“Can you go on?” he said harshly. + +“Of all the men who have cared for me you are the only man who has ever +dared to interfere with my freedom,” she said. + +Her voice had become almost raucous, and a faint dull red strangely +discolored and altered her face. + +“I will not permit it. I shall go to Buyukderer, and I forbid you to +follow me there. Now it’s getting late and I’m tired. Please go away.” + +“Men who have cared for you!” + +“Yes. Yes.” + +“What d’you mean by that? D’you mean Brayfield?” + +“Yes.” + +“Have there been many others who have cared as Brayfield did?” + +“Yes.” + +“Hadi Bey was one of them, I suppose?” + +“Yes.” + +“And Dumeny was another?” + +“Yes.” + +“Poor fellows!” + +His lips were smiling, but his eyes looked dreadfully intent and +searching. + +“You made them suffer and gave them no reward. I can see you doing it +and enjoying it.” + +“That’s untrue.” + +“What is untrue?” + +“To say that I gave them no reward.” + +At this moment there was a tap on the door. + +“Come in!” said Mrs. Clarke, in her ordinary voice. + +Sonia opened the door and came in. + +“Excuse me, Madame,” she said, “but you told me I was to bathe your +hand. If it is not bathed it will look horrible to-morrow. I have the +warm water all ready.” + +She stood in front of her mistress, broad, awkward and yet capable. Dion +felt certain this woman meant to get rid of him because she was aware +that her mistress wanted him to go. He had always realized that Sonia +knew Mrs. Clarke better than any other woman did. As for himself--she +had never shown any feeling towards him. He did not know whether she +liked him or disliked him. But now he knew that he disliked her. + +He looked almost menacingly at her. + +“Your mistress can’t go at present,” he said. “Her hand is all right. It +was only a scratch.” + +Sonia looked at her mistress. + +“Sonia is quite right,” said Mrs. Clarke, getting up. “And as the water +is warm I will go. Good-by.” + +“I will stay here till you have finished,” he said, still looking at +Sonia. + +“It’s getting very late. We might finish our talk to-morrow.” + +“I will stay.” + +After a slight pause Mrs. Clarke, whose face was still discolored with +red, turned to the maid and said: + +“Go away, Sonia.” + +Sonia went away very slowly. At the door she stopped for a moment and +looked round. Then she disappeared, and the door closed slowly and as if +reluctantly behind her. + +“Now what did you mean?” Dion said. + +He got up. + +“What did you mean?” + +“Simply this, that my husband ought to have won his case.” + +“Ah!” + +He stood with his hands hanging at his sides, looking impassive, with +his head bent and the lids drooping over his eyes. She waited--for her +freedom. She did not mind the disgust which she felt like an emanation +in the darkening room, if only it would carry him far enough in hatred +of her. Would it do that? + +There was a very long silence between them. During it he remained +motionless. With his hanging hands and his drooping head he looked, she +thought, almost as much like a puppet as like a man. His whole body had +a strange aspect of listlessness, almost of feebleness. Yet she knew how +muscular and powerful he still was, although he had long ago ceased from +taking care of his body. The silence lasted so long, and he stood so +absolutely still, that she began to feel uneasy, even faintly afraid. +The nerves in her body were tingling. They could have braced themselves +to encounter violence, but this immobility and dumbness tormented them. +She wanted to speak, to move, but she felt obliged to wait for him. +At last he looked up. He came to her, lifted his hands and laid them +heavily on her emaciated shoulders. + +“So that’s what you are!” + +He stared into her haggard face. She met his eyes resolutely. + +“That’s what you are!” + +“Yes.” + +“Why have you told me this to-day?” + +“Of course you knew it long ago.” + +“Answer me. Why have you told me to-day?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“I do. You have told me to-day because you have had enough of me. You +meant to use Jimmy to get rid of me as you once used him to get to know +me more intimately. When you found that wouldn’t serve your turn, you +made up your mind to speak a word or two of truth. You thought you would +disgust me into leaving you.” + +“Of course you knew it long ago,” she repeated in a dull voice. + +“I didn’t know it. I might have suspected it. In fact, once I did, and +I told you so. But you drove out my suspicion. I don’t know exactly how. +And since then--after you got your verdict in London I saw Dumeny smile +at you as he went out of the Court. I have never been able to forget +that smile. Now I understand it. One by one you’ve managed to get rid +of them all. And now at last you’ve arrived at me, and you’ve said to +yourself, ‘It’s his turn to be kicked out now.’ Haven’t you?” + +“Nothing can last forever,” she murmured huskily. + +“No. But this time you’re not going to scrawl ‘finis’ exactly when you +want to.” + +“It’s getting dark, and I’m tired. My hand is hurting me.” + +He gripped her shoulders more firmly. + +“If you meant some day to get rid of me, to kick me out as you’ve kicked +out the others,” he said grimly, “you shouldn’t have made me come to +you that night when Jimmy was at Buyukderer. That was a mistake on your +part.” + +“Why?” she asked, almost in a whisper. + +“Because that night through you I lost something; I lost the last shred +of my self-respect. Till that night I was still clinging on to it. You +struck my hands away and made me let go. Now I don’t care. And that’s +why I’m not going to let you make the sign of the cross over me and +dismiss me into hell. Your list closes with me, Cynthia. I’m not going +to give you up.” + +She shook slightly under his hands. + +“Why are you trembling?” + +“I’m not trembling; but I’m tired; let me alone.” + +“You can go to Sonia now if you like, and have your hand bathed.” + +He lifted his hands from her shoulders, but she did not move. + +“What are you going to do?” she asked. + +“I shall wait for you here.” + +“Wait for me?” + +“Yes. We’ll dine together to-night.” + +“Where?” she said helplessly. + +“Here, if you like.” + +“There’s scarcely anything to eat. I didn’t intend----” + +“I’ll take you out somewhere. It’s going to be a dark night. We’ll +manage so that no one sees us. We’ll dine together and, after +dinner----” + +“I must come home early. I’m very tired.” + +“After dinner we’ll go to those rooms you found so cleverly near the +Persian Khan.” + +She shuddered. + +“Now go and bathe your hand, and I’ll wait here. Only don’t be too long +or I shall come and fetch you. And don’t send Sonia to make excuses, for +it will be no use.” + +He sat down on the sofa. + +She stood for a moment without moving. She put her bandaged hand up to +her discolored face. Then she went slowly out of the room. + +He sat waiting for her to come back, with his elbows on his knees and +his face hidden in his hands. + +He felt like a man sunk in mire. He felt the mire creeping up to his +throat. + +* * * * * + +Almost at that same hour beside a platform at Victoria Station in London +a long train with “Dover” placarded on it was drawn up. Before the door +of a first-class carriage two women in plain traveling dresses were +standing with a white-haired clergyman. Presently the shorter of the two +women said to the other: + +“I think I’ll get in now, and leave you to last words.” + +She held out her hand to the clergyman. + +“Good-by, Father Robertson.” + +He grasped her hand warmly, and looked at her with a great tenderness +shining in his eyes. + +“Take good care of her. But you will, I know,” he said. + +Beatrice Daventry got into the carriage, and stood for a moment at the +door. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at the two figures now +pacing slowly up and down on the platform; she wiped them away quickly, +and sat down. She was bound on a long journey. And what would be the +end? In her frail body Beatrice had a strong soul, but to-night she +was stricken with a painful anxiety. She said to herself that she +cared about something too much. If the object of this journey were not +attained she felt it would break her heart. She shut her eyes, and she +conjured up a child whom she had loved very much and who was dead. + +“Come with us, Robin!” she whispered. “Come with us to your father.” + +And the whisper was like a prayer. + +“Beattie!” + +Rosamund’s voice was speaking. + +“We are just off.” + +“Are we?” + +“Take your seats, please!” shouted a loud bass voice. + +There was a sound of the banging of doors. + +Rosamund leaned out of the window. + +“Good-by, Father!” + +The train began to move. + +“Good-by. _Cor meum vigilat_.” + +Rosamund pulled down her veil quickly over her face. + +She was weary of rebellion. Yet she knew that deep down within her dwelt +one who was still a rebel. She was starting on a great journey but she +could not foresee what would happen at its end. For she no longer knew +what she was capable of doing, and what would be too great a task for +her poor powers. She was trying; she would try; that was all she knew. + +As the train pushed on through the fading light she said to herself +again and again: + +“_La divina volontate! La divina volontate!_” + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A week had passed, and the Villa Hafiz had not yet opened its door to +receive its mistress. The servants, with the exception of Sonia, had +arrived. The Greek butler had everything in order downstairs. Above +stairs the big, low bed was made, and there were flowers in the vases +dotted about here and there in the blue-and-green sitting-room. Osman, +the gardener, had trimmed the rose-bushes, had carefully cleaned the +garden seats, and had swept straying leaves from the winding paths. The +fountain sang its under-song above the lilies. On the highest terrace, +beyond the climbing garden, the pavilion waited for the woman and man +who had hidden themselves in it to go down into the darkness. But no one +slept in the big, low bed, or sat in the blue-and-green room; the garden +was deserted; by night no feet trod softly to the pavilion. + +For the first time in her life Cynthia Clarke was in the toils. She who +loved her personal freedom almost wildly no longer felt free. She dared +not go to Buyukderer. + +She looked back to that night when she had told Dion Leith the truth, +and it stood out among all the nights of her life, more black and fatal +than any of them, because on it she had been false to herself, had +been weak. She had not followed up her strength in words by strength in +action! She had allowed Dion Leith to dominate her that night, to make +of her against her will his creature. In doing that she had taken a step +down--a step away from the path in which hitherto she had always walked. +And that departure from inflexible selfishness seemed strangely to have +weakened her will. + +She was afraid of Dion because she felt that he was ungovernable by her, +that her will no longer meant anything to him. He did not brace himself +to defy it; simply, he did not bother about it. He seemed to have passed +into a region where such a trifle as a woman’s will faded away from his +perception. + +His serpent had swallowed up hers. + +She ought to have defied him that night, to have risked a violent +scene, to have risked everything. Instead, she had come back to the +drawing-room, had gone out into the night with him, had even gone to +the rooms near the Persian Khan. She had put off, had said to herself +“To-morrow”; she had tried to believe that Dion’s desperate mood would +pass, that he needed gentle handling for the moment, and that, if +treated with supreme tact, he would eventually be “managed” into letting +her have her will. + +But now she had no illusions. Her distressed eyes saw quite clearly, +and she knew that she had made a fatal mistake in being obedient to Dion +that night. She felt like one at the beginning of an inclined plane that +was slippery as ice. She had stepped upon it, and she could not step +back. She could only go forward and downward. + +Dion was reckless. Appeals to reason, to chivalry, to pity, had no +effect upon him. He only laughed at them, took them as part of her +game of hypocrisy. In her genuine and growing fear and distress she had +become almost horribly sincere, but he would not believe in, or heed, +her sincerity. She knew her increasing hatred of him was matched by his +secret detestation of her. Yes, he detested her with all that was most +characteristic in him, with all those inherent qualities of which, do +what he would he was unable to rid himself. And yet there was a link +which bound them together--the link of a common degradation of body. +She longed to smash that link which she had so carefully and sedulously +labored to forge. But he wished to make it stronger. By her violent will +she had turned him to perversity, and now he was actually more perverse +than she was. She saw herself outdistanced on the course towards the +ultimate blackness, saw herself forced to follow where he led. + +She dared not got to Buyukderer. She could not, she knew, keep him away +from there. He would follow her from Constantinople, would resume his +life of last summer, would perhaps deliberately accentuate his intimacy +with her instead of being careful to throw over it a veil. In his hatred +and recklessness he might be capable even of that, the last outrage +which a man can inflict upon a woman, to whose safety and happiness +his chivalrous secrecy is essential. His clinging to her in hatred was +terrible to her. She began to think that perhaps he had in his mind +abominable plans for the destruction of her happiness. + +One day he told her that if she went to Buyukderer he would not only +follow her there, but he would remain there when Jimmy came out for the +summer holidays. + +“Jimmy must learn to like me again,” he said. “That is necessary.” + +She shuddered when she realized the tendency of Dion’s mind. Fear made +her clairvoyant. There were moments when she seemed to look into that +mind as into a room through an open window, to see the thoughts as +living things going about their business. There was something appalling +in this man’s brooding desire to strike her in the heart combined with +his determination to continue to be her lover. It affected her as she +had never been affected before. By torturing her imagination it made +havoc of her will-power. Her situation rendered her almost desperate, +and she could not find an outlet from it. + +What was she to do? If she went to Buyukderer she felt certain there +would be a scandal. Even if there were not, she could not now dare to +risk having Jimmy out for his holidays. Jimmy and Dion must not meet +again. She might travel in the summer, as Dion had suggested, but if +she did that she would be forced to endure a solitude _a deux_ with him +untempered by any social distractions. She could not endure that. To be +alone with his bitterness, his misery, and his monopolizing hatred of +her would be unbearable. And the problem of Jimmy’s holidays would not +be solved by travel. Unless she traveled to England! + +A gleam of hope came to her as she thought of England. Dion had fled +from England. Would he dare to go back there, to the land which had seen +his tragedy, and where the woman lived who had cast him out? Mrs. Clarke +wondered, turning the thought of England over and over in her mind. + +The longer she thought on the matter the more convinced she became that +she had hit upon a final test, by means of which it would be possible +for her to ascertain Dion’s exact mental condition. If he was ready +to follow her even to England, to show himself there as her intimate +friend, if not as her lover, than the man whom she had known in London +was dead indeed beyond hope of resurrection. + +She resolved to find out what Dion’s feeling about England was. + +Since the evening when she had told him the truth she had seen him--he +had obliged her to see him--every day, but he had not come again to her +flat. They had met in secret, as they had been meeting for many months. +For the days when they had wandered about Stamboul together, when she +had tried to play to him the part Dumeny had once played to her, were +long ago over. + +On the day when the thought of England occurred to Mrs. Clarke as a +possible place of refuge she had promised to meet Dion late in the +evening at their rooms near the Persian Khan. She loathed going to those +rooms. They reminded her painfully of all she had felt for Dion and felt +no longer. They spoke to her of the secrecy of a passion that was dead. +She was afraid of them. But she was still more afraid of seeing Dion +in her flat. Nevertheless, now the gleam of hope which had come to her +suddenly woke up in her something of her old recklessness. Since the +servants had gone to the Villa Hafiz she had been living in the flat +with Sonia, who was an excellent cook as well as a capital maid. She +resolved to ask Dion to dinner that night, and to try her fortune once +more with him. England must be horrible to him. Then she would go to +England. And if he followed her there he would at least be punished for +his persecution of her. + +Already she called his determination not to break their intrigue +persecution. She had a short memory. + +After a talk with Sonia she summoned a messenger and sent Dion a note, +asking him to dinner that night. He replied that he would come. His +answer ended with the words: “We can go to the rooms later.” + +As Mrs. Clarke read them her fingers closed on the paper viciously, and +she said to herself: + +“I’ll not go. I’ll never go to them again.” + +She told Sonia about the dinner. Then she dressed and went out. + +It was a warm and languid day. She took a carriage and told the coachman +to drive to Stamboul--to drive on till she gave him the direction where +to go in Stamboul. She had no special object in view. But she longed to +be out in the air, to drive, to see people about her, the waterway, +the forest of shipping, the domes and the minarets, the cypresses, the +glades stretching towards Seraglio Point, the long, low hills of Asia. +She longed, too, to hear voices, hurrying feet, the innumerable sounds +of life. She hoped by seeing and hearing to fortify her will. The spirit +of adventure was the spirit that held her, was the most vital part +within her, and such a spirit needed freedom to breathe in. She was +fettered. She had been a coward, or almost a coward, false, perhaps, to +her fortunate star. Hitherto she had always followed Nietzsche’s advice +and had lived perilously. Was she now to be governed by fear? Even to +keep Jimmy’s respect and affection could she endure such dominion? As +the sun touched her with his fingers of gold, and the air, full of a +strangely languid vitality, whispered about her, as she heard the cries +from the sea, and saw human beings, vividly egoistic, going by on their +pilgrimage, she said to herself, “Not even for Jimmy!” The clamorous +city, with its fierce openness and its sinister suggestions of hidden +things, woke up in her the huntress, and, for the moment, lulled the +mother to sleep. + +“Not even for Jimmy!” she thought. “I must be myself. I cannot be +otherwise. I must live perilously. To live in any other way for me would +be death.” + +And the line in “The Kasidah” which Dion had pondered over came to her, +and she thought of the “death that walks in form of life.” + +As the carriage went upon the bridge she looked across to Stamboul, and +was faced by the Mosque of the Valideh. So familiar to her was the sight +of its facade, of its cupolas and minarets, that she seldom now even +thought of it when she crossed the bridge; but to-day, perhaps because +she was unusually strung up, was restive and almost horribly alert, she +gazed at it and was intensely conscious of it. She had once said to Dion +that Stamboul was the City of the Unknown God, and now suddenly she felt +that she was nearing His altars. A strange, perverse desire to pray came +to her; to go up into one of the mosques of this mysterious city which +she loved, and to pray for her release from Dion Leith. + +She smiled faintly as this idea came into her mind. The Unknown God had +surely made her as she was, had made her a huntress. Well, then, surely +she had the right to pray to Him to give her a free course for her +temperament. + +“Santa Sophia!” she called to the coachman. + +He cracked his whip and drove furiously on to Stamboul. In less than +a quarter of an hour he pulled up his horses before the vast Church of +Santa Sophia. + +Mrs. Clarke sat still in the carriage for a moment looking up at the +ugly towering walls, covered with red and white stripes. Her face was +haggard in the sunshine, and her pale lips were set together in a hard +line. A beggar with twisted stumps instead of arms whined a petition to +her, but she neither saw him nor heard him. As she stared at the walls +on which the sun blazed she was wondering about her future. The love +of life was desperately strong within her that day. The longing for new +experiences tormented her physically. She felt as if she could not wait, +could not be patient any more. If Dion to-night refused again to give +her her freedom she must do something desperate. She must get away +secretly and hide herself from him, take a boat to Greece or Rumania, or +slip into the Orient express and vanish over the tracks of Europe. + +But first she must go into the church and pray to the Unknown God. + +She got out of the carriage. The beggar thrust one of his diseased +stumps in front of her face. She turned on him with a malignant look, +and the whining petition died on his lips. Then she made her way to +the Porta Basilica and passed into the church. But as its great spaces +opened out before her a thought, childishly superstitious, came to her, +and she turned abruptly, went out, made her way to the beggar who had +worried her, gave him a coin and said something kind to him. His almost +soprano voice, raised in clamorous benediction, followed her as she +returned to the church, moving slowly with horrible loose slippers +protecting its floor from her Christian feet. She always laughed in +her mind when she wore those slippers and thought of what she was. This +sanctuary of the unknown God must, it seemed, be protected from her +because she was a Christian! + +There were a good many people in the church, but it looked almost empty +because of its immense size. She knew it very well, better perhaps than +she knew any other sacred building, and she cared for it very much. +She was fond of mosques, delighting in their airy simplicity, in their +casual holiness which seemed to say to her, “Worship in me if you will. +If you will not, never mind; dream in me with open eyes, or, if you +prefer it, go to sleep in a corner of me. When you wake you can mutter a +prayer, or not, just as you please.” + +Santa Sophia did not, perhaps, say that, though it had now for long +years been in use as a mosque, and always seemed to Mrs. Clarke more +like a mosque than like a church. It was richly adorned, and something +of Christianity still lingered within it. In it there seemed, even +to Mrs. Clarke, to be something impelling which asked of each one who +entered it more than mere dreams, more than those long meditations which +are like prayers of the mind separated from the prayers of the heart +and soul. But it possessed the air of freedom which is characteristic +of mosques, did not seize those who entered it in a clutch of tenacious +sanctity; but seemed to let them alone, and to influence them by just +being wonderful, beautiful, unself-consciously sacred. + +At first Mrs. Clarke wandered slowly about the church, without any +purpose other than that of gathering to herself some of its atmosphere. +During the last few days she had been feeling really tormented. Dion had +once said she looked punished. Now he had made her feel punished. And +she sought a moment of peace. It could not come to her from mysticism, +but it might come to her from great art, which suggests to its votaries +mystery, the something beyond, untroubled and shiningly serene. + +Presently Mrs. Clarke felt the peace of Santa Sophia, and she felt it in +a new way, because she had recently suffered, indeed was suffering still +in a new way; she felt it as something desirable, which might be of +value to her, if she were able to take it to herself and to fold it +about her own life. Had she made a mistake in living perilously through +many years? Her mind went to the woman who had abandoned Dion and +entered a Sisterhood to lead a religious life. She seldom thought about +Rosamund except in relation to Dion. She had scarcely known her, and +since her first few interviews with Dion in this land of the cypress he +had seldom mentioned his wife. She neither liked, nor actively disliked, +Rosamund, whose tacit rejection of her acquaintance had not stirred in +her any womanly hatred; for though she was a ruthless woman she was not +venomous towards other women. She did not bother about them enough for +that. But now she considered that other woman with whom she had shared +Dion Leith, or rather who, not knowing it doubtless, had shared Dion +Leith with her. And she wondered whether Rosamund, in her Sisterhood, +was happier than she was in the world. In the Sisterhood there must +surely be peace--monotony, drudgery, perhaps, but peace. + +Santa Sophia, with its vast spaces, its airy dome, its great arches and +galleries, its walls of variegated marble, its glittering mosaics +and columns of porphyry, to-day made her realize that in her life of +adventure and passion she was driven, as if by a demon with a whip, +and that her horrible situation with Dion was but the culmination of +a series of horrible situations. She had escaped from them only after +devastating battles, in which she had had to use all her nervous energy +and all her force of will. Was it worth while? Was the game she was +always playing worth the candles she was always burning? Would it not be +wiser to seek peace and ensue it? As she drove to Santa Sophia she had +longed fiercely to be free so that she might begin again; might again +have adventures, might again explore the depths of human personalities, +and satisfy her abnormal curiosities and desires. Now she was full of +unusual hesitation. Suppose she did succeed in getting rid of Dion by +going to England, suppose her prayer--she had not offered it up yet, but +she was going to offer it up in a moment--to the Unknown God received a +favorable answer, might it not be well for her future happiness if she +retired from the passionate life, with its perpetual secrecies, and +intrigues, and lies, and violent efforts, into the life of the ideal +mother, solely devoted to her only child? + +She felt that the struggle with Dion, the horrible scenes she had had +with him, the force of her hatred of him and his hatred of her, the +necessity of yielding to him in hatred that which should never be given +save with desire, had tried her as nothing else had ever tried her. +She felt that her vitality was low, and she supposed that out of that +lowered vitality had come her uncharacteristic desire for peace. She had +almost envied for a moment the woman whom she had replaced in the life +of Dion. Even now--she sighed; a great weariness possessed her. Was she +going to be subject to a weakness which she had always despised, the +weakness of regret? + +She paused beside a column not very far from the raised tribune on the +left of the dome which is set apart for the use of the Sultan, and is +called the Sultan’s seat. Her large eyes stared at it, but at first +she did not see it. She was looking onward upon herself. Then, in some +distant part of the mosque, a boy’s voice began to sing, loudly, almost +fiercely. It sounded fanatical and defiant, but tremendously believing, +proud in the faith which it proclaimed to faithful and unfaithful alike. +It echoed about the mosque, raising a clamor which nobody seemed to +heed; for the few ulemas who were visible continued reading the Koran +aloud on the low railed-in platforms which they frequent; a Dervish in +a pointed hat slept peacefully on, stretched out in a corner; before +the prayer carpet of the Prophet, not far from the Mihrab, a half-naked +Bedouin, with a sheep-skin slung over his bronzed shoulders, preserved +his wild attitude of savage adoration; and here and there, in the +distance, under the low hanging myriads of lamps, the figures of Turkish +soldiers, of street children, of travelers, moved noiselessly to and +fro. + +The voice of this boy, heedless and very powerful, indeed almost +impudent, stirred Mrs. Clarke. It brought her back to her worship of +force. One must worship something, and she chose force--force of will, +of temperament, of body, of brain. Now she saw the Sultan’s tribune, and +it made her think of an opera box and of the worldly life. The boy sang +on, catching at her mind, pulling her towards the East. The curious +peace of any religious life was certainly not for her, yet to-day she +felt weary of the life in her world. And she wished she could have +in her existence peace of some kind; she wished that she were not a +perpetual wanderer. She remembered some of those with whom from time to +time, she had linked herself--her husband, Hadi Bey, Dumeny, Brayfield, +Dion Leith. Now she was struggling, and so far in vain, to thrust Dion +out of her life. If she succeeded--what then? Where was stability in her +existence? Her love for Jimmy was the only thing that lasted, and that +often made her afraid now. She was seized by an almost sentimental +desire to lose herself in a love for a man that would last as her love +for Jimmy had lasted, to know the peace of an enduring and satisfied +desire. + +The voice of the boy died away. She turned in the direction of the +Mihrab to offer up her prayer to the Unknown God, as the pious Mussulman +turns in the direction of the Sacred City when he puts up his prayer to +Allah. + +Her eyes fell upon the Bedouin. + +As she looked at him, this man of the desert come up into the City, with +the fires of the dunes in his veins, the vast spaces mirrored in +his eyes, the passion for wandering in his soul, she felt that in a +mysterious and remote way she was akin to him, despite all her culture, +her subtle mentality, the difference of her life from his. For she had +her wildness of nature, dominant and unceasing, as he had his. He was +forever traveling in body and she in mind. He sought fresh, and ever +fresh, camping-places, and so did she. The black ashes of burnt-out +fires marked his progress and hers. She looked at him as she uttered her +prayer to the Unknown God. + +And she prayed for a master, that she might meet a man who would be able +to dominate her, to hold her fast in the grip of his nature. At this +moment Dion dominated her in an ugly way, and she knew it too well. But +she needed some one whom she would willingly obey, whom she would lust +to obey, because of love. The restlessness in her life had been caused +by a lack; she had never yet found the man who could be not her tyrant +for a time, but her master while she lived. Now she prayed for that, the +only peace that she really wanted. + +While she prayed she was conscious always of the attitude of the +Bedouin, which suggested the fierce yielding of one who could never be +afraid of the God he worshiped. Nor could she be afraid. For she was +not ashamed of what she was, though she hid what she was from motive of +worldly prudence and for the sake of her motherhood. She believed that +she was born into the world not in order to be severely educated, but in +order that she might live to the uttermost, according to the dictates of +her temperament. Now at last she knew what that temperament needed, +what it had been seeking, why it had never been able to cease from its +journeying. Santa Sophia had told her. + +Her knowledge roused in her a sort of fury of longing for release from +Dion Leith. She saw the Bedouin riding across the sands in the freedom +he had captured, and she ached to be free that she might seek her +master. Somewhere there must be the one man who had the power to fasten +the yoke on her neck. + +“Let me find him!” she prayed, almost angrily, and using her will. + +She had forgotten Jimmy. Her whole nature was concentrated in the desire +for immediate release from Dion Leith in order that she might be free +to pursue consciously the search which till this moment she had pursued +unconsciously. + +The Bedouin did not move. His black, bird-like eyes were wide open, but +he seemed plunged in a dream as he gazed at the Sacred Carpet. He +was absolutely unaware of his surroundings and of Mrs. Clarke’s +consideration of him. There was something animal and something royal in +his appearance and his supreme unconsciousness of others. He looked as +if he were a law unto himself, even while he was adoring. How different +he was from Dion Leith. + +She shut her eyes as she prayed that Dion might be removed from her +life, somehow, anyhow, by death if need be. In the dark she created for +herself she saw the minarets pointing to the sky as she and Dion had +seen them together from the hill of Eyub as they sat under the giant +cypress. Then she had wanted Dion; now she prayed: + +“Take him away! Let me be free from him! Let me never see him again!” + +And she felt as if the Unknown God were listening to her somewhere far +off, knew all that was in her mind. + +A stealthy movement quite near to her made her open her eyes. The +Bedouin had risen to his feet and was approaching her, moving with a +little step over the matting on his way out of the church. As he passed +Mrs. Clarke he enveloped her for a moment in an indifferent glance of +fire. He burnt her with his animal disdain of her observation of him, a +disdain which seemed to her impregnated with flame. She felt the sands +as he passed. When he was gone a sensation of loneliness, even of +desolation, oppressed her. + +She hesitated for a moment; then she turned and followed him slowly. He +went before her, wrapped in his supreme indifference, through the Porta +Basilica, and came out into the blaze of the sunshine. As she emerged, +she saw him standing quite still. He seemed--she was just behind him--to +be staring at a very fair woman who, accompanied by a guide, was coming +towards the church. Mrs. Clarke, intent on the Bedouin, was aware of +this woman’s approach, but felt no sort of interest in her until she was +quite close; then something, some dagger-thrust of the mind, coming from +the woman, pierced Mrs. Clarke’s indifference. + +She looked up and met the sad, pure eyes of Rosamund Leith. + +For a moment she stood perfectly still gazing into those eyes. + +Rosamund had stopped, but she made no gesture of recognition and did not +open her lips. She only looked at Mrs. Clarke, and as she looked a deep +flush slowly spread over her face and down to her throat. + +The Greek guide said something to her; she moved, lowered her eyes and +went on into the church without looking back. + +The Bedouin strode slowly away into the blaze of the sunshine. + +Mrs. Clarke remained where she was, motionless. For the first time +perhaps in her life she was utterly amazed by an event. Rosamund Leith +here in Constantinople! What did that mean? + +Mrs. Clarke knew the arrival of Rosamund meant something that might be +tremendously important to herself. As she stood there before the church +she was groping to find this something; but her mental faculties seemed +to be paralyzed, and she could not find it. Rosamund Leith’s eyes had +told Mrs. Clarke something, that Rosamund knew of Dion’s unfaithfulness +and who the woman was. What did the fact of Rosamund’s coming to +Constantinople in possession of that knowledge mean? + +From the minaret above her head the _muezzin_ in a piercing and nasal +voice began the call to prayer. His cry seemed to tear its way through +Mrs. Clarke’s inertia. Abruptly she was in full possession of her +faculties. That Eastern man up there, nearer to the blue than she was, +cried, “Come to prayer!” But she had already uttered her prayer, and +surely Rosamund Leith was the answer. + +As she drove away towards the Golden Horn she passed the Bedouin +striding along in the sun. + +She looked at him, but he took no notice of her; the indifference of the +desert was about him. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Mrs. Clarke was in her bedroom with the door open that evening when she +heard a bell sound in the flat. She had fixed eight for the dinner hour. +It was now only half-past six. Nevertheless she felt sure that it was +Dion who had just rung. She went swiftly across the room and shut the +bedroom door. Two or three minutes later Sonia came in. + +“Mr. Leith has come already, Madame,” she said, looking straight at her +mistress. + +“I expected him early, Sonia. You can tell him I will come almost +directly.” + +“Yes, Madame.” + +“Sonia, wait a minute! How am I looking this evening?” + +“How?” said Sonia, with rather heavy emphasis. + +“Yes. I feel--feel as if I were looking unlike my usual self.” + +Sonia stared hard at Mrs. Clarke. Then she said: + +“So you are, Madame.” + +“In what way?” + +“You look almost excited and younger than usual.” + +“Younger!” + +“Yes, as if you were expecting something, almost as a girl expects. I +never saw you just like this before.” + +Mrs. Clarke looked at herself in a mirror earnestly, and for a long +time. + +“That’s all, Sonia,” she said, turning round. “You can tell Mr. Leith.” + +Sonia went out. + +Mrs. Clarke followed her ten minutes later. When she came into the +little hall she saw lying on a table beside Dion’s hat several letters. +She stopped by the table and looked down at them. They lay there in +a pile held together by an elastic band, and she could only see the +writing on the envelope which was at the top. It was addressed to Dion +and had been through the post. She wondered whether among those letters +there was one from Rosamund. Had she written to the husband whom she had +cast out to tell him of the great change which had led her to give up +the religious life, to come out to the land of the cypress? + +Mrs. Clarke glanced round; then she bent down noiselessly, picked up +the packet, slipped off the elastic band and examined the letters one by +one. She had never chanced to see Rosamund’s handwriting, but she felt +sure she would know at once if she held in her hand the letter which +might mean her own release. She did not find it; but on two envelopes +she saw Beatrice’s delicate handwriting, which she knew very well. She +longed to know what Beatrice had written. With a sigh she slipped the +elastic band back into its place, put the packet down and went into the +drawing-room. + +Directly she saw Dion she was certain that he knew nothing of the change +in Rosamund’s life. There was no excitement in his thin and wrinkled +brown face; no expectation lit up his sunken eyes making them youthful. +He looked hard, wretched and strangely old, but ruthless and forceful in +a kind of shuttered and ravaged way. She thought of a ruined house with +a cold strong light in the window. He was sitting when she came in, +leaning forward, with his hands hanging down between his knees. When he +saw her he got up slowly. + +“I was near here and had nothing to do, so I came early,” he said, not +apologetically, but carelessly. + +He looked at her and added: + +“What’s happened to you to-day?” + +“Nothing. What an extraordinary question!” + +“Is it? You look different. There’s a change.” + +A suspicious expression made his face ugly. + +“Have you met any one?” + +“Of course. How can one go out in Constantinople without meeting +people?” + +“Any one new, I meant.” + +“No.” + +“You look as if you had.” + +“Do I?” she said, with indifference. + +“Yes. You look--I don’t know----” + +He paused. + +“I think it’s younger,” he added. “You never are tired or ill, but you +generally look both. To-day you don’t.” + +“Please don’t blame me for looking moderately well for once in my life.” + +“Why did you ask me to dinner here?” + +The sound of his voice was as suspicious as the expression on his face. + +“Oh, I don’t know. Once in a while it doesn’t matter. And all the +servants have gone away to Buyukderer.” + +“Then you are going there?” + +“I’m not sure if I shall be able to stay there for more than a few days +if I do go.” + +“Why not?” he said slowly. + +“It’s just possible I may have to go over to England on business. +Something’s gone wrong with my money matters, not the money my husband +allows me, but my own money. I had a letter from my lawyer.” + +“When?” + +“To-day.” + +He stood before her in silence. + +“By the way,” she added, “I saw all those letters for you on the hall +table. Why don’t you read them?” + +“Going to England, are you?” he said, frowning. + +“I may have to.” + +“Surely you must know from your lawyer’s letter whether it will be +necessary or not.” + +“I expect it will be necessary.” + +He turned slowly away from her and went to the window, where he stood +for a moment, apparently looking out. She sat down on the sofa and +glanced at the clock. How were they to get through a long evening +together? She wished she could bring about a crisis in their relations +abruptly. Dion turned round. He had his hands in his pockets. + +“I wish you’d let me look at that lawyer’s letter,” he said. + +“It wouldn’t interest you.” + +“If it’s about money matters I might be able to help you. You know they +used to be my job. Even now anything to do with investments----” + +“Oh, I won’t bother you,” she said coolly. “I always do business through +some one I can pay.” + +“Well, you can pay me.” + +“No, I can’t.” + +“But I say you can.” + +“How?” she said. + +And instantly she regretted having asked the question. + +He looked at her in silence for a minute, then he said: + +“By sticking always to me, by proving yourself loyal.” + +Her mouth twitched. The intense irony in the last word made her feel +inclined to laugh hysterically. + +“But you don’t always behave in such a way as to make me feel loyal,” + she said, controlling herself. + +“I’m going to try to be more clever with you in the future.” + +She got up abruptly. + +“I didn’t expect you quite so early, and I’ve got a letter to write to +Jimmy--” + +“And a letter to your lawyer!” he interrupted. + +“No, that can wait till to-morrow. I must think things over. But I must +write to Jimmy now.” + +“Give him a kind message from me.” + +“What will you do while I am writing?” + +“I’ll sit here.” + +“But do something! Why not read your letters?” + +“Yes, I may as well look at them. There was quite a collection waiting +for me at the British Post Office. I haven’t been there for months.” + +“Why don’t you go more regularly?” + +“Because I’ve done with the past!” he exclaimed, with sudden savagery. +“And letters from home only rake it up.” + +She looked at him narrowly. + +“But have we ever done with the past?” she said, with her eyes upon him. +“If we think so isn’t that a stupidity on our part?” + +“You’re talking like a parson!” + +“Even a parson may hit upon a truth now and then.” + +“It depends upon oneself. I say I have done with the past.” + +“And yet you’re afraid to read letters from England.” + +“I’m not.” + +“And you never go to England.” + +“There’s nothing to prevent me from going to England.” + +“Except your own feelings about things.” + +“One gets over feelings with the help of Time. I’m not such a sensitive +fool as I used to be. Life has knocked all that sort of rot out of me.” + +She sat down at the writing-table from which Jimmy’s photograph had +vanished. + +“Read your letters, or read a book,” she said. + +And she picked up a pen. + +She did not look at him again, and she tried hard to detach her mind +from him. She took a sheet of writing-paper, and began to write to +Jimmy, but she was painfully aware of Dion’s presence in the room, of +every slightest movement that he made. She heard him sit down and move +something on a table, then sigh; complete silence followed. She felt as +if her whole body were flushing with irritation. Why didn’t he get his +letters? She was positive Beatrice had written to tell him that Rosamund +had left the Sisterhood, and she was longing to know what effect that +news would have upon him. + +Presently he moved again and got up, and she heard him go over to the +window. She strove, with a bitter effort, to concentrate her thoughts on +Jimmy, but now the Bedouin came between her and the paper; she saw him +striding indifferently through the blaze of sunshine. + +“About the summer holidays this year--I am not quite sure yet what my +plans will be----” she wrote slowly. + +Dion was moving again. He came away from the window, crossed the room +behind her, and opened the door. He was going to fetch his letters. She +wrote hurriedly on. He went out into the little hall and returned. + +“I’m going to have a look at my letters,” he said, behind her. + +She glanced round. + +“What did you say? Oh--your letters.” + +“They look pretty old,” he said, turning them over. + +She saw Beatrice’s handwriting. + +“Here’s one from Beatrice Daventry,” he added, in a hard voice. + +“Does she often write to you?” + +“She hasn’t written for a long time.” + +He thrust a finger under the envelope. Mrs. Clarke turned and again bent +over her letter to Jimmy. + +* * * * * + +“Dinner is ready, Madame!” + +Mrs. Clarke looked up from the writing-table at Sonia standing squarely +in the doorway, then at the clock. + +“Dinner! But it’s only a quarter-past seven.” + +“I thought you ordered it for a quarter-past seven, Madame,” replied +Sonia, with quiet firmness. + +“Oh, did I? I’d forgotten.” + +She pushed away the writing-paper and got up. + +“D’you mind dining so early?” she asked Dion, looking at him for the +first time since he had read his letters. + +“No,” he replied, in a voice which had no color at all. His face was set +like a mask. + +“Do you want to wash your hands? If so, Sonia will bring you some hot +water to the spare room.” + +“Thanks, I’ll go; but I prefer cold water.” + +He went out of the room carrying the opened letters with him. After a +moment Sonia came back. + +“I hope I didn’t do wrong about dinner, Madame,” she said. “I thought as +Monsieur Leith came so early Madame would wish dinner earlier.” + +Mrs. Clarke put her hand on her servant’s substantial arm. + +“You always understand things, Sonia,” she said. “I’m tired. I mean to +go to bed very early to-night.” + +“But will he----?” + +She raised her heavy eyebrows. + +“I must rest to-night,” said Mrs. Clarke. “I must, I must.” + +“Let me tell him, then, if he--” + +“No, no.” + +Mrs. Clarke put one hand to her lips. She heard Dion in the hall. When +he came in she saw at once that he had been dashing cold water on his +face. His eyes fell before hers. She could not divine what he had found +in his letters or what was passing in his mind. + +“Come to dinner,” she said. + +And they went at once to the dining-room. + +During the meal they talked because Mrs. Clarke exerted herself. She was +helped, perhaps, by her concealed excitement. She had never before felt +so excited, so almost feverishly alert in body and mind as she felt that +night, except at the climax of her divorce case. And she was waiting now +for condemnation or acquittal as she had waited then. It was horrible. +She was painfully conscious of a desperate strength in Dion. It was as +if he had grown abruptly, and she had as abruptly diminished. His savage +assertion about the past had impressed her disagreeably. It might be +true. He might really have succeeded in slaying his love for his wife. +If so, what chance had the woman who had taken him of regaining her +freedom of action. She was afraid to play her last card. + +When dinner was over Dion said: + +“Shall we be off?” + +She did not ask where they were going; she had no need to ask. After a +moment’s hesitation she said: + +“Not just yet. Come into the drawing-room. You can smoke, and if you +like I’ll play you something.” + +“All right.” + +They went into the drawing-room. It was dimly lighted. Blinds and +curtains were drawn. Dion sank down heavily in a chair. + +“The cigarettes are there!” + +“Yes, I see. Thanks.” + +A strange preoccupation seemed to be descending upon him and to be +covering him up. Sonia came in with coffee. Dion put his cup, full, down +beside him on a table. He did not sip the coffee, nor did he light a +cigarette. While Mrs. Clarke was drinking her coffee he sat without +uttering a word. + +She went to the piano. She played really well. Otherwise she would not +have played to him, or to any one. She was specially at home in the +music of Chopin, and had studied minutely many of the “Etudes.” Now +she began to play the Etude in E flat. As she played she felt that +the intense nervous irritation which had possessed her was diminishing +slightly, was becoming more bearable. She played several of the Etudes, +and presently began the one in Thirds and Sixths which she had once +found abominably difficult. She remembered what a struggle she had had +with it before she had conquered it. She had been quite a girl then, +but already she had been a worshipper of will-power, and had resolved to +cultivate and to increase her own will. And she had used this Etude as +a means of testing herself. Over and over again, when she had almost +despaired of ever overcoming its difficulties, she had said to herself, +“Vouloir c’est pouvoir;” and at last she had succeeded in playing the +excessively difficult music as if it were quite easy to her. That had +been the first stepping upwards towards power. + +She remembered that now and she set her teeth. “Vouloir c’est pouvoir.” + She had proved the saying true again and again; she must prove it true +to-night. She willed her release; she would somehow obtain it. + +Directly she finished the Etude she got up from the piano. + +“You play that wonderfully well,” Dion said, with a sort of hard +recognition of her merit, but with no enthusiasm. “Do you know that +there’s something damnably competent in you?” + +She stood looking down on him. + +“I’m very glad there is. I don’t care to bungle what I undertake.” + +“I believe I knew that the first time I saw you, standing by Echo. You +held my hand that day. Do you remember?” + +He laughed faintly. + +“No, I don’t remember.” + +“The hand of Stamboul was upon me then. By God, we are under the yoke. +It was fated then that you should destroy me.” + +“Destroy you?” + +“Yes. What’s the good of what lies between us? You’ve destroyed me. +That’s why you want to get rid of me. Your instinct tells you the work +is done, and you’re right. But you must stick to the wreckage. After +all, it’s your wreckage.” + +“No. A man can only destroy himself,” she said, with cold defiance. + +“Don’t let’s argue about it. The thing’s done--done!” + +In his voice there was a sound of almost wild despair, but his face +preserved its hard, mask-like look. + +“And there’s no returning from destruction,” he added. “Those who try to +fancy there is are just fools.” + +He looked up at her as she stood before him, and seemed suddenly struck +by the expression on her face. + +“Who’s to be the one to destroy you?” he said. “D’you think the Unknown +God has singled me out for the job? Or do you really expect to escape +scot-free after making the sign of the cross over so many lost souls.” + +“The sign of the cross?” + +“Yes. Don’t you remember when I told you of Brayfield’s death? You’ve +never given him a thought since, I suppose. But I’ll make you keep on +thinking about me.” + +“What has happened to-night?” she asked sharply. + +“Happened?” + +“To make you talk like this?” + +“Nothing has happened.” + +“That’s not true. Since you came into the house you’ve quite changed.” + +“Merely because I’ve been reckoning things up, taking stock of the +amount of damage that’s been done. It’ll have to be paid for, I suppose. +Everything’s paid for in the end, isn’t it? When are you going to +England?” + +“I didn’t say it was absolutely decided.” + +“No; but it is. I want to know the date, so that I may pack up to +accompany you. It will be jolly to see Jimmy again. I shall run down to +Eton and take him out.” + +“I am not going to allow you to do me any harm. Because lately I’ve +given in to you sometimes, you mustn’t think you can make a slave of +me.” + +“And you mustn’t think you’ll get rid of me in one way if you can’t in +another. This English project is nothing but an attempt to give me the +slip. You thought I couldn’t face England, so you chose England as the +place you would travel to. You’ve never had a letter from your lawyer, +and there’s no reason why you should go to England on business. But I +can face England. I’ve never done anything _there_ that I’m ashamed of. +My record there is a clean one.” + +Suddenly he thrust his hand into his jacket and pulled out the letters +he had brought from the British Post Office. + +“And apart from that, you made a mistake in reckoning on my +sensitiveness.” + +“Honestly, I don’t know what you mean by that,” she said, with frigid +calm. + +“Yes, you do. You thought I wouldn’t follow you to England because I +should shrink from facing my mother, perhaps, and my wife’s relatives, +and all the people who know what I’ve done. I don’t shrink from meeting +any one, and I’ll prove it to you.” + +He pulled a letter out of its envelope. + +“This is from Beatrice Daventry. In it she tells me a piece of news.” + (He glanced quickly over the sheets.) “My wife has got tired of leading +a religious life and has left the Sisterhood in which she was, and gone +to live in London. Here it is: ‘Rosamund is living once more in Great +Cumberland Place with my guardian. She never goes into society, but +otherwise she is leading an ordinary life. I am quite sure she will +never go back to Liverpool.’--So if I go to London I may run across my +wife any day. Why not?” + +“You wife has left the Sisterhood!” said Mrs. Clarke slowly, forcing a +sound of surprise into her husky voice. + +“I’ve just told you so. You and I may meet her in London. If we do, I +should think she’ll be hard put to it to recognize me. Now put on your +things and we’ll be off.” + +“I shall not go out to-night. I intend----” + +She paused. + +“What do you intend?” + +“I don’t mean ever to go to those rooms again.” + +“Indeed. Why not?” he asked, with cold irony. + +“I loathe them.” + +“You found them. You chose the furniture for them. Your perfect taste +made them what they are.” + +“I tell you I loathe them!” she repeated violently. + +“We’ll change them, then. We can easily find some others that will do +just as well.” + +“Don’t you understand that I loathe them because I meet you in them?” + +“I understood that a good while ago.” + +“And yet you--” + +“My dear!” he interrupted her. “Didn’t I tell you you had destroyed me? +The man I was might have bothered about trifles of that kind, the man I +am simply doesn’t recognize them. Jimmy hates me too, but I haven’t done +with Jimmy yet, nevertheless.” + +“You shall never meet Jimmy again. I shall prevent it.” + +“How can you?” + +“You’re not fit to be with him.” + +“But you have molded me into what I am. He must get accustomed to his +own mother’s handiwork.” + +“Jimmy can’t bear you. He told me so when he was last here. He detests +you.” + +“Ah!” said Dion, with sudden savagery, springing up from his chair. “So +you and he have talked me over! I was sure of it. And no doubt you told +Jimmy he was right in hating me.” + +“I never discussed the matter with him at all. I couldn’t prevent his +telling me what he felt about you.” + +Dion had become very pale. He stood for a moment without speaking, +clenching his hands and looking at her with blazing eyes. For a moment +she thought that perhaps he was going to strike her. He seemed to be +struggling desperately with himself, to be striving to conquer something +within him. At last he turned away from her. She heard him twice mutter +the name of her boy, “Jimmy! Jimmy!” Then he went away from her to the +far end of the room, where the piano was, and stood by it. She saw his +broad shoulders heaving. He held on to the edge of the piano with both +hands, leaning forward. She stayed where she was, staring at him. She +realized that to-night he might be dangerous to her. She had set out to +defy him. But she was not sure now whether, perhaps, gentleness and an +air of great sincerity might not be the only effective weapons against +him in his present abnormal condition. Possibly even now it was not too +late to use them. She crossed the room and came to him swiftly. + +“Dion!” she said. + +He did not move. + +“Dion!” she repeated, putting her hand on his shoulder. + +He turned round. His pale face was distorted. She scarcely recognized +him. + +“Dion, let us look things in the face.” + +“Oh, God--that is what I’m doing,” he said. + +His lips twisted, his face was convulsed. She looked at him in silence, +wondering what was going to happen. For a moment she was almost +physically afraid. Something in him to-night struck hard upon her +imagination and she felt as if it were trembling. + +“Come and sit down,” he said, at last. + +And she saw that for the moment he had succeeded in regaining +self-control. + +“Very well.” + +She went to sit down; he sat opposite her. + +“You hate me, don’t you?” he said. + +She hesitated. + +“Don’t you?” he repeated. + +“We needn’t use ugly words,” she said at last. + +“For ugly things? I believe it’s best. You hate me and I hate you. D’you +know why I hate you? Not because you deliberately made me care for +you with my body, in the beastly, wholly physical way, but because you +wouldn’t let the other thing alone.” + +“The other thing?” + +“Haven’t we got something else as well as the body? Look here--before +I ever knew you I was always trying to build. At first I tried to build +for a possible future which might never come. Well, it did come, and I +was glad I’d stuck to my building--sometimes when it was difficult. Then +I tried to build for--for my wife--and then my child came and I tried to +build for him, too. So it went on. I was always building, or trying to. +In South Africa I was doing it, and I came back feeling as if I’d got +something to show, not much, but something, for my work. Then the crash +came, and I thought I knew sorrow and horror down to the bones. But I +didn’t. I’ve only got to know them to the bones here. You’ve made +me know them. If you’d loved me I should never have complained, have +attacked you, been brutal to you; but when I think that you’ve never +cared a rap about me, never cared for anything but my body, and +that--that----” his voice broke for a moment; then he recovered himself +and went on, more harshly,--“and that merely from desire, or whatever +you choose to call it, you’ve sent the last stones of my building to +dust, I sometimes feel as if I could murder you. If you meant to kick +me out and be free of me when you had had enough of me, you should +never have brought Jimmy into the matter; for in a way you could never +understand Jimmy was linked up with my boy, with Robin. When you made +me earn Jimmy’s hatred by being utterly false to all I really was, you +separated me from my boy. I killed him, but till then I was +sometimes near him. Ever since that night of lying and dirty pretense +he’s--he’s--I’ve lost him. You’ve taken my boy from me. Why should I +leave you yours?” + +“But you’re mad--when my boy’s alive and--” + +“And so’s mine!” + +She stared at him in silence. + +“You can’t give him back to me. Jimmy shrinks from me not because of +what I’ve done, but because of what I’ve become, and my boy feels as +Jimmy does. He--he----” + +Mrs. Clarke pushed back her chair bruskly. She was now feeling really +afraid. She longed to call in Sonia. She wished the other servants were +in the flat instead of at Buyukderer. + +“You boy’s dead,” she said, dully, obstinately. “Jimmy has nothing to do +with him--never had anything to do with him. And as for me, I have never +interfered between you and your child.” + +She got up. So did he. + +“Never, never!” she repeated. “But your mind is warped and you don’t +know what you’re saying.” + +“I do. But we won’t argue about it. You’re a materialist and you can’t +understand the real things.” + +His own words seemed suddenly to strike upon him like a great blow. + +“The real things!” he exclaimed. “I’ve lost them all for ever. But I’ll +keep what I’ve got. I’ll keep what I’ve got. You hate me and I hate you, +but we belong to each other and we’ll stick together, and Jimmy must +make up his mind to it. Once you said that if he was twenty-one you’d +tell him all about it. If you’re going to England I’ll go there too, and +we can enlighten Jimmy a little sooner. Now let us be off to the rooms. +As you’ve taken a dislike to them we’ll give them up. But we must pay a +last visit to them, a visit of good-bye.” + +She shuddered. The thought of being shut up alone with him horrified her +imagination. She waited a moment; then she said: + +“Very well. I’ll go and put on my things.” + +And she went out of the room. She wanted to gain time, to be alone for a +moment. + +When she was in her bedroom she did not summon Sonia, who was in +the kitchen washing up. Slowly she went to get out a wrap and a hat. +Standing before the glass she adjusted the hat on her head carefully, +adroitly; then she drew the wrap around her shoulders and picked up a +pair of long gloves. After an instant of hesitation she began to pull +them on. The process took several minutes. She was careful to smooth out +every wrinkle. While she did so she was thinking of Rosamund Leith. + +All through the evening she had been on the verge of telling Dion that +his wife was in Constantinople, but something had held her back. And +even now she could not make up her mind whether to tell him or not. She +was afraid to risk the revelation because she did not know at all how he +would take it. When he knew she might be free. There was the possibility +of that. He must realize, he would surely be obliged to realize, that +his wife could have but one purpose in deliberately traveling out to +the place where he was living. She must be seeking a reconciliation, in +spite of the knowledge which Mrs. Clarke had read in her eyes that day. +But would Dion face those eyes with the hard defiance of one irreparably +aloof from his former life? If he were really ready and determined to +show himself in London as the lover of another woman would he not be +ready to do the same thing here in Constantinople? + +To tell him seemed to Mrs. Clarke the one chance of escape for her now, +but she was afraid to tell him because she was afraid to know that what +seemed the only possible avenue to freedom was barred against her. She +had said to herself at the piano “Vouloir c’est pouvoir,” and she had +determined to be free, but again Dion’s will of a desperate man had +towered up over hers. It was the fact that he was desperate which gave +to him this power. + +At last the gloves lay absolutely smooth on her hands and arms, and she +went back to the drawing-room. Till she opened the door of it she did +not know what she was going to do. + +“So you’re dressed!” Dion said as she came in. “That’s right. Let’s be +off.” + +“What is the good of going? You have said we hate each other. How can +this sort of thing go on in hatred? Dion, let us give it all up.” + +“Why have you put on your things?” + +“I don’t know. Let us say good-by to-night, and not in anger. We were +not suited to be together for long. We are too different.” + +“How many men have you said all this to already? Come along!” + +He took her firmly by the wrist. + +“Wait, Dion!” + +“Why should we wait?” + +“There’s something I must tell you before we go.” + +He kept his hand on her wrist. + +“Well? What is it?” + +“I went to Santa Sophia to-day.” + +As she spoke the Bedouin came before her again. She saw his +bronze-colored arms and his bird-like eyes. + +“Santa Sophia! Did you go to pray?” + +She stared at him. His lips were curled in a smile. + +“No,” she said. “But I like to go there sometimes. As I was coming away +I met some one.” + +“Well?” + +“Some one you know--a woman.” + +“A woman? Lady Ingleton?” + +“No; your wife.” + +The fingers which held her wrist became suddenly cold, but they still +pressed firmly upon her flesh. + +“That’s a lie!” he said hoarsely. + +“It isn’t!” + +“How dare you tell me such a lie?” + +He bent and gazed into her eyes. + +“Liar! Liar!” + +But though his lips made the assertion, his eyes, in agony, seemed to be +asking a question. He seized her other wrist. + +“What’s your object in telling me such a lie? What are you trying to +gain by it? Do you think you’ll get rid of me for to-night, and that +to-morrow, by some trick, you’ll escape from me forever? D’you think +that?” + +“I met your wife to-day just outside Santa Sophia,” she said steadily. +“When she saw me she stopped. We looked at each other for a minute. +Neither of us spoke a word. But she told me something.” + +“Told you . . . ?” + +“With her eyes. She knows about you and me.” + +His hands fell from her wrists. By the look in his eyes she saw that he +was beginning to believe her. + +“She knows,” Mrs. Clarke repeated. “And yet she had come here. What does +that mean?” + +“What does that mean?” he repeated, in a muttering voice. + +“Do you believe what I say?” + +“Yes; she is here.” + +A fierce wave of red went over his face. For a moment his eyes shone. +Then a look of despair and horror made him frightful, and stirred even +in her a sensation of pity. + +He began to tremble. + +“Don’t! Don’t!” she said, putting out her hands and moving away. + +“She can’t know!” he said, trembling more violently. + +“She does know.” + +“She wouldn’t have come. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.” + +“She does know. Now I’m ready, if you want to go to the rooms.” + +Dion went white to the lips. He came towards her. His eyes were so +menacing that she felt sure he was going to do her some dreadful injury; +but when he was close to her he controlled himself and stood still. For +what seemed to her a very long time he stood there, looking at her as a +man looks at the heap of his sins when the sword has cloven a way into +the depths of his spirit. Then he said: + +“You’re free.” + +He went out of the room, leaving the door open. A moment later Mrs. +Clarke heard the front door shut, and his footsteps on the stone stairs +outside. They died away. + +Then she began to sob. She felt shaken and frightened almost like a +child. But presently her sobs ceased. She took off her hat and wrap and +her gloves, lay down on the sofa, put her hands behind her small head, +and, motionless, gazed at the pale gray wall of the room. It seemed to +fade away after she had gazed at it for two or three minutes; a world +opened out before her, and she saw a barrier, like a long deep trench, +stretching into a far distance. On one side of this trench stood a boy +with densely thick hair and large hands and frank, observant eyes; on +the other stood a Bedouin of the desert. + +Then she shuddered. Dion had told her she was free. But was she free? +Could she ever be free now? + +Suddenly she broke into a passion of tears. She was inundated with +self-pity. She had prayed to the Unknown God. He had answered her +prayer, but nevertheless, he had surely cursed her. For love and lust +were at merciless war within her. She was tormented. + +That night she knew she had run up a debt which she would be forced to +pay; she knew that her punishment was beginning. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +When Dion came out into the street he stood still on the pavement. It +was between ten and eleven o’clock. Stamboul, the mysterious city, was +plunged in darkness, but Pera was lit and astir, was full of blatant +and furtive activities. He listened to its voices as he stood under the +stars, and presently from them the voice of a woman detached itself, and +said clearly and with a sort of beautifully wondering slowness, “I can +see the Pleiades.” + +Tears started into his eyes. He was afraid of that voice and yet his +whole being longed desperately to hear it again. The knowledge that +Rosamund was here in Constantinople, very near to him--how it had +changed the whole city for him! Every light that gleamed, every sound +that rose up, seemed to hold for him a terrible vital meaning. And he +knew that all the time he had been living in Constantinople it had been +to him a horrible city of roaring emptiness, and he knew that now, in a +moment, it had become the true center of the world. He was amazed and he +was horrified by the power and intensity of the love within him. In this +moment he knew it for an undying thing. Nothing could kill it, no act +of Rosamund’s, no act of his. Even lust had not suffocated the purity +of it, even satiety of the flesh had not lessened the yearning of it, or +availed to deprive it of its ardent simplicity, of its ideal character. +In it there was still the child with his wonder, the boy with his +stirring aspirations towards life, the man with his full-grown passion. +He had sought to kill it and he had not even touched it. He knew that +now and was shaken by the knowledge. Where did it dwell then, this thing +that governed him and that he could not break? He longed to get at it, +to seize it, hold it to some fierce light, examine it. And then? Would +he wish to cast it away? + +“I can see the Pleiades.” + +For a moment the peace of Olympia was about him, and he heard the +voices of Eternity whispering among the pine trees. Then the irreparable +blotted out that green beauty, that message from the beyond; reality +rushed upon him. He turned and looked at the building he had just left. +It towered above him, white, bare, with its rows of windows. He knew +that he would never go into it again, that he had done forever with the +woman in there who hated him. Yes, he had done with her insomuch as a +man can finish with any one who has been closely, intimately, for good +or for evil, in his life. As he watched her windows for a moment his +mind reviewed swiftly his connection with her, from the moment when she +had held his hand indifferently, yet with intention, in Mrs. Chetwinde’s +drawing-room, till the moment, just past, when he had said to her, “You +are free.” And he knew that from the first moment when she had seen him +she had made up her mind that some day he should be her lover. He hated +her, and yet he knew now that in some strange and obscure way he almost +respected her, for her determination, her unscrupulous courage, her will +to live as she chose to live. She at any rate possessed a kind of evil +strength. And he----? + +Slowly he turned away from that house. He did not know where Rosamund +was staying, but he thought she was probably at the Hotel de Byzance, +and he walked almost mechanically towards it. He was burning with +excitement, and yet there was within him something cold, capable and +relentless, which considered him almost as a judge considers a +criminal, which seemed to be probing into the rotten part of his nature, +determined to know once and for all just how rotten it was. Rosamund +surely was strong in her goodness as Mrs. Clarke was strong in her +evil. He had known the cruelty of both those strengths. And why? Surely +because he himself had never been really strong. Intensity of feeling +had constantly betrayed him into weakness. And even now was it not +weakness in him, this inability to leave off loving Rosamund after all +that had happened? Perhaps the power of feeling intensely was the great +betrayer of a man. + +He descended the Grande Rue, moving in the midst of a press of humanity, +but strongly conscious only of Rosamund’s nearness to him, until at last +he was in front of the Hotel de Byzance. He stood on the opposite side +of the way, looking at the lighted windows, at the doorway through which +people came and went. Was she in there, close to him? Why had she come +to Constantinople? + +She must have come there because of him. There could not surely be any +other reason for her traveling so far to the city where she knew he was +living. But then she must have repented of her cruelty after the death +of Robin, have thought seriously of resuming her married life. It must +be so. Inexorably Dion’s reason led him to that conclusion. Having +reached it he looked at himself, and again his own weakness confronted +him like a specter which would not leave him, which dogged him +relentlessly down all the ways of his life. Prompted, governed by that +weakness, which he had actually mistaken madly for strength, for an +assertion of his manhood, he had raised up between Rosamund and himself +perhaps the only barrier which could never be broken down, the barrier +of a great betrayal. What she had most cared for in him he had trampled +into the dirt; he had slain the purity which had drawn her to him. + +Mrs. Clarke had said that Rosamund knew of their connexion. He believed +her. He could not help trusting her horrible capacity to read such a +truth in another woman’s eyes. It must be so. Rosamund surely could only +have learned in Constantinople the horrible truth which would forever +divide them. She must have traveled out with the intention of seeing him +again, of telling him that she repented of what she had done, and then +in the city which had seen his degradation she must have found out what +he was. + +He saw her outraged, bitterly ashamed of having made the long journey to +seek a man who had betrayed her; he saw her wounded in the soul. She had +wounded him in the soul, but at this moment he scarcely thought of that. +The knowledge that she was near to him seemed to have suddenly renewed +the pure springs of his youth. When Cynthia Clarke had said, “Now I’m +ready if you want to go to the rooms,” she had received her freedom from +the Dion who had won Rosamund, not from the withered and embittered man +upon whom she had perversely seized in his misery and desolation. + +That Rosamund should travel to him and then know him for what he was! +All his intense bitterness against her was swept away by the flood of +his hatred of himself. + +Suddenly the lights of the city seemed to fade before his eyes and the +voices of the city seemed to lose their chattering gaiety. Darkness +and horrible mutterings were about him. He heard the last door closing +against him. He accounted himself from henceforth among the damned. +Lifting his head he stared for a moment at the Hotel de Byzance. Now he +felt sure that she was there. He knew that she was there, and he bade +her an eternal farewell. Not she--as for so long he had thought--but he +had broken their marriage. She had sinned in the soul. But to-night +he did not see her sin. He saw only his black sin of the body, the +irreparable sin he had committed against her shining purity to which he +had been united. + +How could he have committed that sin? + +He turned away from the hotel, and went down towards his lodgings in +Galata; he felt as he walked, like one treading a descent which led down +into eternal darkness. + +How had he come to do what he had done? + +Already he saw Cynthia Clarke as something far away, an almost +meaningless phantom. He wondered why he had felt power in her; he +wondered what it was that had led him to her, had kept him beside +her, had bound him to her. She was nothing. She had never really been +anything to him. And yet she had ruined his life. He saw her pale and +haggard face, her haunted cheeks and temples, the lovely shape of her +head with its cloud of unshining hair, her small tenacious hands. He saw +her distinctly. But she was far away, utterly remote from him. She had +meant nothing to him, and yet she had ruined him. Let her go. Her work +was done. + +It was near midnight when he went at last to his lodgings, which were in +a high house not far from the Tophane landing. From his windows he could +see the Golden Horn, and the minarets and domes of Stamboul. His two +rooms, though clean, were shabbily furnished and unattractive. He had a +Greek servant who came in every day to do what was necessary. He never +received any visitors in these rooms, which he had taken when he gave up +going into the society of the diplomats and others, to whom he had been +introduced at Buyukderer. + +His feet echoed on the dirty staircase so he mounted slowly up till he +stood in front of his own door. Slowly, like one making an effort that +was almost painful to him he searched for his key and drew it out. His +hand shook as he inserted the key into the keyhole. He tried to steady +his hand, but he could not control its furtive and perpetual movement. +When the door was open he struck a match, and lit a candle that stood on +a chair in the dingy and narrow lobby. Then he turned round wearily +to shut the door. He was possessed by a great fatigue, and wondered +whether, if he fell on his bed in the blackness, he would be able to +sleep. As he turned, he saw, lying on the matting at his feet, a square +white envelope. It was lying upside down. Some one must have pushed it +under the door while he was out. + +He stood looking at it for a minute. Then he shut the door, bent down, +picked up the envelope, turned it over and held it near the candle +flame. He read his name and the handwriting was Rosamund’s. + +After a long pause he took the candle and carried the letter into his +sitting-room. He set the candle down on the table on which lay “The +Kasidah” and a few other books, laid the letter beside it, with +trembling hands drew up a chair and sat down. + +Rosamund had written to him. When? Before she had learnt the truth or +afterwards? + +For a long time he sat there, leaning over the table, staring at the +address which her hand had written. And he saw her hand, so different +from Mrs. Clarke’s, and he remembered its touch upon his, absolutely +unlike the touch of any other hand ever felt by him. Something quivered +in his flesh. The agony of the body rushed upon him and mingled with +the agony of the soul. He bent down, laid his hot forehead against the +letter, and shut his eyes. + +A clock struck presently. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, took up +the envelope, quickly tore it, and unfolded the paper within. + + +“HOTEL DE BYZANCE, CONSTANTINOPLE, Wednesday evening + +“I am here. I want to see you. Shall I come to you to-morrow? I can come +at any time, or I can meet you at any place you choose. Only tell me the +hour and how to go if it is difficult. + +“ROSAMUND.” + + +Wednesday evening! It was now the night of Wednesday. Then Rosamund +had written to him after she had been to Santa Sophia and had met Mrs. +Clarke. She knew, and yet she wrote to him; she asked to see him; she +even offered to come to his rooms. The thing was incomprehensible. + +He read the note again. He pored over every word in it almost like a +child. Then he held it in his hand, sat back in his chair and wondered. + +What did Rosamund mean? Why did she wish to see him? What could she +intend to do? His intimate knowledge of what Rosamund was companioned +him at this moment--that knowledge which no separation, which no hatred +even, could ever destroy. She was fastidiously pure. She could never be +anything else. He could not conceive of her ever drawing near to, and +associating herself deliberately with, bodily degradation. He thought of +her as he had known her, with her relations, her friends, with himself, +with Robin. Always in every relation of life a radiant purity had been +about her like an atmosphere; always she had walked in rays of the sun. +Until Robin had died! And then she had withdrawn into the austere purity +of the religious life. He felt it to be absolutely impossible that she +should seek him, even seek but one interview with him, if she knew what +his life had been during the last few months. And, feeling that, he was +now forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Clarke’s intuition had gone for +once astray. If Rosamund knew she would never have written that note. +Again he looked at it, read it. It must have been written in complete +ignorance. Mrs. Clarke had made a mistake. Perhaps she had been betrayed +into error by her own knowledge of guilt. And yet such a lapse was +very uncharacteristic of her. He compared his knowledge of her with his +knowledge of Rosamund. It was absolutely impossible that Rosamund had +written that letter to him with full understanding of his situation in +Constantinople. But she might have heard rumors. She might have resolved +to clear them up. Having traveled out with the intention of seeking +a reconciliation she might have thought it due to him to accept +evil tidings of him only from his own lips. Always, he knew, she had +absolutely trusted in his loyalty and faithfulness to her. Perhaps then, +even though she had put him out of her life, she was unable to believe +that he had tried to forget her in unfaithfulness. Perhaps that was the +true explanation of her conduct. + +Could he then save himself from destruction by a great lie? + +He sat pondering that problem, oblivious of time. Could he lie to +Rosamund? All his long bitterness against her for the moment was gone, +driven out by his self-condemnation. A great love must forgive. It +cannot help itself. It carries within it, as a child is carried in the +womb, the sweet burden of divinity, and shares in the attributes of +God. So it was with Dion on that night as he sat in his dingy room. And +presently his soul rejected the lie he had abominably thought of. He +knew he could not tell Rosamund a life. Then what was he to do? + +He drew out of a drawer a piece of letter paper, dipped a pen in ink. +He had a mind to write the horrible truth which he could surely never +speak. + +“I have received your letter,” he wrote, in a blurred and unsteady +handwriting. Then he stopped. He stared at the paper, pushed it away +from him, and got up. He could not write the truth. He went to the +window and looked out into the dark night. Here and there he saw faint +lights. But Stamboul was almost hidden in the gloom, a city rather +suggested by its shadow than actually visible. The Golden Horn was a +tangled mystery. There were some withdrawn stars. + +Should he not reply to Rosamund’s letter? If she had heard rumors about +his life would not his silence convey to her the fact that they were +true? He had perhaps only to do nothing and Rosamund would understand +and--would leave Constantinople. + +The blackness which shrouded Stamboul suddenly seemed to him to become +more solid, impregnable. He felt that his own life would be drowned in +blackness if Rosamund went away. And abruptly he knew that he must see +her. Whatever the cost, whatever the shame and bitterness, he must see +her at once. He would tell her, or try to tell her, what he had been +through, what he had suffered, why he had done what he had done. +Possibly she would be able to understand. If only he could find the +words that would give her the inner truth perhaps they might reach +her heart. Something intense told him that he must try to make her +understand how he had loved her, through all his hideous attempts to +slay his love of her. Could a woman understand such a thing? Desperately +he wondered. Might not his terrible sincerity perhaps overwhelm her +doubts? + +He left the window, sat down again at the table, and wrote quickly. + + +“I have your letter. Will you meet me to-morrow at Eyub, in the cemetery +on the hill? I will be near the Tekkeh of the dancing Dervishes. I will +be there before noon, and will wait all day. + +“DION” + + +When he began to write he knew that he could not make his confession to +Rosamund within the four walls of his sordid and dingy room. Her power +to understand would surely be taken from her there. Might it not be +released under the sky of morning, within sight of those minarets which +he had sometimes feared, but which he had always secretly, in some +obscure way, loved even in the most abominable moments of his abominable +life, as he had always secretly, beneath all the hard bitterness of his +stricken heart, loved Rosamund? From them came the voice which would not +be gainsaid, the voice which whispered, “In the East thou shalt find me +if thou hast not found me in the West.” Might not that voice help him +when he spoke to Rosamund, help her to understand him, help her perhaps +even to---- + +But there he stopped. He dared not contemplate the possibility of her +being able to accept the man he had become as her companion. And yet now +he felt himself somehow closely akin to the former Dion, flesh of that +man’s flesh, bone of his bone. It was as if his sin fell from him when +he so utterly repented of it. + +Slowly he put the note he had written into an envelope, sealed it and +wrote the address--“Mrs. Dion Leith, Hotel de Byzance.” He blotted it. +Then he fetched his hat and stick. He meant to take the note himself to +the Hotel de Byzance. The night might be made for sleep, but he knew he +could not sleep till he had seen Rosamund. When he was out in the air, +and was walking uphill towards Pera, he realized that within him, in +spite of all, something of hope still lingered. Rosamund’s letter to +him had wrought already a wonderful change in his tortured life. The +knowledge that he would see her again, be with her alone, even if only +for an hour, even if only that he might tell her what would alienate +her from him forever, thrilled through him, seemed even to shed a fierce +strength and alertness through his body. Now that he was going to see +her once more he knew what the long separation from her had meant to +him. He had known the living death. Within a few hours he would have +at least some moments of life. They would be terrible moments, +shameful--but they would take him back into life. Fiercely, +passionately, he looked forward to them. + +He left his letter at the hotel, giving it into the hands of a weary +Albanian night porter. Then he returned to his rooms, undressed, washed +in cold water, and lay down on his bed. And presently he was praying in +the dark, instinctively almost as a child prays. He was praying for +the impossible. For he believed that it was absolutely impossible the +Rosamund could ever forgive him for what he had done, and yet he prayed +that she might forgive him. And he felt as if he were praying with all +his body as well as with all his soul. + +In the dawn he was tired. But he did not sleep at all. + +About ten o’clock he went out to take the boat to Eyub. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +At a few minutes past eleven Dion was in the vast cemetery on the +hill. It was a gray morning, still and hot. Languor was in the air. +The grayness, the silence, the oily waters, suggested a brooding +resignation. The place of the dead was almost deserted. He wandered +through it, and met only two or three Turks, who returned his glance +impassively. After the sleepless night he had come out feeling painfully +excited and scarcely master of himself. In Galata and on the boat he had +not dared to look into the eyes of those who thronged about him. He had +felt transparent, as if all his thoughts and his tumultuous feelings +must be visible to any one who regarded him with attention. But now he +was encompassed by a sensation of almost dull calmness. He looked at the +grayness and at the innumerable graves, he was conscious of the +stagnant heat, he seemed to draw into himself the wide silence, and the +excitement faded out of him, was replaced by a curious inertia. Both +his mind and his body felt tired and resigned. The gravestones suggested +death, the end of the early hopes, aspirations, yearnings and despairs +of men. A few bones and a headstone--to that he was traveling. And yet +all through the night he had been on fire with longing, and with a fear +that had seemed almost red hot. Now he thought he perhaps understood the +fatalism of the Turk. Whatever must be must be. All was written surely +from the beginning. It was written that to-day he should be alone in the +cemetery of Eyub, and it was written that Rosamund should come to him +there, or not come to him. + +If she did not come? + +He remembered the exact wording of his letter to her, and he realized +for the first time that in her letter she had asked him to tell her how +to go to their meeting-place “if it is difficult,” and he had not told +her what she had to do in order to come to Eyub. + +But of course she had a dragoman, and he would bring her. She could not +possibly come alone. + +Perhaps, however, she would not come. + +Long ago she had opened and read his letter and had taken her decision. +If she was coming, probably she was already on the way. He forced +himself to imagine the whole day passed by him alone in the cemetery, +the light failing as the evening drew on, the darkness of night +swallowing up Stamboul, the knowledge forced upon him that Rosamund had +abandoned the idea of seeing him again. He imagined himself returning to +Constantinople in the night, going to the Hotel de Byzance and learning +that she had left by the Orient express of that day for England. + +What would he feel? + +A handful of bones and a headstone! Whatever happened to-day, and in +the future, he was on his way to just that. Then, why agonize, why allow +himself to be riven and tormented by longings and fears that seemed +born out of something eternal? Perhaps, indeed, there was nothing at +all after this short life was ended, nothing but the blank grayness of +eternal unconsciousness. If so, how little even his love for Rosamund +meant. It must be some bodily attraction, some imperious call to his +flesh which he had mistaken for a far greater thing. Men, perhaps, are +merely tricked by those longings of theirs which seem defiant of time, +by those passionate tendernesses in which eternity seems breathing. All +that they think they live by may be illusion. + +Mechanically, as the minutes drew on towards noon, he walked towards the +Tekkeh of the Dervishes. Once he had come here to meet Cynthia Clarke, +and now he had deliberately chosen the same place for the terrible +interview with his wife. It could only be terrible. He did not know what +he was going to do and say when she came (if she did come), but he +did know that somehow he would tell her the whole truth about himself, +without, of course, mentioning the name of a woman. He would lay bare +his soul. It was fitting that he should confess his sin in the place +of its beginnings. He had begun to sin against the woman whom he could +never unlove here in this wilderness of the dead, when he had spoken +against her to the woman who had long ago resolved some day to make +him sin. (He told himself now that he had definitely spoken against +Rosamund.) In this sad place of disordered peace, under the gray, and +within sight of the minarets lifted to the Unknown God, he had opened +the book of evil things; in this place he would close it forever--if +Rosamund came. He felt now that there was something within him which, +despite all his perversity, all that he had given himself to in the fury +of the flesh, was irrevocably dedicated to that which was sane, clean +and healthy. By this he was resolved to live henceforth, not because +of any religious feeling, not because of any love of that Unknown God +who--so he supposed--had flung him into the furnace of suffering as +refuse may be flung into a fire, but because he now began to understand +that this dedicated something was really Him, was of the core of his +being, not to be rooted out. He had left Cynthia Clarke. In a short +time--before the gray faded over the minarets of Stamboul--Rosamund +would have done with him forever. He faced complete solitude, the +wilderness without any human soul, good or bad, to keep him company; but +he faced it with a sort of hard and final resignation. By nightfall he +would have done with it all. And then--the living Death? Yes, no doubt +that would be his portion. He smiled faintly as he thought of his +furious struggle against just that. + +“It was written,” he thought. “Everything is written. But we are tricked +into a semblance of vigorous life and energy by our great delusion that +we possess free will.” + +He sat down beneath a cypress and remained quite still, looking downward +towards the water, downward along the path by which, if Rosamund came, +she would ascend the hill towards him. + +It was nearly noon when he saw below him on this path the figure of a +woman walking slowly. She was followed by a man. + +Dion got up. He could not really see who this woman was, but he knew who +she was. Instantly he knew. And instantly all the calm, all the fatalism +of which for a moment he had believed himself possessed, all the +brooding resignation of the man who says to his soul, “It is written!” + was swept away. He stood there, bare of his pretenses, and he knew +himself for what he was, just a man who was the prisoner of a great +love, a man shaken by the tempest of his feeling, a man who would, who +must, fight against the living Death which, only a moment before, he had +been contemplating even with a smile. + +She had come, and with her life. + +He put one arm against the seamed trunk of the cypress. Mechanically, +and unaware what he was doing, he had taken off his hat. He held it in +his hand. All the change which sorrow and excess had wrought upon him +was exposed for Rosamund to see. She had last seen him plainly as he +drove away with little Robin from the Green Court of Welsley on that +morning of fate. Now at last she was to see him again as she had remade +him. + +She came on slowly. Presently she turned to her Greek dragoman. + +“Where’s the Tekkeh? Is it much farther?” + +“No, Madame.” + +He pointed. As he did so Rosamund saw Dion’s figure standing against the +cypress. She stood still. Her face was white and drawn, but full of +an almost flaming resolution. The mysticism which at moments Dion had +detected in her expression, in her eyes, during the years passed with +her, a mysticism then almost evasive, subtly withdrawn, shone now, like +a dominating quality which scorned to hide itself, or perhaps could +not hide itself. She looked like a woman under the influence of a fixed +purpose, fascinated, drawn onward, almost in ecstasy, and yet somehow, +somewhere, tormented. + +“Please go back to the foot of the hill,” she said to the Greek who was +with her. + +“But, Madame, I dare not leave you alone here.” + +“I shall not be alone.” + +The Greek looked surprised. + +“Some one is waiting for me, up there, by that cypress--a--a friend.” + +“Oh--I see, Madame.” + +With a look of intense comprehension he turned to go. + +“At the foot of the hill, please!” said Rosamund. + +“Certainly, Madame.” + +The dragoman was smiling as he walked away. Rosamund stood still +watching him till he was out of sight. Then she turned. The figure of a +man was still standing motionless under the old cypress tree among the +graves. She set her lips together and went towards it. Now that she saw +Dion, even though he was in the distance, she felt again intensely, as +if in her flesh, the bodily wrong he had done to her. She strove not to +feel this. She told herself that, after her sin against him, she had no +right to feel it. In her heart she knew that she was the greater sinner. +She realized now exactly the meaning of what she had done. She had no +more illusions about herself, about her conduct. She condemned herself +utterly. She had come to that place of the dead absolutely resolved to +ask forgiveness of Dion. And yet now that she saw his body the sense of +personal outrage woke in her, gripped her. She grew hot, she tingled. A +fierce jealousy of the flesh tormented her. And suddenly she was afraid +of herself. Was her body then more powerful than her soul? Was she, +who had always cared for the things of the soul hopelessly physical? It +seemed to her that even now she might succumb to what she supposed was +an overwhelming personal pride, that even now she might be unable to do +what she had come all the long way from England to do. But she forced +herself to go onward up the path. She looked down; she would not see +that body of a man which had belonged to her and to which she had +belonged; but she made herself go towards it. + +Presently she felt that she was drawing near to it; then that she was +close to it. Then she stopped. Standing still for a moment she prayed. +She prayed that she might be able in this supreme crisis of her life to +govern the baser part of herself, that she might be allowed, might be +helped, to rise to those heights of which Father Robertson had spoken +to her, that she might at last realize the finest possibilities of her +nature, that she might be able to do the most difficult thing, to be +humble, to forget any injury which had been inflicted upon herself, and +to remember only the tremendous injury she had inflicted upon another. +When her prayer was finished she did not know whether it had been +heard, whether, if it had been heard, it had been accepted and would be +granted. She did not know at all what she would be able to do. But she +looked up and saw Dion. He was close to her, was standing just in front +of her, with one arm holding the cypress trunk, trembling slightly and +gazing at her, gazing at her with eyes that were terrible because they +revealed so much of agony, of love and of terror. She looked into those +eyes, she looked at the frightful change written on the face that had +once been so familiar to her, and suddenly an immense pity inundated +her. It seemed to her that she endured in that moment all the suffering +which Dion had endured since the tragedy at Welsley added to her own +suffering. She stood there for a moment looking at him. Then she said +only: + +“Forgive me, oh, forgive me!” + +Tears rushed into her eyes. She had been able to say it. It had not been +difficult to say. She could not have said anything else. And her soul +had said it as well as her lips. + +“Forgive me! Forgive me!” she repeated. + +She went up to Dion, took his poor tortured temples, from which the +hair, once so thick, had retreated, in her hands, and whispered again in +the midst of her tears: + +“Forgive me!” + +“I’ve been false to you,” he said huskily. “I’ve broken my vow to you. +I’ve lived with another woman--for months. I’ve been a beast. I’ve +wallowed. I’ve gone right down. Everything horrible--I’ve--I’ve done +it. Only last night I meant to--to--I only broke away from it all last +night. I heard you were here and then I--I----” + +“Forgive me!” + +She felt as if God were speaking in her, through her. She felt as if +in that moment God had taken complete possession of her, as if for +the first time in her life she was just an instrument, formed for the +carrying out of His tremendous purposes, able to carry them out. Awe +was upon her. But she felt a strange joy, and even a wonderful sense of +peace. + +“But you don’t hear what I tell you. I have been false to you. I have +sinned against you for months and months.” + +“Hush! It was my sin.” + +“Yours? Oh, Rosamund!” + +She was still holding his temples. He put his hands on her shoulders. + +“Yes, it was my sin. I understand now how you love me. I never +understood till to-day.” + +“Yes, I love you.” + +“Then,” she said, very simply. “I know you will be able to forgive me. +Don’t tell me any more ever about what you have done. It’s blotted out. +Just forgive me--and let us begin again.” + +She took away her hands from his temples. He did not kiss her, but +he took one of her hands, and they stood side by side looking towards +Stamboul, towards the City of the Unknown God. His eyes and hers were on +the minarets, those minarets which seem to say to those who have come to +them from afar, and whose souls are restless: + +“In the East thou shalt find me if thou hast not found me in the West.” + +After a long silence Rosamund pressed Dion’s hand, and it seemed to him +that never, in the former days of their union--not even in Greece--had +she pressed it with such tenderness, with such pulse-stirring intimacy +and trust in him. Then, still with her eyes upon the minarets, she said +in a low voice: + +“I think Robin knows.” + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Not many days later, when the green valley of Olympia was wrapped in the +peace of a sunlit afternoon, and a faint breeze drew from the pine trees +on the hills of Kronos a murmur as of distant voices whispering the +message of Eternity, the keeper of the house of the Hermes was disturbed +in a profound reverie by the sound of slow footfalls not far from his +dwelling. He stirred, lifted his head and stared vaguely about him. No +travelers had come of late to the shrine he guarded. Hermes had been +alone with the child upon his arm, dreaming of its unclouded future with +the serenity of one who had trodden the paths where the gods walk, and +who could rise at will above the shadowed ways along which men creep +in anxiety, dreading false steps and the luring dangers of their fates. +Hermes had been alone with his happy burden, forgotten surely by the +world which his delicate majesty ignored without disdain. But now +pilgrims, perhaps from a distant land, were drawing near to look upon +him, to spend a little while in the atmosphere of his shining calm, +perhaps to learn something of the message he had to give to those who +were capable of receiving it. + +A man and a woman, moving slowly side by side, came into the patch of +strong sunshine which made a glory before the house, paused there and +stood still. + +From the shadow in which he was sitting the guardian examined them with +the keen eyes of one who had looked upon travelers of many nations. He +knew at once that the woman was English. As for the man--yes, probably +he was English too, Dark, lean, wrinkled, he was no doubt an Englishman +who had been much away from his own country, which the guardian +conceived of as wrapped in perpetual fogs and washed by everlasting +rains. + +The guardian stared hard at this man, then turned his bright eyes again +upon the woman. As he looked at her some recollection began to stir in +his mind. + +Not many travelers came twice to the green recesses of Elis. He was +accustomed to brief acquaintanceships, closed by small gifts of money, +and succeeded by farewells which troubled his spirit not at all. But +this woman seemed familiar to him; and even the man---- + +He got up from his seat and went towards them. + +As he came into the sunlight the woman saw him and smiled. And, when she +smiled, he knew he had seen her before. The deep gravity of her face as +she approached had nearly tricked his memory, but now he remembered all +about her. She was the beautiful fair Englishwoman who had camped on +the hill of Drouva not so many years ago, who had gone out shooting with +that young rascal, Dirmikis, and who had spent solitary hours wrapt +in contemplation of the statue whose fame doubtless had brought her to +Elis. + +Not so many years ago! But was this the man the husband who had been +with her then, and who had evidently been deeply in love with her? + +It seemed to the guardian that there was some puzzling change in the +beautiful woman. As to the man----Still wondering, the guardian took off +his cap politely and uttered a smiling welcome in Greek. Then the +man smiled too, faintly, and still preserving the under-look of deep +gravity, and the guardian knew him. It was indeed the husband, but grown +to look very much older, and different in some almost mysterious way. + +The woman made a gesture towards the museum. The guardian bowed, turned +and moved to lead the way through the vestibule into the great room of +the Victory. But the woman spoke behind him and he paused. He did not +understand what she said, but the sound of her voice seemed to plead +with him--or to command him. He looked at her and understood. + +She was gazing at him steadily, and her eyes told him not to go before +her, told him to stay where he was. + +He nodded his head, slightly pursing his small mouth. She knew the way +of course. How should she not know it? + +Gently she came up to him and just touched his coat sleeve--to thank +him. Then she went on slowly with her companion, traversed the room of +the Victory, looking neither to right nor left, crossed the threshold of +the smaller chamber beyond it and disappeared. + +For a moment the guardian stood at gaze. Then he went back to his seat, +sat down and sighed. A faint sense of awe had come upon him. He did not +understand it, and he sighed again. Then, pulling himself together, he +felt for a cigarette, lit it and began to smoke, staring at the patch of +sunlight outside, and at the olive tree which grew close to the doorway. + +* * * * * + +Within the chamber of the Hermes for a long time there was silence. +Rosamund was sitting before the statue. Dion stood near to her, but not +close to her. The eyes of both of them were fixed upon Hermes and the +child. Once again they were greeted by the strange and exquisite hush +which seems, like a divine sentinel, to wait at the threshold of that +shrine in Elis; once again the silence seemed to come out of the marble +and to press softly against their two hearts. But they were changed, +and so the great peace of the Hermes seemed to them subtly changed. They +knew now the full meaning of torment--torment of the body and of the +soul. They knew the blackness of rebellion. But they knew also, or +at least were beginning to know, the true essence of peace. And this +beginning of knowledge drew them nearer to the Hermes than they had been +in the bygone years, than they had ever been before the coming of little +Robin into their lives, and before Robin had left them, obedient to the +call from beyond. + +The olive branch was gone from the doorway. Something beautiful was +missing from the picture of Elis which had reminded Rosamund of the +glimpse of distant country in Raphael’s “Marriage of the Virgin.” And +they longed to have it there, that little olive branch--ah, how they +longed! There was pain in their hearts. But there was no longer the +cruel fierceness of rebellion. They were able to gaze at the child on +whom Hermes was gazing, if not with his celestial serenity yet with +a resignation that was even subtly mingled with something akin to +gratitude. + +“Shall we reach that goal and take a child with us?” + +Long ago that had been Dion’s thought in Elis. And long ago Rosamund had +broken the silence within that room by the words: + +“I’m trying to learn something here, how to bring _him_ up if he ever +comes.” + +And now God had given them a child, and God had taken him from them. +Robin had gone from all that was not intended, but that, for some +inscrutable reason, had come to be. Robin was in the released world. + +As the twilight began to fall another twilight came back flooding with +its green dimness the memories of them both. And at last Rosamund spoke. + +“Dion!” + +“Yes.” + +“Come a little nearer to me.” + +He came close to her and stood beside her. + +“Do you remember something you said to me here? It was in the +twilight----” + +She paused. Tears had come into her eyes and her voice had trembled. + +“It was in the twilight. You said that it seemed to you as if Hermes +were taking the child away, partly because of us.” + +Her voice broke. + +“I--I disliked your saying that. I told you I couldn’t feel that.” + +“I remember.” + +“And then you explained exactly what you meant. And we spoke of the +human fear that comes to those who look at a child they love and think, +‘what is life going to do to the child?’ This evening I want to tell +you that in a strange way I am able to be glad that Robin has gone, glad +with some part of me that is more mother than anything else in me, I +think. Robin is--is so safe now.” + +The tears came thickly and fell upon her face. She put out a hand to +Dion. He clasped it closely. + +“God took him away, and perhaps because of us. I think it may have +been to teach us, you and me. Perhaps we needed a great sorrow. Perhaps +nothing else could have taught us something we had to learn.” + +“It may be so,” he almost whispered. + +She got up and leaned against his shoulder. + +“Whatever happens to me in the future,” she said, “I don’t think I shall +ever distrust God again.” + +He put his arm round her and, for the first time since their reunion, he +kissed her, and she returned his kiss. + +Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight, sylvan and very +ethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the green +doors, and down through the murmuring pine trees. The sheep-bells were +ringing softly; the flocks were going homeward from pasture; and the +chime of their little bells mingled with the wide whispering of the +eternities among the summits of the pine trees. Music of earth mingled +with the music from a distance that knew what the twilight knew. + +Presently the two marble figures in the chamber of the Hermes began to +fade away gradually, as if deliberately withdrawing themselves from the +gaze of men. At last only their outlines were visible to Rosamund and to +Dion. But even these told of the Golden Age, of the age of long peace. + +“FAREWELL!” + +Some one had said it within that chamber, and a second voice had echoed +it. + +As the guardian of the Hermes watched the two pilgrims walking slowly +away down the valley he noticed that the man’s right arm clasped the +woman’s waist. And, so, they passed from his sight and were taken by the +green twilight of Elis. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Wilderness, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WILDERNESS *** + +***** This file should be named 4603-0.txt or 4603-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/0/4603/ + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger + +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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